salvagedfaith

Pastoral Persona

A while back, Verily put out an article: Three Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Post Something on Social Media

The basic three questions are these:

Is it useful?
Is it truthful?
Is it fruitful?

I had shared the article with other pastors because I thought that the three questions raised in the article are good guidelines for how we can interact with parishioners and one another online. In today’s vicious political climate and in the lead up to our own General Conference, I thought these questions would be good to revisit.

On the one hand, these questions help us to utilize social media and our web presence and be truly vulnerable. But I think they are also guidelines that allow us to be real without oversharing or crossing boundaries. These questions act as a filter for whatever content we might put forth – from our feelings on a basketball game to our opinion of a candidate to our experience of worship that morning.

Verily doesn’t have a Christian background, so I find it so interesting that fruitfulness is one of the criteria they use. And the very idea of promoting ourselves as a brand seems the very definition of inauthentic. However, we do have a persona, a public perception, that we are known by – whether as pastors or as church folk or as church bodies in general. The world sees us based on what we choose to put out there via blogs, websites, tweets, and posts. So, what are we saying?

Is it useful?

“if I think someone else will benefit intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually from my post, I’ll push it out.”

I think this could also be thought of as relevance. Is this something that my community should be aware of or are they already talking about it? I’ve long used the Barthian quote about having a bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, and I think this usefulness question asks us to make connections with the lives of people and the gospel we proclaim. And, I think it invites us to look to the secular world and see where we can find insight that is good for the people of God, too. (like the article I’m referencing!) One of my hobbies is watching television shows and I am constantly discovering questions, insights, and realities of the human dilemma that we fail to talk about as a church. So occasionally I try to blog about where I see grace or the human condition or redemption in the media we consume in the secular world. If we aren’t paying attention to the world we live and breathe in, I think our posts will fail to be useful.

Usefulness also has to do with what we are trying to accomplish with our posts. Maybe we need to ask if the church will benefit intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually from our posts. Or, are we simply trying to stir the pot? Are we trying to build up the church or does our commentary simply serve to tear it apart? The same could be asked of our national conversations and politics.

Is it truthful?

“Is what I’m broadcasting… an accurate representation of who I am personally and professionally?”

While this item does have to do with actual facts, and we shouldn’t ever promote or share things that simply aren’t true, this point for me really is about whether something accurately represents me. I post about sports and food and family and friends because it is who I am. Yes, I am a pastor, but I am also a real, normal human being, just like others are. If my online pastoral persona is all about the church or if it is all about ministry, then I am painting a false image of what it means to serve God. I don’t create space for others to live their lives AND serve God, too.

The flip side of this is that ministry is a high calling and we commit to living according to higher standards. And as a colleague noted, perhaps as pastors we give up the right to a “private” life when we take on our calling.

Or perhaps, a different way to say it is that our lives as pastors are always under the microscope of public opinion. What we do, even in our private time, reflects our profession (whether we want it to or not). I hang out with a lot of non-churched people. They are at my house every Friday night, playing board games and ping pong. Even in that little microcosm of personal life, they don’t forget that I am also a pastor.

And so, if I can’t say it in front of colleagues or in front of the church, maybe I really shouldn’t say it… or at the very least not say it online. I find it much harder to remember this when I’m at home watching a basketball game and my team is down by 35 points.

Is it fruitful?

“Will what I’m sharing create something bigger or make an impact, whether in the form of an online debate or dollars for a charity?”

My colleague, Deborah Coble Wise, noted that this definition of fruitfulness is sometimes part of the problem: “When everything because a ’cause’ or a debate… does it lose the possibility of authentic relationship?”

How we, as the church, define fruitfulness is very different from the rest of the world. Sometimes, yes, it is about numbers and getting people on our side (if our side is the Kingdom). We could ask how this post could help make disciples of Jesus Christ and how it will help to raise money for a project we are working on.

But we also define fruitfulness in a lot of un-quantifiable ways. Will this post help us transform the world? Will it bring hope to someone? Will it spark a conversation? Will it create a deeper relationship or community? Will it impact the life of a youth?

See(k)ing Jesus

Posted on March 13, 2016Leave a comment

I’m sometimes asked what the difference is between Christians who are out there serving people in the world and regular, ordinary people, who are out there serving.

