Holy Spirit – Page 8 – Salvaged Faith

Postmodern Church and the Farmlands of Iowa… Part 3

Posted on September 15, 2010Leave a comment

In this installment, I want to talk about some of the “best practices” that I see coming out of emerging, missional, and postmodern churches. Some of these practices are mentioned in Diana Butler Bass’ book, Christianity for the Rest of Us, but they also come from Kester Brewin’s, Signs of Emergence. A few of the “best practices” are ones that I have been introduced to as I have been in conversation with pastors across the country.

First, I think in emergent churches there is a deep shift towards becoming a community of practitioners. Rather than offering services to be consumed, these congregations invite individuals to become a part of a communal pilgrimage. Or as Dan Kimball claims, the emerging church will have to teach people “that they are the church and that they don’t simply attend or go to one.”

Faith becomes “a craft learned over time in community,” according to Bass, as she describes the Seattle Church of the Apostles which takes seriously this communal pilgrimage. Realizing that many in the community had no experience whatsoever with Christianity, they developed a process called The WAY, focused on creating pilgrims rather than members. In the year long journey, “the goal is to help them at their own pace to come into a living relationship with Jesus Christ that takes over the center of their life.”

As I have seen this lived out, on the ground, many emergent faith communities are actually small groups that are connected to more institutional churches. In some ways, I think of them as that magic 10% of the people who get it and who really want to live out their faith. As Taylor Burton Edwards has talked about Wesleyan missional groups and accountability groups and class meetings – in some ways he has encouraged people to focus on those people who want to take the deeper plunge. Their journey and witness can become a catalyst for other transformations in the lives of your congregation members and in people completely unconnected to the church. Praxis rather than doctrine rules this shift.

Another “best practice” is that these churches take seriously their location. Kester Brewin describes these churches as adaptable systems that resist standardization. While the modern scientific perspective took something from one context and directly applied it to another, the postmodern realizes that cookie cutter ministry will not work and that each church needs to be authentic to its own location.

For example, Bass describes an Episcopal church that began a Hispanic congregation for new immigrants. In their worship practices, and especially in communion, they felt they needed to pay attention to what it means to be “home”:

Think of the joy of going home to the house you grew up in, with the smell of your mother’s cooking in the kitchen, the tastes of food, the sounds of family. Here, like your mother’s table, the Lord’s table welcomes you home. Here we are an extended family in the Spirit through communion. You are all members of God’s house.

That might seem comforting to us who fondly remember what it is like to be gathered around a parent’s dinner table. But how much more welcoming is it for a community of people who are far from the homes they grew up in. How much more inviting is that statement for a people who are creating a new home in unfamiliar territory. When you are disoriented and alone, the reminder that God welcomes us into a wider family is powerful. The goal is not to market to a specific audience or offer a product; rather the church must look seriously at how the gospel comes alive within the experiences of the people.

In Indianapolis last year, I was able to immerse myself in the Earth House Collective and Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church. They recognized that their neighborhood was quickly changing and that their dying congregation needed to adapt. So they transformed their basement into a restaurant and their fellowship space into a coffee shop and they tore out the pews and in addition to Sunday night worship, they host plays, dance performances, movies, and concerts. Their church became a community center and thousands of people come in through their doors each year. That is not something that I can just transplant into a rural community – but it authentically came from their location near the Indy arts district.

The third thing that I find imporant in these churches is their spirit of discernment. Brewin describes this as creative waiting:

So against our hasty judgment, and in God’s scientific wisdom, before we can experience the transformation that is vital to our survival, we will be required to wait. To be acted on gently, gracefully, and peacefully. Shaped, not crushed; guided, not dragged.

The Church of the Epiphany in Washington, D.C. has adopted the more traditional Quaker practice of open worship. They are asking what God wants for them as a church by listening together in small groups. They gather to hear the truthfulness of God. There are no speeches, no panel discussions, and no debates here, only the deeply countercultural act of silence… When ready, someone shares… the speaker, who is never interrupted by the group, tries to focus the presentation on God’s presence in the midst of these concerns.

This practice is about deep openness to change rather than the modern church’s resistance to it. Just imagine if a congregation was able to say, “just because we’ve never done it that way before, doesn’t mean we can’t.” Bass reminds us that the Christian story is about metanoia or “the change of heart that happens when we meet God face-to-face.” To deny this, is to deny our calling.

