Randomness

I was sitting in the small chapel waiting to see if anyone was going to join me for worship on a rainy-remember-your-Baptism-July evening, listening to God, talking back to God, and listening some more.

I was looking around the room and reflecting on what is important to me as a fellow-prodigal pilgrim in the Way.  I see the Baptismal Font off to the left, sitting underneath the windows that are streaked with rain on one side and condensation on the other.  So fitting that so much water is visible around the font--were it sitting outside it would likely overflow with rain water.  Again, a fitting image.  I try not to think of how much I don't like the orange copper bowl and wooden stand--but then I remember it's not the style of font that matters, it's the grace we find there.

My eyes move to the table, covered with linen cloth.  I can smell the beeswax candles burning there.  I see the chalice and paten, prepared to offer the bread of heaven and wine of new life.  I forgot to stop at  the commissary to buy a loaf of bread, so there are wafers.  Yuck.  I am reminded of hearing a child talking to the priest I serve with about preparing for first communion.  The child said, "But, Father, the wafers taste...BAD!"  "But the love of Jesus is delicious," the priest responded.  Yes, even wafers and their poster board texture and paper like flavor can convey the delicious love of Christ.

The Book is sitting closed on the lectern, tabbed at the Hebrew Scripture Lesson and the Psalm.  I am struck this evening by the eulogy that David gives to Saul at the opening of 2 Samuel, the lesson I am teaching from this evening.  David weeps over the death of Saul; he tells his minstrels to teach this lamentation to the people.  David gives love to the man who hunted him, who tracked him down and persecuted him.  David sings in his honor and I pray that, someday, my heart will be like David's.

The things in this room: the water, the wafers, the wine, the Word--these things can open us to become like David, and even like David's greater Son.  These things are important to me.  I can sing the old hymn, the old camp meeting songs, the not so old praise choruses, and even the new contemporary music.   They all convey holy messages and bring our hearts into the presence of the Divine.  But these things--the water, the wafers, the wine, the Word--these bring the presence of the Divine into our hearts and that's what makes them so important.

An Invitation

I serve in a unique setting, as a United Methodist pastor.  My congregation has Baptists and Pentecostals and Lutherans and Methodists and Non-Denominatinal folks and seekers and skeptics aplenty--not to mention the ethnic diversity that exists in my congregation.  Serving this community is a blessing, truly it is--despite the challenges.

Today was Communion Sunday for my chapel family.  As I opened the table, calling to mind the interdenominational family that we are, and extending the invitation for anyone and everyone to hear Christ's welcome, I found myself remembering the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus.

"Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through town. A man there named Zacchaeus, a ruler among tax collectors, was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but, being a short man, he couldn't because of the crowd.  So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus, who was about to pass that way.  When Jesus came to that spot, he looked up and said, 'Zacchaeus, come down at once. I must stay in your home today.'  So Zacchaeus came down at once, happy to welcome Jesus. Everyone who saw this grumbled, saying, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.'" (Luke 19:1-7 CEB)

Luke goes on to say that Zacchaeus sold half of his belongings to the poor and repaid four times what he had cheated people out of by virtue of his job.

Why tell this story before celebrating Communion?

Because Jesus saw someone who was curious and, regardless of his holiness (or lack thereof), broke bread in his house.  "I must stay in your home today."

No conditions.

No "when you get your jacked up life in order, I'll come visit you."

Just "I want to break bread in your home."

What a beautiful reminder of the invitation that Jesus extends to us as we gather at His table.  We don't need to be committed.  We don't need to be holy.  We don't need to be anything but open to his grace.

I love this guy!

5 May 2012 "Untitled"

So my Global Church has been meeting for the last two weeks in Tampa, Florida to discuss our rules, regulations and polity.  We do this every four years.  More often than not a few people leave with hurt feelings, but we also tend to leave the meeting with a sense of accomplishment.

I am not sure how many people are leaving Tampa with a sense of accomplishment this year, but I was not there as a delegate so it's hard to judge what has been done, changed, updated, etc via twitter feeds, FB updates, and watching the live feed when I have been able (which hasn't been very much, since I live 13 hours ahead of the time zone in which GC2012 took place.

Here is what I have noticed, though:

We as a church believe in grace.  That is to say, we believe that God loves us immensely even though we're not always lovely people.  And...that God has come to us in the person of Christ to rescue us from our unloveliness.  We didn't earn the rescue, it's a gift, this thing called grace.  If there isn't much we can agree on as a church, we can agree on grace.

Some of us believe that since it's grace and grace is a gift, and we are only rescued by virtue of said grace, not by our deeds (because that would make grace merit based and not a gift) then everyone (an all inclusive everyone) is welcome in the church.  We are all broken and grasping for this mystery of grace; we are all thirsty and desperate for the cool water in the arid desert of life; we are all hungry for the crumbs that have fallen from our Master's table.  Everyone needs it.  Everyone wants it.  Everyone is welcome to come and receive it.  Grace isn't just for the ones who "properly repent" and grace isn't for those who live flawless lives.  Grace is something that we all want and need and how dare we as a Church (any church in my humble opinion) say who is eligible to give, receive, witness to or share this grace.

