Grace Notes

expectations

2009-06-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve lived my life with high expectations of myself. I’ve sought to be a responsible person. I suppose what I’ve done is to accept the goals that society has of those who would seek the good of others (i.e., people like pastors). I’ve sought to not disappoint. And I’ve assumed that these same expectations are the ones that God has of me.

But where does that get me? If I think I’ve attained the goals then there’s nothing else to live for (and I’m probably in prideful denial anyway). Or if I disappoint, who will forgive me and give me a new start? Even if God forgives me, does that mean he sets the bar lower so that I can reach it next time? And so I’m still some kind of disappointment to him?

What would it be like to live life with a sense of expectancy instead of expectations? To have hope instead of a sense of responsibility? To replace obligation with joy? I just finished reading “The Shack”. (Don’t worry: if you haven’t read it and intend to, there’s no spoiler here.) As I finished the book tears came to my eyes. I had gotten a glimpse of the joy of living a life filled with God’s sense of expectancy and eternal hope, even for me. (Sorry if that didn't make sense: you may need to read the book yourself.) My past couple sessions of spiritual direction have been about letting go of my expectations of myself, expectations that I thought God had of me, and accepting who God made me to be with a sense of expectancy and joy in what is going to happen next as I partner with what the Holy Spirit is doing and transforming in me.

What’s the difference between vision and expectations? Vision isn’t fantasy, but is grounded in the reality of what God is doing. It sees the beauty that is unfolding under the supervision of God’s Spirit. Expectations are stifling and demanding. Meeting expectations results in pride. Vision realized brings joy. I pray that my influence on Grace Community will be through vision and not expectations.

breakfast in bed

2009-04-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

Serving someone breakfast in bed is intended to make her or him feel special, to show that they’re honored and have a special place in your life.

I was talking to the 4th-6th graders last Sunday about our corporate worship. I asked them if we should call our worshiping together on Sundays a worship “service” or worship “celebration”. I’ve heard it argued that we should get rid of the terminology of “service” because it denotes obligation and drudgery. But as I was discussing this with our 4th-6th graders I realized that it’s like serving God breakfast in bed. It can be fun to do, and it can be done with all the trappings of celebration, but the focus isn’t on how we feel but on the fact that God is worthy of being honored and has a special place in our lives.

Sometimes we burn the toast or overcook the eggs. But God’s love and grace are so amazing that as long as we are intending to honor God, as long as we are truly offering ourselves to him, even if we sing a wrong note or lose our place in the sermon or even fall asleep during the service, he takes what we offer and transforms it (Romans 12:1-2).

washing the car

2009-04-21T15:45:00.001-07:00

It was a hot day yesterday, so our two youngest kids (ages 6 and 8) decided to help me by washing the minivan. I’d had a vague notion yesterday afternoon that they were happily engaged, but I didn’t know what they were doing. This morning as I was backing out of the driveway to take them to school I looked into the rearview mirror and wondered why the window was so cloudy. Then I realized that all the windows except the windshield (which they couldn’t reach) had a film of dishwashing liquid over them. I explained to them that they should get adult supervision next time.

Kids love to do “adult” work: washing, cooking, cleaning. Their minds engage, enjoy and explore things that adults would call mundane chores. But who has the better perspective? Our adult labels suck what Kathleen Norris calls “the quotidian mysteries” out of the work that God has given us to do (if you say “quotidian” instead of “everyday” you’ll be sure to impress or at least confuse your friends).

Adam and Eve were given work to do in the Garden of Eden before they sinned. Work is a gift from God. Everyday work never ends, reflecting, in a weird way, the eternal nature of God. Household activities such as cleaning and cooking are ways of sustaining the life that is also a gift from God. They can be ways to love God and each other. Ephesians 6:6 tells us that our work should be offered “heartily” to God. (KJV) And who can reject a well-cooked meal offered in love? Many of our parents don’t know any other way to say “I love you” than to over-feed us and clean up after us when we come over for dinner.

It’s true that adults need to teach kids how to do properly various everyday life-sustaining activities such as cooking and cleaning. I try to show my kids how to do things efficiently and effectively. But in the process of teaching I need to be careful that my attitude toward the work doesn’t demean the work itself or the people who have come to be characterized by that work (housecleaners, car wash attendants, cooks, etc.).

