faith – Page 3 – Salvaged Faith

Hand-me-down Faith

Posted on August 14, 2011Leave a comment

How many of you had to wear hand me down clothes as you were growing up?

One of my favorite mental images of hand me down clothes comes from my brothers. They are three years apart in age and both of them have school pictures from second grade in the exact same gray and blue sweater. It had been stored up until Darren could wear it, and on picture day, he went to school in the exact same outfit that Tony had years before. We might not have noticed, but my grandma keeps all of our school pictures on the wall in her kitchen and there Tony and Darren are in the exact same outfit right next to each other.

Now, even though I was an oldest child, the only girl in my family, and I might add, the oldest granddaughter on either side of my family, I still had to wear hand me down clothes.

My dad had an aunt and uncle that lived a few miles away and due to some age differences, their seven children – my dad’s cousins – were about my age.

Four of those children were girls. All of them were older than me. And every now and then, we got this great big sack of clothes from the Benesh girls.

I don’t think I ever really minded having hand me down clothes. It was normal for me. They had pretty good taste. The clothes were gently used and fit me just fine.

But I knew enough to know that you didn’t go to school and brag about the clothes that your cousins just gave you.

The virtue of handme down clothing is that it teaches you humility and modesty.

Well in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, that is a lesson that he is trying to teach to the Christians.

He wants them to know that the gift of salvation is nothing to boast or brag about.

He reminds them that they did nothing to earn it and it belonged to someone else first. It’s a hand-me-down… and the only reason we have it is because the people who got it first rejected it.

It’s almost as if Paul is comparing our gift of salvation to a garbage bag full of clothes delivered to your house. Doesn’t that make you feel great? (sarcastic)

The problem was, however, is that this gift of salvation HAD made people feel great. Superior.

Remember, Paul is writing to the community of Christians in Rome.

The Jews had been a protected group of people under Roman law, but they were kicked out of Rome. As the ban was lifted and they began to trickle back in, the Christians who remained began to treat them poorly. They had a “better than thou” attitude.

In fact, some believed that they as Christians had in fact replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people.

That view continues today in some circles – supersessionism – that the old covenant God made with the Jews is thrown out and now the new Israel is the Christian Church. This view has led to some terrible acts of injustice hatred and violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters throughout history.

But in his words to the church of Rome, Paul negates that type of attitude. He asks: “Does this mean that God is so fed up with Israel that he’ll have nothing more to do with them? No! Has Israel stumbled so far as to fall permanently from God’s grace? Are they out for good? No!

In fact, Paul starts to wonder if this disobedience, if this hard-heartedness on the part of Israel isn’t entirely God designed.

As the Message translation puts it:

This hardness on the part of insider Israel toward God is temporary. Its effect is to open things up to all the outsiders so that we end up with a full house…. There was a time not so long ago when you were on the outs with God. But then the Jews slammed the door on him and things opened up for you. Now they are on the outs. But with the door held wide open for you, they have a way back in.

To go back to our hand-me-down clothing analogy… it’s almost as if God planned for the Jews to give their faith away like old clothing. And those of us who received that faith are now lucky enough to receive it. It’s nothing to brag about… just wear the clothes and be grateful.

However, when your friends the Jews start seeing you walking around in those clothes, walking around in that faith that they gave away… when they see you full of joy and at peace and free from the grips of sin and grace… then they are going to start to wonder what they have lost… and you just might be the vehicle God uses to help them get back in.

The important thing to remember is that it’s God’s work… not ours. You didn’t earn your salvation, and this is not a gift that you can give to others. It is God’s doing.

That is a reminder that we need to hear over and over and over again.

This is God’s work, God’s salvation, God’s plan for our lives.

We need to hear this message just as much today as the Christians in Rome needed to hear it 2000 years ago.

Because sometimes we get a little prideful. Sometimes we get a little superior when we think about our brothers and our sisters out in the world.

Sometimes we gossip about Susie Q down the street who stopped going to church, or about John Doe across town who has never graced the door of a church in his life, or about Ms. Smith’s grandson who grew up in the church and then went off to college and became a wild child.

