Don’t get me wrong here…we’re not talking about what makes us significant.  We’re talking about what makes a life significant.  What makes you and I look at someone and say, “They are living life!”

As we were having our conversation, this question kept popping into my head, “Who am I becoming?”  Do you ever ask that question?  For those who know me, I think it is THE question of Scripture.  If we never take time to ponder that question, then we never move beyond a life that rolls out of bed, goes to work, comes home, and rolls back into bed.

Jesus’ sermon on the mount begs this question of his followers.  Listen to just two of the verses from that famous sermon:

• “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:20-21)
• “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matt. 7:13-14)

What answers this question of who am I becoming?  The answer, your holy calling!  For centuries the great spiritual writers have written on calling.  Calling, in a sense, is what animates the soul.  So, what is holy calling?  Here is how I view it:

• If spiritual gifts answer the WHAT question.  Namely, what should I do for the Lord?
• And if personal style answers the HOW question.  Namely, how should I do whatever I should do for the Lord?
• Then holy calling answers the WHERE question.  Where should I be investing my life?

Calling transforms the drudgery of routine into the daily movements of a significant life.  Scripture is overwhelming on this idea of calling.  God is committed to your life being one marked by significance.  Check out the following passages:

• It is God who works within us to will and to do what pleases Him. Philippians 2:13
• Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.  Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to Him, trust in Him and He will do it. Psalm 37:3-5
• I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
• For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance for you to do. Ephesians 2:10
• Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1

Calling is not a thing to do; it is not a project.  Calling is not easy.  It will require great sacrifice for you to do it.  Furthermore, calling is not an idea that will be easy for you to embrace.  True calling will bring with it a slight overwhelming sensation BUT, and I stress this last part, living in your calling is the only thing that will bring you alive.

You will know when you’re in your calling.  You don’t want to be anywhere else.  You get the sense that you were made for this time and this place.  You will feel a rush of the Spirit.  Where many things in our life are good but take away precious energy and time from us, calling brings new energy to us as we step out into it.  Calling moves a good life to a great one.

So, as I was pondering this signficance/calling idea, a few descriptors came to mind of people who live in their holy calling.  Those individuals whom I feel move their life from good to great:

• People who move their lives from good to great are able to subtract good to pour their limited amounts of time and energy into the great.  It’s easy to remove bad things from our lives.  (I say easy in that it’s simple to identify bad behaviors.)  It’s difficult to take something that is profitable and do away with it.  People who discover their calling are able to subtract good for great.
• People who move their lives from good to great are able to quickly and succinctly tell you the calling God has upon their life.  Calling is in your DNA.  It doesn’t take me 30 minutes of “ums” and “ers” to tell you what I do for a living, who my parents are, where I live, and what I enjoy to do.  Calling, much the same way, is woven deep into our souls.  You should be able, in even one sentence, to tell people what captivates (or consumes) your life.
• People who move their lives from good to great take captive each thought, each word, and each action to make sure it is moving them closer to their life’s passion.  We are all given a finite amount of time and energy.  Great are those who recognize this finitude and get busy to make sure every moment of their life is directed at the greater story of their life, namely, their holy calling!

My challenge to you this day, take time to break away from the busyness of life to be alone with God.  In your conversation take a journal or a scrap piece of paper and begin mentally doodling.  Think to yourself, “If time were not an obstacle in my life, I would…”

Follow the rabbit trails and discover thoughts/feelings that bring life to your spirit.  Listen to God.  Ask yourself a ton of questions regarding where you enjoy spending time, what activities do you look forward to, where are you finding life/fulfillment right now?

Then, begin to try to craft some sort of sentence, or sentences, based on what you’ve discovered.  Take those sentences/thoughts and run them by some people you trust.  Make sure these are people who know you and will be honest with you.

Take their suggestions, and return to the process once again, from the very start, and begin listening to the honing voice of God once more.  Never stop being amazed by the things God has in store for you in this most important area.

In closing, my friends, my prayer for you is summed up by this classic quote by Fredrick Buechner in his classic book, Listening to Your Life:

“Listen to your life.  See it for the fathomless mystery it is, in the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

May your life’s calling be found tucked away in the beautiful grace that is God’s love for you.  And, may your journey be a daily awakening of that grace poured anew upon you!

“Dear Yada, I am sending you my resume to see if yada, yada, yada… I am looking to transition to a church where there is as high a value on relationships as there is on accomplishing tasks and objectives, a church where people are not seen as fodder to accomplish corporate mission statements, a church where people are enjoyed as precious in God’s sight… I’m at a point in my life where my goal is not to find a job, but to find a community that loves God and each other and loves so naturally and so well that others are caught up in that love to want to know Jesus and to be more like Him… It just seems like it’s time to stop counting success by butts in seats and bucks in baskets. What about love and joy and peace and self control and grace and patience and gentleness and kindness? I don’t mind measuring effectiveness (I actually like good qualitative data on church ministry), but my question is “What would Jesus measure?”

I may have lost out on getting some interviews with churches, but it sure felt good to lay it on the line. At some point we need to wrestle with how committed we are to transformational ministry versus settling for transactional ministry. Are those butts in the seats becoming more like Jesus? Or are they just more like the culture around us? Are we simply making church goers or are we making disciples? And how do we assess this?

The data is in (if there has been any doubt about other studies, just look at the results from the Willow Creek Reveal study). Church going does not correlate to greater love for God and others. Church activity does not correlate to more joyful lives. And as painful as it is to acknowledge, church going doesn’t seem to correlate to growing the fruit of the Spirit of God in the people of God. Doesn’t it seem like it is time to think about doing church differently.