Finally, these congregations live with “both/and.” This is the postmodern notion of being comfortable with paradox and contradiction, yet it is also deeply Christian. When asked what he had learned during his long life about the Christian journey, Elton Trueblood responded with the word “and”:

It is good and bad; it is made up of life and death; it is being close to God and sometimes distant… It is the task of the Christian to live in the ‘and,’ in the ambivalence of life.

All the vital congregations Bass studied lived in this tension. They were “creative and traditional, risk-taking and grounded, confident and humble, open and orthodox.” The church I interned with in Nashville, Tennessee was large enough that some of those tensions were felt. We were a fairly diverse group of folks – liberal and conservative, traditional and yet also willing to try new things. A small and powerful worship service began on the fourth floor of the building in an old theater space and I think for a year and a half – the folks who gathered there really lived in that tension of the “both/and.”

These four characteristics are what have inspired me about the praxis and theology of the emergent church. I find in each of them deep biblical roots and have seen the transformation that occurs when they are allowed to take center stage in communities and congregations. But for the most part – that happened in urban contexts, in population centers, with resources like money and talent and time to help foster them.

What happens when the theology and practice are transported to a small county seat town in Iowa? Stay tuned…

A Mighty Wind

Posted on September 6, 2010Leave a comment

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This morning it is windy. And that is an understatement.

Because of the cool weather we have had our windows open and the cats love to sit on the sill, with just the screen between them and the great outdoors. It’s a good view, they can smell everything and their ability to hear the birds is increased ten-fold.

But this morning, the curtains are going everywhere with each gust of wind. The breeze throughout the house moves things off the tables… and I love it. It’s refreshing and cool and crisp and just a perfect morning to sit with some coffee and blog.

My cats are not pleased.

I think I spent about half an hour petting Tiki and reassuring him this morning. We were sitting there in the living room and with every gust of wind, his ears would perk back and he would meow and I think he was a bit overstimulated for a lazy holiday morning. He didn’t know where to look, or what to do, as this is not a typical occurance inside of our home. I’ve noticed that since I left his side, he sits in the middle of the room, far away from the windows on both side. Our other cat… Turbo… the one who likes to sit in the windows the best, has still not made an appearance.

Wind turbines like these have become common over the skies
in Iowa. You can look out and see hundreds turning and know
that the wind is moving… where you would have forgotten it
was moving before.

The blowing of the wind always leads me to ponder the Holy Spirit. She blows where she will, she stirs things up and creates a ruckus, and we are either comforted or agitated by her presence.

When we are ready and receptive to her promptings, it is a refreshing change of pace. I was recently at a training event with some of my leaders and we were exasperated by the lack of movement we had seen with a process we were implementing at church. We felt stuck and yet we were surrounded by people in prayer and song who had been hearing the Spirit’s beckoning. And so got through the morning and sat down for lunch together and over food and breaking of bread, the Holy Spirit showed up. In half an hour, we had completely reinvisioned how we might lead our church through this process and felt energized and moved to go wherever the Spirit sent us. It was mighty.

But when we are not ready for that change, when we are not looking for the Spirit and she shows up… trouble is brewing. We tend to isolate ourselves and run away. We make noises and complaints about how we have never done things that way before. We run around like chickens with our heads cut off and then when its obvious that the changes are here to stay – that the spirit is moving and there is nothing we can do about it, we plop down and give up. We get in the way. We refuse to budge. That is how I responded (for the most part) to my calling. I tried to ignore it. I told myself and others it was never going to happen. I headed off to do something else all together with my life.

But the Spirit will keep blowing. And even when you sit down and cross your arms and your legs and refuse to budge the Spirit will gently nudge you to look around and somehow you’ll realize that you are where the Spirit wanted you to be all along. And maybe at that time you’re just more receptive to seeing it. And you stand up, and she fills you to the brim. And you realize, it was a mighty ride.

The Gift of Gentleness

Posted on August 1, 2010Leave a comment

What is meekness? Gentleness?

The opposite of gentleness is seen in both of our readings today…

First, from the book of Kings:

1. Elisha is a man of God and yet he is human… and in a moment of frustration and embarrassment, he lashes out at a group of young boys.

2. Is that part of the scene something familiar to you? Can you remember the grumpy old man who lived down the block from you and would shout curses from the windows? Do you know of rude young people who jeer the elderly, the disabled, or anyone different from them?

3. Now, perhaps letting a slip of the tongue speak out a curse against the boys is one thing… but our young prophet Elisha doesn’t quite have the power of God firmly in his grasp yet. Aristotle once said that a person who displayed gentleness would be angry only “on the right grounds, and against the right persons, and in the right manner, and at the right moment, and for the right length of time.”

