The Hard Work of Growing Up--July 15, 2022

The Hard Work of Growing Up--July 15, 2022

"For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power.  What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?" [1 Corinthians 4:20-21]

Okay, let's get this much out of the way: the apostle Paul is not literally threatening to come all the way to Corinth just to smack church members on the knuckles with a ruler.  Rather, this is a question about how they want their next encounter with Paul to go--will it be a joyful time of reunion and celebration, or will it come with disappointment, correction, and the pain of having to see they had gone off course.  One feels like the proverbial carrot, and one feels like the proverbial stick.  

I find myself having similar conversations with my kids in those times when they are digging their heels in on some small matter that doesn't have to be a big deal.  Maybe it's just picking up the clothes they've left on the floor despite being asked about it five times. Maybe it's the need to change their attitude and language with their sibling.  Maybe it's a simple, "I'm sorry for being rude," or whatever.  None of these are terrible burdens being inflicted on my children, but sometimes their response--like just about all children--is to dig their heels in and make it a contest of wills.  And at that point, when some piddling little trifle of an issue becomes a hill they think they want to die on, I will say something, "Look, this doesn't have to be a big deal.  There don't have to be more severe consequences here--this is a chance to lower the temperature here, to back things down, and to start over.  But you get to choose--continue in your current course of action and attitude, and things are going to get more unpleasant for you.  On the other hand, you can choose to do the thing you have been asked to do, and we can go back to things being good all around.  Your choice."

I won't pretend that this kind of parental warning-shot is always effective.  And sometimes the immature mind that decides to dig heels in and make a fuss then has to discover that you were not kidding around about consequences.  Whether that's losing something they like [say, devices that connect to the internet] or fun things they want to do, or bedtime gets moved up to help tired small humans make better choices with some rest, my job as a parent means that we can't be just doling out empty threats we have no intention of following through on.  So that gives me some direction about what kinds of consequences or punishments I am willing to threaten, and what things I should not just bluster about.  Since I have no intention of smacking anybody with a stick or a belt, I will not be making those kinds of threats.  But when I do name a possible consequence of making bad choices, it is one I am prepared to mete out.  A parent who is all talk and bluster, or who never follows through on whatever consequences they have held over their kids' heads, is not really being loving--they're just teaching their kids that their words are not to be taken seriously.

That's kind of the situation Paul is in: he needs the people in Corinth to know that, as a parent of sorts [remember he's been talking about how he is like a spiritual parent to them], he does have a responsibility to see them grow up and come to maturity.  And when he sees them acting in ways that are immature, selfish, or counter to the way of Christ, Paul is prepared to call them out on it.  But also like a parent, Paul sees this letter as a moment to give them a wake-up call of sorts.  This is the moment to lower the temperature of the situation, to back down on the tension, and to get them to change directions now, so that when Paul does come, the conversation can be a good and gentle one.  This is like the parent at the dinner table, laying out what needs to change, and then saying to the wayward kids, "You get to decide how things go from here, based on your choices.  You can change course and modify your behavior, and things will go more easily--or you can continue on this course, and you'll see that things can get unpleasant."  It's a way of compelling people to take ownership of their actions and to see that their choices have consequences, and it allows off-ramps, so to speak, before the stakes get too painful.

In other words, this is a chance for the folks in Corinth to take a step toward maturity--they can see that their current path is headed in a bad direction, and they can choose differently.  They can do better.  Paul really believes they can change for the better--that they can grow beyond their pettiness, and they can mature past their arrogant self-centeredness, and choose something better.  He helps in this moment to create the opportunity, like a wake-up call, to see better... so they can know better... so they can do better.

It's moments like this in the Scriptures that remind me how hard it can be--especially in an ultra-polarized time like ours is--to do what Paul is inviting his readers to do.  It is hard to face the unpleasant truth that we have been acting immaturely or unwisely.  It is harder still to be shown how we have been acting in ways that run counter to the love of Jesus. And in the face of those kind of confrontations, it is so much easier [we tell ourselves] to dig our heels in, insist that we are right, and ignore any information to the contrary. It is easier, somehow, to say, "I'm right, so I don't have to be respectful to others in showing my right-ness," than to say, "I was a jerk, and that was wrong.  I need to make things right and do better."  But love is quite often doing the hard thing rather than the easy thing--especially love shaped by Jesus.