When we want to be like someone, eventually we will need to do the kinds of things that person does. If we want to be a great swimmer like Michael Phelps eventually we will need to stop watching him and reading about him and start to jump into some swimming pools. If we want to like Tiger Woods, we will need to swing some golf clubs eventually. If we want to be like Yo Yo Ma, eventually we will have to do the kinds of things he does with the bow. If we want to be more like Jesus, eventually don’t we need to do what Jesus did? And do you remember anything about Jesus proposing that church going was his central strategy for transformation?

If you are reading this article, you’re probably already committed to the place of community and group life for transforming discipleship. But have you considered the kind of group life to which Jesus was dedicated? If we want to be like Him and if we want our ministries to produce disciples like Him, perhaps it is time to assess the role of community in his transforming disciple-making. When I look Jesus’ life, I see he was committed to at least 6 concentric circles of friendships. Is this perhaps a model of disciple-making for today?

What were the circles of friendship in the life of Jesus?

Many of us have become more and more convinced we cannot grow like Jesus apart from committed interdependent community in a way that we share our lives together (koinonia). Jesus modeled and the Scriptures teach that we belong to one another as family in the Body of Christ (Philippians 2:3-5). We are invited to meet together and to encourage each other daily (Hebrews 10:24-25). If we want to model our disciple-making on the practices of Jesus, it seems clear that commitment to community is essential to growth in the Christian life!

Healthy growing followers of Christ can be intentional about nurturing each of the “circles of friendship” Jesus nurtured. And the reason to do so is because we see each one uniquely contributes to Christ-likeness. To miss any of these circles of friendship impoverishes a dimension of the Christ-like life. And each circle of friendship is a unique gift to the believer from the Lord.

The Circle of Communion (you and the Trinity)

This is Jesus in harmony with the Father and the Spirit. Here we meet our triune God at the very center of who we are in His presence. Commitment to friendship within the Trinity has been and will go on forever. When we came to Christ, the Trinity actually invited us to enter their circle of friendship. This is a moment by moment daily abiding commitment in the life of a Christ-follower.

The Core Circle (2-4 people)

The core friends for Jesus were Peter, James, and John. Our core circle consists of our closest spiritual friends with whom we partner for support, nurture, and accountability. Hopefully it includes our spouse and family! But it should also include prayer and accountability partners who love us enough and are bold enough to ask us anything about our lives. Where two or three gather in His name Christ is there. Core friendships experience Christ together in unique ways. I encourage every Christ follower to intentionally and prayerfully develop devoted core spiritual friendships.

The Cell Circle (5-15 people)

Jesus’ cell was his 12 disciples. Here we meet in small groups, usually in each other’s homes, for prayer and deep, profound life change. The small group circle will be the friends you will turn to in times of need, sadness, and joy. They will know your children’s names and will be the ones your children will come to see as extended “aunts” and “uncles.” They will be your friends for the rest of your life. This circle is about fun and deep friendship. And when it is healthy, it intentionally touches lives beyond itself – just like Jesus did with his disciples’ small group.

The Congregation Circle (25-75 people)

Jesus’ ‘congregation’ (mid-size) circle consisted of the 70 disciples he sent out two by two on ministry trips. In many churches this is Adult Bible Fellowships, generation groups (20 Somethings, Seniors, etc.), and sometimes men’s and women’s ministries. It also consists of seminar and ongoing teaching settings that include the element of authentic community together. This circle is about learning together the truths of our faith in ordered and sequential ways, it is about serving one another in love, it is about the ‘one anothers’ in Scripture and it is about reaching into and serving a needy world.

The Celebration Circle (usually 75+ people)

Here we gather to hear God’s Word preached, to pray, to worship, and to be inspired to be Christ-like change agents in the world. This was where Jesus gathered in the temple and synagogues. This circle is about being awed by God greatness, surrendering to Him, and being inspired to live worthy of our calling in Christ Jesus. This circle reminds us that we are part of something far bigger than us – we are part of the Kingdom of God as it marches across cultures and across centuries.

The Crowds (the unconverted)

The Scriptures also invite us to be authentic living witnesses to those who don’t yet trust Christ. We are to be models of integrity, faith, hope and love before a watching world. Jesus ministered to the unconverted crowds. To be like Him, every Christian is also invited to intentionally form redemptive relationships with those who don’t know Christ as the Forgiver and Leader of their lives. This circle is about having a Kingdom of God mindset for the unsaved across the street and around the world.

What might our lives, our disciples. and our ministries look like if we encouraged intentional devotion to not just one or two of Jesus’ circles of friendship, but to all six? And how do we do that well?

This is what we will explore in the series of sermons over the next month and a half at Park Street Church.

This particular cause has been one that I’ve received a lot lately.  Maybe because I’m a Youth Pastor and the sender of such cause invites assumes that I believe in their petition.  The cause: Put prayer back in school.

Put prayer back in school!

The heart of the sender is good and they deeply believe in the cause.  But, I sometimes fear that we expect too much out of government institutions (such as public schools).  In a public school, in one classroom, you can range from born-again Christians to Muslims, atheists to agnostics.  Do we really want to impose our prayer time on them?

But really, this only scratches the surface of the issue.  This issue is intrinsically tied to the Ten Commandments debacle and the call to bring God back into the public sectors of our nation.  We fear that “In God We Trust” has been removed from coins.  Politicians aren’t getting sworn in on a Bible.

The madness stems from this misunderstanding that somehow the United States is a Christian nation.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The U.S. wasn’t even founded as a Christian nation.  Our founding documents show great influence of the Enlightenment and seek to separate, as much as possible, the state from the Church.  We live in a highly secular, skeptical society.  Plain and simple folks, our culture is open to spirituality but it is not ideologically Christian.

