Photo-a-Day Day Four: Joy

On my morning run I came across this bold declaration of truth, painted on the sea wall.

Not everyone would agree with this statement, but I hold that it is a choice to believe this or a choice to believe the alternative.

I choose to believe in beauty.

#Joy #RethinkChurch #UMC #Lent

Photo-a-Day Number Three: Alone

For my Lenten reading, I have been re-visiting the book Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus.

In this entry he is talking about  Belonging, having a place that takes us in, makes us part of something else.  He describes how it happens in healthy ways and not so healthy ways.

"You were never meant to be..." ends one page; the next page has a single word.

"alone"

The Invitation to Lent, in the Book of Worship, tells us that Lent was a period of preparation for converts; it was also a season of penitence for those who had fallen away from the community of faith; it was a reminder of how much everyone needs to renew their faith and how desperate we are for grace.

We aren't meant to do life alone.

#RethinkChurch 
#UMC
#Lent

Photo-A-Day Number 2: Look

Road Mirrors are an exceptionally helpful part of driving in Japan, as many intersections happen to be blind intersections.

So as I thought about the theme of the day, "Look," I thought of road mirrors and the added perspective they give while we try to safely navigate our journey.

Somehow this makes sense to me from a spiritual perspective. Our spiritual disciplines are intended to give us a wider view, some added perspective as we navigate this journey.

#RethinkChurch #Lent #UMC #Look 

Photo-A-Day Number One: Announce

It's a terrible photo, but to be fair I was on my morning run and it was about 5:20 a.m.

The theme for Ash Wednesday from Rethink Church's 40 Days of Photos for Lent is "Announce."

I want to be as open to seeing the words revealed around me rather than planning out what pictures I want to take based on the word/theme of the day. 

So I was running and it's dark and I come upon this area of construction that I frequently encounter on my running outings and I recognize that the red flashing lights are directing people to the safe place for walking. There's even thick rubber mats to reduce the risk of tripping over rocks.  But the band of red lights sort of shout into the darkness, "Here! This is the safe path! This is where you need to be." And I knew that this was today's picture.

Even if the quality is horrible.

#rethinkchurch
#Lent
#Announce

Ash Wednesday 2015

Erwin McManus tells a story about an experience he had while rafting (in his book Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul).  In the calm water the rules about a tight/snug life jacket “made about as much sense as a seat belt in a parked car” but after the raft had flipped in the rapids and he was fighting to keep his feet up and his head above water the rules made complete sense.  He describes the thoughts of fear and regret as he looked for a way to get out of the rapids, all while struggling to keep his feet up and his head above water, and in the midst of it all “it was as if I could hear a voice inside of me both crying out and confessing without shame, ‘I want to live!’” A few pages later he says, “I am convinced that in all of us there is a voice crying out, a confession waiting to be declared without shame, ‘I want to live!’”

Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but I am increasingly convinced that if we forget that this relationship we are in—we being the Church, we being the Bride of Christ—if we forget that this relationship we’re in is nothing more than a matter of the heart, then we are missing the whole point and we are giving away opportunity after opportunity to live an abundant life.

In my church tradition we frequently voice a prayer of confession that begins with the most important thing we can ever confess: “We confess that we have not loved you (God) with our whole heart.”

I spent several years away from Church in my teens and early 20s.  When I returned to the church it was in a tradition where we had weekly confessions.  As we made our confession we stood before a large icon of Christ, with the priest standing at our side.  One Saturday I was standing there, looking into the eyes of the icon and I quietly offered, “I don’t know if I have anything to confess this week.”  I mean, I had been an impatient father and husband on more than one occasion, and I had been a less than charitable human on more than one occasion, but why bother Jesus with that? So I said, “I don’t know if I have anything to confess.”  And the priest, standing next to me, quietly said, “Maybe, Daniel, that is where you need to start.”

We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart…

Why do we say that? Because the Shema says, “Hear, O Israel…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.”  And Jesus, when asked what the greatest Commandment is says, “The first and greatest commandment is this: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…” (He’s reciting the Shema, by the way.)

And if you didn’t notice it when the scriptures were read this evening, there is a theme woven throughout:

Joel  says, “Return to me with all your heart;” in the psalm David says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; “ and in Matthew Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Each one of these texts reminds us, “Don’t forget, this relationship is a matter of the heart.”

One pastor mentions, “A commitment of the heart is not simply an emotional response. Since the heart was considered the seat of thinking and willing, it implied total dedication.”  And if you think about it, when we see a musician playing a certain way we say they’re playing from the heart, or when an athlete puts forth a stellar performance we say that person really put their heart into it.  

So Lent, this season where we prepare ourselves is all about cultivating God’s Christ-revealed love in our hearts.  Regardless of the disciplines we take up, or the things we set aside, we’re really letting the Holy Spirit take some farm equipment to the soil of our hearts.  It’s all interior work.