So I’m thankful that my kids still enjoy some kinds of everyday work, even when it gives me more work to do. I cleaned off the minivan windows when I got back home as a way of loving my kids and thanking God for his quotidian blessings. And I made a mental note to show them how to properly wash a car.

getting it

2009-04-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

Last night at the Maundy Thursday service we had 6 adults and 7 kids. We had a great time re-living the events for which Maundy Thursday is named: washing feet and taking the Bread and the Cup together. But I was hoping for at least twice that number.

Why do I want more of Grace Community to participate in something like a Maundy Thursday service? It’s inconvenient if you don’t get Good Friday off and can just hang out. And if you’re a parent with kids who don’t get Good Friday off then it interferes with your regular school schedule. Then there’s the weirdness of explaining to friends what a Maundy Thursday service is.

I didn’t grow up observing Maundy Thursday. But I’ve grown to appreciate how having events to observe as part of the Christian calendar shapes me, just as observing the calendar of the society we live in (work, school, holidays) has given me memories and practices make me feel and act a particular way: I’m supposed to get up to go to work, Fridays are supposed to kick off the weekend, I’m supposed to do something special for my loved ones on Valentine’s Day, etc. The problem is that the Christian calendar and the world’s calendar can conflict. And then what will I choose? My choices are important: they shape my identity. But it takes a lot to get me out of my default mode.

Jesus knew this, so he shocked the disciples by washing their feet. The NIV translation of John 13:1 says, “He showed them the full extent of his love.” The disciples would be in too much shock in a few hours to figure out the deep significance of the Cross. They needed something more immediate and tangible, something that they could participate in directly. So Jesus takes advantage of the lack of a foot washing servant to do something completely counter-cultural but also very understandable in their cultural context. It was a teachable moment.

The disciples didn’t get it at first. Peter even refused to let Jesus wash his feet. It must have been at least a little frustrating for Jesus to see that his disciples, those to whom he was entrusting the future of his mission to save the world, still didn’t get it after 3 years. But then again, Jesus wasn’t passing on a management method. He was interested in changed lives. Changing lives and developing new identities takes time. May I be so patient.

Tuesday

2009-04-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Tuesday of Holy Week. In Mark 14:1-11 it says that the woman (probably Mary, as in Mary and Martha) anointed Jesus two days before they celebrated Passover. So if Maundy Thursday is the day Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples at the Last Supper, then Tuesday is the day Mary anointed Jesus.

How did Mary feel as she did this? Jesus seems to imply that she did it knowing that he was going to die, as opposed to the Twelve who seemed to be clueless. So she must have been sad and distressed. Yet she had the wherewithal to create this act of worship that was so powerful we still speak of it today.

As I’m creating sermons and worship designs there’s a side of me that wants it to flow easily out of a sense of joyfulness. When my mood is elevated, things seem to be easier. But there are times when I just want to curl up and forget the world outside. A time of pain seems to be an odd time to create an act of worship.

But God takes whatever I have to give him and makes it worthy of being offered to him. I can’t do that myself. Nothing I can create can come close. “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6)

So there is joyful worship that’s like God hanging my kindergarten painting on his refrigerator like a proud parent. And there’s worship that is ragged and tattered and soiled, but it’s all I have at the time, and God is the one who takes my living sacrifice and makes something out of it that is acceptable to him (Romans 12:1).

skating

2009-04-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

Monday night Winnie asked me what the marks were under my eyes. I looked in the mirror and realized that I hadn’t accidentally jabbed myself with a Sharpie, I had dark circles under my eyes. I’m prone to such circles anyway, but it was a sign that I’ve been pretty stressed lately.

The stress of being a lead pastor is something that most people are vaguely aware of. But there are a few things that give this time a definite shape. First, there’s the recession. Second, there is the transition that we’re going through as a result of our new vision. Third, there’s the re-shaping of the worship ministries that are now my responsibility.

When I was leading the Bible study at Leland House last Sunday, one of the residents remarked, “You must pray all the time.” I thought about it and then shared that the hardest time for me to pray is when I’m busy doing stuff related to being a pastor. That surprised the group, but it’s a truism that I know most of my fellow pastors appreciate.

I’ve been trying to learn how to rest in my Father’s love. I think it was St. John of the Cross who called prayer the loving gaze. Zephaniah 3:17 (“you will rest in his love”) has been my centering prayer verse because it reminds me that God’s love is a place for me to rest. But there’s another kind of love that is a love of action. In 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul links love to power and discipline. I was talking to my spiritual director about this and the image of an ice skater came to mind. Moving forward is a matter of shifting between resting love and active love. I can’t stay forever in one or I’ll quit moving forward spiritually.