But really, the issue even goes deeper than that.  We followers of Jesus have failed to recognize the most basic principle of theology.  Upon acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment to Him as our Lord and Savior, we were indwelt with the Holy Spirit.  Think how crazy that is for a moment…God lives in us!

So, when a student goes to school, the following Scriptures are lived out:

⁹You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. ¹¹And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:9-11, NIV)

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? (1 Corinthians 6:19)

We do not need the government to sanction out a space for God to be present in schools.  Governments are of this world.  This world will continue to be the fallen mess that it is.  Our job is to be the light of hope, love and grace.  We are to bring renaissance and renewal to public sectors like schools.  We do not wait around for a law or an amendment to put back up our sacred items or carve out sacred space for us.

When students walk into schools, this is what should be happening

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV)

These fruits should be exemplified in all our lives.  As the Holy Spirit takes dominion, judgmental attitudes, meanness, bitterness, narcissism, anger, hatred, gossip, demanding things to be my way…all of these things should be purged out of us.  As the old self flakes away, what is born is a life of love, a spirit of joy, a presence of peace, an attitude of patience, an outlook of kindness, a modeling of goodness, a call to faithfulness, a reputation of gentleness, and a commitment to self-control.

Attention Christians in America: the difficulties we face are not because prayer is out of school.  It’s not because Barack Obama is president.  It’s not because of our secular culture even.  Our world is programmed into sin…it knows no difference.  We cannot keep expecting the world to act like the Church.  Furthermore, the Church needs to stop acting like the world!

What this world needs to know is what we, as Christians, are for and not always what we’re against.  Prayer in school should be happening because the people of God are there.  God’s presence in school should be evident because the followers of Jesus there are shaped by Him and model Him to those around them.

It is time to allow this hope of Christendom to die.  We need to stop propping up these relics of putting prayer in school and hanging the Ten Commandments.  We need to stop hiding behind statements, government wish lists, bullying, and being sin detectives in the world around us.  We need to instead pick up our role laid out in Romans 8:

¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:18-25, NIV)

If we want prayer back in school, maybe we should begin developing a life of prayer becoming more and more aware of His presence.  If you want the Ten Commandments in public places, maybe we need to live lives shaped by their virtues.  If we want God back in schools, maybe we need to A) exhibit the fruits of His Spirit in the schools and B) grab hold of His purposes outlined above each and every school day!

Remember: God is in school when His people show up!

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (18-20, NIV).

Right now, you may be asking, where is he going with this post?  The reality is that this message is foundational to the life of many churches, especially evangelical churches, and rightfully so I would argue!

I just feel that many times the church is not fully obedient to the words of Jesus.  We read the “go” and announce that people need to get out of their spiritual laziness and hit the streets sharing the good news.  But, if you’re like me, you may have felt like the messengers of this glorious news need a little work?

This little slice of Matthew’s Gospel has a lot to teach us about what it truly means to be a missional follower (read disciple) of Jesus, one whose life is captured by the mission of God.

1. Jesus messianic authority. The verb translated “given” is understood as divine action in which God placed authority over all existence into the hands of Christ.  Jesus is the King and we are His subjects.  It’s not about what can the church do for me or whiny attitudes about whether the church is feeding me.  It is about the Kingship of Jesus and announcing that to the world!

2. The charge to make disciples. The controlling imperative of the Great Commission is the simple charge to make disciples.  This is the only verb in the entire commission that is actually a command.  The central motif of this commission is disciplemaking.  In fact, the rest is merely three participles that explain how the making of disciples is to be carried out – going, baptizing, and teaching.  What do I mean?  Where we read “go”, the Greek is actually saying, “while going“.  While we are going we are to make disciples.  Large numbers at a church service does not equate with discipleship.  Disciplemaking takes time, a commodity that is in scarce resource in our culture.

3. The charge to go.  The word apostle implies one who is sent or commissioned to go on behalf of the sender.  The tendency for a Jew during this period would be to stay in Jerusalem where it is safe.  That tendency still resonates with us today.  But apostleship transforms one’s identity.  These disciples were no longer just living life for themselves.  The radical call of the Messiah mandated that they go to all nations.  Just because followers of Jesus don’t like something doesn’t mean that they must stay away.  We may not like drug addicts, crack moms, drunkards, porn lookers, etc, but God does and we’re called to show His love to even “the least of these”.

4. The charge to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Disciples become disciples by being united with Jesus.  In the Christian community, we join, are united to, Jesus through baptism.  Baptism is the public declaration of our allegiance to the kingdom of God.  Baptism has been trivialized to simply become a membership development issue in some churches and denominations; I join the church through being baptized.  In the ancient world, and much of the world today, baptism could, and does, mean physical death.  When a believer is baptized they announce to the gathering that they have truly counted the cost of their discipleship with Jesus.  Do the waters of baptism signify to us to count the cost of our allegiance to Christ?

5. The charge to teach them to observe all that Jesus had commanded. Disciples need to be taught what the life of a disciple is all about: the character of the disciple, the ministry of the disciple, the meaning of kingdom membership, how to live as disciples in a Christian community, and where to fix their hope.  This teaching and training are ongoing and unending.  There are always new challenges for disciples.  In the context of Matthew’s Gospel, the expression translated “all that I have commanded you” refers to the teaching/training Jesus did with His group of disciples.  My fear for Christianity in America is that it has become a head game. Theology, Bible, and faith have all become things to study. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy have been forced to stand alone in separate corners while denominations bicker about why the other is wrong for their choice.

6. “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (28:20). This mission is ongoing.  Even with high times and low times, tragedy and triumph, event or no event…the mission of God moves on.  The hope through it all is that the rabbi, Jesus Himself, journeys with us every step along the way.

In the end, I’m left with a question, how am I, how are we, doing in this mission of disciplemaking?  Are we picking and choosing which parts of the Great Commission we desire to follow?