4. This is NOT what Elisha did. He may have been angry at their teasing of him, but they were only children, and rather than an eye for an eye – his curse called out bears from the woods that killed those children on the spot. We can look at this and firmly say it was ANYTHING but gentle.

Secondly, we see the opposite of gentleness in our gospel reading today from Luke.

1. Jesus sends forth the disciples at the beginning of our chapter with guidance as to what to do if people are rude and inhospitable to you: Shake the dust off your feet, turn and walk away.

2. yet by the end of the chapter… the disciples have already forgotten his example. When a town will not welcome them, James and John run back and ask Jesus if they can call fire down from heaven to destroy them…

3. Again – we have rash, arrogant, and excessive behavior… which Jesus quietly rebukes and they move on.

So, what is gentleness?

The Full Life Study Bible: restraint coupled with strength and courage.

Aristotle: halfway between excessive anger and indifference.

Paul demonstrated the kind of restraint Nathan had when he confronted David. As he writes to the Corinthians he asks them: “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit.” (1 Cor 4:21). He could be angry. He could be harsh. As a teacher, he probably knew something about discipline… but he wanted them to repent and transform their lives not out of fear… but out of the love and gentleness that was shown to them.

In John Wesley’s writing, we see the spirit of gentleness in his command to “do no harm.”

As our former Bishop Reuben Job has reflected upon that command, he writes: “I have found that when this first simple rule was remembered, it often saved me from uttering a wrong word or considering a wrong response.”

He adds, “I have also found that this simple step, when practiced, can provide a safe place to stand while the hard and faithful work of discernment is done.”

Maybe that is the key. Responding in gentleness allows us to take a step back and to determine proper response. And I think that if we are faithful to the scriptures we will find that gentleness should be the core of OUR response to wrong in the world…

Think of our gospel reading…

The brothers recall how the power of God was unleashed on people and communities unwilling to repent and they believe they are justified in doing the same.

But “Vengeance is Mine.” Says the Lord.

These words come from Romans 12:

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

You will heap burning coals on his head… that sounds an awful lot to our modern ears like we should send people to hell. But a colleague shared with me that this injunction is actually similiar to the first too – to feed and give drink to our enemies.

You see, in ancient cultures, fire was everything. Without a fire you had no warmth, nothing to cook over, no protection. A fire meant life in your home. And if your coals went out – your family faced death.

Sometimes if someone was nearby, you could take a container and they would fill it with some of the coals out of their own fire.

This passage says – if your enemy is hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; if the fire in their home has gone out… if the light of hope has gone out… if the fires of love had gone out in their heart… HEAP burning coals on their head. Overcome evil with good. Love them. Be gentle to them. And by doing this – you will light a fire in their heart.

And in our gospel reading, when Jesus rebukes the disciples, Jesus he is not only giving us an indication to how we should respond to injustice – with gentleness… but also how God-in-flesh responds:

“Jesus’ awareness of His power enabled Him to be gentle to those in need. The broken reed He would not crush but would fully restore. The flickering wick of a lamp He would not put out but would cause it to burn brightly again.” (Stanley Horton)

That is not to say that there will not come a time when there will be judgment. God will do what he has promised and will make all things right. But that judgment is not for us to make. Our job is to point to the truth and to love with generous hearts.

But as we look at our fellow brothers and sisters, we must remember that the gentleness of Christ died for us while we were yet sinners…

The gentleness of Christ is his power… Again from Horton: “ He gently takes the sinner and makes him whole.”

The Gift of Goodness

Posted on July 25, 2010Leave a comment

We’ve heard of goody-two-shoes. Good riddance. Goodness gracious great balls of fire. And Goodbye. Things can taste good, we like to read good books and tell good stories. We tell our children to be good and to get good grades.

But what does it really mean to be good?

The Random House dictionary has 41 different definitions for the word… and that’s just the adjectives.

But in general, I think we usually say that something is good if it fulfills our expectations – if it does what it is supposed to – and if we get some kind of benefit from it.

Take our cookies for example. If we had taken a bite of the cookie and they were old or dried out… they wouldn’t be so good. They wouldn’t have been all that they were made up to be.

In the same way… we are good when we fulfill the expectations of ourselves and others and if we benefit others as we do so.

