This week in our Proverbs series we talked about family.
Blast From the Past: Taken, Blessed, Broken Given
This is part 1 of a four part series first published ten years ago.
At the camp I drive for during the summer, we hold a weekly study for the staff. This summer we are looking at Life of the Beloved, by Henri Nouwen. In this book, Nouwen writes about four words that have helped him identify the movements of the Spirit in his life. Nouwen’s idea is that as followers of Jesus we are bread for the world, therefore we are taken, blessed, broken, and given, as the bread during communion. As I read the explanation of these words, I am finding them helpful in my own walk. In this four part series, I am going to share some of my thoughts.
The first word is taken. You could substitute the word “chosen.” We are chosen by God to be his beloved children. He has become our Father, and he is pleased with his children. As Nouwen states:
“Our preciousness, uniqueness, and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time — our brief chronological existence — but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity.”
Unfortunately, we live in a world that tells us that we are nothing, that there is nothing special about us. Those voices bombard us constantly, from advertisements that tell us we must have the latest (fill in the blank) in order to be happy and fulfilled, to preachers who tell us how far short we fall and how much harder we need to work. Those voices do not come from our Father. They come from our Enemy who seeks to steal our joy, kill our spirits, and destroy our lives.
Nouwen gives three ways we can stay in touch with our chosenness. The first is to keep unmasking the world around us for what it is. The world is full of manipulation and destruction. It’s prevailing wisdom is to step on anyone and everyone in the climb up the ladder. When we feel hurt or rejected, we should recognize those feelings, but also recognize that they are not the truth about ourselves. The truth is that the Father loves us with an everlasting love, and has chosen us to be his children.
The second way is to look for people and places where our chosenness is affirmed. These people and places will not be perfect, but as Nouwen writes,
“The limited, sometimes broken, love of those who share our humanity can often point us to the truth of who we are: precious in God’s eyes.”
We need each other, and we need to affirm in each other the precious, beloved children that we are.
The third way is to celebrate our chosenness constantly. We are to be grateful to the Father for choosing us, and grateful to those who remind us of our chosenness. We need to be careful, because occasions for gratitude can also be occasions for cynicism, for questioning motives, even for bitterness. We must guard against this and consciously choose to be grateful.
Rather than making us feel superior or more favored, claiming our chosenness will give us a great desire to help others recognize and claim their chosenness, their place as a beloved child of the Father. This is another reason we need to be in community with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can build up and encourage one another as we gather together as God’s chosen, beloved children.
One final thought from Nouwen:
” It is only when we have claimed our own place in God’s love that we can experience this all-embracing, noncomparing love and feel safe, not only with God, but also with all our brothers and sisters.”
Summertime, and the Living is…
I wrote this as part of our church’s monthly newsletter, and thought I’d share it here.
Officially, summer is not here yet, but the temperatures are getting summery, and the tropics are already heating up for a busy storm season. It seems that the weather is not the only thing heating up. All we have to do is read or watch the news, and it becomes obvious that the culture around us is growing hotter as well. The violence in the country is rising at what seems to be a faster pace than ever before. I fear that it may not be long before that spirit of violence spills over into people and groups we would never think would be affected. The rhetoric coming from those who desire to be called our leaders is becoming incendiary, and even some who claim to belong to Christ are joining in.
We however, are called to be different. We are called, as followers of the Prince of Peace, to be peacemakers. We are commanded to be humble, seeking only to glorify our King. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, even if those neighbors are our enemies. We are even commanded to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Talk about counter cultural!
I believe that Christ is beginning to winnow his Church. The time may come quickly when those of us who claim Jesus as our King will have to put up or shut up. The dividing line will become sharper and clearer. If and when that time comes, we will need each other. We will have to show that love for others that we say we have, and trust our Father to take care of us.
Let’s not wait until we are forced to depend on one another. Let’s begin now.