So many of our businesses here in Des Moines are great proponents of volunteerism. Every time we go to a Meals from the Heartland event, or collect stuff for the food pantries or the schools I hear about Wells Fargo or Principal or Hy-Vee doing the same sort of thing.

Is there anything different about the character or the content of what we do as people of faith?

Most days, if we are honest, probably not.

Should there be?

Absolutely.

But what is it?

Mother Teresa was once showing a bishop the community she served. It is said that she asked the bishop, “Would you like to see Jesus?” She then took him around a few corners to a man laying on a leather pallet who had clearly visible things crawling on his body. The bishop stood there in shock, but Mother Teresa knelt down and wrapped her arms around him, holding him like a baby in her arms.

“Here he is,” she said. To which the bishop replied – “Who?”

“Jesus” was her answer. “Didn’t he say you’d find me in the least person on earth? Isn’t this Jesus challenging us to reach out and love?” (wright-house.com/religions/Christianity/mother-teresa.html)

Seek and you will find.

That is what our gospel reading says.

Or as Michael Slaughter reminds us in “Renegade Gospel” – the passage uses the present continuous tense… Ask and keep on asking… Seek and keep on seeking…

The bishop wasn’t looking for Jesus and couldn’t see him in the suffering of the man on the pallet. But Mother Teresa was. She was looking for him every day. She was seeking Jesus every day. She knew that in every moment she was serving, she was doing it to Jesus.

Seek and keep on seeking and you will find.

The problem is, we aren’t always paying attention to Jesus.

I think one of the fundamental differences between Judas Iscariot and Mary in our other gospel text this morning is that the first was focused on himself and the second was seeking Jesus.

As _________ shared with us this morning, Jesus and the disciples were with Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany. And in the midst of the gathering, Mary takes this extravagantly expensive bottle of nard and anoints Jesus feet with the ointment.

This story itself appears in different ways in different texts.

In some cases the woman is unnamed, in another she is Mary Magdelene, and here she is identified as a different Mary.

In Matthew and Mark, the story comes earlier in the timeline and the woman anoints his head – a prophetic act that symbolizes his kingship.

But here, H. Stephen Shoemaker points out, that she anoints his feet, which would signal instead his imminent death. She, unlike the disciples, unlike Judas or Peter, had already accepted the true meaning of his teaching- that he was about to die. (Feasting on the Word)

There Jesus was, in the flesh, right in front of both of them.

Seek and keep on seeking and you will find.

But the gospel of John points out that Judas was so focused on that bag of money and his own selfish interests that he wasn’t even paying attention to Jesus.

Mary, on the other hand…

Mary sees Jesus in front of her, plain as day. She sees the suffering he is about to undergo. She sees his fear and pain. She sees his holiness.

Mary knew that this might be the last time she saw Jesus before he made the final trip to Jerusalem.

She knew their time together was short.

And she knew she could do this one thing for him. She anoints his feet in an act of worship showing her love and reverence for him. That was all that mattered.

When I heard that story about Mother Teresa, embracing the man who was suffering, I thought of Mary and Jesus. The tenderness of the physical touch. The dignity bestowed. The compassion and love that were offered through the embrace.

Love is costly.

Whether it is expensive perfume or the risk of embracing a diseased stranger, love is costly.

To use a word we shared last week – love is prodigal.

It is extravagant and sometimes appears wasteful. It is overwhelming and too much. And sometimes, by its very nature, it is immensely temporary.

In his reflection on this text, William Carter notes:

“Lots of extravagant gifts are put into the air, where they soon evaporate. A church choir labors to prepare and intricate anthem, and three minutes later it is gone. The teacher prepares the lesson, stands to deliver, and then the class is adjourned. Mourners provide large arrangements of flowers to honor those whom they grieve. Saints donate large sums of money for their congregations to spend. Why do they do this? Love has its reasons.” (Feasting on the Word)

Where Judas saw wastefulness and a hit on his personal pocketbook, Mary saw an opportunity to pour out extravagant love to her Lord and Savior.

