We Get to Carry Each Other

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:9-18)

“One life with each other…we get to carry each other”…I like the way this song says we get to carry each other. Not we have to carry each other, or we’re supposed to carry each other…we GET to carry each other. It is a privilege to be in holy community with one another. It is a blessing to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice. It is a blessing to share more love than we have received. It’s fun to try to outdo loving each other—not because we should be in competition, but simply seeing how far love in community can go.

We all have busy lives, those of us who work, those of us who raise children, and those of us who are retired—the idea that retirement gives you more time than you had when you worked full time is a myth that needs to be dispelled, as does the notion that stay at home parents "don't work"—but, if we want to see healthy, vibrant, vital, holy community…we have to decide to start loving even if no one has demonstrated that love to us, even if we feel that we are too busy to stop and share love. Why? Because we GET to carry each other. You only get one life here on earth, why be unhappy? Why be too busy to share in the joy of others, or share the in grief of others? Love genuinely; love authentically, love deeply, love extravagantly…slow down, and love one another.

Grace

"Grace makes beauty out of ugly things."
31b Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him. (Matthew 21:31-32) 

Grace challenges everything we know. Grace upsets the world’s notions of justice, equality, and retribution. Grace says tax collectors, thieves and prostitutes (and even their 21st century equivalents) are welcomed into the God’s Kingdom as much as we are. Grace says that men and women in prison, serving life sentences for heinous crimes, can be just as forgiven as we religious folk, or “normal sinners,” are. Grace is a scandal because it looks at ugliness and sees beauty, it looks at hurt and sees healing; grace looks at tit for tat, eye for eye and tooth for tooth as says, “No, forgive your enemies, love those who seek to do you harm.” 

Where does the scandal of grace fit into your spiritual journey? Do you hold grudges and carry baggage from hurt, pains, or crimes against you? Do you carry the weight of doubt when it comes to God’s acceptance of you, regardless of how “colorful” your past—or present—may be?

The “Law of Karma” says you get what you give. If you give good, you get good. If you give pain, or hurt or evil, that is what you get in return. Grace travels outside of Karma, and—Thank God!—we don’t get what we deserve. But we are challenged to give Grace as we have received it.  Maybe that's a message we need to listen to more than anything else.

If Grace walked up to you, would you be willing to listen the strings of her music as she says, “You are loved. You are forgiven. Take my hand and walk with me.” 

Fighting Identity Theft

16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 

(Ephesians 3:16-19)

Identity theft is a tremendous fear for most of us. My wife left her purse at a restaurant one afternoon, and because her credit cards, debit cards, drivers’ license were all in there and out of her possession for a few hours she called our banks and had all those cards cancelled and reissued. 

When someone asks you to describe yourself—when you talk about your identity—who do you say that you are? Do you start with your family identities (I’m a father, a husband, a son, a brother…), your career (I’m a pastor), your hobbies (I’m a painter and an illustrator; I’m a fledgling runner and a not-so-great gardener…)? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when describing your identity? Where does “child of grace” or “child of God” or “Beloved” fit into your identity? Can you lift up as a prayer, “I was born a child of grace...All because of You, I am!”

It is incredibly easy to let our "child of grace" identity get stolen from us in the name of careers, or societal expectations, or haunting words from others. If you have ever seen the movie Precious, maybe you have an idea of what I mean by "haunting words."  In a scene between "Precious" and her teacher Ms Rain, Precious says, crying, "Nobody loves me!"  Ms. Rain tries to reassure her otherwise, "People do love you, Precious."  Precious says back, "Please don't lie to me, Ms. Rain! Love ain't done nothing for me... but beat me... rape me... call me an animal! Make me feel worthless! Make me sick!"  The movie is full of people trying to change the self-image of Precious, and people who are trying to prevent her transformation.

This is one of the reasons I love this passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: “I pray…being rooted and grounded in love…you may…comprehend…what is the breadth and length and height and depth (of God’s love.)” Paul's prayer, my daily prayer for so many people I meet with and talk to, is that we all come to understand the breadth, depths and height of God's love for us.  I pray that we can all come to the knowledge that God's love goes beyond labels that we hang around our own necks, or that we hang around other's necks.  

I pray that during this season of reflection you may make the first thing in your heart, the first thing off your lips, “I am a child of grace” and that, with your whole being, you may come back with your whole heart to the One who has a love so deep, so wide, so high and that your life would become a mirror reflecting that love to those around you.

Joyful, Noisy Living

I can only provide a link to the song for today: Magnificent

12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)

How do you think God sees you? Do you think that God look at you and sees a broken, tangled mess of humanity or does God look at you and see a beautiful, magnificent creation? The answer to that question is “yes,” but, God looks at us and sees our “child of God-ness” even as God sees our brokenness. God looks at us and sees “beloved” and calls us to live into that vision.