I keep using the word benefit… and that is because there are lots of things that fulfill their purpose that we would never call good. For example – those cookies might taste good – but if you never got to eat them… if I never shared them… they would have been good to no one but myself.

Or, think about what makes a good chef’s knife. It is sharp, it cuts the way that it is designed to, and we can use it to prepare food and to eventually be fed. We benefit from the design and use of a good chef’s knife.

But in the hands of someone unskilled, like a child, the knife becomes dangerous and what we thought was good could harm them.

In the hands of someone who is angry or revengeful – the very thing that we called good only a moment ago can turn into a weapon. It still has the same qualities that fulfilled its purpose… only it is being used for ill rather than good.

So to be good… we must fulfill the expectations of ourselves and others and benefit others as we do so.

Throughout the scriptures – we hear stories of men and women who were good: Noah was a good man and so his family was saved from the flood. Lot was a good man and so his family was rescued from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Rahab the prostitute took in the spies from Israel and her family was saved from the battle of Jericho.

But there are plenty of people who were not so good. Who didn’t do what was expected of them. Who lived not to benefit others, but to benefit only themselves.

And it is to such people as these that the prophets were sent. Prophets like Samuel, Elijah and Elish, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habbakuk, Hosea… and our prophet for this morning: Nathan.

We have here a story of paradox. David was a man after God’s own heart. We always think back on all of the good things that he did – his trust in God, his loyalty to Saul, his music, and his love… but in some ways, David was a kind of bad dude.

As we heard this morning, David breaks two commandments all in a weeks time. He sleeps with another man’s wife… one of his soldiers Uriah’s wife Bathsheeba… and then to cover up the fact that he has done so – he has Uriah killed out on the battlefield.

Nathan’s job here is simple… bring God’s judgment upon David for these acts. But what I want to look at this morning is how the goodness of Nathan shines through.

First, Nathan helped the truth to come to light… Ephesians 5 says that God’s children live as children of light… “for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth.” He didn’t shy away from the fact that David had done wrong, but made sure that David knew that he had done wrong.

Second, Nathan knew what David had done wrong… He knew that he was unrighteous

The right thing to do as soon as David confessed would be to have David stoned… but goodness goes beyond simple righteousness… goodness goes beyond simply pointing out the wrongs in others.

He not only told the truth, but nowhere do we have any indication that Nathan is prepared to follow the letter of the law. He instead waits for a response from David.

As people of faith, too often we are quick to bring judgment upon others and stand waiting with signs of condemnation. We are good at bringing unrighteousness to light. We are terrible about leading people into repentance.

When our righteousness is only about what is right and what is wrong, it becomes a weapon of judgment.

But by telling David a story, Nathan does just that. He helps him to see what is wrong, and in doing so, he also provides an opportunity for David to confess, to repent, and to live a different life.

Third, Nathan blessed David because of his repentance

He didn’t just bring the right thing to light, but he went the extra mile. Nathan did what was needed to set David back on the right path… what was needed to build him up and to help him live a better and more faithful life.

There would be consequences from his actions… and yet there was also room for God’s grace and mercy to flow back into David’s life and Nathan not only acknowledged that, but helped to point it out.

As Christians, we believe that all have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us are in need of grace and repentance.

I believe the basis of righteousness is fact that God sets us right. God forgives us. God leads us on the right paths. It has nothing to do with how many answers we get right or how many good deeds we do. It has everything to do with God.

But you see, that grace and that mercy that flows into our lives is not ours alone. It is meant to be shared.

If we fail to extend grace and mercy and love and forgiveness to our brothers and sisters, than we merely turn the precious gift we have been given into a weapon of destruction.

The Gift of Kindness

Posted on July 18, 2010Leave a comment

On Monday, a young woman walked into the church and asked to use the telephone. Not a problem, I said. And while she sat in the office dialing numbers and getting no response, I sat at my desk trying to pick out hymns for this Sunday.

Are you stranded? I asked. She had just been released from the county jail, she said, was far from home, and no one was coming to get her. She finally got a hold of a friend or a neighbor… someone she thought might help and was chewed out over the phone. She hung up in frustration.

And so I asked her if she needed a ride. She had no other options. She was seven months pregnant and needed to get home. We got in my car and headed out. And on the way out the door, she asked if she could have one of the bibles on the shelf.

As we drove, we talked about where we grew up. We talked about semi-trucks. We stopped for food, because she hadn’t eaten all day. We talked a little bit about church – but only enough to learn that she had never found one that had felt like home. She had dreams that she wanted to fulfill… but also was raising her kids by herself and didn’t know if it would ever happen.