Nor am I to work like crazy for a season and then, exhausted, go to God for resting love. I still have to examine how I do my work. Is it in the Spirit that God has given me, a Spirit of “love and power and discipline”? Or is it all done in dependence on myself, a spirit of fear that I’m not good enough, that I won’t get enough done unless I drive myself?

Someone told me once that God has given me enough hours in a day to do what he wants me to do. The problem is that I keep adding more stuff, stuff I think I need to do (notice the emphasis on the word "I"). May I have the grace to quit praying to manipulate God into helping me do what I think needs to be done and instead abandon myself to the things he is calling me to do, the things that flow out of and affirm the fact that I am beloved by him and given me a unique place in his purposes for the world.

core

2009-04-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

I was talking to someone recently who told me about a friend whose dad had been stricken with Alzheimer’s. The dad had been a man of action, but as his abilities faded he found himself bewildered because there was nothing for him to do. Who was he? What was left inside? He had never paid attention to his inner life, so he was losing his sense of himself. And he was becoming a very difficult person to be around.

A couple of weeks ago when Natasha Richardson died very unexpectedly, I saw a replay of a 1998 interview in which she said she thought of herself as an “overweight unattractive teenager.” The world was mourning the loss of a beautiful actress, but they couldn’t see beyond the outer self.

Who am I inside? The great men and women of Christian spirituality urge us to cultivate our inner life. The foundation of Christian spirituality is listening prayer. And at the heart of listening prayer is hearing God say he loves us. I need to hear the Father’s voice, telling me I am his beloved. My inner self is not what I do or have accomplished. At my very core I must know that I am God’s and that he loves me.

Cultivating is a farming metaphor. It takes time and energy to break up the ground, to remove the weeds, to make it hospitable to life. And then it takes time for the plants to grow and to bear fruit. But if I don’t want to end up lacking an inner life, if I want to be characterized by love, joy and peace (the fruit of the Spirit), then there’s no time like the present to start cultivating my inner life.

sermon titles

2009-03-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

I don’t put a lot of thought into my sermon titles. Some might accuse me of not putting enough effort into my sermon titles, but what’s the purpose of a sermon title anyway? Jesus didn’t name his sermons nor did Paul.

It seems that sermon titles are a kind of marketing. For churches that have marquees, it’s something to put out in front of the church to attract people to come in. Wherever it appears, it’s meant to entice people to listen. Of course, that’s based on the assumption that people need to be enticed, that we have to offer something in the sermon that the person reading the title will think, “I want/need to hear that.” So the title may be funny or though-provoking.

Marketing itself is based on individualism and consumerism. It’s easy to approach a sermon as if it’s something that I’m selling to people who already have pretty much what they need but if I can entice them they’ll grab one more thing to put into their shopping basket.

Sermons weren’t always seen that way. And marketing is a new phenomenon. Before the advent of modern marketing, one bought what one needed and that was pretty much dictated by what your community said you needed. And there was a time when people went to worship with others because they knew it was important for their spiritual nourishment and they listened to whatever the pastor preached without feeling like they could blow off the sermon if it didn’t appeal to them.

I’m not saying that we need to accept mindlessly what is handed to us by our community. But I’m sure that as individuals we can’t find within us all that we need to judge what is good, true and beautiful in this world. We were designed to live in community. Our knowledge of ourselves and of our world is meant to mediated by others. It’s a messy and time-consuming process, but the point is not merely to get the right answer but to live rightly.

My prayer is that people are listening and reflecting and discussing with me and with each other what’s said in my sermons, whether or not they like the title.

applause

2009-03-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I led the worship team and preached. It was a challenging day. All of the kids were with us in worship because it was a 5th Sunday. It was good to have the kids witness the commissioning of someone to go on a mission trip. But I felt the need to inject extra energy into the sermon to keep everyone’s attention. And the sermon went long because we had a skit and object lesson for the kids in the middle of it. On top of that, I felt that I was rushing and there were several things I had planned to say that I had to skip over. And the worship went 10 minutes over even though I had planned on leading only 4 songs, 3 with drums and bass and one solo (just guitar). I had experimented with the first two songs, trying to lead from the electric guitar, but the settings I had tried at home didn’t sound right in the sanctuary and I couldn’t get a sound I liked in the short warm-up rehearsal. I didn’t have much time to think about it after worship because I led an orientation meeting for the hosts and worship leaders for our neighborhood Good Friday services. And then my family went to lunch with some friends who were visiting the Bay Area from SoCal.