So maybe we can use these words of Paul's as our own personal wake-up calls.  He isn't writing directly to you or me--we have come on the scene twenty centuries too late for him to be thinking of us.  But we can use his wake-up call for the Corinthians to be our own wake-up call, and to look honestly at where in our lives we've been digging our heels in where we should have been open to being corrected.  And we can let this moment be our chance to do the hard thing of growing... of changing old [and bad] patterns... and of owning our mistakes, so that we can grow from them.

It will be challenging.  But we do it together.  And we do it knowing that's what growing up in Christ looks like.  I do believe that makes it worth it.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to change course where we need to, the bravery to own our failures, and the willingness to grow in maturity.

No Need To Brag--July 14, 2022

No Need To Brag--July 14, 2022

"But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power." [1 Corinthians 4:18-20]

I can't tell you how often I keep coming back to a bit of wisdom from the late Margaret Thatcher.  The former British Prime Minister is reported to have remarked that being powerful is like being a noble lady of class and refinement:  "If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."  If you have to tell people you are powerful, you do not really wield as much authority as you boast about.  If you have to constantly remind others of how important, or prestigious, or well-connected, or intimidating you are, well, perhaps you are none of those things.  And if you have to shout to other people about how great you are, maybe you aren't really so "great."

On the other hand, people who truly command respect don't have to remind others--they just exude something compelling.  People who have genuine power don't have to rattle sabers to get attention.  And people who really are important have a way of making others feel important, too, rather than making others shrivel up in fear or shame.  And yet... we have a way of continuing to fall for the bragging of demagogues and the terrible logic of the insecure; we keep shouting our importance rather than letting what is genuine speak for itself.

So we really do need to keep listening to Paul and to the face-to-face confrontation he is prepared to have with the folks at First Church of Corinth who have puffed themselves up and think they are more important than they really are.  Within the congregation, there are folks blustering about how important and prestigious they are, largely based on which important apostle or "Big Name" they have rubbed elbows with.  They're name-dropping Peter and Apollos; they're talking about the important people they've learned from, and they're vying for power in the house-church gatherings there in Corinth.  And Paul is just plain disgusted by it.  It's like they don't even understand that the community of Jesus is meant to overturn all of our old understandings of how real power works.  It is down-right anti-Christ to be clutching at power in the name of Jesus--instead, our kind of power is always on loan from God [and therefore not really "our own" to wield as a threat] and is meant for the sake of all.  God's power is real--and therefore, we don't need to brag or bluster or boast about having it. The pretenders have to go around riling others up with talk about how "great" they think they are.

In our day, of course, we still struggle with those internal squabbles in the church.  Sometimes it is over such embarrassingly small issues that we are laughable--we bicker about who is in charge of the church ice cream social, or who gets to decide the color of the new social hall carpet.  There are sometimes folks in official positions of church leadership across denominational structures who can be smug and self-serving, to be sure, whether pastors, priests, bishops, presbyters, or district superintendents. And quite often the world just snickers and shakes it head at those situations, finding it ridiculous that we fuss over situations that have such little real power in the big scheme of things.

But more dangerous and more ominous in our day are the ways religious-sounding voices will talk big talk about wanting to have religious leaders in authority over all of public life.  You hear it more and more these days, often from talking heads and demagogues who want to raise their profile and get more acclaim for themselves and their political futures.  You hear the folks blustering about how the church should dictate things to the government [as though there were uniform and clear agreement from "the church" about nearly anything--we can't even agree on the color of the carpet in the social hall, remember?], and about how the church should have more power, influence, and authority in the public square.  Quite often, what it is is just talk--the kind of bluster that smacks of desperation.  And it makes the real community of Jesus look pathetic, because it says we've given up on being our own unique presence in the world to embody God's Reign, and instead we've just sold out in the tired old quest of making ourselves look important.  It makes the followers of Jesus look arrogant and out of touch, when the One we say we follow shows his greatness by being humble and connected with others.

Back in the first century, Paul was warning the folks in the church at Corinth that when they start blustering to make themselves more important and influential, they're setting themselves up for a fall.  Authentic Christianity doesn't brag about how important it thinks is, and it doesn't whine with nostalgia for some past era when it was more prestigious or controlled the levers of influence.  Authentic Christianity doesn't need to brag about its greatness or rile people up in the attempt to "reclaim" its position of power in society, because our real power has only ever come from Jesus, the Crucified Suffering Servant and Washer of Feet whose authority is in self-giving love.  And our way of wielding that power is with a towel and basin, not with a podium and a press conference.