And when we do so, it kind of makes us feel good. It kind of makes us feel important and proud and arrogant…. I go to church every Sunday. I put money in the offering plate every week. God loves me… and not those other people.

Paul’s response to that kind of attitude?

La-de-dah.

So what?

He turns to the image of a tree to drive this point home. We, as latecomers to the faith, are merely wild shoots that have been grafted in to the ancient family of faith.

In fact… there is only room for us, because some branches have been pruned. They were dead in their faith and they were cut off, and now there is room for us.

We have hand-me-down places in this family tree. They only reason we are growing is because we finally got connected to the source of life – Jesus Christ.

And that is nothing to brag about. It’s nothing we did. Its nothing we earned. And we have no reason to be cocky about it.

In fact… Paul warns us – God didn’t think twice about pruning the natural branches on the tree, so why would he hesitate to trim you off of this tree of salvation if you stop producing fruit.

We get arrogant, because what we see as we look on your Jewish brothers and sisters or Susie Q or John Doe are branches that have been pruned from a tree. People who rejected God’s love in their life. They are broken and alone, withering apart from the source of true life. And we are so glad that they are not us…

But in God’s eyes, they are just branches waiting to be grafted back in. They are beloved children that our Master loves.

No matter what we do to reject the love of God, He will never reject us. He is always looking for a way to bring his lost children back into the fold.

That should be a reassurance to us. Because we are merely recipients of extravagant, generous, hand-me-down faith.

Hand me downs can sometimes be precious gifts. And our salvation is not a gift that we should take lightly. Because a gift like this, well, it could be taken away just as easily as it was given.

Knowing how undeserving we are of such generosity, we might walk around always worrying about doing the wrong thing, anxious about losing the love of god.

But Paul reminds us in Romans – God’s gifts are never taken back. His gifts are irrevocable.

We have all disobeyed… and he has mercy on all of us.

That is why we trust in God’s love. It is steadfast. It is eternal. It is unconditional.

It is just as enduring for us who have tasted the sweet beauty of salvation as it is for those who have walked away. God loves us and will not rest until each and every single one of us knows that love.

As Paul concludes this chapter – Everything comes from God; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in Him.

Thanks be to God that his ways are not my ways. And that his love is not my love.

Amen.

LIFE in the Spirit

Posted on July 10, 2011Leave a comment

I woke up this morning, and literally, almost, could not physically get out of bed!

Yesterday, my husband and I cleaned the exterior of our cars. No… cleaned isn’t quite the right word. We scrubbed and polished and waxed and buffed our cars.

And let me tell you… my car needed it. As we started the project, I realized that I had not actually washed my car since I purchased it last spring.

I thought this might be an hour long little project. Brandon had other plans 😉

So five hours later, my arms feel like they are going to fall off from polishing out scratches and buffing on a shiny coat of wax… and then I decide there is still time left in the day to pull the weeds that have been accumulating in my flower beds.

This morning, I can barely move my fingers, much less hang on to anything… my back is stiff, my shoulders ache… man, this getting old stuff is for the birds! 😉
Sometimes we like to think about our bodies as a physical container. That the real “me” is somewhere inside all of this skin and bone.

In fact, this morning, I was ready to throw out the container all together if it would stop aching so much…. Bring on the robot bodies, or the heavenly places where I could float around without any join pain.

But you know what? That way of thinking is not true. Our bodies are incredibly important.

Our bodies are an integral part of who God created us to be. Our flesh and blood are not earthly things that we have to slough off and deny before we get into heaven…. No, according to scripture, these bodies go there with us…. In one form or another!

Our sloppy thinking around bodies comes from passages like the one we have this morning.

The Apostle Paul uses a Greek word that is often translated as “flesh” – sarx. So we get translations that say things like – “those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the spirit.”

…and…

“those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
To our modern day ears, we think we know what that means at first hearing.

We know what flesh is… skin and bones… these things that ache and touch and feel and move around.

We know what spirit is… our souls, our minds, that of God that dwells within us.

So we think, bodies = bad, not pleasing to God…. Spirit=God, very pleasing to God.

BUT… sarx has more than one meaning.

While it can mean these skin and bones… it also is used to describe the lesser parts of ourselves…. Our animal nature, our cravings, the wretched parts of ourselves that keep grasping on to sin, no matter how many times we try to choose the right thing.