I didn’t get to catch my breath until the drive up to Leland House, the residence in San Francisco for people with HIV that we visit each month. I thought about what passage to cover for Bible study. The first Bible study I’d led 2 months ago had 4 participants from the house, the second had just one. I didn’t know what to expect. I got there and found several people sitting outside enjoying the beautiful day on the patio. I sat down, got into the conversation, and then asked if we could have the Bible study out on the patio. I tried to pass out Bibles but no one wanted to read, they just wanted to hear me read to them. I read the parable of the soils from Mark 4 and six of us plus a couple more visitors got into a spirited discussion that ranged from the passage at hand to the truth that is in all religions. (This was NOT an inductive Bible study.) I tried to slip in “nuggets” of evangelistic truth, but found that propositional truth seemed dry. People wanted to talk about what made them able to get up in the morning. They shared about the importance of having gratitude for each day and finding the good in people around them. They had no argument with the fact that God loved them and that sin had messed up the world. They could accept that Christ had said he was the way, but they found it unreasonable that Christians demanded that everyone live a particular way. Right and wrong were self-evident and there was no need to claim ethics as the province of just one religion.

I was an hour late because of my lunch, so the Bible study (that had taken about 15 minutes the previous month) took well over an hour and we didn’t even realize it was already 5:00 and time for dinner. And I hadn’t even touched my guitar, which I usually play for the residents each month. So I decided to play and sing during dinner. I started off tentatively. I hadn’t really thought about it, but the experience of things going badly that morning during the first couple of songs had unnerved me. It took me a few songs to warm up. I noticed one of the residents who had always been appreciative of my music eating by herself, so I started to sing especially for her. After the song was over, she clapped. After the next song one of the guys who’d been part of the Bible study clapped. After the next song he encouraged others to clap. It got to the point where after each song, people would applaud. As people were leaving dinner they said “thank you” to me. I found that I didn’t want to stop playing and singing. Even after everyone had left the dining area I hung around a few moments with not much to do but enjoy the echoes of their thanks.

Several of the songs I’d been singing were worship songs we hadn’t sung in Grace Community’s morning worship for years. But that didn’t matter to the residents. They didn’t know the songs, they just knew that I was sharing my gifts with them, so they were grateful. (We did close with a rousing rendition of “Jesus loves me” that we could all sing together.) It’s easy to become demanding of the best and latest in our worship. As an instrumentalist, I want to try new things and I can become hard on myself and worried about criticism when things don’t sound just right. Yesterday, it took people with HIV, people who knew that being able to get up in the morning is a joy in itself, to help me get back to the heart of worship. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.” Psalm 100:4.

fasting

2009-03-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I was talking to my 10 year old about fasting during Lent. She’s given up using Yahoo email and I’ve given up listening to the stereo in the car. I asked her, “What do you think about instead of doing email?” I told her that a good thing to think about is how much Jesus gave up for us and how much we try to substitute other things for knowing Jesus. But it was hard for her to understand, although I have to give her credit for actually keeping her fast.

I’ve been suggesting fasts from activities as well as fasting from food as legitimate ways to fast during Lent. But I’m realizing that there’s something very human and essential about fasting from food that’s missing when I fast from an activity. Being hungry is a basic human experience, something built into us by God. And when I fast from food I’m participating in something that Christians have done since Jesus. (The Lenten fast is patterned after Jesus’ 40 day fast in the wilderness right after his baptism. And Jesus’ fast was based on a spiritual practice that had existed for centuries in Jewish spirituality.) Jesus fasted from food regularly as part of his prayer life and endorsed it for his followers (Mark 9:29).

So although fasting from an activity like watching a favorite TV show or from using your Blackberry an hour a day does help to remind us about how much other things are taking the place of God’s voice in our lives, I think I’ll get back to fasting from food.

what to say

2009-03-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

What is the essence of the Gospel? There aren’t too many of us who enjoy talking to other people about our faith. Part of the reason the topic doesn’t come up in conversation much is that we’re not sure what to say after the topic is brought up (by us or by others).

Part of the reason I was thinking about this is that the Nominating Committee is starting the process of finding candidates for the leadership team (elections are this May). I asked the current LT members to submit a brief description of the what it’s been like for them and what the challenges are for Grace Community over the next couple years. One member spoke of the challenge of getting back to a focus on personal evangelism, i.e., sharing the Gospel with people we know.

Jesus said that his message was that “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” That message is in our name, Grace Community. Anyone is invited into God’s Kingdom because of God’s grace. You don’t have to do anything except to trust in God’s invitation through Jesus.