Let me say it again, as clearly as possible, to remove any ambiguity: when Christians bloviate about how they think the church should have more overt power and influence over our common public life, they not only make us all look pathetically over-inflated, but more than that, they are pursuing an agenda that is literally anti-Christ.  Genuine power in the Christian community is always grounded in the way and character of the God revealed in Jesus, who deliberately chose NOT to build an empire and never once had to TELL other people about how great he was.  People knew the greatness of Jesus from being in his presence and saw the way the power of the living God flowed through him to bring others more fully to life.  He didn't have to moan about not having enough influence over Caesar, because he knew it was beneath him to play the Empire's game.

Paul's words to the factions puffing themselves up in Corinth are a good warning to us as well: if we fall into the same terrible mindset of needing to talk our way into more power or influence, we are courting disaster.  Rather, like Eberhard Arnold put it once, "This is the root of grace--the dismantling of our power.  Only to the degree that all our power is dismantled will God be able to give us the fruits of the Spirit and build up his kingdom through us, in us, and among us."  But in a world still convinced that we need to shout about our importance, that will be a surprising and countercultural message.  It is one the world deeply needs, though, exactly because it is countercultural.

Today, what if we didn't have to worry one bit about how powerful or prestigious anybody else thought we were, but instead, we just trusted that the real power of God--made visible in the self-giving love that looks like Jesus--would be compelling enough to draw people in?

Lord Jesus, stop us from chasing after the world's modes of power so that we can be filled with the power you give us already by your Spirit in the way of Jesus.

Chicken Lessons--July 13, 2022

Chicken Lessons--July 13, 2022

"For this reason I sent you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in every church." [1 Corinthians 4:17]

Here's some free advice: never underestimate how much you can learn from chickens.

Not cowards [although I suppose you can learn something from a coward, too], but from actual honest-to-goodness poultry--I mean real chickens.  Especially for scientists, like the kind who want to learn about how ancient dinosaurs walked and lived.  Really, I'm not kidding.

For a long time, paleontologists--the scientists who study ancient life from the fossil record--thought that dinosaurs were all slow-moving, cold-blooded, lizard-like creatures.  All we had to go on was the evidence of fossils, which are just old bones, and you can't recreate much in the way of social behavior or movement from the way bones lay in the rock.  But at some point scientists realized that many dinosaurs--the ones called "theropods"--have a lot in common with modern birds, from big ones like emus or ostriches to small ones like, yes, chickens.  The common way their bodies are built, the shape of their hip and foot structures, and even the evidence of feathers in both dinosaurs and modern birds, suggest that raptors and T. rexes are related to hens and roosters.  And at least part of what that means is that we might be able to get a glimpse of how some dinosaurs acted, moved, and lived, from watching what chickens do.  At the very least, scientists tell us, we can learn some things from living creatures who are related to ancient ones that we cannot learn from just the record preserved in stone fossils.

I want to suggest that the Christian life works much the same: there are some things we can only learn from living disciples, by watching and listening and practicing alongside one another, that we could not learn in the same ways if all we had was a historical record in a book.  If you've ever tried to teach yourself a new skill--say, repairing a leaky faucet, assembling a piece of furniture, or some home carpentry--you likely already know that printed directions are only so much help.  What really helps you to learn, not just what to do, but how to do it, is to work with someone who has done it before, someone who can teach you with their expertise.  Sometimes a paragraph of explanation in a written instruction manual isn't clear.  Sometimes the diagrams that come with your IKEA cabinet is too vague.  Sometimes your real-life setting means you have to modify the directions that came with your tools.  But when you learn from a real person in real situations, you see how they adapt, how they bring the printed page to life, and how they translate diagrams or words into flesh-and-blood actions.  Sometimes, in other words, you have to learn from living chickens to understand what the fossils of long extinct dinosaurs cannot reveal.

Here we have the apostle Paul sending a person to the Christians in Corinth, even while he is in the midst of writing them a letter.  If Paul could have reduced everything to words or diagrams, he could have put it all down on the papyrus and trusted the Corinthians to just read the manual and get it right.  But instead, Paul knows that they need people who will embody the way of Jesus--who can show them in their actions, their attitudes, and their choices what it can look like to love like Christ.  That's why he is sending Timothy along the with the written words of his letter--Timothy can show them, in the way he leads, the way he serves, the way he listens, and the way he loves, how to bring the words of Paul's epistle to life in flesh and blood.