But she got home. And for the moment – that was all that was important.

An outsider might look on that situation and see a random act of kindness. Going out of your way to do something nice for a complete stranger. But what I did on Monday morning was far from a random act… and this young woman was far from being a stranger.

This morning, we get to think about kindness… about where it comes from and what it looks like… and we are going to do so through the story of Joseph in the land of Egypt.

Do you remember Joseph? He was one of the 12 sons of Jacob – the same Jacob we talked about last week. And he was the first born to Jacob’s most beloved wife Rachel. That fact alone gave him a special place in his father’s heart and the rest of his brothers hated him for it. They schemed against Joseph and captured him one day and sold him into slavery.

Now – if my brothers had just kidnapped me and sold me into slavery, I’m not sure that I would be a very happy or nice person. But as we heard the story of Joseph’s time in Egypt this morning – we find a young man who doesn’t let anything stop him from being a kind person.

In the new testament greek – the word for kindness is chrestotes and it describes a sort of temperament that is respectful and helpful without expecting anything in return. Rick Renner describes this word in his book, Sparkling Gems from the Greek, as “being adaptable to the needs of others.”

Adaptable might be the best way to describe the young man Joseph. When sold into slavery, he tried to figure out what he could do to best please his master Potiphar. He served him with respect. Respect – even to the point of denying the advances of his master’s wife.

When that got him in trouble… Joseph adapted. His new home was the jail. His new task was to be the best prisoner he could be. And his willingness to be obedient and courteous put him in good favor with the jailor. Joseph was promoted in the prison system and was put in charge of the other prisoners.

And although he was their unjustly… and although he had no reason to treat the other prisoners with respect, he did. He cared for those other prisoners and did what he could to help them. Which means that when the royal cupbearer and baker are thrown into jail… Joseph is the same person that he was the day before… he treats them with the same respect he would have treated anyone else in that prison. And his kindness eventually gets him out of that jail and in front of the king.

In the letter to Titus, we see that kindness, chrestotes, is obedience, it is avoiding a fight and not picking one either, it is showing courtesy…. But I think above all – it is being ready for every good work. Kindness is always looking for the next person that you can bless. Kindness is seeing others not as competition or as obstacles to your success – but as recipients of your grace. It doesn’t matter if those people are beneath you or the very kings and rulers and presidents of your nations. Kindness is not just being nice or saying nice things… kindness is being ready to act on behalf of another person… and OUR job is to look for ways to bless others.

So we have learned from the greek word for kindness… and we can learn even more about kindness by looking at the Hebrew word for kindness – khesed. Khesed teaches us that kindness is not random and spontaneous behavior… but kindness is the way we behave when we have a commitment to another person.

Just as we sometimes play word games – we too can see the meaning of this word khesed by playing around with it also. In the book of Job… God compares the ostrich to the stork…. You see, the ostrich abandons its young by leaving them in the sand where anything could step on them and any animal could eat them. The stork however is loyal to its young and protects them at any cost.

Now, that is all well and good, until we hear that the word for “stork” is khasidah… which sounds an awful lot like khesed – or kindness. In fact… in some bibles, this passage from Job actually uses the word “love” instead of “stork” as it compares the ostrich.

In the Hebrew understanding, kindness was not something shown to a complete stranger – but it was based in your relationship with that person.

Relationships come in many forms… We can have master/servant relationships …which is part of the reason Joseph was so kind of Potiphar and for so long warded off the advances of his wife.

We can have covenantal relationships like marriage, and commitments that arise because we are citizens of a town or a state or a nation. In fact – it was because they were all children of Israel that there was such a strong urging to care for the widows and orphans in the midst of the people…

One of the threads in this story of Joseph is the continual presence of God. And Joseph knew that every person he encountered was someone that God had put in his life. And so he treated Pharaoh the same way as he treated his fellow prisoners.

As Christians, I think our obligations to other people go farther than our families and our civic belongings. We have been made children of the Most High… and because of our relationship with God… we must love who God loves. We must show kindness to whom God shows kindness.

And… we must show kindness in the same way that God has shown kindness to us.

In the gospel of Luke we hear these words from Jesus: “even sinners love those who love them, and are good to those who are good to them… love your enemies, do good to them – then you will be children of the most high, because he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”

It is the same message we get in Titus… the loving-kindness of God saved us not because of anything worth that we had done… but according to his mercy. We were once the ungrateful and the wicked… and some days we still are.