Even his excuse – Hey! We could have spent this money on the poor – comes off as a limited perspective. For Jesus, in turn, quotes from Deuteronomy 15:

“Give generously to needy persons. Don’t resent giving to them because it is this very thing that will lead to the Lord your God’s blessing you in all you do and work at. Poor persons will never disappear from the earth. That’s why I’m giving you this command: you must open your hand generously to your fellow Israelites, to the needy among you, and to the poor who live with you in your land.”

And what I can’t help but hear in his response is the reminder that while Mary had the opportunity to pour out extravagant, generous love to Jesus in that moment, in just a few weeks, he would be gone.

And then, their responsibility, OUR responsibility, is to pour out that same extravagant love to the poor in our midst.

Give generously.

But you see, Jesus changes the dynamics of that exchange.

Because, now, it is not simply because it is a command from God on high.

Now, we do so, now we give and love and get down on our hands and knees to serve because whatever we do for the least of these, our brothers and sisters, we are doing it for Jesus.

That, friends, is the fundamental difference that we can offer the world.

We can love our neighbors as we would love Jesus, himself, present in front of us.

As we serve the homeless here in Des Moines – and a group is going out to do just that with Joppa this afternoon – you can serve them as you would serve Jesus.

As Slaughter writes in chapter four, “When Jesus walked Planet Earth, everyone could see him in the flesh – friends, followers, and foes. We no longer have that opportunity. Now that Jesus’ physical presence is removed, the world can no longer see him, but we can. Those who are born of the Spirit are able to experience and see him today. When we ask, seek, and knock in expectation, we find what we are looking for.” (p. 82)

Seek and keep on seeking and you will find Jesus right in front of you.

Too often, we miss out on the opportunity to truly love extravagantly because we are too focused on ourselves.

Or because we are going through the motions.

Or because we simply aren’t paying attention… because we don’t realize Jesus is right in front of us.

The world can no longer see him… so they do good deeds and they serve their neighbors and think nothing of it.

But friends, the essential character of HOW we serve is different, because when we look into the eyes of someone who is sick or dying or struggling, we don’t see an opportunity to do good… we can see Jesus.

When did you see Jesus?

When did YOU last see Jesus Christ?

When did you interact with him?

When did you hold his hand?

When did you share a meal with him?

When did you visit him?

When did you offer him a cup of water?

And when you saw him… how did you show your gratitude and love to him?

Prodigal Rabbi

Posted on March 7, 2016Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago, Trevor and I were at a workshop about how we change our thinking in the church from membership to discipleship.

We talk a lot about membership. We are preparing our confirmation students to become members. We are about to have a new member class. And it’s almost like once you cross that magical membership threshold, then that’s it. You’ve done it. You have reached the peak of your faith journey.

And that’s because we don’t have a process in place to help all of us continue to grow in our faith beyond that point.

So in this workshop, we talked about making the shift to discipleship as our primary focus. A life-long journey of following Jesus.

But what does it really mean to be a disciple?

Rob Bell shares in his video series Nooma what it really meant to be a disciple in Jesus’ time.

He describes how most little Jewish boys and girls would have been instructed in the Torah – the first five books of the bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And by the age of 10, they would have memorized the Torah. They would know it by heart.

When they got to about 10, many of these boys and girls would then go and learn their family trade, but the best of the group would continue to the second level – where they would spend four or five years learning and memorizing the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. Joshua through Malachai.

And at the age of 14- or 15, many more of these students would learn the trade of their families, but the best of the best would try to continue on and would seek out a rabbi and apply to be one of their disciples. “A disciple just doesn’t want to know what the rabbi knows. A disciple wants to be like the rabbi and wants to learn to do what the rabbi does.”

When you went to seek out one of these rabbis, they would grill you and find out what you knew because the rabbi wants to know if you had what it takes to follow them, to be like them. And many would be turned down. Only the best of the best of the best were invited to come and follow that rabbi. And you would leave EVERYTHING behind – your family, their trade, your home and village – and you would devote your entire life to being like your rabbi, learning to do what your rabbi does. This is what it means to be a disciple.

But, something shifts when Jesus comes around.

In Luke’s gospel, he goes out and calls his first disciples and they aren’t the best of the best of the best.

They are fishermen.

They are young men who went back home to practice the family trade after the first or second level of education.

Jesus isn’t seeking the best of the best of the best.

Jesus doesn’t think that you have to be the smartest or wisest or most clever person in order to follow him and be his disciple.