We’re not called to effectiveness, we’re called to obedience.  Paul declares that we’re not even called to win the race but to finish it.  My fear is that we’ve learned to associate big numbers, events, worship services, and buildings with how we live out the life of a disciple.  We wait for the church to create a program or event so we can plug and play into whatever we want.  This week the church is having a community outreach project, I’ll plug into that and check community service off my list.

The life of a disciple is more involved than that.  It’s more beautiful and more heart-wrenching, all at the same time.  In the delicate tension of already and not yet, Spirit and flesh, Word and Spirit, sacred and secular, big and small, deep and wide, in the world and not of the world, we find the pathway to which God has called His disciples.

We can bring the gospel to the world!  I hope that we never lose this missional impulse in the Body of Christ.  But, as we encounter people and as we examine the churches in which we find ourselves, are we also bringing people to the gospel.  Simultaneous to our evangelistic stream should be one of sanctification.  As people are reached for the gospel of Christ, are people meeting the gospel in a transformative way?  As the good news goes forth is it also going within and manifesting lives of purity and holiness.  As we follow the Rabbi are we getting some of the dust kicked up by His sandals on our face?

“I say, your faith must govern your politics, or you can’t really call yourself a “Christian”. If your politics cause you to do something that Christ would not do…you have violated those limits.”

This is the perfect lead-in to the next leg of this conversation. The rub with mixing faith and politics is not in the idea that a person’s faith should determine political positions. I don’t think any person of faith has a beef with that. The rub is that people who share the same Savior can differ drastically on how to apply their faith to societal issues as Jesus might. For instance, in November, 2008, I had many passionately committed Christian friends who were sincerely trying to discern how to vote in the presidential election. Although they all would agree, almost categorically, on important spiritual issues, they came out on both sides of the vote. I think it’s a good assumption that we could translate this reality across the entire country: followers of Jesus agree that their their faith should determine their political stance, but they can’t agree on what is good and what is bad when it comes to our country’s approach to governing. If government policy was left totally in the hands of Jesus’ followers, we would still have conflict and disagreement.

This tension goes way back, but it didn’t always exist.  Originally, in the Garden of Eden, humans were content to know God and to allow Him to determine what was good for them. It was a paradise where, as far as our first ancestors knew, it was “all good.” They didn’t even have a definition of good because they had no knowledge of it or its opposite. They were just immersed in God’s goodness like a goldfish in water. But Adam and Eve were coaxed into believing that life would be better if their eyes could be opened, making them like God, knowing good and evil. With the first bite of that tempting fruit, mankind went on a compulsive binge to place everything into one of two categories: good or evil. It made us binary thinkers. Since that moment, the power of discerning good from evil has given us the sensation of being God-like and has made our individual interpretations of good and evil sacred and superior in our own eyes. Now, when I, with great conviction, determine something is evil, and you, with equally great conviction, determine it as good, there is a great crash of wills that often results in conflict. That conflict has a tendency to lead us to being judgmental toward those who don’t see it our way. And judgment can lead to all kinds of evil. That is the essence of the Fall of Man, and that is the tension we feel deeply in every aspect of life.

If you read the Story laid out in the scriptures, it doesn’t take long to get the idea that God was frustrated and challenged by our inability to avoid this tension.  One of the first accounts of a human relationship sees Cain killing his brother, Abel, over conflict resulting from Cain misinterpreting what was right. And it seems to go downhill from there. Later in Genesis, God, in his disappointment over Man’s tendency to see evil as good, destroys everyone but Noah and his family, hoping for a pure re-do. Then He reaches out to Abraham to offer a new promise of life where relationship-with-God once again is to override Man’s obsession with good and bad.

Man still doesn’t get it, but now that God made a promise, He is determined to keep it. So He helps Moses deliver His people from slavery in Egypt and sends them packing for the Promised Land. One of His first orders of business is to give in to His people’s lust for definition of good-and-bad in a way that still maintains His plan and will. Laws are born! Through the Ten Commandments, God shares with Man a glimpse of good and bad from His perspective. He also provides a constant reminder, through the Law, that we can’t earn Heavenly royalty and relationship through the Law. The Law becomes (and continues to be) a guide to inject Godly good into society, and soon godly judges are called to help people responsibly live out the law in the way God intended. The Judicial System is born! It was meant to direct Man toward good as God conceived it.

And then, because God’s people still don’t get it, they demand that the judges, by way of Samuel, give them a king (1 Sam 10:19). I have a feeling that God is seeing a trend here, again, and gives the people their way while still trying to use the situation to steer them toward His view of what is good. When Samuel sees Saul for the first time, God tells him “This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people.” And the first example of the Executive Branch of government is born! Saul is anointed with the task of representing God’s character in the ongoing tension of right and wrong that will inevitably bring conflict among God’s people.

All of that history points out that, while He preferred a different existence for us, God has establish different elements of government in order to lead us to awareness and expression of His goodness in our world.  Scripture speaks to this many times. Government is not inherently an enemy, but is meant as one way through which God can be revealed to many people who have different ideas on good, and evil. Government mediates the conflict that was brought on by The Fall.

In this framework we see why politics is inevitable and vital. As long as massive groups of people are setting up governments and determining good and bad for themselves and others, balance is needed. Politics is the societal process of finding the proper balance within the governments God has allowed to exist. While there are many interpretations of good and bad, the idea that we can pursue a proper balance assumes that the picture of God’s brand of goodness is the goal for society. This is where our heavenly Kingdom and our nation overlap.  Followers of Jesus are called to influence the American framework of government to reflect the goodness that God intended for all people and for all of His creation. We are to be agents of balance, where balance reflects Kingdom values.