We talked about some of these last week: the craving for more, for status, for money, for food… all of those things that sometimes get the better of us and lead us down the pathways to sin.

THAT is what Paul is talking about here… not these good old, but sometimes achy bodies of ours.

In fact… our whole passage for this morning is about how we can have abundant life right here and right now in these very bodies!

How these bodies can be filled with strength and power and holiness…

How these bodies, these selves, can be Christ-like.

This passage for this morning, far from being a diatribe against our physical nature is a challenge to live up to the potential of what we can in fact DO.

Last week, the question was asked: What do we do when we joyfully accept the love and grace of God… but sin is right there next to us like the walls of a prison fence?
Our answer came at the very end… and it’s the answer to almost every single children’s sermon question… Jesus Christ. Trust in Jesus, Live in Jesus, Look to Jesus. He is the one who has set us free and if we remember that, if we celebrate that, if we hang on to that, then sin doesn’t have the power to touch us anymore.

Now, that was a quick and easy answer. The kind of quick and easy answer that we might go home and stick on our fridge and forget about.

So we are going to unpack that answer a bit. We are going to look at all of it’s parts and pieces and explore, using this week’s passage from Romans explains HOW and WHY Jesus Christ frees us from sin and death. And we are going to do it through a simple little acronymn… LIFE.

First, we have the letter L – and L stands for LOVE. You see, God doesn’t just tell us not to sin…. He sends his own Son to deal with the problem of Sin.

As John 3:16 reminds us: For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Romans 8:3 translated by the Message: In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.

No one enters another person’s messy life unless they love them. And when Christ died for us, he took all the sins of the world with him on that cross. And the powers of sin and death thought they had won…

And here is why I think the resurrection means far more than the crucifixion. Because when Christ rose up, sin and death were defeated. They were conquered once and for all. They no longer have any power over Christ….

Which brings us to our second letter – I. And I stands for INCARNATION. Incarnation means living inside, taking on flesh. We often use it to describe the birth of Christ – when God came and dwelt among us. But it also applies here. Because you see, Jesus Christ didn’t just wipe his hands of the matter. He didn’t just defeat sin and death… no, he sends his Spirit to live in us, so that we, too, have his power and strength and righteousness.

Yes, Jesus Christ wants to share that power with you. He wants to live inside of you.

When the Spirit of God dwells within us, then life and peace and righteousness and power dwell within us. And that is an amazing thing.

Over and over again in scripture, we are reminded of how we access this resurrection power…. We have to believe in Jesus Christ.

So our third letter is F, for FAITH. Belief seems like a simple thing. A thought. A statement. “I believe in Jesus Christ,” isn’t such a difficult thing to say.

But this third letter reminds us that belief is a choice. Belief is an action. Belief is a lifestyle.

Belief in Jesus Christ means letting his spirit rule our hearts, instead of our lesser animal nature. It means choosing the Spirit of God rather than Sarx – our human desires.

Let’s think about this another way. When we live according to the flesh, sarx, we are selfish and self-centered people. Any decision we make is based on our whims, our desires, and sin easily creeps into that life. Living only according to our desires leads us down the paths of gluttony and pride, anger, greed, and death.

But when we believe in Jesus Christ, we are making the decision to live according to his Spirit. We exchange our desires for his. We exchange our self-centeredness for Christ-centeredness. When we believe in Jesus Christ, we make him the Lord of our life… rather than ourselves.

And you know what? The Spirit of Christ makes much better choices than my gut does. The Spirit of Christ has much more power than my own selfish will. And the Spirit of Christ is the only spirit that has the power to defeat the death that will eventually overcome this body.

Our last letter is E. And E stands for EMPOWERED. When we know about God’s love… when we let the Spirit be incarnate in our lives… when we have faith in the way of Jesus Christ… then we are empowered to be different.

We are set free from sin and death.

>We are set free to love God more than ourselves

We are set free to participate in God’s saving work in this world.

Because you know what? God so loved the world… not just you, not just me, not just this church, but the world.

And what we know from the life of Jesus and the testimony of scripture is that God seeks to save this whole world. God seeks to transform this whole world.