This is one of the gifts we have in each other: we learn how to love like Jesus from others who have been claimed and shaped by his love, too.  It's why we don't just mail Bibles to everyone in town with a sticky-note on the cover saying, "Read this and do it, and we'll see you in heaven."  We invite others to join our way of life, like others invited us into that way of life, because we know that the Jesus way of life can't be reduced to facts you can memorize or an instruction manual you can print.  We see how the love of Jesus actually moves in real situations, when written words at best can tell us what other people did in their own times and settings.  It's like discovering how much you can learn from living relatives of ancient creatures, rather than making guesses from the fossils alone.

Who are the people you can learn from today--who are the people around you that show you the love of Jesus in real ways? And who might be watching you already, seeking to learn what it means to live their faith, because they have seen the face of Christ already in you?

Today, may we be living embodiments of the Reign of God, and not merely dusty fossils trapped in stone.

Lord Jesus, help us to learn your love in the people you have raised up among us.

Answering the Bracelet--July 12, 2022

Answering the Bracelet--July 12, 2022

"I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me." [1 Corinthians 4:16]

The bracelets were a fine start all those years ago, but they weren't enough.  

You might remember those bracelets [as well as bookmarks, bumper stickers, signs, and t-shirts] that were popular in an earlier decade, that bore the letters, "WWJD," short for the question, "What would Jesus do?"  And there was absolutely something right about that question--it's one we too easily forget in a time when a lot of people boasting about being Christians sure don't seem to have even asked whether they are acting or speaking in ways that echo the way of Jesus.  But at the same time, the WWJD fad had at least one major flaw--a bracelet can't answer the question it poses.  It's great to stop and ask what Jesus would do, and sometimes it's obvious [or at least you would hope it would be obvious], but sometimes we need more than just an abstract question to help us shape our lives in the likeness of Christ.

We need the lives of other people who are practicing the way of Jesus, too, who help in turn to shape our way of life as well.  We need people whose actions and words, even though it will always be imperfectly and with quirks of their own, give us glimpses of what the love of Jesus looks like in new situations, new kinds of relationships, and new contexts.  Jesus, after all, showed us the Reign of God in the backdrop of first-century Palestine, with the Roman Empire lurking around every corner, in an almost entirely Jewish culture.  But people who were shaped by the love of Jesus and shared in his way of life took what they had experienced and ran with it in new circumstances, almost from the very beginning.  They reached out to include outsiders and outcasts, they welcomed Gentiles [non-Jewish people], and they reached people hundreds, and even thousands, of miles beyond anywhere Jesus himself ever stepped food, all within the book of Acts.  

From the first generation onward, we have been dependent on seeing the way of Jesus lived out by others, trusting that even though we may get it wrong, we still need the lives of others who show us that way, or at least who sketch out the path as well as they are able.  And we need people who can translate what the love of Jesus looks like in new contexts.  Jesus, for example, had a handful of interactions in the Gospels with non-Jewish people, but there were no examples from his earthly ministry of whether those Gentiles could belong in the Christian community. It took other disciples of Jesus to wrestle with that question and ultimately to decide [see Acts 15] that yes, Gentiles were welcome as Gentiles--that is, without being circumcised, keeping kosher, and observing the rest of the Torah.  And as the church spread and grew, we continued to listen and observe the witness of those other Christians and the way they interpreted the love of Jesus for a new situation to include rather than to exclude.  

So, for example, when Paul tells his readers in Corinth to imitate him, it's not because he's convinced he'll never mess up in his own life, but because he knows we need mentors, teachers, examples, and guides, who can help us to see what it could look like to embody the Good News in our places and times, which will necessarily be different from those who have gone before us. Almost like the way you can be inspired to create your own work of art after walking through a museum, or to write your own story after finishing a fantastic novel, or the way you learn a skill by apprenticing with an expert, we need the lives of others who can help us to find our own ways of living the Jesus way of life.  Paul doesn't mean to put himself as the center of the Christian faith when he says, "be imitators of me," but he knows that he is a live model that can help them to envision their own ways of reflecting the love of Jesus.  And for the people in Corinth, who didn't have copies of the Gospels to read [remember--Paul's letters were written before the Gospels were first put down on papryus or parchment], they learned the habits and actions of the Jesus-way of life by seeing it practiced by others.

Paul knows, too, I suspect, that without those concrete examples of Christ's love in the ordinary human actions of others, we are all too susceptible to just baptizing our own self-interest.  We can ask the bracelet question, "What would Jesus do?" but without the lived witness of others who are seeking to practice the way of Jesus alongside of us, we're all too tempted to convince ourselves that our own worst impulses are in line with the way of Christ.  It's easy to tell myself that "Me and My Group First" thinking is Christ-like thinking because I go to church or have a Bible and I think it's OK.  It's easy to say, "If I think it's a good idea, it must be in line with Jesus, because I'm a Christian--I would know."  That's how we ended up endorsing slavery, conquest, war, and bigotry over and over again in the last twenty centuries.  But when we look at the lives of people who really do embody the love of Jesus, their lives call us back to honesty, and we can see how far off the mark those things are--because they don't look like the way of Jesus.  