God’s Hesed
This week we took a break from our series on Proverbs and talked about the Hesed of God.
Saying Goodbye to a Dear Friend
Yesterday evening, our dear friend who has been battling stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in her liver for the past 14 months stepped from this life into the life to come. She is now resting in the presence of the Father. Jan and I were able to say our goodbyes to her Saturday evening.
Audrey was one of the strongest women I have had the privilege to know. She had already beaten breast cancer once when we met her ten years ago. A lot of other people could tell you more of her story, how she served as a federal prosecutor in Florida, joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ and ministered in Eastern Europe and Canada for a few years. When we met Audrey, she was disabled due to what the cancer treatments had done to her, yet her strength was evident.
One of my first memories of Audrey was a time not soon after we became a part of the church we are in currently. After a Sunday service in the evening, a few of the women were going over to Audrey’s house to watch a movie. Jan was a bit unsure about going. Audrey made sure that Jan knew that that she wanted her to be there and promised her a ride home. That was the first of many times I saw Audrey’s compassion and kindness.
A few years later, she decided to study for the South Carolina Bar and seek employment as an attorney in Rock Hill. I remember sitting outside at church gatherings, helping her review. At one point, I mentioned that I had always had been interested in the law and had even taken some courses in constitutional law. She told me that if she was able to get a job with a law firm, she wanted to hire me as her assistant. She got that job, and a couple years later, I became her assistant. I consider it a privilege to have worked with someone who had a reputation as a fighter for what is right. She was a tireless advocate for families and children. It was an honor to help her work on adoption and custody cases, and on helping people with their estate issues. There was never a day that I woke up and didn’t want to go to work. That job ended, but Audrey continued to encourage me as I looked for work and as I began the work I have now.
There are really not enough words to express how much Audrey has meant to Jan and me, and how much we will miss her. She was a true sister in Christ and a great encouragement and help to us, and we are forever grateful for the blessing it was to know her these past ten years. That’s really not enough time, but we take comfort in knowing that we will see her again in the New Creation.
Goodbye for now Audrey. Take your well deserved rest with the Father. We will see you again. We love you.
A Little Update
This morning I had my tenth radiation treatment for my prostate cancer. I have nineteen more to go. As I was sitting in the waiting room, a young woman came in and sat down. She looked like she was in her late teens, early twenties. I thought, “She’s far too young to have to undergo radiation for cancer.” At the same time I thought of a dear friend who is in her last hours on this earth due to cancer, and how she is also too young.
These thoughts, combined with the fact that I was sitting in a waiting room waiting to receive radiation for cancer, made me quite aware again of the fact that none of us gets out of here alive, barring the return of Jesus to set all things right. The past year or so, I have been doing a bit of downsizing, housecleaning, whatever you want to call it with my personal posessions. I have also been doing the same in the ways I approach life and those around me.
The buzz word (or dirty word, depending on your point of view) among Christians, is “deconstructing.” It means different things for different people. I am doing some deconstructing, or maybe decluttering might be a better word. I am realizing that many of the things we allow ourselves to get all worked up about aren’t realy worth the mental or emotional energy. I care and less about national and world politics, although I will still speak about things that I think are important to my faith. I am learning to care less and less about what people think, although there is still a large part of me that wants to be liked.
My theology, like Karl Barth’s, is becoming more and more summed up in the words of the children’s song; “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” and my rule for living has become “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And, love your neighbor as yourself.” I firmly believe that if those of us who claim to follow Jesus would practice those two commands, the church and the world would be better for it.
Life is short. Macbeth said that it is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I heartily disagree. Life is a precious gift from our Creator, and we are to live in a way that gives back to him a bit of the love he has shown us, and that extends that love to those in our lives. Love the people around you, while there is still time.