That seems like a mighty and daunting task. We are barely keeping sin at bay in our lives… how could we possibly help God to change the world?

Perhaps it’s not so much that we are helping God, but that we get out of the way enough for God to help us. When Christ dwells within us, we not only find the grace and strength and power to resist sin, but also the love and peace and power to do God’s will. When we let the Spirit of God in, the transformation of the world begins… in your life, in your family, in this community and from there it spreads to the world.

All of this is God, working in you. God loving you. God dwelling in you. God’s acts and words that we have faith in. God’s power filling you up.

In the Spirit, there is LIFE.

what to do when your faith is shaken

Posted on August 14, 2010Leave a comment

On a television show like “Bones,” faith and reason, science and religion, seem to be inevitably at odds. That is part of the beauty of the chemistry between Booth and Brennan – this dynamic interplay reminds me that just because something appears to be contrary doesn’t mean it has nothing in common.

While there could be many places to start with an episode called, The Devil in the Details, an episode about a body found lit on fire in the middle of a Roman Catholic sanctuary, it was the last few minutes that caught my eye.

Brennan asks Booth a simple question – how is your faith not shaken after a case like this one? And his simple answer is, it is. He’s going to lie awake tonight and toss and turn and question and doubt. But he trusts that his faith will come back as much as he trusts the sun will rise the next morning.

My mind immediately went to the philosopher Hume, who took empiricism to its farthest limits when he posited that just because the sun has come up every other morning is no guarantee that it will come up on the next morning. Cause and effect is not something that we can see or touch or taste.

Brennan’s response lies somewhere between Hume and faith. She is concerned with causes and effects and when she sees an effect, like a dead person, and cannot determine the cause – her ability to trust in the basics of science and reason is tested. But throughout it all – even when she can’t see what she is looking for, she can trust that 2+2 = 4. “There are mysteries that I will never understand, but everywhere I look I see proof that for every effect there is a corresponding cause… even if I can’t see it. I find that reassuring.”

I was once told that our faith needs to be strong enough so that if one of the pillars of that faith is shaken, the whole thing won’t come tumbling down. The question always seemed to me – what are the pillars that are okay to be shaken? And what are the immovable and unshakable tenants of our faith?

For Booth and Brennan – it was the simple things that provided the grounding. The sun coming up. A simple mathematical equation. Something that we can see with our eyes, something that will never possibly be untrue. We may not know why… but we simply know.

Despite all of the questions of theodicy and good and evil and causes and effects… what are the things that we KNOW? what are the things that never go away – no matter how much our faith is shaken and how we are tossed about? what is your grounding, your anchor in the midst of a storm?

Whether it is rational or not – or biblical or not – I always go back to the simple premise that God is love. No matter the tragedies in the world, I trust that God is love and that God is present with those who are hurting. I trust that whatever evil has befallen us, that God is love and that love will conquer all. It is as true for me as the sun rising in the morning or a mathematical equation. Throw in all of the clouds and variables that you want… the earth will keep spinning and God will still be love.

I believe… help my unbelief

Posted on July 15, 20103 Comments

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=amomono&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000WCN8PA&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrThe other night, I sat down to watch a film that has been in my Netflix queue for a while now: King of California. It’s the story of a young woman and her mentally questionable father and his quest to find buried treasure beneath their suburban community. It’s quiet, a little quirky, but all and all a really good flick.

I think the thing that stuck with me long after the movie ended was the idea that you could follow along with someone – even if you weren’t entirely sure you believed. The character, Miranda, is about 90% sure that her father is full of crap, and yet she loves him and is interested in the possibility that he might be on to something. She follows him all over the countryside. She listens to his ramblings. She does some reading and research of her own. She gives up her job in order to get hired on with the Costco her dad thinks the treasure is buried beneath. In spite of every instinct in her body that tells her he is absolutely crazy… she goes along with the plan. She is there. But she doesn’t believe.

There are many days that I feel that way about my faith. I know that God loves me. And I want to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength. But I’m not always sure what on earth we are all doing. I’m going along with the plan… seeing how things turn out… but there are absolutely doubts. I listen. I read. I would love to believe it all hook, line and sinker. But there is too much of a scientific rationalist in my heart. So I’m here. I’m doing it. I’m sticking it out. But…

There is that “but”. And I often worry about that “but.” I worry that I’m not faithful enough. I worry that the little “but” in the back of my mind is going to be my downfall. I worry that maybe I am just going through the motions.