What does the Kingdom of God look like? Jesus has shown us that through his life and teachings. His death takes the penalty for our sin so that we can enter the kingdom, and his resurrection proves that he can give us a Kingdom life, i.e., a life as God designed it (free from things that dehumananize us). And that's pretty much it.

Life as a church community can get kind of complicated. I’m constantly sorting through expectations and programs aimed at us and at me. But when it comes right down to it, the whole point of being a church community is proclaiming and living out “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

carried

2009-03-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

My kids love to be carried. Piggy-back is a favorite, but there’s something comforting about being in your parent’s arms, too. The thing about piggy-back is that you can see where you’re going and if you don’t like it you can say something about it. So even though they’re being carried, my kids like to tell me where I’m supposed to go.

As I was driving to worship yesterday, the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd carrying a lamb came to mind (since we were using it as the image for our time of examen and confession). The difference between the lamb and my kids is that the lamb isn’t trying to tell the Good Shepherd where he’s supposed to go.

Jesus told Peter that part of following Jesus is going where you don’t necessarily want to go. Peter protested, but Jesus simply repeated, “Follow me.” (John 21:18-22)

The image of Jesus carrying the lamb was chosen for this week’s theme (the third Sunday of Lent) of facing the brokenness of our self-reliance. As a follower of Jesus, I find that I’m like my kids and Peter, always wanting to tell Jesus where he’s supposed to be taking me. The paradox is that in Mark 13:13 Jesus tells us that if we are to “stand until the end” we are to lean completely on him whose “words will not pass away” (Mark 13:31).

grace for myself

2009-03-09T22:20:00.001-07:00

I met with my spiritual director today. We talked about what motivates me, e.g., to do so much reading, or to be a better preacher, or to try to understand church finances. On the one hand there is an innate curiosity. On the other hand, there is a nagging voice in my head telling me that I don’t measure up and that if I can just be a little bit better maybe I’ll find approval. But that’s not my only problem.

Because I have these motivations, I’ve garnered a fairly wide scope of knowledge. And there’s the rub: it’s impossible to put everything into practice. I know a little about a lot of things, but that knowledge is shallow because it’s not the knowledge that comes with having lived it out. Yet I want to have that deeper knowledge and I want that to be the sort of knowledge that informs my influence on others, but that takes too much time (or so I tell myself). As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, a critique of my sermons is that they’re too heavy on book knowledge and not heavy enough on showing how The Book is to be lived out.

That’s a source of pain for me. I really want to change and to live out what I know about, but for whatever reasons, I just can’t quite get there. St. Paul expressed it well when he said, “O wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7:24 KJV). He said this because “I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18 NIV).

A phrase that seems to sum it up for me is that “my reach exceeds my grasp” (“or what’s heaven for?” according to Browning). The pain of that distance between reach and grasp varies for different people. Some people resolve the pain by working on extending their grasp. Those are the practical types and their approach makes a lot of sense and avoids a lot of frustration. My problem is that I’m one of those who is always trying to extend my reach and then I’m increasingly frustrated by the growing distance between my reach and my grasp. I’m not a very practical person.

My spiritual director wasn’t much help: “That’s life” she said. Well, actually she said something more profound, like “that’s the human condition” and “we’ll never resolve these things in this life” and things like that. And actually she was a lot of help. She encouraged me to give myself grace, to rest in the fact that God loves me and has made me who I am and that there is something good that comes out of my pain of never being able to achieve the increasingly higher standards that I set for myself. But she never said to quit setting high standards.

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14 KJV

party time

2009-03-09T22:19:00.001-07:00

On Sunday we had the awards ceremony for the basketball league that 2 of my kids participated in. There were over 300 grade school-aged kids in the league, so there wasn’t a whole lot of “ceremony” about the awards: it was craziness and screaming and high energy for over 90 minutes. I had signed up to coach my 6-year old’s team, so I got to be part of the craziness. “Every kid’s a winner” in Upward Basketball, so I got to give ribbons and gifts to all my guys.

There were times during the season when I wondered why I’d signed up to coach. You can’t really teach 6 and 7-year olds how to run a pick-and-roll or run a 3-man weave (at least, not in one hour a week). But it was all worth it when 4 of my guys prayed to ask Jesus to be their Savior last night. The only thing louder than a bunch of 6- and 7-year olds screaming is the party in heaven when the angels rejoice over a 6- or 7-year old praying in earnest faith to become God’s child.

memories

2009-03-09T22:18:00.001-07:00

This past Friday the Executive Board of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church said good-bye to me and Valerie McCann-Woodson because we are “terming out”. Our chair, Will Davidson, asked the other board members to share their thoughts and reflections about our terms of service on the board. It was a wonderful time of hearing how others saw us and the impact we’d had on the conference and on the members of the board.