Our job, as recipients of this grace and this mercy is not to go out and point to the sin in the lives of others… but to love them as we have been loved.

When that young woman walked into the church on Monday, my heartstrings tugged a little. It was like God was saying… I know that you want to serve me – so here is your chance – Feed my sheep. Open your eyes and let go of all that stuff you think you are supposed to be doing on a Monday morning in the office. Go…. do… love.

This beautiful young woman had a thousand different needs, and I couldn’t begin to meet all of them. But I could get her home. I could stop and have lunch with her. I could let her know that I didn’t care if she had spent a few nights in jail or a thousand years or if she was Mother Theresa – but she was loved by God and by me and she deserved to have someone help her. I could do that. God could do that through me.

And God can do wonderful and amazing things through you, also. Live so that you might be open and adaptable to God’s promptings. See everyone around you as a child of God who you have a sincere obligation towards. And remember that if we live in this open way and pray for the Spirit to fill us… that God’s kindness will be your kindness. Amen and Amen.

Some things are more important than bulletins

Posted on July 12, 2010Leave a comment

Today a young woman walked into the church and asked to use the telephone. Not a problem, I said. And while she sat in the office dialing numbers and getting no response, I sat at my desk trying to pick out hymns for Sunday.

Are you stranded? I asked. She had just been released from the county jail, she said, was 80 miles from home, and no one was coming to get her. She finally got a hold of a friend or a neighbor… someone she thought might help and was chewed out over the phone. She hung up in frustration.

Do you need a ride? I asked. She had no other options. She was seven months pregnant and needed to get home. We got in my car and headed out. And on the way out the door, she asked if she could have one of the bibles on the shelf.

But she got home. And she will continue to be in my prayers. And I pray that God will open up pathways before her and that a community near her will open their arms wide and help her back on her feet. But for now… she got home. And that was way more important than the bulletin.

For a few weeks now, I have felt in a bit of a church rut. Maybe a spiritual rut is more like it. I’m doing the church thing, I’m going through the motions, but isn’t there more that God calls us to than preaching and teaching and organizing my desk? Let me take that back… the rut has been deeper and run longer than a few weeks, but only in the last few weeks have I noticed. My ordination really brought some things into perspective.

Growing up, I loved to play “office.” I liked staplers and to make documents. I’m good on the computer. I would make a fantabulous secretary. But I’m not called to be an administrative assistant. And I’m not called to be an administrator. I’m called to share God’s love with people. I’m called to be out in the world, as the hands and feet of Christ. And doing church often gets in the way of that. I sometimes let the church get in the way of my doing that.

When she walked into the church today, my heartstrings tugged a little. It was like God was saying… I hear you – I know you want to serve me – It doesn’t matter that you have been a little off course lately – Feed my sheep. Open your eyes and let go of all that stuff you think you are supposed to be doing. Go…. do… love.

This beautiful young woman had a thousand different needs, and I couldn’t begin to meet all of them. But I could get her home. I could let her know that I didn’t care if she had spent a few nights in jail or a thousand years or if she was Mother Theresa – but she was loved by God and by me and she deserved to have someone help her. I could do that. God could do that through me.

The bulletins? They can wait for another day.

The Gift of Patience

Posted on July 11, 2010Leave a comment

For about two years now, I have been playing disc golf. It is a game that is played in many ways like your more typical golf… with a tee pad and the aim of getting your ball or disc into the hole in as few strokes as possible.

As I have grown in my ability to play, I have picked up drivers, midrange discs and putters. They each have their own purpose – they fly in different ways, and you use different discs for different sorts of shots.

But I’m still not very good at the game. I bogey and double bogey more than I like to admit. And unlike golf – there is no handicap on the disc golf course… although for a while, we played with something called “Katie-par…” meaning I got an extra stroke on every hole =)

I think what I enjoy most about the game is that I can be outside, hiking through beautiful courses. The grass is beneath my feet, the trees loom around me, we play around streams and ponds, on top of hills and in valleys.

Most of the time, I’m comfortable with my lack of skill. I do the best I can in any given moment.

But there are those days… and I’m sure that any of you who play games or sports has had them… when nothing seems to go right. Every shot is off. I lose sight of the fact that I’m still learning the game and expect perfection from myself. I get frustrated and that frustration only makes me more prone to miss the next shot, which in turn makes me more frustrated and angry. There was actually a hole this last weekend where I hit four trees in a row, on four consecutive shots before I got to the basket. There is nothing worse than when those beautiful trees become obstacles, and I have to admit, sometimes my temper gets the best of me. I want to be good at the game, and I want to be good, NOW!