He thinks that Simon Peter and James and John and Levi and all of those ordinary people have what it takes to be his disciple… to learn from him… to know what he knows… to do what he does.

I think it starts to make a whole lot more sense for me, knowing this, why the Pharisees were so mad at Jesus.

Because many of those Pharisees were rabbis; those who accepted the best of the best of the best to be their disciples.

And they looked around and saw Jesus hanging out with the riff-raff. With the not-good-enoughs. With the nobodies. And in that sense, Jesus was giving their profession a bad name!

They saw him taking his gifts and his knowledge and wasting them by giving them to just anybody. Instead of calling the best of the best of the best, Jesus was calling the least and the last and the lost. They thought he was recklessly wasteful and extravagantly generous.

I used those words when I first arrived at Immanuel to describe Jesus.

It was a sermon on the parable of the sower – who scattered seed wherever he went, without regard for whether or not it would grow. I remember some of you gasped in shock as I started throwing sunflower seeds all over the front of the chancel area!

And that day, I used the word “prodigal” to describe that sower. Because to be “prodigal” means to be recklessly wasteful and extravagantly generous.

It is the same word used in our gospel lesson for this morning.

The prodigal son is recklessly wasteful and throws away his father’s fortune … but that same word can also be used to describe the father who welcomes him back home. If we continued just a few verses in the story, the older son is upset at the prodigal nature of his father’s love for this lost and useless brother.

The dad in this story is filled with compassion when his boy returns home. He runs out and surrounds him with love. He gives the boy the best of what he has. He kills the fatted calf. He is extravagantly generous, pouring out love and grace and forgiveness in his rejoicing.

In fact, all three of these parables about the lost things – the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son – are reminders about the lengths God will go in order to demonstrate love for us.

They are reminders about the extravagant, reckless, wasteful, abundant grace and mercy of our God.

A God who loves us so much, we were given the Torah, the law, the teaching to guide our way.

A God who loves us so much, the prophets were sent to call us back into relationship with God – over and over and over again.

A God who loves us so much, that God became one of us, walked among us, taught us, and called us to follow.

Our God doesn’t care if you are the best of the best. Our God doesn’t care about your background or age. Our God doesn’t care about your skills.

Our God looks at you and sees infinite worth and potential.

Our Jesus, our Prodigal Savior, looks at you and is willing to give up everything to seek you out and find you.

Our Rabbi looks at you and thinks – you can do what I can do… you can be like me.

And so Jesus invited those disciples… and now us… to follow in his footsteps… to be covered in the dust of our rabbi… to set everything aside and become like Jesus.

As Michael Slaughter puts it in chapter 3 of Renegade Gospel:

“When I confess that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, I commit to follow Jesus in a lifestyle of sacrificial service, walking in the dust of my Rabbi. Whatever my Rabbi values, I value. Whatever my Rabbi thinks about God, I think about God. Whatever my Rabbi thinks about people, I think about people… I act like my Rabbi, talk like my Rabbi, love like my Rabbi, and give my life away for my Rabbi’s mission.”

You may have noticed around this building the signs for this “Renegade Gospel” study we are doing, and it includes the quote – Jesus didn’t come to start a religion.

Well, I think today, we are reminded that Jesus didn’t come to make members of Immanuel United Methodist Church.

In fact, our mission as a church has nothing to do with membership… we have said clearly that we are called to “Make Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World.”

Jesus came to invite people like you and me – ordinary, everyday people – to come and follow him.

Jesus came to invite the least and the last and the lost into a lifelong relationship with him.

Jesus came to invite us to grow more like him every day.

To love more like him every day.

To forgive more like him every day.

To turn this world upside down and transform it with God’s power every day.

And we are empowered to keep working toward the day when we don’t simply know what Jesus knows, but we do what he does.

That’s what this place is for. We are a community of disciples, trying to be more like Jesus every single day.

We are a community of disciples, gathered to be re-energized and strengthened to go out into the world, and live, in Christ, a life of love, service, and prayer. Amen.

Posted on February 29, 2016Leave a comment

We have probably 20 volunteer red bud trees growing in the landscaping of our back yard. If we simply let them be, they are in the wrong spots and far too crowded for sustained growth. The best choice is to pick two or three and move them to where they will have a chance to flourish.