In a pluralistic government such as ours, the government wasn’t established to force a particular balance. It was crafted so that anyone is free to influence that balance. Followers of Jesus, followers of L. Ron Hubbard and followers of No One are equally invited to participate in the process of finding balance within government at all levels. Our country is beautifully open to the influence of its citizens, no matter what their background or philosophy of life is. Christians are part of this equation, but are not given any more weight or authority than any other group in the mix. It is up to us to create that weight and authority by actively engaging in the process. We can bring the proper balance by representing the goodness of God and His Kingdom and by refusing to resort to any actions or means that do not reflect God’s goodness.

In order to be a influence for the common good, as God sees it, we first of all need to know God and His character. We need to have a good feel for citizenship in His Kingdom and a sense for how to respond when the borders of His Kingdom and this fallen one don’t line up. God’s goodness has to be such a part of us that we act out of it, and lean toward it, no matter what else opposes us or tempts us.

We also need to know the difference between bad and evil.  An outcome of the Fall is that even we Jesus-followers disagree on which political policies and approaches are good ones and which are bad ones.  We have been given the freedom to interpret a political philosophy or method as bad, but too often we judge those who embrace the “bad” political stances to be evil. When it comes to politics, bad does not always equal evil, yet we are quick to villainize those who disagree with us politically, even if they share citizenship in the Kingdom. A Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Because of The Fall we followers of Jesus may choose different approaches to influence our world for the common good, but we cannot fall to the temptation to judge as evil those believers who don’t share our political approach.

A more useful way for Christians to influence our nation will come out of a better understanding of rights and liberty, as God sees them. Just as government attempts to mediate differing views of good and evil, an understanding of true freedom and rights should mediate poitical differences among those who are called to represent Jesus in this nation. We will get to that in the next two posts.  Stay tuned. In the meantime I invite your comments and conversations.

1. Did we lift the name of Jesus up as a centerpiece of why we gathered? (See Revelation 5:6 and 5:13-14, Colossians 3:17, and Philippians 2:9-11.)
2. Did we have a time in the Scriptures learning the story of God and humanity?  Did we invite everyone to be part of his story today in Kingdom living? (See 2 Timothy 3:14-4:4.)
3. Did we pray together and have enough time to slow down and quiet our hearts to hear God’s voice and yield to his Spirit? (See Acts 1:14 and John 4:23-24.)
4. Did we experience the joy, love, and encouragement of being together as a church? (See Hebrews 10:25 and John 13:34-35.)
5. Did we take the Lord’s Supper together as a church regularly  OR call people to an awareness of the implications of the Elements upon our gathering? (See 1 Corinthians 11:20-32.)
6. Did we somehow remind everyone of the mission of the church and why we exist? (See Matthew 28:18-20.)
7. Did we enable people to individually contribute something as part of the body of Christ? (See 1 Corinthians 12:27 and 14:26.)

The prayer is very simple in its more common, extended form:

“Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, the late Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate’s diocese for Great Britain and Ireland said the Jesus Prayer, “more than any other,” helps us to be able to “stand in God’s presence.” This means that it helps us to focus our mind exclusively on God with “no other thought” occupying our mind but the thought of God. At this moment when our mind is totally concentrated on God, we discover a very personal and direct relationship with Him.  One Eastern Orthodox theologian has said, “It also serves as perhaps the most succinct Gospel message available.”

The Jesus Prayer is one of the oldest of Christian prayers, dating in its original form to the words the two blind men cried out to Jesus in Matthew 20:31. It was formalized by the Orthodox Churches in the 5th century.  Contained in the prayer is a uniquely clear summation of the Christian faith:

Jesus the man is declared by name to be the Christ, the annointed one of God, as well as being the Lord of our lives; he is declared to be the Son of God, and therefore divine; he is declared to be in the position of judgment and mercy, and we confess to be sinners requiring His grace.

The practice of the Eastern Orthodox Churches calls for the Jesus Prayer to remind them of  constant prayer that the Apostle Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, where the prayer is kept on the lips and in the hearts of believers at all times.  In its ultimate form, this prayer method is called Hesychasm (Greek: ἡσυχάζω, hesychazo, “to keep stillness”).

A spectacular jewel from Eastern Orthodox theology is their view of repentance.  In the West, we take a very juridical understanding of sin and repentance; a wrong has been committed, somebody needs to pay, Jesus paid, we come to Jesus and make a transaction, we take His righteousness and He takes our sins, we are blameless before God, the Father.

This age old understanding of justification is not wrong by any means.  Nor is it complete.  Eastern Orthodoxy takes a different approach to repentance.  John Chryssavgis, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, wrote the following in his essay, “Repentance and Confession”:

Repentance (Greek: μετάνοια, metanoia, “changing one’s mind”) isn’t remorse, justification, or punishment, but a continual enactment of one’s freedom, deriving from renewed choice and leading to restoration (the return to man’s original state).

The Jesus Prayer stands at the center of this journey.  It is merely two statements and a petition.  The first statement is the declaration of Jesus Christ as Lord.  The second statement is the acknowledgment of one’s own sinfulness.  Flowing out of the meeting of the two is a petition for mercy as holiness meets sinfulness, divinity meets humanity, strength meets weakness, love meets scorn.

As the pray-er recites the words of the prayer, the hope is that an inward journey takes place.  At first it is an oral prayer as we encounter for the first time the words and recite them allowed.  The second is the prayer of the mind as we analyze and explore the meaning of the prayer we are reciting.  The final movement is the prayer of the heart where we begin to become the prayer.

My friend, Jerry Flora, often tells a story of a prayer retreat that he attended many years ago.  He was struck at how the prayer gathering began.  The woman leading closed here eyes, paused for a few minutes of silence, and then proclaimed, “We are sinking into prayer.”  Prayer wasn’t so much a formality to begin a meeting as it was likened to a giant, overly-stuffed chair that enveloped him that day.