King of California reminded me that it’s okay to have questions. Miranda was a faithful and loving daughter. She would have done anything for her father. She did the best that she could with what she had – and that included having questions, and doubts, and acting out in faith in spite of them.

Maybe that’s the key… acting in spite of our doubts. Taking the leap of faith – even when it goes against every instinct in our bodies. Deciding to follow – even if we are pretty sure that we have no idea where we are going. Taking all of those doubts and carrying them with us and not ignoring them… but not letting them keep us from finding out the truth, either.

There is a scene at the end – and I don’t know that I’ll ruin any of the plot if I say this – when something that Charlie (the dad) said actually came true. Miranda is standing by the ocean at sunrise and a bunch of chinese men and women come running out of the ocean wearing only their underwear. And she gets this look on her face – this look of curious wonder. She saw for her own eyes the truth. I pray that I might keep my eyes open and someday see for myself… see it all as it really is… and finally know. Until then I’m going to take my doubtful leap of faith and see what happens.

BE the church

Posted on June 13, 2010Leave a comment

This morning we find ourselves in the midst of a pretty familiar story.

It is a story of contrasts… the holy man on one hand and the sinful woman on the other.

It is a story of grace… and a man who doesn’t think he needs any and a woman who is begging to be forgiven.

It is a story of paradox… where the tables are turned as the holy man is proven to be not so and the sinful woman is shown to be the one who is in the right.

So let’s break this tale down just a little bit. Jesus has been invited into the home of a Pharisee. And we start to wonder… maybe this is a guy who gets it. Maybe this Simon fellow has his head on straight and not only lets Jesus into his home, but wants to invite him into his heart also. Way to go, Pharisee!

But then, this woman shows up… a woman that Luke makes clear is a sinner. We aren’t quite sure of what has classified her as a sinner. Perhaps it was sleeping with the wrong person. Or perhaps she milked a cow on the Sabbath. We don’t know. But whatever it was – it made her desperate for God’s grace.

And so, she seeks Christ out. It didn’t matter where he was, or how uncomfortable it was going to be for her to enter this holy man’s house. She sought out Jesus and wept and anointed him. She went to where he was and poured out her love upon him.

And by the end of the story, the tables are turned, and we find that this sinful woman is the one who has done right by Jesus. She is the one who receives grace, while the Pharisee receives a tongue lashing for his lack of hospitality.

So what do we take from this story? In our world today, we would be hard pressed to be able to issue a dinner invitation to our Lord and Savior. We might search and seek our whole lives and never encounter Jesus walking and talking among us.

But we do see the poor. We do see the homeless. We do see the hungry. We do see the sick. And in the back of my mind somewhere I remember that Jesus said – whatever you have done for the least of these… my brothers and sisters… you have done for me. (Matthew 25)

So let’s think about this gospel lesson from Luke again. Let’s imagine for just a second that we are talking about the Christ we meet in the eyes of the poor, in the groaning of the hungry, in the tears of the sick.

On the one hand, we have a holy man, a Pharisee who invites the poor, the hungry, the sick. over for dinner one night. The poor come in and sit down to eat. There is no welcome, there is no real hospitality, simply an invitation… the food has been provided, help yourself. It’s charity, plain and simple.

On the other hand, we have a sinner who goes out of her way to seek out the poor, the hungry, the sick. She sheds upon them her tears, she pours upon them lavish blessings, she soothes them with her offering. She gets down on her knees to take care of them. That is love, plain and simple. That is the beginning of a relationship.

Who are we as the church? Are we the holy ones who hole up inside of our buildings and invite the poor, the hungry the sick to come to us?

Or are we the ones who admit our sinful and broken natures – who know that we need Christ as much as the world needs Christ – and go out and share the grace we have been given?

As Mary and I experienced Annual Conference this year – there was one very simple message that we wanted to bring home to all of you:

Don’t just go to church, BE the church.