It is baffling [and more than a little terrifying] to me how often folks who slap crosses on their vehicles and proudly boast about their church affiliations speak and act in ways that look nothing like Jesus.  And seeing that has a way of making me [when I am honest] look hard at myself for the ways I'm out of sync with the love of Christ, too.  But what helps us to embody the Reign of God is to see the lives of others who are struggling to get it right, too, and to see how others are figuring out what Jesus' love looks like in their situations. We're going to mess up--and here's some good news: our belonging in the people of God does not depend on how often we "get it right."  But when we need some responses to the question, "What would Jesus do?" and our bracelets aren't giving us any answers, the lives of other Christ-followers may just give us the spark of inspiration we need, whether it's an ancient older brother in Christ like Paul or a sister like Mary Magdalene, Joanna, or Junia, the witness of a mentor from your congregation in the pew ahead of you, or the daring love of a child who is growing up in faith before your eyes.

We need more than fad jewelry to help us live the Christian life--we need each other.  And good news, we have been given each other, to watch, to shape one another, and, as Mr. Rogers would say, to love us into being.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for the people you've put into our lives who walk with us on the way.  Open our eyes to see them and to learn from them.

Belonging Beyond Biology--July 8, 2022

Belonging Beyond Biology--July 8, 2022

"For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers.  Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel." [1 Corinthians 4:15]

It is always a gamble in this life to love someone.  It is even more of a gamble to love someone without the pressure of biology that "makes" you obligated to certain people.

I feel some sense of that risk, that precariousness, in my own house every day as an adoptive father.  There is always a certain background awareness that the voices from the outside world (or voices from inside, as well) could hurl the spiteful accusation at someone you love, "You're not a real family.  You don't really belong together!"  Some days it doesn't rear its head at all, and others it's there in the room like the presence of a poltergeist--unseen but shaking everything else.

And in a very real sense, the whole experiment of the past two thousand years--that one we call "church"--is an exercise in that same risk.  We are a chain of lives, twenty-centuries in the making and counting, bound together by the common risk that we can be a "family" without biology.  We do not all share the same DNA or parentage, but we dare to stake our lives on the claim that we are indeed a family, bound together in love because Jesus says we belong, no matter what anybody else says... ever.

That really is a radical thing to say, don't you think?  For essentially all of human history, we have defined belonging in terms of either likeness or lineage.  Your family was defined in terms of those with whom you shared biology--even before our ancestors know about things like chromosomes and genetics.  Clans, tribes, and people groups were all defined in terms of biological sameness, too, as basically much larger, extended families.

And then along comes this strange new kind of community, of whom Saint Paul was a member, that spoke and treated its members like a family--even using the language of "brother" or "sister" for one another--but which did not function according to the old rules, or stay within the lines of ethnic boundaries.  From almost its earliest days, the community called "church" deliberately crossed lines of nationality, tribe, language, and culture as well as social status or even biological markers, such that this same Saint Paul could write to another congregation, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for you are all one in Christ" (see Galatians 3:28).  And yet, even though the church was not formed by biology, it saw itself as a family--really and truly a family, but without the limits of biology.

The church didn't even grow the way other kinds of families (or tribes, clans, and peoples) grow.  Other kinds of groups have to have more children--and of course, they are constantly prone to the fear of whether other groups are getting larger, or whether theirs is shrinking, or whether they will be "replaced" by other demographic groups.  That fear has a way of making people insecure, irrational, and idiotic.  But the church was, from its beginnings, a different kind of family.  The family called "church" doesn't birth more members--it baptizes new disciples. The love that binds us together also reaches across the lines of sameness to include folks who would have otherwise been deemed unacceptable "outsiders."  And even more radical, the early church actually lived like their community was a family, from sharing resources to eating together to sticking it out with each other even when they had strong disagreements.  Compared to a time like ours when we so easily bail out on each other or walk away because we are too polarized, the new kind of family belonging that the church practiced was downright revolutionary.