Brennan Manning in his latest book, The Furious Longing of God, writes:

When the night is bad and my nerves are shattered and the waves break over the sides, Infinity speaks. God Almighty shares through His Son the depth of His feelings for me, His love flashes into my soul, and I am overtaken by mystery. These are moments of kairos — the decisive in-break of God’s fury into my personal life’s story.

It is then I face a momentous decision. Shivering in the rags of my seventy-four years, I have two choices. I can escape below into skepticism and intellectualism, hanging on for dear life. Or, with radical amazement, I can stay on deck and boldly stand in surrendered faith to the truth of my belovedness, caught up in the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God. And learn to pray. (pp. 130-131)

His words bring tears to my eyes.  It seems that I have been misunderstanding this prayer thing all along.  I should not come to prayer because I should but because I must.  Prayer is not encountering an omnipresent, narcissistic deity.  Instead, prayer is crawling into the lap of my Dad.  I may ramble, I may fall asleep…but my Dad just loves when I come to Him.

The Jesus Prayer just might be the great reminder to the church through the centuries that prayer is more than a transaction of sins for righteousness.  It’s not a rags to riches story.  It’s not a laundry list of demands and requests.

Prayer is a becoming.  Prayer is a belonging.

The Jesus Prayer reminds me that I am becoming more and more like Him with every day that I surrender my life and will to Him.  With every decision of every second, I look at my dear friend, Jesus, and decide whether my decision will honor our friendship, will promote His Lordship, and will allow me to experience the deepest of intimacies from God’s parenthood over my life.

The Jesus Prayer reminds me that I belong.  I belong to a passionate, wild, reckless, extravagant, hilarious, steadfast, committed, stay-at-home, out-on-the-street, head-over-heels in love Daddy who would love nothing more than to woo His children back into His arms.  Oh that I could hear His heartbeat and feel the warmth of His embrace!  The tears that would be shed as Abba/Daddy whispers to me, “I’m proud of you, little guy…I will always love you.”

The Jesus Prayer reminds me how simple it really is.  The Gospel is not in need of vast textbooks or great exposition.  It is more than a relationship…it is two lovers meeting and upon their encounter find it unable to take their eyes off of one another.  As close as my next breath is the desire for God to meet with me.  As close as your next breath is the desire for God to meet you.  Are you meeting Him?  Can you feel Him?  Does He bring life to your weary soul?  Does He provide moisture and sustenance to your dry, and brittle bones?

Take the next week and practice the Jesus Prayer as you live each day.

INHALE: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…”

EXHALE: “…have mercy on me a sinner.”

Inhale His goodness, completeness, love, mercy, renewal, and passion.  Exhale your failures, doubts, insecurities, trivial lusts, pains, sorrows, wrongs, hurts.  May each breath be a reminder of the Gospel, the good news for everyone.  May the good news begin transforming you!

July 4, 2009

(Please forgive the bland look, this blog is still under construction)

This fourth of July weekend we will celebrate our national freedom – which privdes us with a perfect launch to celebrate our personal freedom as the followers of Jesus Christ.  In working through my sermon this week on John 8 (7 Explosive Claims of Christ), I reflected on spiritual freedom and I wanted to explore it further.

Remember, freedom is the absense of retraints on our ability to act or think.  So reflect with me a bit here.  

• What do you want to be FREE FROM in your life? What is holding your life back?  What is restraining your ability to think and act as you want to think and act?  What burdens you?  Journal 3-5 things you really want to be FREE FROM in your life.  And if you want, post it here and we can share our longings for freedom together.
• But, most of us don’t want to just be FREE FROM things.  Don’t we also want to be FREE FOR other things?  FREE FROM is the negative side.  So what do you really want to be free FOR? Journal 3-5 things you want to be free FOR in life.  What do you really want to become or do?  Taking the time to reflect on this could change your life.  What are your greatest longings and hopes?  And again, if you want to share, respond here and we will continue the dialogue. You may want to rank order what you want to be free from and free for, so you know where to put your energy first.

To guide our thinnking about freedom here are some Scriptures I gathered this week on freedom in Christ.  And after that are my beginning ideas on a Christian Declaration of Freedom.

Some Scriptures on Freedom

• “In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free.  The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?  The Lord is with me; he is my helper.  I will look in triumph on my enemies.” Psalm 118:5-7
• “I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.”  Ps 119:32
• But the Lord is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.” Ps 129:4
• He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free.” Ps 146:7
• “I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.” Ps 119:45
• “The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Jesus. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  Luke 4:17-21
• “Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  Jn 8:31-32
• “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jn 8:36
• “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”  Gal 5:1
• “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” Ga 5:13  (See also 1Pe 2:16)
• “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” 1Cor 9:19
• “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Ro 6:18
• “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” Ro 6:22
• “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Ro 8:20-21
• “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” Col 1:22-23
• “Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” Rev 22:17
• “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”  2Cor 3”17-18
• “In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”  Eph 3:12
• “But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.” James 1:25

Are there any Scriptures you would add?

A Christian Declaration of Freedom

Send back to me what you would add so we can have an ongoing dialogue.

FREE FROM…

• I am free from failure for “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13).
• I am free from always needing more and more for “my God shall supply all my needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19).
• I am free from fear for “God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind” (2Tim 1:7).
• I am free from the power of Satan “for greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world” (1Jn 4:4)
• I am free from defeat “for God always causes me to triumph in Christ Jesus” (2Cor 2:14)
• I am free from ignorance for “we have the mind of Christ” 1Cor 3:15)
• I am free from inferiority for I am “complete in Christ” (Col 2:9-10)
• I am free from inadequacy for “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” (2Pe 1:3)
• I am free from shame for “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sin” (1Jn 1:7)
• I am free from worry for “I cast all my cares on him because he cares for me” (1Pe 5:7)
• I am free from bondage for “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom” (2Cor 3:17)
• I am free from condemnation “for there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Ro 8:1)
• I am free from fear for we know that “God works together all things for the good of those who are called in Christ Jesus” (Ro 8:28)
• I am free from worry of what people think of me for “I am hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:1-4)

What would you add here?