As I have been researching this, one article I came across suggested cutting the roots in roughly a 15″ radius around the base of the tree in all directions. By cutting directly down and through the longer roots, it forces root growth near the ball that will allow the tree to transplant better.

This same information was learned in a different context by a colleague this Sunday.

The lectionary scripture for the day is about the gardener, the owner, and the fruitless fig tree in Luke 13:6-9.

In the parable, the fig tree isn’t dead… but it also isn’t bearing fruit. The owner wants to cut it down, but the gardener wants to give it another year. He wants to “dig around it and give it fertilizer.”

Dig around it… maybe like cutting the roots in all directions?

My colleague had a parishioner come up after her sermon and share her own anecdote about digging around to help something bear fruit:

…She grew up in Eastern Washington state, on an apple and pear farm. And she said she didn’t know anything about figs, but with the apples and pears trees, if a tree was otherwise healthy and fine but not bearing fruit, as a last resort they would take a spade and about a foot out from the trunk they would chop all the roots all around the tree. This makes the tree kind of “panic” and think it is dying, for some reason the reaction to the panic is that it bears fruit!

Plants like fig trees or apple trees or even my raspberry bushes can grow vibrantly and abundantly… and still not put forth fruit. Sometimes this has to do with it being too crowded or having a bad season or putting too much energy into other places like leaf production. And sometimes, they need a radical kick in the rear to jump start production.

And I think our faith is a lot like that, too. I think sometimes we need someone to dig around us and cut all of the long roots that keep us healthy, but also keep us from bearing fruit: wealth, comfort, success, health, freedom…

It’s not that these things are bad – but we can put so much focus on them, that we forget all about the bearing fruit part. Maybe “digging around” and cutting the roots can help us to not take those things for granted; help shift our focus and our priorities so that there is room for other roots to grow; help create energy towards fruitfulness and not simply stability.

And sometimes in the process, we find ourselves uprooted and transformed and transplanted as God sees our renewed strength and thinks: I have just the place for that disciple to bear fruit…

Posted on February 28, 2016Leave a comment

I confess…

Tonight our confirmation students were asked to state their faith. To imagine that they had been arrested for their faith and had to write their confession for their “crime”.

And, it’s important for all of us as adults and teachers and mentors in the faith to do the same.

As I think about my confession, I really do believe in the power of God to transform this world.

I see signs of love and mystery all around me in creation and in the lives of other people. And I see so many ways that we have completely failed to take care of the gift of this world and one another.

I confess that I have been part of that failure. I confess that my church has been part of that failure. And I confess my sincere desire to live differently.

I confess that I believe God wants to help us find abundant life and sent leaders and prophets, strong men and women to speak a word of hope and possibility. I believe that God came to show the way as Jesus… Flesh and blood and as much as the world wanted and needed the message of transformation, we crucified him. But our NO to God was trumped by God’s YES to us… And not sin or death can stop the love of God.

I believe Jesus rose from the grave and I believe eventually we will die and will rise again. I believe in between, we have a chance to do the best we can to learn from and to follow Jesus every day of our life.

I believe through the Holy Spirit we can heal. I believe we can conquer addictions and sins. I believe God has called me to be light to the world and yeast in the lives of others and to make trouble for those who are making trouble for the least of these. And if I get arrested for those things… Then I’m probably doing exactly what God has called me to.

And I confess that not having been arrested for my faith, I sometimes feel like I’m probably not doing enough and I’m probably a bit too comfortable and fearful to really step out and stand up against evil, injustice, and oppression.

You know… The things we are asking our youth to stand and say on confirmation Sunday.

Posted on February 22, 2016Leave a comment

I spend a good chunk of time every week preparing to preach the word of God through liturgy choices, attention to hymns, exegetical work, praying, listening, dreaming, and writing.

And I forget sometimes that I need to hear the good news preached, too.

I am, after all, just as human as the rest of the world.

When you are the one responsible for bringing the word each week, you aren’t always sure where to look and you don’t always have time to seek it out.

Sometimes, the gospel shows up on your desk.

In a little bundle of notes, all folded into one another, with instructions: Open one at a time until you reach the end.