It isn’t enough to just know that God sees us as beloved or beautiful magnificent creations, we must accept that and live into it. The singer in the song says, “I was born to sing for you…I give you back my voice.” It is an understanding of the need to claim the way God sees us for ourselves, to believe and trust in God’s grace, and then live in joyful response to that grace.

If you wrestle with believing that you are God’s beloved, if you have difficulty accepting that God sees your child of God-ness before anything else then I invite you to say as a breath prayer these words offered by one of my favorite authors: “Abba, I belong to you.”

If you have accepted the grace-filled status of Beloved, if you are making it part of your day to day identity, then I challenge and encourage you to make your life a joyful response to that grace by reaching out I the name of the One who reached out to you.

Broken Hearts

34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me....Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' (Matthew 25:34-36, 40)

“Mother’s of the Disappeared” was originally release on U2’s The Joshua Tree album in 1987. U2’s song is about the Argentinean Mothers of the Disappeared—thousands of “disappeared” people of who opposed a 1976 coup d’état who were kidnapped and never seen again. Similar mothers exist in San Salvador and if you do deeper searches you can see that other countries in South America have “Mothers of the Disappeared,” too.

According to homelessyouthamongus.org, there are over 1 million homeless youth in America. How many “Mothers of the Disappeared” does that make in our own country? When we think of hungry children in developing countries, there are 25,000 children under the age of five who die each day from preventable diseases such as malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and acute respiratory infections. Malnutrition is associated with over half of those deaths.* Every day hunger creates 25,000 more “Mothers of the Disappeared.”

Some have said that the corruption that lead to the "Mothers of the Disappeared' in San Salvador should not be compared to deaths connected to hunger and hunger related diseases.  But if we have the ability to change a situation, and stand by without doing anything, it's a form of corruption.  And hunger, and the diseases related to hunger, can be prevented if we --as humans, as the Church--decided to do something about it.  For the Church, we are called (commanded, even) to not let this continue.  “Just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me,” says Jesus. “Hear their heartbeat," says Bono.

My most common prayer is a request for God to break my heart for a people.  When our hearts are broken for people, for communities, we do something about it.  We work for change because we love them.  And when we do something out of love, we are committed in ways that know no bounds.

Let you heart be broken.  Hear the heartbeat of children around the world; hear the heartbeat of children in your own community who do not have enough, and then let love help you answer their prayers.  

*Statistic taken from 30hourfamine.org : “Hunger Fact Sheet”

Table Crumbs

25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26 He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28 Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matthew 15:25-28)

It has been strange for me during the last two years because I have not been doing an event called the 30-Hour Famine.  For eight years I had been doing this event with youth groups of local churches I was serving.  The youth would  fast in solidarity with the hungry poor all around the world, seeking to raise awareness that most people in developing countries can feed entire families on one-dollar per day. One dollar—a value menu item at your local fast food restaurant, the cost of a song, many of them anyway, on iTunes—can feed an entire family in parts of Africa and South America.

One year our theme centered around this verse: "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." (1 John 3:18)  It was amazing watching the youth have this "Aha moment" about what it means to follow Jesus.

The beautiful thing about choosing to follow Jesus is coming to the knowledge that God invites us to be the answer to our prayers.  We get to be crumbs from the Master's Table.   We see "TV's hungry child, his belly swells" and we pray "God, why don't you do something about this?" and "God, why do you allow these things to happen?" As we pray for change to come to our world, as we pray for hunger to end, poverty to cease, God empowers us to make those changes happen, God says, "I have done something about it, I've put you there."

There are times when we become hyper-aware of suffering, last year's earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the earthquake in Haiti, the ongoing turbulence in East Africa.  Sometimes we get the opportunity to see how long term poverty can make bad situations into even more dire situations when disaster strikes. What we need to be continually aware of it that we have the power to change these situations before the tragedy happens—and for many of us, we can do it with “the crumbs from our tables."

Vertigo

5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him…12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. (John 13:5, 12-15)

“Your love is teaching me how to kneel” is how this song called Vertigo ends. After saying repeatedly “you give me something I can feel,” the song concludes by saying that Love teaches us to kneel.

When we talk about sharing God’s love with the world, are we talking about an abstract emotion (the romance of Valentine’s day)--a feeling--or are we talking about the sacrificial, vulnerable love of the servant who washes the dirt and dust of the journey off of others’ feet?

The longer I study, pray, and experience God’s love the more convinced I become that “God’s Love” is not an emotion meant to just coddle and comfort us; rather, God’s Love is a verb that transforms us from broken to whole, that leads us from lonely isolation to places of connection, that helps us move from the identification as worthless sinner to beloved child. God’s Love kneels before us, pours water into a basin, and washes the dirt of our life journey away and THEN says, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”  We're told to do something with our love on behalf of those who need to know about this kind of love.

Go to the place called Vertigo. Walk with God to the mountain tops of life, but remember that we are never meant to stay on the mountains. Let God’s Spirit lift up your days and light up your nights, but don’t forget to let God’s love teach you how to kneel, too.