FREE FOR…

• I am free to be loved for “we know and rely on the love God has for us” (1Jn 4:16) and “I have been chosen by God and adopted as his as his child (Eph 1:3-8)
• I am free from defeat for “in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Ro 8:37
• I am free from the fear of death for “death has been swallowed up in victory… But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1Cor 15:54-57
• I am free from frantic busyness for Jesus says “I will give you rest.” Matt 11:28
• I am free to dream “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” (Acts 2:17)
• I am free to rejoice “in the Lord always (Phil 4:1)
• I am free to be a friend of Jesus (Jn 15:15)
• I am free to be nurtured by my Father in heaven for I am a child of God (Jn 1:12, 1Jn 3:1)
• I am free to speak with God face to face and to expect his mercy and grace (Heb 4:16)

I had less time to work on this one, what would you add here?

4While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5″A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. 6Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
When he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

9His disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,
” ‘though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand.’[a]

11″This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

This past week I began reading a new book (no surprise there!) and a conversation broke out between myself and the Lord regarding the Parable of the Sower (see above).  This same parable is found in Mark 4:1-20, Matthew 13:1-23, and Luke 8:1-15.  Upon review of this passage, a list of questions flooded my mind:

1. Who is the farmer?
2. What is the seed?
3. Why is the farmer so reckless in scattering the seed?  He throws it on rocks, on the path, etc.
4. Why is the farmer scattering seed over thorny patches of the garden infested by weeds?  Shouldn’t he/she weed first?
5. What is the meaning of the crop that is yielded “a hundred times more than was sown”?  That means the entire garden was filled to capacity!
6. Why does Jesus “call out” after this parable, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”?  Isn’t this passage simply about spreading the word of God?
7. What is the “knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God”?
8. What is the word of God?

I have read and re-read this passage for years.  Everytime the point seems to be painfully clear, be like the good soil and receive the word of God.  I’ve also heard this passage evangelistically, as we spread the good news, some people will be receptive to it and others will not.

It is not that these explanations are false.  We should all seek to live lives that are prepared for the goodness and richness of Christ Jesus.  Likewise, out of our lives should flow the good news of Christ to those around is.  And, some people will receive that news and others will not.

The power of this passage lies in what the language we take for granted would have actually meant to Jesus.  This parable is so important that in Mark’s version of it Jesus asks His disciples, “Don’t you understand this parable?  How then will you understand any parable” (v. 13)?  So powerful is the message of this parable that Jesus stakes His entire teaching/training ministry in its contents.  Why?

As I encountered this passage in reading I am immediately drawn to this farmer.  It is not strange for Jesus to use an agrarian parable.  Agriculture was of great importance to those He was speaking.  This farmer, however, seems to be a little sloppy.  If you live a life totally dependant upon the harvest you receive back and you have a limited amount of money with which to buy seed, why would you scatter it so haphazardly as to cover the pathways, rocks, and weeds?  Furthermore, why wouldn’t you first weed the garden?

Verse 8b shows us an amazing feat, “[The seed] came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”  It seems that the farmer knows the quality of the seed he is spreading.  He knows there is no need to uproot the weeds or chase away the birds.  True to his foreknowledge, the seed produces a crop a hundred times more than was sown.  The garden is filled to capacity (and overflowing)!

This brings us back to a question, if this parable is all about being faithful, why does Jesus  to his followersm “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘though seeing they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand’” (v. 10).  This language finds its roots in the commissioning of Isaiah.  God is calling for a prophet to go forth and do two things: 1) Warn the people of God’s anger and judgment for them to repent AND 2) to proclaim a day that is coming; a most blessed day of Yahweh.

In this little parable found in three of the four gospels, Jesus utilizes that same language.  Kind of odd if this message is incredibly simple for Jesus to 1) hinge the meaning of all other parables in this one, 2) to declare that the meaning of this parable is enveloped in the “secrets of the kingdom”, and 3) to have the people recall the commissioning of the great prophet Isaiah.

As I said early, the traditional understandings of this passage are not incorrect.  But, I want to argue that they are not complete either.  There is a grand story at play in this parable.  In verses 11-17 of the passage above, Jesus offers the pieces of the puzzle.  Scripture is forcing us to put the pieces together.  It’s asking us, you’ve read this passage many times BUT do you know the larger story of my narrative?  Do we know the fuller story of Scripture and why this parable is so radical?

The radical piece of this story lies in the discovery of the identity of the seed and the farmer.  The seed is the word of God.  What, then, is the word of God?  It is not the Bible.  The Bible finds its ultimate purpose in meaning flowing out of the true word of God.  John’s Gospel declares, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He [the Word] was with God in the beginning.  The Word became flesh and made his [the Word's] dwelling among us” (1:1,14, NIV).  The seed is Jesus.

The farmer is us, the Church.  We are called to proclaim the identity (the Savior, Lord and King) of Jesus Christ.  The fascinating thing of this story is that the weeds, the rocks, the birds are not eliminated.  Think for a moment the implications of this for our journeys of faith.

Too many Christians spend inordinate amounts of time petitioning Congress, their city councils, etc to remove things they find offensive and sinful.  Here lately, the rhetoric of America as a Christian nation has been written everywhere.  Many Christians think the way to change America is to get rid of all the sin.