Notes about prayer, and faithfulness, and trouble and hurts, God’s love and grace, the cross and the thorns.

All ending with the simple reminder:

Renegade Gospel: The Red-Letter Rebel

Posted on February 21, 2016Leave a comment

There was a challenge issued TWICE by Mike Slaughter in chapter one of this Renegade Gospel book we are examining during this Lenten season: to read through one of the gospels and pay specific attention to the red letters… to the words of Jesus… spoken there.

I pulled out my bible and started with Luke. Luke is the gospel assigned for this particular Lenten season according to the powers that be. It is the gospel we will be following most weeks during worship.

The very first time Jesus speaks in Luke’s gospel, it is in the synagogue in his hometown and he is preaching.

Jesus reads from Isaiah, explains a bit about what he has read, and makes everyone so angry they drive him out of town and try to throw him off a cliff.

I really hope you don’t try to do that to me this morning!

Now, many of his words, like the ones we find today in the reading (Rod/Natalie) just shared with us, are words of healing or forgiveness or calling.

“Woman, you are set free from your sickness” (Luke 13:12)

But almost every single time, like we found in our reading today, when Jesus does so, he really makes people angry.

He calls the wrong people, he forgives the unforgiveable, he heals on the wrong day…

The synagogue leader, in this particular healing, was “incensed” (as my bible puts it) that Jesus was healing on the Sabbath.

And all of this anger and frustration on behalf of the system was slowly coming to a boil, as we find just a few verses later.

As our reading continues, the Pharisees (the religious leaders) are plotting together with the political leader, Herod, to be done with Jesus for good.

Now, Herod’s father was the one who had tried to kill Jesus as an infant because he thought he might be a threat to his power.

And this Herod has already beheaded John the Baptist.

Both Herod and the religious leaders were upset about the populist movement stirring up in response to the ministry of John and Jesus.

As Mike Slaughter writes in Renegade Gospel:

“Jesus could never be perceived as a protector of the status quo” (p. 27)

I think the same is as true today as it was then.

Jesus is never satisfied with things the way they are, because Jesus has a vision of the way things can and should be.

He is constantly getting into trouble for doing what is “right for the sake of people” … even if it was against “the rules.”

I think, at the core, Jesus is always pushing the status quo, always challenging us to do more and to be more faithful, because his goal is nothing short of the Kingdom of God lived out on earth… and friends, we aren’t there yet!

Those of us gathered in this room are incredibly blessed… even if we struggle… because we have more resources at our fingertips than most people in this world.

But even here, in a great city, in a great state, in a great country, can we agree that we’re not in heaven yet?

And the KINGDOM is the standard Jesus is holding us to. The KINGDOM is the standard Jesus is holding the political and religious leaders to. The KINGDOM OF GOD is the standard.

And so even today, as a modern religious leader of the Christian faith, I read these words of Jesus and I am still challenged and pushed to really think about the teachings I share with you and how I call us to live them out together.

And all of those harsh words Jesus has for the Pharisees…. well, they are for people like me, too. Because too often, as your leaders, we have simply not preached the gospel! We haven’t shared the vision of the Kingdom of God and we haven’t given you the tools to truly be the Body of Christ, in the world, helping to bring that Kingdom to fruition.

And friends… I think that’s what we, the Body of Christ, are supposed to do.

When I re-read Luke’s gospel, over and over again, Jesus asks us to not only hear his words, but to obey them. Just on a glance back through this morning, I counted at least 9 times (Luke 6:47, Luke 8:21, Luke 9:48, Luke 10:1, Luke 10:28 & 37, Luke 11:28, Luke 12:1, Luke 18:22)… Jesus asks us to not only hear but to do them. To live them. To go and do likewise.

We are trying to be faithful Christians and put into practice what Jesus says.

And, here is the good news I discovered in these commands to “go and do likewise.”

Jesus is NEVER angry at ordinary people who doing the best they can to live out their faith.

He never shames them.

He never scolds them.

He invites them! But he doesn’t get mad at them for where they currently are in their journey of faith.

He is never upset with someone if they aren’t ready to do it. Jesus simply sends them on their way. Maybe another day, in a different sermon, they’ll be ready.

In our United Methodist tradition, we call this “going on to perfection.” Discipleship is a lifelong journey and you are wherever you are today without any judgment.