Look Into Jesus
Back in 1972, one of the pioneers of “Christian Rock,” Larry Norman, sang a song titled, “Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus.” The lyrics speak of people who are trapped in an unending cycle of drunkenness, drug abuse, sexual hookups, and such. Then the lyrics say, “Why don’t you look into Jesus. He’s got the answer.” A simple message, and at the time this song was written, a message that seemed to resonate with many who were looking for answers and realized that they were not to be found in drugs, drunkenness, or promiscuity.
I wonder if we here, fifty years later, might do well to heed the message of this song from the heyday of the Jesus Movement, and look into Jesus in a fresh way. Have we moved from what is really the simple message of the gospel, and if so how do we get back?
In Revelation Chapter 2, Jesus tells John to write to the church in Ephesus. The message is that, for the most part, they are doing well. Their deeds, hard work, and perseverance are known. They do not tolerate wicked people, and have tested and rejected false teachers. They have endured hardship and have not grown weary. I think most of us would appreciate those words said about us. But, there is more. There’s something else that Jesus has to say to this church.
“I have something that I hold against you.” Things are not all well and good. In spite of their good works, their perseverance, and their doctrinal purity, Jesus has a problem with them. The problem is that they have forsaken their first love. They are told to look and see how far they have fallen. They have “moved on,” and have “matured” in their doctrine and everything else, but their love for their King has grown cold.
In Matthew 22, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment in the Law is. His reply is in two parts. He states that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Then he says that the second commandment is like the first: Love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Jesus then goes on to say that the entire Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments. In other words, all of God’s commands boil down to two things. We are to love God and love others. To the extent we obey those two things, we obey every command God has for us.
I believe that the Church here in the West, especially in the United States, has left her first love. We used to proclaim the Gospel, and the result was awakenings which shaped the culture. Even though America has never been a “Christian nation,” it was a kingdom of this world that was, in part, influenced by the Church. Much has changed over the years.
Historians may disagree on the beginning of the decline of the Church in the United States. I believe that the present issues that we see are the result of the Church forgetting that we are part of the Kingdom of God. In the history of the American Church, there have been times when the spiritual climate has not been healthy. Hence the need for revival. In the last half of the 20th Century, many in the Church began to see themselves as agents of change in the political system and in the culture, rather than citizens of a greater kingdom. On both the right and the left, people began to equate electing certain people to public office and enacting certain legislation with following Jesus. This has continued into the current century.
When there are proclaimers of the gospel spending their time pushing a partisan agenda or stating that a certain candidate is going to “save America,” we have lost our first love. When we separate with fellow Christians because of the political or social views, we have lost our first love. When we proclaim that the Constitution is equal to Scripture by our words and action, we have left our first love. When we care more about our “freedom” than about loving and serving others, we have lost our first love. When we see Jesus’ commands in the Sermon on the Mount as something for a future time and not really for us today, we have lost our first love. When we tell people that all they have to do is say a prayer to be sure of a “home in heaven when they die” and neglect to teach them what it means to follow the King of Kings, we have lost our first love.
We need to regain our first love, the love for the King that causes us to take seriously his words about loving others as we love ourselves, about putting the interests of the Kingdom ahead of our own, and about dying to our own self interest. The stakes are high for those of us in the Church. In Revelation 2, Jesus tells the church that if they don’t repent and do the works which they did at first (the works done out of love for their Lord) he will remove them from their place. I believe the Church in America is in danger of being removed. Whether that will take the form of persecution and oppression or just a growing irrelevance, I don’t know. I do believe that the next chapter in the history of the Church in the West will be similar to the first century, as the culture becomes more and more like that of the Roman Empire. Our question may well be whether we will give our allegiance to the True King or to the empire.
May God bring us back to our first love.
Don’t Be Worthless: Proverbs 6:12-15
This week we looked at the worthless person who uses speech and actions to destroy.
Blast From the Past: Fear and Love
This was first published back in 2010, There is still a lot of that around, although some of the details may have changed.