I got a chance to see myself as others saw me. People told me about things that I didn’t even know I’d done. They had memories of me that I wasn’t at all aware of. But because they told me, these things have now become a part of me, shaping who I am.

The church is a community of memory. As individuals we forget things. But as a community we can remember things for each other that we may have forgotten or didn’t even know, especially things like how much God loves us and the fact that he takes delight in each of us, his children (Zephaniah 3:17). This is something we often forget, or at least we live like we’ve forgotten it. But we can remember it for each other and help each other live in the joy of being God’s beloved.

books and music

2009-03-04T08:52:00.000-08:00

Something happened to me this past Sunday that has never happened before. On first Sundays the 2nd-6th grade kids stay with us for the entire worship service. Afterward one of the 5th graders came up to me to tell me that he thought my sermon was really good. And I wasn’t giving him the third degree to see if he was paying attention – he sought me out to tell me (I think I was putting away my guitar at the time).

The sermon was on things that give us a false sense of worth and about finding our true worth in our Father’s love. Recently one of our grad students used Grace Community as a subject for a project on surveys and measurements. In her sample she found that the sermons at Grace (of which the majority are preached by yours truly) had the greatest discrepancy between level of importance and level of satisfaction. In our leadership team we discussed this finding and the consensus was that I refer to other books too much and that people want to hear what the Bible says and how it applies in my life and theirs. So one of the things I’m giving up for Lent is references to books besides the Bible in my sermons. I’m sure that had something to do with why a 5th grader found my sermon meaningful and applicable. (As CS Lewis has said, if you can’t explain it to a 10 year old, you probably don’t understand it. Now what book did he say that in…?)

It’s easy for me to look for my sense of worth in my breadth of knowledge, to try to prove I'm smart or wise by citing a lot of books in my sermons. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying books, but when it takes the place of the Father’s love in my life it’s an idol. Lent is about entering the wilderness with Jesus (Lent is patterned after Jesus’ 40 day fast in Matthew 4, Mark 1 and Luke 4). It’s about getting to the core of who we are without the usual conveniences and comforts with which we tend to fill our lives. During Lent I’m fasting from listening to the stereo while I’m in the car (much to the chagrin of my kids). Sure, I’m missing the latest songs and the latest news, but does knowing those things make me worth more? Meanwhile, the awkwardness of having to be with myself in the car isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good exercise to see what tends to fill my mind while I’m driving and consider why those things are important to me. And I have a chance to listen to God and to do some intercession for others.

I probably won’t get rid of the stereo in my car after Lent (although there are times when I just have to turn it off because I want some solitude). But I’m finding that it’s a good discipline for me to replace book citations in my sermons with reflection on why that particular citation helps me to understand and apply God’s Word. Maybe I’ll start becoming understandable to 4th graders, too. Now how am I going to reach the 3rd graders…?

Ash Wednesday

2009-02-25T15:05:00.001-08:00

“Good sorrow makes good joy possible.” I came across this sentence in an essay about Ash Wednesday. I thought about it as I talked with my prayer partner this morning about our own observance of the season of Lent.

Our culture tells us that sorrow is bad, that the greatest good in life is to have fun. We’re trained to avoid feeling badly about anything except as a kind of entertainment: we’ll cry at a movie and then walk unfeelingly past a suffering homeless person.

But Lent invites us into sorrow and pain and suffering. The 40 days of Lent remind us of Jesus’ suffering in the wilderness before he started his public ministry. Jesus didn’t have to suffer. He willingly took on human form to experience the worst of our condition, be tortured and die, so that we might have eternal life. So it’s good to have a season to quit avoiding suffering, to consider what Jesus has done for us, to realize my brokenness and the brokenness of the world I live in. And then I can have “good joy”, joy that’s not the result of self-medicating my soul with entertainment but joy that knows the depths of God’s love for me and this world.

images

2009-02-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

This Sunday is a unique Sunday for Grace Community and a significant Sunday for one of our families: a baby is being dedicated AND her dad is being baptized! And we just had a baby dedication last Sunday and we’ll have another in less than a month.

I wear a robe to do baby dedications. Some might wonder why. I wasn’t raised in a “liturgical” church. In fact, I was raised in a very austere, conservative church: no images, no artwork in the sanctuary, no candles. Use of the word "ritual" was always negative. The focus was on Bible study and telling others the Gospel. So why the candles and robes today?