Patience is not a virtue that comes easily to us. We come with short fuses. We are personally invested in our work and our play and we want to see the results of our efforts. But when things start to fall apart, instead of taking the long view – we begin to lose hope, we begin to get angry, and often we behave in ways that are far from Christian.

This morning, we revisit a familiar biblical story about two brothers… Jacob and Esau. Esau is the older of the two – a rough and tumble sort of guy who thinks with his gut. Jacob on the other hand, is quietly clever… a mamma’s boy who uses his wit to often trick his older brother and gain the upper hand.

Now, as we might remember the stories… Jacob uses these skills to steal his birthright from the older brother and also a deathbed blessing from his father.

Esau is furious at the outcome of these events. Everything has just been taken from him. This isn’t the kind of frustration that comes from missing a few shots on the golf course – this is the kind of existential angst that comes from having your very identity called into question. As we heard in the scriptures from this morning – Esau seethed in anger against Jacob… he brooded, “The time for mourning my father’s death is close. And then I’ll kill my brother Jacob.”

It was the last straw. Esau just couldn’t take it anymore and he snapped. And Jacob had to flee for his life, far off to the land of his uncle, Laban.

Now, most of the time, when we visit these stories, our attention stays with Jacob. We follow him to Paddan Aram where he works for seven years for the hand of his beloved Rachel… and then for seven more years when he is tricked into marrying Leah instead. We follow his story as he spends time increasing the flocks and in turning tricking his uncle Laban and ends up with the best of the flocks and the herds and a huge family of wealth and power.

We could point to Jacob and talk about his patience. About how in spite of being cheated by his uncle, he stuck to his promises and waited for God’s blessings. We could talk about how his persistence and trust led to his success.

But this summer, we are taking a different look at these stories. And so instead, I want us to look back to the land of Canaan and at the son who was left behind.

This fruit of the spirit, patience, is often translated as longsuffering. It is the gift of being able to endure in spite of the circumstances that have come against you. It is a hopeful fortitude that reminds us that there is light at the end of the tunnel… that if we trust and wait, the outcome we are praying for will come to pass.

Barclay’s commentary says that patience is the grace of a person who could revenge a wrong but doesn’t.

Patience is the grace of a person who could revenge a wrong but doesn’t.

Now, out on the disc golf course… that would mean that patience is not picking up my disk and chucking it at the nearest tree out of frustration for them being in the way. Patience is seeking an opening, waiting for the anger to pass, breathing deeply, and finding a way forward. Patience is remembering that this inconvenience, this obstacle, will not last forever.

If patience is the grace of a person who could revenge a wrong but doesn’t… then I think the person who actually exemplifies the spirit of patience is not Jacob, but his older brother, Esau.

The first way that Esau is patient is that he doesn’t strike out immediately in anger when his brother cheats him. If we followed their story from the time they were just children, I’m sure that there was more than just these two instances of trickery. And yet, up until this point, up until the moment that Jacob steals away his blessing, Esau has managed to not let it get to him. But this last time we hear about… well, this is the last straw. He has just had everything taken away from him and Esau is pissed off… and yet even in the midst of his anger… we might even say righteous anger… he has enough control to wait.

Many people in today’s world who had something like this done to them would immediately grab the nearest weapon and seek out their brother. But Esau waits. He thinks. He knows that there are some things that are more important at the moment… namely, the fact that his father is dying.

Now, if part of being patient is being slow to anger… I want to say that Esau has this only partially right. He became angry, all right. But he did not allow that anger to consume him in an instant. He thought about others. He allowed his anger to be placed on the back burner.

When we find ourselves in situations of great frustration and anger, I think patience is taking just a moment to breathe and to pray. Patience is asking for God to come into this situation and remind us of the things that are truly important in the moment, and to let that anger move out of the way, if necessary.

The second way that Esau helps us to understand what patience is comes from the way he lives his life after Jacob flees.

He acts not out of spite, but in all things tries to follow his father’s wishes. When he hears that Jacob was sent away with the command not to marry a Canaanite woman, then Esau himself, seeks out a woman that would please his father. He seeks out his half-uncle Ishmael… and marries one of his daughters.

And that is all we hear about his life for the next 14 years.