I look at the life of Jesus and I see a boundary crosser; I see a wall crusher; I see a trouble maker who welcomed the most questionable scoundrels of his neighborhood into the Dream of God, courtesy of grace.  He was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton; he (and his students/followers) were consistently asked why he hung out with such wretched people; he read the thoughts/faces of others who judged him for his questionable associations and he told them to go learn what this means:

I desire mercy not sacrifice.

What I don't get is what is so hard about talking about his life and ministry and letting the chips fall where they will.

I don't get why we have to quantify the brokenness in the lives of others in comparison to our own.  Actually I do get it; it makes us feel more worthy, like the religious guy in temple who said, "Lord I'm glad for my tithes and my holiness and my prayer life and the righteousness I demonstrate.  And I'm SUPER GLAD that I'm not like that horrible sinner over there--the one on his face in front of you--who is so aware of his need for grace that he won't even look at you--yeah, him.  I'm glad I'm not like him."  The thing is, the dude on his face is the one Jesus says we need to be like.  Yeah.  Cool, huh?

Me personally, I want to be more and more like that dude on his face; I don't ever want to forget how much I need God's grace-filled gift.

And this is what I dream of for my Church.  That we just toss the crumbs of grace out for the hungry to fill themselves on.  Or that we be like the sower who went out and threw seeds everywhere, not just in the places he knew to be fertile soil.  He threw the seeds to the ones who were doubt-filled, and to the ones who were full of worry, and to the ones who have hard hearts...because the cool thing about soil is that the more stuff grows in it, the more receptive it is.

I dream that we'll just sow seed and throw grace to everyone and anyone.  That we would make ourselves available to people who want to show us the places where life hurts.  And that when we see those hurting places, we won't judge or condemn or stare in shock, but offer grace, offer love, offer healing and wholeness.

As for me...

Hey JC, JC...

I have always wanted to use this clip on Palm Sunday...but I've yet to find a community that would truly appreciate 1) my sense of humor or 2) the complete appropriateness of this clip on Palm Sunday.

I don't even know what I have to say about this except that I feel like so much of the church has grown into the Pharisees and Priests on the scaffolding, who are terrified of the rabble who celebrate the presence of Christ in their lives and have forgotten about the peace and joy that goes along with grace and forgiveness.

I wonder what would happen if Jesus rode into our places of worship today?  Would he be surrounded by the broken and the hurting?  Would he find them in our midst?  Or would he see people who have forgotten that being the Beloved is a gift that is given to all of us, something we haven't earned, has nothing to do with how well we walk the line?

Thinking Out Loud

Fair warning to anyone reading this one, there's no real plot on this one.  I am very much just thinking out loud.  If you don't mind riding the train of thought, read on.  If you need smooth flowing narrative prose, back away slowly and don't make eye contact...


I believe that the Church is a place for people to work out their junk. 


I believe that people should be able to walk into church and be as honest and vulnerable as a person at an AA meeting would be.  Think of it like this:  "Hi my name is Daniel and my life is an unmanageable mess.  So much so that I know I need help putting it back together."


And the beautiful thing would be that everyone there would say, "Hi Daniel!  Don't worry, our lives are unmanageable messes, too.  Let us walk with you as we learn to be Beloved together."


Bam, community is expressed from the get go.  The foundational belief is that we are broken, but we are loved.  And, we are not alone.  I meet a lot of people who really, truly think that they are the only messed up people in the world.  And I have met more than my fair share of people who really, truly believe that the Church is not a place to express brokenness, or vulnerability, or a desire to be loved.


But I believe that we are given the gift of community because we are all broken.  But we are all loved. 


Or, as I heard in a sermon from Mercy Street:


We believe that life is meant to be lived from two pockets. 


A short rabbinic saying claims that every human being lives out of two pockets. In one pocket there is a message that says, "You are dust and ashes." In the other pocket, the message says, "For you the universe was made." 



Yes, we are all broken.  But we are loved and have been given the opportunity to become more.  Because you don't make the universe for someone you don't love.


And you don't write on the hearts of people you make, "Loved you are" if that promise isn't meant for the heart it's written on.


I love Jeremiah 31:31-34 where it's said of God, "I will write the new covenant on their hearts, and from the least to the greatest, they shall all know me.  I will be their God, and they will be my people."  (Daniel's paraphrase, sorry if I offend.)


God is saying, "My promise to you is that I am yours and you are mine.  I wrote that once on tablets of stone, but it was too easy to think that the Promise was only for the Holy people.  The reason I'm writing it on your heart is because I want you to know that this promise is for you."


Yeah, I'd love to be in a community where we owned our two pockets.  That's my dream.

Some Thoughts for the 4th Sunday in Lent

A few weeks ago I began a Lenten series of messages dealing with covenants in the Bible. The community I lead began the series with a message on God's covenant with Noah (and all of creation) and the idea that our only part in this covenant is to have faith (trust) in God's steadfast love, and that the foundation of any covenantal relationship with God is faith/trust.