Part of the answer is found in a book I just finished reading, “Called out of darkness” by Anne Rice (yes, of “Interview with the vampire” fame). She recalls the images, sounds, textures and even smells of her Roman Catholic upbringing in New Orleans. Then she writes of her 38 years as an avowed atheist, out of which God called her back to himself. The power of that call was obviously due to the work of the Holy Spirit. But God used the rich physical presence of her early upbringing to continually remind her that he loved her and was calling her back to himself.

I think the richest part of my early church upbringing was the wonderful music. We didn’t have candles or robes or images, but we loved music, especially classical music. In that music I sensed the beauty, goodness and truth of God. I’m sad that we don’t use more of that sort of music in our worship today (but I’m not going to insist snobbishly that we use music in our worship that has become inaccessible to many people). But I think that in our visual culture we can offer images, including the image of the pastor in a robe and the people of the community laying on hands in blessing, to give our kids the sense that God is present in the life of our worshiping community.

pain

2009-02-13T16:53:00.001-08:00

Is it OK to be disappointed in my life? Is it OK to be disappointed with God? My spiritual director has been pointing out to me that there is a difference between resigning myself to “the way things are” and expressing my disappointment to God and making it a matter of prayer. In our last session she pointed out that this is the pattern of many of the Psalms. They start with expressions to God of deep “negative” emotions such as disappointment, anger, desperation. Then there is a rehearsal of God’s character. Only after this work is done can the psalmist then come to a place of expressing hope and trust and even joy and delight in God.

I’m a bit of a contradiction within myself. I’ve always tried to isolate myself from emotional pain by making myself an observer of my pain and then deciding whether or not to try to do something about it. If not, then I can conveniently encapsulate the pain and try not to feel it. If I do something about it, it’s almost as if I’m working on someone else’s life. Yet, part of me wants to fully experience life, to not be distant, but to be immersed in both the joy and the pain.

Jesus didn’t distance himself from pain. He wasn’t the emotionless, ethereal figure that is often portrayed. He cried over his friend Lazarus’ death, identifying with the pain of his friends, Mary and Martha. And then he did what he came to do: he raised Lazarus. Jesus agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then he set himself to go about the work that the Father had for him, torturous death on the cross as the payment for my sin and yours.

There are a lot of things in life that are disappointments and sources of pain for me. Part of my journey is to learn to be like Jesus, experiencing the pain and also working through it so that it informs and motivates me in the work that God has given me, both on myself and in my world.

radical

2009-02-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

The word “radical” brings to mind edgy, extreme, in-your-face types that are loud and flashy. The appeal of a phrase like “radical faith” is in the images it brings to mind, images that fit easily into our media-soaked culture’s idea of celebrity.

In the recent issue of Christianity Today, Mike Barrett writes about finally meeting a true radical: a missionary who trains pastors to plant churches in Delhi, where it’s dangerous to be a Christian, let alone do church planting. Who would do such dangerous, radical work? A guy who doesn’t make much money, hasn’t written any books, and isn’t on TV. He wears normal clothes, has no body piercings and sports a Chicago businessman’s haircut. “I walked the streets of Chicago and Denver looking for someone with an in-your-face Jesus sign hanging on their back, a Snowboarders for Christ meeting, or a skate park evangelism team.“ But what Barrett found was that “God is not speaking more profoundly to the good-looking loud ones. He’s moving powerfully through the simple ones who only wish they had the time and money to be a Snowboarder for Christ.”

A true radical is someone who is so firmly planted in a belief system that s/he is able to withstand the currents of society and continue living counter to the culture. The word itself comes from the Latin word “radix” or “root”. A radical is someone who gets to the root of things. Jesus was a radical because he cut to the heart of the matter and showed us what abundant life could be and then offered it to us (John 10:10). And now he calls us to follow him.

In other words, every Christian is called to be a radical.

finding joy

2009-02-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

A friend gave me a book for Christmas called “There is a season.” It’s a contemplation on a serigraph that is itself a contemplation on the famous passage in Ecclesiastes ("to everything there is a season..."). I love this phrase from the introduction to the book: “Joy is the spirit of God in time.”