In the song, “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” Death Cab for Cutie sings about death and following a lover “into the dark.” It’s a song that sees death as an unknown. There are many folks who see death and life after death that way. I’m not going to discuss that here though.
What struck me (and broke my heart) were the following lines:
In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
“Son fear is the heart of love”
So I never went back
I never went to Catholic school, but I did grow up in a religious culture that was fear based. We were told early in life that we needed to accept Jesus as our personal Savior so we could avoid going to hell. Lurid descriptions of hell, some going beyond what Scripture says, were part and parcel of the “gospel.” Movies like “Thief in the Night,” and stories of holes drilled deep into the earth and the screams of the damned coming from those holes, were designed to scare people into “making a decision” for Christ. Today, churches use things like “Judgment House,” and “Helloween” to do the same thing.
There was also an emphasis on “living right,” which of course meant following a certain set of rules and regulations. The motives for doing right included not wanting to lose rewards in heaven, not wanting to damage our “testimony,” and not wanting to be “taken home” early because of our sin. We tried to live right because of fear of the consequences if we didn’t. Even those of us who rebelled tried to make sure that we asked forgiveness before we went to bed, in case we died in the middle of the night.
While there are warnings throughout Scripture about judgment, and I do believe that there will be some sort of judgment when Jesus comes again, I think the more prevalent theme throughout the Bible is love. The Israelites were told that God was leading them in his love. They were commanded to love God with their entire being, and to love their neighbors as themselves. God presented himself to Moses as the God who is, “slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” All through the Old Testament, the people of God were reminded of his love for them and of their responsibility to love God and to love others.
In the New Testament, Jesus states that all of God’s Law can be kept by loving God with our entire being and loving all others as ourselves. He said that the way others would know that we belong to him is our love for each other. In John’s first letter, he writes about the importance of love. 1 John 4:18 is the verse that puts to rest any notion that “fear is the heart of love.” This verse sums it up:
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
Addendum: This morning, during the Lord’s Supper, we were asked the question, ”Do you really believe that King Jesus loves you.” I think at various times in our lives, we might all answer, ”Well no, not really,” It’s something we all struggle with from time to time, but we shouldn’t. Everything God tells us, in Scripture and in our spirit, tells us that he loves us with a furious, unquenchable love that reaches beyond eternity and defeats anything that could harm us.
Believe that King Jesus loves you. Let it permeate every fiber of your being. Remind others, and show them that same love. As Jesus said, ”Fear not.”
Blast From the Past: A Baby Changes Everything
This was first posted in 2009. It’s still very relevant.
One night last year we watched “A Home for the Holidays”. It was a tv special about adoption. At the beginning, Faith Hill sang a song about the birth of Christ, and there was a recurring line that stated, “a baby changes everything”.
To me, that sums up the message of Christmas. A baby changes everything. The world that this baby was born into was under the control of an oppressive empire. The people of God were in bondage and waiting for a redeemer to come and free them. Then along comes this baby, born into a working class family and placed in a feeding trough. What many of the folks at that time didn’t realize was that the Redeemer had come. The One who would free them from bondage had arrived on the scene. Everything was about to change.
When Jesus began his public ministry and people began to follow him, most still didn’t realize the extent of the changes that were coming. They didn’t know that even their expectations had to change. They didn’t see that the bondage they were under was spiritual and not just political. They didn’t see that the Kingdom that was in their midst was a kingdom founded on love and grace, not on power.
Everything has changed. Because this baby was born in Bethlehem, because God took on humanity, we can now be saved from the oppression of sin. We can now enter the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of love. Everything has changed because this Kingdom does not operate like the kingdoms of this world. This Kingdom turns things upside down, or maybe it’s the kingdoms of the world that are upside down. Everything has changed because this Kingdom is concerned, not with serving self, but with serving others.
Everything has changed because this King will not die and allow another to take the throne. He has conquered death, and so His subjects will reign with Him forever in the new heavens and earth.
It’s true. A baby changes everything.