The message came at us from a thousand different directions. Preachers and presenters, lay delegates and pastors got up and spoke at microphones to the crowd and everywhere we heard the calling to not just go to church, but to BE the church.

It’s a subtle difference really. But it is the difference between the holy one who invites Jesus to come in and the sinful one who seeks Jesus out in the world. It is the transformation from a Sunday ritual to feed our souls into a daily living out of our faith beyond the four walls of the church.

A DAILY living out of our faith beyond the walls of this building.

I don’t know about all of you… but sometimes that daily living part is hard. Even as a pastor, even as someone called to this ministry, there are times when living out my faith is difficult! We slip into being content with our Sunday morning rituals and our Tuesday bible study and we give to the local food bank and think that is enough – that is all that is asked of us.

But we have a higher calling beyond our own personal salvation. Now, don’t get me wrong, our own personal salvation is important…. But once we believe – there is more that God wants us to do with our lives.

Recently, the United Methodist Church has been thinking about being church. For about a year now, the “Rethink Church” campaign has been going on to help us to ask the question… what if church was a verb? What if our faith was something we lived instead of thought? What if the love we experienced from God was shared with others?

At Annual Conference, we had the opportunity to see a music video put together by young people of the United Methodist Church who have found energy and passion around this idea of being church. And I want to share it with you this morning!

In that video, Mike Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg UMC, says that the real focus of Jesus is not getting more people into the church, but getting the people who are already in the church into the world. Love one another as I have loved you… that is the command that Jesus gives us.

It is what we heard in our gospel reading from Luke this morning… Jesus asks who has loved Jesus more – the one who obeyed all the rules, but forgot hospitality or the one who was found to be in the wrong and yet bowed down before him in service.

As Jesus loved us, and died for us, the only appropriate response is to love with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength.

And it’s the same word that we hear from the first letter of Peter. Peter writes to a number of communities in order to encourage them in their daily living.

He doesn’t tell them to show up on Sunday mornings for worship, but to let the suffering and sacrifice of Christ be the example for their lives.

Peter doesn’t ask us to simply believe and accept that Christ died for us… he tells us to make the suffering of Christ the model for our lives. Or rather, to not run away from love when it is difficult… to love our neighbors like Christ loved them… even if it gets us into trouble.

Love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless – cheerfully! Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let them be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help.

When Peter writes these things– he is not talking about a special set of rules we live under in the church… he is talking about how we should live our entire lives. In all things, everywhere that we go, at work, at the playground, at the city hall meetings, in the hospital where we volunteer… be a good steward of the manifold grace of God. Be generous with the grace and the love that God has given to you.

So, are you wondering why we are even here this morning? Why do we have worship at all – if God wants us to be out in the world loving others?

Because it is here in this fellowship of believers that we find the strength to go out there and to serve. It is here in this community of faith that we are fed the bread of life and the cup of salvation. It is here in the presence of God that we confess the failings of the past week and are able to let them go so we can love and serve anew.

A pastor of mine once described worship as a cup of cold water during a marathon. We stop and renew ourselves and we give thanks to the one who has provided. But then we go back out there and keep running. We keep serving. We keep loving. Thanks be to God! Amen.

full of weeds

Posted on May 17, 20101 Comment

A week and a half ago I found about five hours to prepare and plant my vegetable garden. The spot was mostly cleared – we had burned leaves on the garden in the fall and so there was very little growth of weeds in the spot in the meantime. I did some careful tilling with a hand cultivator and worked in some compost and plotted out my “square plot” garden.

Then, somehow between a morning meeting and UMW in the afternoon I rushed home, planted my seeds, and got back to work.

I haven’t done any gardening since.

Now, part of the reason for that is rain. And rain is probably okay for these little seeds, although they are looking forward to the sunshine they will get in the next few days. Right now, they are under the ground working and waiting and growing and emerging. And so far, the vegetable garden is weed free.

My other garden spots however are a complete mess. The flower beds by the front steps are overgrown and need to be completely pulled up and planted. My tulip bed needs to have the dandilions pulled out and put in some ground cover and/or mulch. The bushes need some help, and some mulch, and some pulling.

Gardening is constant work. And just when you think you have one area taken care of, another place needs your attention. You are dependent on the elements and your own personal resources of time and energy and money for supplies.