When I think about time it’s usually to make sure I’m using it as efficiently as possible. The result: I’m in one place but thinking about where I need to be next. Could it be that by trying to transcend time I’m actually missing out on the presence of God? God has entered our space/time in the Incarnation. When God shows up, there is not efficiency, but joy. “In Your presence there is fullness of joy.” (Psalm 16:11 NASB)

calling

2009-01-21T14:48:00.001-08:00

I’ve been wondering why President Obama seems different to me than the two presidents who’ve preceded him. I’m now realizing that it’s because of something that can be summed up in one word: calling. Unlike Presidents Bush and Clinton, President Obama seems to understand that his new job is not a means to power, but that it is a calling in itself, that there’s a task that must be done simply because it is a noble, if difficult, task. That sense of calling made his inaugural speech reference to George Washington compelling and not merely sentimental. Without it, The Onion is right in snidely remarking that America has now given it’s worst job to a black man (“a black man can’t catch a break” they wrote on 11/5/08). But with a sense of calling there is dignity and determination in tackling the most powerful office in the world.

Is my job a calling or a means to my own ends? I may not desire power, but I surely have a desire for happiness and comfort. It might be appalling to think that some pastors look at their job as simply a means to get a paycheck so that they and their families can live comfortably, but I’ve heard the accusation before (I’ve had an awkward moment when a leadership team member told me that his job was to keep me from becoming so powerful that I could influence my paycheck.) And that same accusation can be leveled at many of us who look at our jobs, whether as employees or as spouses or parents or whatever it is that gives us the tasks for the day, as something other than work that is given to us by God because it is worthwhile work to do.

So when in his inaugural speech Pres. Obama referred to his oath of office as a “sacred oath” I hope he meant it (history will tell). And I hope I will come to have a similar sense of calling that will give dignity and determination to the work that God has called me to do each day, whether it’s washing dishes or writing code or picking up the kids or participating in a meeting (OK, so I don’t write code: I do the other three). As the Book of Common Prayer teaches us to pray each day: “…and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of Your purposes.”

change

2009-01-20T21:42:00.000-08:00

My kids had the day off from school today, so I took the day off, too. That gave me the luxury of waking up and watching the pre-inaugural TV coverage starting at 6:30 am PST, and then watching the actual inauguration of Pres. Barack Obama with my family (except for my 6 year old who was downstairs watching cartoons: we'll kid him about that for the rest of his life, I'm sure).

I can't add anything to what's already been said about the gravity of this day for the history of this country. I hope that I was able to transmit to my kids something of how I feel about the historic significance of what we saw. Two nights ago I was chatting over dinner about the recent protests in Oakland over the shooting of an unarmed black man by a BART policeman. The contrast between the two televised events is striking. As Pres. Obama's election campaign reminded us, change is certainly needed.

best, better, good

2009-01-16T22:04:00.000-08:00

Anyone who’s been to a management/leadership seminar (and this includes pastoral leadership seminars) has heard this aphorism: “The good is the enemy of the best.” But is that how God wants us to live our lives, i.e., never content, always striving and pushing and driven? Do we know how to live in the goodness of each moment? Today (at a prayer retreat) a friend shared with me this counter-aphorism: “The better is the enemy of the good.”

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

spiritual optometrics

2009-01-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

A lot of leadership gurus make a big deal about having a “vision statement”. As a lead pastor, I do recognize that it’s important to have a vision for our church community. That’s why the leadership team spent a lot of time in conversation with God, the people of Grace, and each other about our vision for the next 10 years. And God gave us Dave Evans and the Veritas workshop to help us see that we are “becoming like Jesus together.”

But there’s another definition of vision. In his book “Connecting” Larry Crabb says that we need to develop vision for each person that we connect with. We need to see each other with God’s eyes and sense the possibilities that God has created for each other so that we can help each other reach for those possibilities.

As a church leader I find myself working to keep these two kinds of vision in balance. If I’m too driven by the vision for the church, I’ll lose the compassionate touch that marked Jesus’ ministry. But if I’m too wrapped up in the concerns of individuals I can lose sight of where God is taking us as a community. The tension of leadership is balancing these two kinds of vision. Too much of one or the other makes you either too driven or direction-less.

This came home to me in my men’s group last night as we discussed the issue of human trafficking. The issue is so big, but the work of liberation and healing happens one person at a time. In the presentations at Grace on Sunday about mission work done in Thailand and China it was the stories of how the Gospel touched the lives of individuals that grabbed our hearts. Yet the fact that we had two people able to engage in such work was possible because someone had a vision that resulted in a mission organization.

I guess I need spiritual bifocals. I need God’s help to see both the big picture and the close-up needs of individuals. And I need the discernment to know which needs my immediate attention.