So why then do we mess around with such a visible thing as ashes?  I mean, Joel tells us to rend our hearts not our garments, and Jesus says not to put our piety on display for everyone to see; and isn’t a big ashy smudge of a cross doing exactly that?

Truth be told, I’m not sure the ashy smudge of a cross is a display of piety.  “Most of the time we need to think, and others need to think, that we are decent persons…the Ash Wednesday liturgy stage-manages us into public exposure: we are not what we seem.”  Piety on display boldly declares, “Look at my holiness!”  The ash says, for the world to see, whether we want it to or not, “Here is my brokenness, not my piety; here is proof that I am not as put together as I would like you to think I am; I am ashes, I am dust, and I need you to forgive me. I need resurrection.” And maybe from somewhere deep inside, the ash gives voice to the confession, “I want to live!”

Saint Anger No More

And there's always a place for the angry young man 

With his fist in the air and his head in the sand 

He's never been able to learn from mistakes 

He can't understand why his heart always breaks 

His honor is pure, and his courage as well 

He's fair and he's true, and he's boring as hell 

And he'll go to his grave as an angry old man.

~Billy Joel “Angry Young Man”

"Rage Face"

I meet quite of few of these people. People who will go their graves angry. Truth be told, they break my heart and they motivate me to be more forgiving.  

I want to be more forgiving because I don’t want to go to my grave as an angry old man. I screw up a lot: I’m still learning my vocation, and I’m still learning how to be a good husband, and I’m still learning how to be a good father, and I’m still learning how to be a good son and brother. And in the midst of this learning, I am able to recognize my own need for grace and forgiveness.  And in recognizing my own need I cannot help but recognizing the that the other has the same need.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.-Martin Luther King, Jr.

But more than simply recognizing that the other has the same need for grace as I do, I want to be more forgiving because it has the ability to free me from being angry. 

I’m still learning this.  Just want to say that up front.

If I forgive the other (whether the other is a person or an institution or a situation), the other no longer has control of me on an emotional level, or on a spiritual level.  

I remember facilitating a study called Companions in Christ, The Way of Forgiveness.  The author of the study said something along the lines of this, “Forgiveness frees us from the power of another person’s nightmare.” As I scoured the Internet looking for this quote I came across this one:

"Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another's control...to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else's nightmare.”-Lance Morrow

I have told this to many people in words less eloquent than Marjorie Thompson (the author of The Way of Forgiveness) or Lance Morrow. So maybe I’m just putting this up here as a reminder to myself of these quotes; to save them for future reference, perhaps?

But to be honest there’s a part of me that hopes that someone reading this needs to read those quotes and can begin the process of forgiving the other.

It really is a process, too. I can’t say how much I wish that I could just flip a switch and the work of forgiving was done. But I find that the more I live, the more I am faced with reality that forgiving the other is a long, ofttimes painful, process. And the prayer that accompanies us along the way are the words “I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)  These words help me accept that I cannot do this work alone, but that I have the desire to step out onto the path that may lead me to forgiving. And to be on the path to forgiving means I’m on the path to not being angry about that event any more.

I wish that we were able to get through life without encountering people and situations that cause us pain. But since that’s not going to happen, it’s helpful for us to learn the capacity to forgive.  Otherwise, we just end up being angry. And the more angry we are at the other, the less we want to trust the other.  And we won’t just distrust the other that has done us harm; we will begin to distrust all the potential others who may bless us and we end up being angry and alone.

Some of you may be thinking that I’m just being naive, that forgiving others just makes it easier for others to take advantage of us. Maybe you’re right, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

(I’m stewing a post about how naivety is probably more of a virtue than a vice, so look for more on that topic later.)

Jan 11, 2014 -- Baptism of the Lord

Photo at The Yellow Spring in Glen Helen Reserve in Yellow Springs, Ohio;
photo credit: Jennifer Dawson

Grace, peace, and mercy are yours in the name of the Triune God…

I always enjoy the opportunity to preach on this particular day in the cycle of the Church year.  For the traditions of the Church that follow the lectionary calendar, the first Sunday after the feast of the Epiphany is called the Baptism of the Lord.  In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Baptism of the Lord is called Theophany—which means a manifestation within creation of God’s uncreated glory.

I enjoy preaching on this particular Sunday in the cycle of the Church calendar because it is the anniversary of my Baptism.  I was baptized on Theophany at Saint Innocent Orthodox Church in Eureka, California.  It was a typical North Coast of California day for January.  Cool mist hung in the air, the sky was gray.  The community had brought the font into the Nave of the Church and filled it with a water hose connected to the outside spigot.  There was a lot of ritual, which I don’t specifically recall; what I do recall is the triple dunking in the cold water—the water from the hose connected to the spigot outside— and how that on the third dunk I didn’t have the chance to take a good breath, so when I came up and gasped for air it was like my first breath all over again.  I also remember that as I stepped out of the font the clouds parted briefly and the sun shone through the church windows.