It just amazes me to read Paul's words here--he is both so confident and so vulnerable at the same time.  Here is a man who, by all accounts, did not have a spouse or children of his own, and who quite likely was looked down on by a lot of people in his culture because he didn't fit the cookie-cutter expectation of family and marriage.  And everybody knew it--Paul didn't hide the fact that he was single, and he didn't give the false impression that his kids were all just left back home while he traveled the world.  That was a risky thing for Paul to be, in some ways.  And yet he calls everybody there in the church in Corinth his spiritual sons and daughters--and he takes the colossal gamble that his readers will hear that and take him seriously, rather than with mocking laughter.  Paul really does think of these people back in Corinth as family--as children to whom he bears and obligation, and for whose development he takes responsibility.  He knows that somebody at any moment could call him out and say, "You're not our real dad, Paul--you don't even have kids of your own!"  and yet Paul believes they all really and truly share a mutual sense of family belonging.  It is a belonging beyond biology to be sure, but it is real, and it is solid, because it comes from Christ Jesus.

I wonder what it would look like for us to take our belonging in Christ as seriously as we take our belonging in biological families and households. I wonder if we would let people slip through the cracks so easily, or break away from others because we're convinced they are the problem.  I wonder how much more at peace we would be because we really believed, deep down, that it's not our same-ness or our shared biology that makes us worthy of a place at the table--it is simply grace, and it always has been.

How can we look out for one another today as family in Christ?  Who is someone you know who needs the assurance they are unconditionally loved?  How would it change your approach to the day to know that you are not alone, no matter what you face in this life, because you belong in the family called church?

Go.  Step in into all of that.  Know that you belong.

Lord God, assure us of our belonging, so that we can extended it to others who are waiting to hear that they are a part of your family, too.

Learning to Love--July 7, 2022

Learning to Love--July 7, 2022

"I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children." [1 Corinthians 4:14]

Sometimes it is enough to offer an example, hoping others will follow your lead.  But sometimes you have to get people's attention long enough for them to realize what you are doing, and why it is worth it to do the same.

And as Paul hints, one of the places that is most evident is in a family.  The job of parents, after all, is not merely to provide "stuff" for their children (although it includes that), but also to help their children grown into decent human beings, ones who are then able to care for their own families and teach their own children one day.  That means when parents serve their children--for example, cooking dinner, washing clothes, or scrubbing bathrooms--they are doing to things at once: they are attending to their children's immediate needs, and they are also setting an example for their children to learn to follow as well.  One day, the children will have washing machines and kitchens in houses of their own, and they'll need the modeling they've seen in their parents to help them step into those roles as adults.

And if you're playing the long game (which is the only way you can think about being a parent), you hope that after enough years of seeing love enacted in a thousand selfless acts, your children will have learned how to embody love well when they are looking out for the next generation.  But... sometimes, you do have to stop and make sure the young ones are paying attention now.  Sometimes you have to sit them down and say, "Did you see what just happened here?  Do you understand what you have been given?  Do you understand both how deeply you are loved and how you are called to love others as well?" Sometimes, as Paul says, you have to have a frank discussion about the sacrifices love makes, so that the beloved children in the household will learn the shape of love in their own lives, too.

I was watching at our table the other day as my wife set out leftovers for lunch. And even though our daughter's chosen lunch was still warming in the microwave, her eyes got big when she caught sight of the two little slider sandwiches my wife was going to have.  And without missing a beat, my wife said, "Did you want one of these sandwiches?"  The nine-year-old girl with the big eyes nodded (and you could almost tell her mouth was watering), and so my wife offered her one of the sandwiches she would have had for herself without hesitation.  But to make it clear why she had not been offered one in the first place, we both said to our daughter, "You had said you wanted what's in the microwave, so we weren't trying to leave you out.  You chose something else.  Of course, you may have this sandwich if you are hungry for it and are going to eat it--there's plenty of other food for us grown-ups to have if we are still hungry.  But notice how freely you have been given this.  Remember that the next time you are feeling stingy when someone else asks something of you."  Well, something like that came out of our mouths.  Who knows how much of it went into any listening ears...

My point is to say that to people who are already observant and paying attention, sometimes you can just model what love looks like in the ways you embody it, but sometimes you have to pause and turn one of those actions into a teachable moment.  Sometimes you have to call attention to what is happening when love takes shape in serving, because otherwise those who are served may miss the connection that they, too, will one day be in the position of serving someone else.  Sometimes we need a loving voice (even if it doesn't feel particularly loving at the time when we are hearing it) to help us to understand what is being done for us, both so that we can appreciate it fully, and so that we will gain the spiritual muscle memory to do the same on another day when we are the ones in the position to serve.  When that kind of direction comes from someone who loves you and wants to see you grow into your fullest, best self, you can recognize those teachable moments as another form of love, rather than just a sermon in good manners.  Each of us who find ourselves in the role of parents--whether literally raising children in a household, or as mentors and servant-leaders in other kinds of relationships--may err on the side of being too preachy once in a while (preachers especially run this risk, I have learned), but it doesn't mean it's always a wrong move.  Sometimes we do need to turn quiet acts of serving into lived parables.