We are called to be like Jesus, and we fully acknowledge and admit that we aren’t there yet!

And why would we be? Jesus is divine! The Son of Man AND Son of God. The standards are the very KINGDOM OF GOD!

We are mere mortals, trying to live up to the standards of the divine.

There is a quote by Barbra Brown Taylor in her book, “The Preaching Life” that has always stuck with me:

Over and over, my disappointments draw me deeper into the mystery of God’s being and doing. Every time God declines to meet my expectations, another of my idols is exposed. Another curtain is drawn back so I can see what I have propped up in God’s place – no, that is not God, so who is God?

It is the question of a lifetime, and the answers are never big enough or finished. Pushing past curtain after curtain, it becomes clear that the failure is not God’s but my own, for having such a poor and stingy imagination. God is greater than my imagination, wiser than my wisdom, more dazzling than the universe, as present as the air I breathe, and utterly beyond my control. (p. 10)

Every day, when we read the gospels, we pull back the curtain, as Barbara Brown Taylor writes, and we discover that we aren’t Jesus yet… we still have a ways to go!

We still have discoveries to make about what it means to be a faithful Christian.

But here is the beautiful and amazing thing about “going on to perfection”…

Every day, we also have an opportunity to grow more faithful.

Every day, we also have a chance to be more loving.

Every day, we also get to be a better Christian than yesterday.

The words of Jesus are NOT easy. The standards he sets for us are incredibly high! You know, Kingdom of God level!

But even in the midst of those Kingdom standards and Jesus’ never ending call for us to respond accordingly, there is grace upon grace upon grace.

One of my favorite lines in the chapter for this week from Mike Slaughter was this:

Although Jesus always called his followers to enter the small gate and take the narrow road to the Kingdom, he repeatedly taught mercy and relationship over rigidity and judgment. (p. 28)

And he points to Peter as the prime example.

You know Peter… the disciple who constantly questioned Jesus motives and got it wrong.

You know, Peter… the one who fell asleep in the garden.

You know, Peter… the one who denied Jesus three times when he needed him the most?

Jesus has ridiculously high standards. But when we don’t meet them… when we fail… and we will… Jesus keeps welcoming us back.

Keeps loving us.

Keeps showing mercy and love.

Keeps pouring God’s sanctifying, perfecting grace into our lives so tomorrow we can pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and try it again.

There is life and power and love and grace and mercy in the red-letter words of Jesus.

Jesus is constantly pushing our world through these words to rebel against what is… in light of what could be.

Jesus is asking us to examine ourselves, our church, our world, and to ask:

Can we be greater tomorrow than we are today?

Can we be more like Christ tomorrow than we were today?

Can this world look more like heaven tomorrow than it does today?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Always.

Thanks be to God.

Remembering Our Place #growrule

Posted on February 15, 20161 Comment

This Lent, I have been using a tool called “Growing a Rule of Life.” Each day there is a video and a prompt question to engage with. And of course, I’m behind already.

Friday’s video reminded me that we need structure, we need planning, we need the framework in place before we start these kinds of disciplines, and the very fact that I didn’t schedule time for my days off and for Sunday (which is always a hectic day in my world) proves the point.

The question we were left with that day is simple: when you connect with nature, what is meaningful about it?

When I truly connect with nature, I find that I, myself, my ego, is diminished. So much of my life is spent working and relating and living my life and everything revolves around myself and my calling and what I’m supposed to do or not do.

Yet when I truly connect with nature, all of that ceases.

I still my soul.

I stop.

And I am humbled by the reminder that there is so much else going on in the world that is not me.

The falling of snow flakes. The robins in the trees. The buds already forming. The hawk gliding overhead. The slow decomposition of the leaves that are life and death all wrapped into one.

And all of it continues without me.

In fact, all of this life probably would do a lot better without our human interference and selfish use and abuse of the world.

When I truly connect with nature, I am overcome with how small I am, and how beautiful the world is.

My soul cannot help but be awed by our Creator.

So much of the time, I’m rushing here and there, from meeting to project, to home and back.

Without creating space to stop and pause and connect with the world around us, I will forget who I am. I will forget how insignificant these tasks are in the grand scheme of things. I will forget that it is not about me… but my Creator.