Then there were the words I spoke to my friend a few months later, “I think it would be kind of cool to be a priest someday.”  (But that conversation, and that part of my story, is for another time.)

I love preaching for Baptism of the Lord because it’s my re-birth day.  But this isn’t about my story.  This is about the narrative of Jesus’ Baptism by John in the river Jordan and the text we just heard and what that text might say to us today.

Mark’s Gospel is a fast paced read.  Many commentators speak of immediacy as a theme of Mark’s Gospel.  In the first chapter the word “immediately” occurs eight times, depending on the translation and throughout the gospel “immediately” occurs almost 40 times.  Mark wants to communicate to his listeners who Jesus is and what Jesus did.  

So…who is Jesus?  Mark 1:1 says this: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  This is how Mark begins his gospel.  There is no birth narrative in Mark’s Gospel.  Coming out of the Christmas season where we are surrounded by the word pictures of Matthew and Luke telling us about how the birth of Jesus came to be and shepherds and angels and magi, we now get Mark’s gospel which begins at a sprint by saying, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  And since there are no angels appearing to Mary or Joseph—since Mary and Joseph don’t have roles in the opening of Mark’s gospel—we have the Baptism of Jesus.  This moment, where the heavens are opened and the dovelike Spirit descends and the voice from heaven declares, this is the moment where Mark establishes that in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus God is breaking into the world—and the uncreated glory of God is manifest in creation—the Kingdom of God is here.

Pretty cool, but what’s the Baptism of Jesus have to do with the Church today?

One pastor wrote, “The glory of our Lord is not just a spectacle. He comes to save us and make us new people. God forgives us, heals us and sends us. God will give us missions and challenges beyond anything we can imagine.” (Robert B. Slocum, Forward Day By Day, 10 Dec 14)

This is precisely what we are confronted with the baptism of Jesus.  If we hold that Jesus’ Baptism was a moment of Theophany, a manifestation of God’s glory, then we have a choice of letting it be a spectacle trapped in a single moment in time or letting it be alive and real in the world today.

God appeared to Abram and blessed him to be a blessing, Abram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah; Jacob wrestled with God through the night, refusing to let go until God has blessed him; Jacob’s name became Israel and he never walked the same after meeting with God; God appeared to Moses in a burning bush and Moses became the liberator of slaves, leading them to the promised land.  Isaiah has a vision of God in the heavenly throne room, cries out in fear and then says, “Here am I; send me!”

The glory of our Lord is not just a spectacle.  To be a witness to these moments is an invitation to transformation.  To be a witness to these moments is to hear God’s call to be a blessing, to have our walk changed for the rest our lives, to liberate those who are enslaved and lead them to freedom.

What does the Baptism of the Lord have to do with the Church today?  Everything.

I know a church that reminds the congregation of these words every week: “God loves you exactly where you are; but God isn’t content to leave you that way.”  We are baptized with the Baptism of Jesus, not the baptism of John (Acts 19 talks about this distinction) and with the Baptism of Jesus we, like Jesus, have the Spirit of God take up residence within us, and, again like Jesus, have the voice of God call us the Beloved.  We are marked with the Cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever.

Baptism is identity and purpose.  Our identity is that of beloved.  Our purpose is to live as beloved.  To recognize we are blessed to be a blessing.  We called to speak the name of beloved over others, to call forth that identity from within them.

Henri Nouwen says it like this: “Claiming your own blessedness always leads to a deep desire to bless others…the blessed one always blesses. And people want to be blessed! …we can have no illusions about the darkness. The loneliness, the homelessness, the addictedness of people are all too visible. Yet all of these people yearn for a blessing. That blessing can only be given by those who have heard it themselves.”

Make no mistake, the loving purposes of God are found in the waters of Baptism.  The desire of God is for us to awaken to our identity as Beloved, as blessed ones! But with the acceptance of that identity comes the acceptance of purpose.  Of loving as we have been loved.  

Let me give you something to take into your devotional and prayer time this week—if you’ll have it—I need to contemplate these things as much as anyone else does.  First, spend time receiving the gift of being Beloved.  Sit with that knowledge, regardless of whatever voices you may have lurking around the edges; voices telling you that you need to “prove that you are worth something… so that you will earn the love you desire,” sit with the gift of being Beloved. Let this voice be the core of your identity: “You are my Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  Second, ask God how you might live as the Beloved, and look for those who would cross your path this week who need to hear that.  Frustrated spouses, cranky or sad children, people who are looking to the world as a source of life and find only frustration and sadness.

Like I said, I need to contemplate these things as much as anyone, so I hope you’ll hear my offering with love.