Paul's point, then, isn't really that different from what Jesus does on his last night with his disciples.  As John's Gospel tells it, Jesus first quietly washes the feet of his disciples--taking the lowliest and most humbling job of a servant for his deepest friends and closest students.  But then, John notes, after he's put his tunic back on and dried himself off, Jesus explains to his disciples what they have just lived through.  "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asks, before telling them that if he, their Lord and teacher, has served them in this way without complaint or bitterness, then they are called to serve one another in the same way.  Something similar is going on in the other gospels' storytelling on that same night, when Jesus takes bread and wine and says, "This is my body, given for you... this is my blood, shed for you."  Whatever else is happening at that last supper together, Jesus is imbuing meaning to his disciples into these leftovers from the Passover meal, so that they will understand that his coming death on a Roman cross is not a random accident but a chosen act of self-giving, suffering love.  Sure, we can talk about how Jesus is instituting a sacrament, but he is also creating a teachable moment so that the ones who are learning from him will understand his actions.

That's what Paul has been doing in this passage from First Corinthians.  When he talked in yesterday's verses about answering hatred with kindness and slander with blessing, his point was not to brag, but to help teach.  He is teaching his friends at First Church of Corinth one more shape that love takes, in the hopes that they will be able to love the people around them in their own ways.  And as we eavesdrop on this conversation some twenty centuries later, we are asked to imagine, too, how Paul's example might give us direction for how we love in the circumstances we find ourselves in today.  And then, we who have learned (and are still learning!) from the way of Jesus and of his followers like Paul, in turn become people who can be examples for those who come after us.  It's all about teachable moments, both when we are the learners and when we are the teachers.

Today, then, we have two tasks.  First, who are the people in your life who embody the way of Jesus well for you, whose example can inspire the ways you love today?  Pay attention to them--watch what they do, and listen to what they say.  And then, ask yourself, "Who are the people in my life who are already watching me and looking to my example to walk the way of Jesus?" And face this day knowing that others are following where you lead.

Right now, right here--this is a teachable moment.  What will we learn in it?  What will we leave for others to learn from us?

Lord Jesus, open our eyes and ears to be attentive to the people you place in our lives to embody your love, and make of us good examples of your love for those who are learning from us.

The Unexpected Choice--July 6, 2022

The Unexpected Choice—July 6, 2022

“To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.” [1 Corinthians 4:11-13]

Sometimes I need to be reminded that everything in a work of art is really a choice of the artist. You might forget that if you are walking through the gallery of a museum somewhere; you might assume that a landscape painted by some old master, or a still life with fruit and flowers, is nothing more than an exact representation of “real things.” And, sure, you might be able to track down the point from which the artist set up an easel and see how well the picture on the canvas aligns with the view before you. But you’d also start to notice how artists “edit” reality, too, even when painting scenes from daily life. You notice how modern intrusions like power lines or distant smokestacks might be left out of a painting because the artist thought they detracted from the scene. You might recognize that a particular painting actually merges features from several locations into one ideal scene. Or it might even dawn on you that it was an artist’s choice to put these particular fruits in this particular bowl, and to select these particular flowers.

It’s the same with every kind of art. Da Vinci had to tell the woman posing for what we call the Mona Lisa how he wanted her to sit; even her enigmatic hint of a smile is an artistic choice, a collaboration between model and painter. (As comedian and erstwhile art student Hannah Gadsby has pointed out, too, we sometimes forget that artists make choices about how people are posed, who is clothed... and who is not, and who will be treated as an object rather than a subject. Every Renaissance painting of some woman lounging luxuriously on a couch with fabric draped in unlikely ways came into existence, not because a painter just happened upon that exact scene from daily life, but because they hired models and staged them to sit in precisely those poses for hours on end.) Photographers have to choose what to include in the frame of their photo, and what to leave out, what angle to select, and how much to adjust the warmth of the colors or the contrast between the lights and darks. These are not random accidents—they are choices.