Not once does Esau plot and plan and come looking for his brother. Not once does he try to live out that statement of anger that his brother would die. No, he moves on with his own life. He carves out the best possible future for himself. In spite of the situation that he finds himself in, he endures. That is longsuffering. That is patience.

Making the most of our given situations is a very hard thing to do. We like to sit and stew and wish that things were different. We breed anger and resentment in our hearts. And we spend too much time looking into the past, instead of living into our new futures.

I have spent many mornings talking with the pastor from the Lutheran church . As many of you know, his wife, has a degenerative condition and as time goes on, her body will continue to fail. But as I have talked with Pastor, he also tells me about the patience and peace that his wife has. She knows that God will heal her… sheknows that God has already healed her… but she is patient and she knows that that her time of healing may not come in this lifetime. But, her diagnosis is not an obstacle to living the best possible life that she can today. She has a hopeful fortitude that keeps her going, day by day.

Finally, Esau teaches us about patience through the forgiveness of his heart. Do you remember back to that definition of patience… as the grace of a person who could revenge a wrong, but doesn’t? That is Esau.

Had Esau been the wrong kind of patient… the kind of patient that waits for the right opportunity and moment to strike back… then his opportunity would have come when Jacob returned to the land of his father.

And Jacob knows it. Jacob trembles with fear at the thought of the anger of his brother. He sends messengers ahead to let Esau know they are coming… it’s almost as if he is saying – I’m here… let’s get this over with.

Jacob divides up his great wealth and sends it over the river in waves as a gift to soothe his brother’s anger. He sends his wives and children over – in essence saying – all that I have is yours if you want it.

Had Esau been the wrong kind of patient… the revengeful kind of patient… he would have destroyed those gifts. Those four hundred men standing with him on the other side of the river would have taken the flocks, killed his wives and children and come rushing over the river to kill the trickster brother.

But Esau was a man of great patience. He put his anger on the backburner of his soul, and allowed God to let forgiveness replace the hatred. When Esau was given the chance to revenge the wrong that was made upon his life, he instead ran to his brother, fell into his arms and wept.

And to all of those gifts – the flocks and the wealth that Jacob sent over… Esau didn’t take them out of righteous indignation. He didn’t say – it’s about time that I got my birthright and my power and wealth back… no – he looked his brother square in the eye and he said, “I have enough, brother… keep what you have for yourself.”

The past was forgiven. All that mattered now was their futures. The future of two brothers who were reunited at long last.

It is difficult to forgive. And it will take time to forgive. But when we fail to do so, we carry around with us a burden that is often too heavy to bear.

Let us instead seek God’s patience. The kind of patience that our Master has for us… the kind of patience that allows us to come back to him time and time and time again – after a million wrongs have been committed and greets us with open arms and tears of joy. Our reading from the second letter of Peter this morning reminds us that God’s patience is our salvation… God’s gracious spirit that chooses not to revenge the wrongs we have committed. God’s gracious spirit that waits until we finally turn back towards her. Amen and Amen.

outline preaching

Posted on April 13, 20101 Comment

Some weeks are hard for preaching. I usually am able to take the time to get into the texts and to prayerfully discuss them with colleagues and to stew over the gospel message as I do the things that it takes to be the church… and other things as well.

But some weeks, there is too much to do to take the time to write a manuscript. I lose hours of sleep on Saturday evening and Sunday morning painstakingly typing out the right words to say. I have always been a manuscript preacher and it takes so much more time… on the front end at least.

This last week, I had no time to write. I had thought and thought and thought… but there was no time to sit at my computer and write. I sat through deep theological conversations on death and life and the new creation (which was my sermon topic)… but there was no time to sit and write. I wrestled with what God was calling me to preach… but there was no time to sit and write. I spent time with friends I haven’t seen in a year… and there was no time to write.

Sunday morning at 6:15, I got up and took some of the jumbled thoughts that had filled my life for a full seven days and jotted them down. I put the stories in order. I found the natural flow of the message. I connected the gospel to the epistle in a quick comparison and contrast. I knew where I wanted to get and I trusted God would get it there. (or, rather, I thought I knew where God wanted us all to get and I prayed God would send the Spirit) And I let it be.

I think that Sunday morning – even with only 4 hours of sleep – was a good morning for preaching. Thanks be to God the Spirit showed up. Thanks be to God that I had the courage to step away from the pulpit to tell a story for only the second time since I’ve been here. Thanks be to God that I didn’t have it all written out and that the message flowed through me. Thanks be to God.