But I love it. There is nothing better than getting your fingers dirty and humming sweet old hymns while I dig in the earth. There is nothing better than the blisters that show that you have been hard at work. There is nothing better than the vibrant color of the flowers and plants as they come up.

The same of course, can be said of our faith. There is a reason that Jesus so often employed agricultural and natural parables as he communicated the good news. It takes work, and patience, and outside help, but above all, it’s not something that happens over night.

Hopefully, I’ll get out and get some work done this afternoon. Both internally and externally.

the Christian journey

Posted on January 17, 2010Leave a comment

How do you understand the following traditional evangelical doctrines: a) repentance; b) justification; c) regeneration; d) sanctification? What are the marks of the Christian life?

Whenever I think of the Christian life, a quote I heard Anne Lamott give (whether or not it actually originated with her) comes to mind: God loves you just the way you are… and loves you too much to let you stay there. The Christian faith journey is just that – a journey, a process of discovering our true selves as created by God. In many ways, these four doctrines are lacking because they don’t acknowledge one that must precede them – God’s prevenient grace that allows us to see our need for repentance. The wonder of God is that the instant we recognize our sinful state is the same moment justifying grace is extended to us; in acknowledging our sin we are given grace by which we can be transformed. This begins a lifelong process of growth and transformation and practice and mistakes and setbacks and return to God for forgiveness and renewal and going on to perfection that makes the Christian life.

We can see evidence of that growth through the three very basic and simple virtues – faith, hope, and love. Working on these papers, a quote was shared with me from Teresa Fry Brown that claims, “Hope hearing the song of the future. Faith is the courage to dance to it.” I would add that love is inviting others to take your hand and join in. We were created for relationship with God and with the rest of creation. Unless we are willing to take a leap of faith and actively participate in the transformative love of God, unless we are willing to have hope in the promise that all of creation will be renewed, we are denying the precious gift we have been given and continue to be in need of God’s grace.

Photo by: Stephen Eastop

Lost my religion… or my religion lost me

Posted on December 3, 20091 Comment

Francisco Viri, “The Agnostic Survivor”, Watercolor, 56 x 39 cms., 2002

As many of you know – my husband isn’t involved at all in church life. This whole church and religion thing just isn’t what makes him comfortable and he’s definately not sure that he wants to swallow the “truth” of the church hook, line and sinker. And that’s probably putting it nicely.

This week, I’ve had a couple of encounters that have reminded me why for some strange reason our relationship works – even though I’m a pastor and he’s… well, if he were to call himself anything it would be Buddhist.

First, on Tuesday morning, a lovely woman who is in our small group came up and said that her husband and she had been talking about me. He also isn’t a churchy person. He also doesn’t get the whole religion thing. And he was intrigued by the idea that if my husband and I can figure it out – then he and his wife can figure it out too.

Then Tuesday night, I was given an amazing CD by a friend. It’s Susan Werner’s “The Gospel Truth” and it has such a wide variety of musical genres and prophetic witness and a good mix of faith and doubt all rolled into one. She describes it as “Agnostic Gospel” and I think in many ways that is true.

In her song, Lost My Religion, she talks about being told that girls were more trouble than they are worth by her preacher… and then comes the line – lost my religion… or my religion lost me.

I think for far too many people, they don’t lose their faith, but their traditions lose them. Church people can be too brash, they can be too forceful and judgmental, they can be too close-minded and far too empty of grace.

And some people just can’t stand the hypocrisy. Some people just can’t stand being constantly judged for something they can’t control. Some people have too many questions and don’t think they can ask them. So they leave. Or rather, they are left behind.

As I listened to Werner’s album, and thought about my husband, and that woman’s husband, I started thinking about all of the other people in my town that wrestle with deep questions of faith and life but don’t belong in our churches. I want so much to have a cup of coffee with them and talk. I want to sit down over a beer and ask them what their questions are and promise them that I don’t have cut and dry answers – but that we can wrestle with the questions together. I want to spend time with my youth group parents and assure them that I know their lives are busy, and that Sunday mornings don’t always work for them, but that we as the church can make room in our lives for them if they let us.

My heart is for people who religion has lost.