When you look at a piece of artwork with that awareness in mind, it opens up a whole new appreciation for the artist’s vision and process. The composition, the themes, the story, the things included and things left out, these are not “given” but chosen by an artist; it’s just that sometimes an artist does those things so well that it seems effortless, like the art just flowed into existence from a brush or a camera out of thin air.

The more I read the story of the early community of Jesus’ followers, whether in the book of Acts, later sources, or in New Testament letters like First Corinthians here, the more I realize the sheer artistry of the Christian church. I don’t mean that they were painters or sculptors (although pretty quickly we do find samples of Christian art in the archaeological record), but that they were as deliberate in their choices about how they lived as a master painter is in arranging the composition of a still life. And the sticking point is the same: sometimes we forget how much of their life’s work was actually a choice, not merely the random accidents they could do nothing about. When a painter includes a blemish on a piece of fruit in their painting, it means the artist chose to keep that, when he or she just as easily could have “edited” it out of the painted version. And when the early Christians responded to hatred and hostility with kindness and endurance, it means they chose to respond with love rather than violence, when they certainly had other options. They chose to respond in the ways they were convinced Jesus responded—with suffering love rather than answering evil with evil. If we overlook that, we miss out on the utter creativity of Jesus’ followers in bringing beauty from the midst of the world’s ugliness.

When Paul starts listing off hardships he is facing here in these verses, it could seem at first like he's just complaining about the random difficulties life has thrown at him, over which he has no control.  He's hungry and thirsty, and his clothes have holes in the knees. He's got nowhere to lay his head, and he's exhausted at the end of the day from doing work to buy his daily bread, before he has to find the strength to do it all over again tomorrow.  Those things at first just sound like the struggles that might come upon anybody in daily life who is trying to get by in a harsh time.  But the further you go on in Paul's list, it becomes clear that these are not just unchangeable circumstances over which Paul has had no control.  Rather, Paul has chosen a certain way of life because he is committed to bringing the beauty of Christ into a world full of ugly and mean.  He has been willing to endure hunger and homelessness and all the rest, and he has been willing to answer hostility with mercy.  These are not merely thrust upon him--they are choices.

Because he is convinced Jesus has called him to bring the good news into new places and new people, Paul knows that he is choosing a life where hardship may come.  He is choosing a particular way of responding to the hostile authorities or the dangers of a lynch-mob.  He knows he will face times when he is on the receiving end of hatred and threats, and he has to decide in advance how he will respond.  The conventional wisdom would say, "If they're gonna threaten you, you've gotta hit 'em first."  The logic of the day taught, "If they punch you, you punch back harder, so you don't look like a loser."  Paul's response to answer cursing with blessing and persecution with endurance was a choice--but an often overlooked one.  

We rarely see suffering as something chosen.  We usually tend to think that when someone is going through hardship it's just what life has given them.  But for the followers of Jesus, from the earliest days, living out our faith often meant the intentional choice to practice suffering love--love that was willing to endure hardship if it meant lightening the load of someone else, love that was committed to breaking the cycle of violence, love that looked like Jesus.  These were choices that folks like Paul made, choices that arose out of our commitment to the way of Jesus.

What I want to suggest for each of us today is that these choices are still there for us to step into as well.  We live in a time as well where the conventional wisdom still says, "When someone else is your enemy, you have to get them before they get you."  The logic of our time still teaches, "You gotta look out for Number One, so shoot first and ask questions later."  We still live in a world where a lot of loud voices say you have to meet hatred with more hatred, answer violence with more violence, and kill them before they kill you.  The world's logic cannot fathom that how we respond to hostility and hatred is a choice we can make--that we can choose differently than endless death and enmity.  We can.  Every day brings the choice of how we respond to the world's meanness.  Every day we can either get swept up unthinkingly in the conventional wisdom, or we can see the power in our hands to choose another way.  I will be honest with you--it is hard to make that unexpected choice, and it takes more courage to defy the world's expectations than to go along with its dog-eat-dog mindset.  It takes more bravery to say, "No, I will not perpetuate the same old cycles of hate and hostility," than it does to wave a weapon at your perceived enemy.  And such bravery is often in short supply.

Today, we can choose, like Paul did, to do something beautiful rather than staying stuck in the world's ugliness without a second thought.  We can make the unexpected choice, like an artist, and bring little transformations to the world around us.  But it won't happen by accident, and it won't happen automatically.  It demands our decision daily to resist the pull of hatred with a defiant, creative kind of love.

Lord Jesus, help us see our agency in the world around us, and give us the courage to choose the way of self-giving love.