The second message dealt with God's covenant with Abraham and Sarah and how covenants give us a new identity and Divine purpose.

The third message was a look at God's covenant with Israel in the 10 Commandments. Covenantal expectations on how we order our lives with God and with each other.

Today was a look, again, at how integral faith is in terms of our covenantal relationships.

Numbers 21: 4-9:
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

To talk about faith in an abstract way is easy. To make faith an idea that we understand doesn't require much from us, not really. Faith = trust, Faith = belief. For example, I believe that when I leave my house in the morning I trust I will get to work safely; I believe I will get there with no issues of mechanical nature. (Driving in the country of Japan requires a bit more than faith in my car's mechanics or my ability sometimes, which takes faith and trust to a whole new level, but that's for another time...)

It is also easy to take faith in God for granted when life is good. I've not had anyone come into my office and say, "Daniel, I'm having a hard time believing in God. I mean, how can God exist when life is so FREAKING great? How can God be real when I have full cupboards, a great job, an ideal family"...yeah, I don't have those kinds of conversations with people very often.

It's when we are standing in the desert, looking at the forward direction, and all we see is sand, and heat waves rising from the sand...and when we look at where we have come from and all we see is dust from the group of people we're traveling with. When all we can see from blinding hot horizon to blinding hot horizon is sand, sand, and more sand, dotted with the occasional dust devil, those are moments when our faith turns a little Jello like. "Watch it wiggle, see it jiggle..."

This is where the people of Israel are as this passage from Numbers begins to unfold. They are a company of several thousand; they have been traveling through the wilderness for a long, long time.  they have been at the edge of the promised land, and yet they chose to walk away in fear.  So they travel in a world of hot, hot sand.  And we all know that in the mix of large groups there are folks who like to murmur and complain. There are folks who are like Hudson from Aliens, "That's it man, game over man, game over! What the f--k are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?" 

One pastor says that no matter where you are there is always a "Let's go back to Egypt committee."  It's staffed by people who weren't happy in Egypt, but they aren't happy where they are either; they would rather go back to the known evil than travel through an unknown in order to arrive at the blessing.

So as they murmur and complain, wondering how much worse it could be: snakes.  ("Why did it have to be snakes?")

And the snakes didn't just affect the "Let's go back to Egypt Committee."  They got after everyone, because murmurers and complainers aren't content with their own misery, they have to make life suck for everyone:

When I reported to San Diego in 1990, no one told me my ship was going to be at sea. No one told me what "Transient Personnel Units" were, or that I was supposed to go there. I was a freshly minted penny from training, looking for my ship--which wasn't there--and I got dropped into a "holding group" for people who getting out of the Navy, voluntarily and involuntarily. I was surrounded by murmurers and complainers, life sucked.  No matter what I thought or believed, the word I kept being exposed to said, "Life sucks."

I was bitten by the fiery serpents of my company's misery, just like the community that was happy with God's provision was impacted by the fiery serpents.

The community knows what to do, though; they have become adept at repentance--they are master artists when it comes to asking Moses to make things all better: "Pray to the Lord to make the serpents go away!"  And Moses, being a good shepherd for his people, goes before God and does his thing.  

And this is where it gets interesting.

God doesn't make the snakes go away.

Go ahead, scroll up and check it out.  Look it up in your own copy of the good book if you don't believe what I have up there.  You'll see it though.

God does not remove the snakes.

God makes the people choose.  Live in misery or look up and be saved.  "Whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live."

Trouble still exists; but so does hope.  This is why we have to circle the wagons every now and again and talk about this word faith.  Faith is easy when life is good.  Faith is necessary when life is hard.  

Lift up your face.  

Sidebar with the Church

“1 O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. 3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” (Psalm 63:1-3)

If you've ever watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, you've seen his sidebars with folks.  He calls them over to one side of his "news desk" and has a personal talk with them.  I'd like to have a sidebar with the Church for a second.  Thanks.

Why is it that we don’t really appreciate something until it is absent or in short supply? (Even if that “short supply” is simply a matter of perspective?) The psalmist in the 63rd psalm says, “My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you…so I have looked upon you.”

I think we allow our spiritual lives to fall victim to the same “don’t eat when you’re not hungry” or “don’t eat when you’re bored” mentality that saves many of us from large bottoms and thick waists. But God calls us to have loosened lips and praising tongues and glorifying lives all the time, not just when we get threadbare and soul thirsty!

God invites, and God deserves, our Glorias on a regular basis. When was the last time you let loose with a Gloria from the core of your spirit? When was the last time you found your completeness in God and found yourself shouting, “Eureka! I found it!”

The Gloria is, for some of us, a regular part of worship. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost! As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; world without end! Amen! Amen!” My question for you, though, is this: when you lift up your Gloria, is the praise from your lips, or from your heart? Ponder this question today. May we not be a people of whom Jesus can say, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far away.” (Matt 15:8 ref. Isaiah 29:13).