I want to argue counter to this.  I find that many people who live according to the above philosophy have golden hearts.  They truly want to see Jesus manifested and people coming into a beautiful relationship with Him.  But look at this parable, the weeds, rocks and birds are not removed.  Instead, the seed is scattered and the crop, in spite of the weeds, grows a hundred times more.

What would it look like if instead of trying to remove the problem of evil, the Body of Christ began to exemplify the overhelming goodness of the Gospel?  What if instead of trying to shut down a strip-joint the people of God sought ways to truly love those entrapped to a life of lust and shame and bring freedom to the captives?  What if instead of saying how much you hate abortion you began to fight for better adoption education and stood in the gap for women who feel they have no other choice?

All throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, he would declare that the kingdom of Heaven (or God) is at hand.  This parable does not show the destruction of the garden but an all out restoration of it.  The barren spots, weedy spots, rocky spots…they’re all overtaken by the unstoppable growth of a hundred fold crop.

There comes a time where the people of God need to stop picking weeds and need to start planting seeds.  You can pick all the weeds out of the garden and be left with a garden even more barren than it was before.  If you plant seeds, you not only grow a crop.  The crop that is grown has the capacity to produce seed for future crops.  This grassroots, organic, everyday-person adventure allowed the Church to spread like wildfire in the early Church and begs of us to experience it afresh today.

For Jesus, Heaven is not something we wait for.  It’s not something we purify the world for.  Instead, it is something we look forward to, walk lovingly towards, journey with others in the mindset of, and seek to be ambassadors of right here and right now.

May we recognize that the farmer is not God.  The farmer is us!  May we recognize that the seed is the relational good news of Jesus Christ and spread it everywhere we go to produce a harvest for which we will be told, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”

In the far recesses of my mind and heart, I know full well why I’m up at this hour.  My spirit is in grieving mode.  I’m not sad as much as I am reflective.  One of my heroes, Charlie Munson, passed away this past weekend.  The reality sunk in even more as I read his obituary today:

“Dr. Charles R. Munson, 90, formerly of Ashland, and Goshen, Indiana died on Sunday afternoon May 10, 2009 at Vitas House in Irving, Texas. He was born May 3, 1919 in Scalp Level, Pennsylvania. He was a 1937 graduate of Ferndale High School of Johnstown, PA; a 1947 graduate of Ashland College, in 1952 he graduated from Ashland Theological Seminary and in 1954 he graduated from Western Seminary of Pittsburgh, PA; he was also a doctoral graduate of Case Western Reserve in 1971.

“He was ordained on July 17, 1949 in the Brethren Church by the Johnstown Second Brethren Church of Johnstown, PA; he served as National Youth Director for the Church of the Brethren from 1948-1953 and as the National Moderator of the Brethren Church in 1965, he also served pastorates at Gretna Brethren Church, Williamstown Brethren Church, Johnstown Second Brethren Church, Savannah Presbyterian Church and Lexington Presbyterian Church. He had also served as Master of Ceremonies at many banquets. He was professor of Practical Theology and Academic Dean at Ashland Theological Seminary from 1954-1985. He lived in Ashland until 1996 when he moved to Goshen and in November of last year he moved to Texas.

“On August 14, 1942 he was married to Aida May Snyder, she preceded him in death on July 6, 1994. He is survived by his daughter, Deborah M. (Don) Vick of Coppell, Texas and two grandchildren, Rachel and John Vick. In addition to his parents, and wife, a daughter Bonnie Christina Munson, died on March 5, 2008 and a half sister, Ruth MacDonald Ely and two half brothers, George and Ray MacDonald all preceded him in death.

What do you say to a life like that?  How does a person my age even begin to fathom 90 years of joy, pain, reflection, gain, loss, and above all, hope in Jesus Christ?

I’m currently reading numerous books (not unusual for me).  One of them is really causing me to reflect deeply.  It is The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel.  It is forcing me to examine the implications of the Sabbath on my own life.  Deep pondering of the seventh day of the Creation poem forces me to realize that rest is not something to be found when I have time for it.  Rather, rest is a presence found as the eternal manifests Himself in time.

A few quotes from the book will help illustrate what may sound like incoherence above:

“The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.  In a religious experience, for example, it is not a thing that imposes itself on [humanity] but a spiritual presence.  What is retained in the soul is the moment of insight rather than the place where the act came to pass.  A moment of insight is a fortune, transporting us beyond the confines of measured time.  Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time” (6).

“There is no equivalent for the word ‘thing’ in biblical Hebrew.  The word ‘davar,’ which in later Hebrew came to denote thing, means in biblical Hebrew: speech; word; message; report; tidings; advice; request; promise; decision; sentence; theme; story; saying, utterance; business, occupation; acts; good deeds; events; way, manner, reason, cause; but never ‘thing.’  Is this a sign of linguistic poverty, or rather an indication of an unwarped view of the world, of not equating reality (derived from the Latin word res, thing) with thinghood” (7)?

“One of the most distinguished words in the Bible is the word qadosh, holy; a word which more than any other is representative of the mystery and majesty of the divine.  Now what was the the first holy object in the history of the world?  Was it a mountain?  Was it an altar?  It is, indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word qadosh is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation.  How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: ‘And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.’  There is no reference in the record of creation to any object in space that would be endowed with the quality of holiness” (9).

“The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space.  Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.  It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world” (10).

I’m haunted by the tension between what I’m reading and what I’m feeling.  I’m reading of the importance of rest.  Heschel’s words call the reader to recognize that rest is not a thing to be held but a presence to be experienced.  The Sabbath is not created by man for God, but rather out of God for the good of man.  There is a way that we experience what it means to be made in His image when we rest.

At the exact same time I’m writing this, my little brain is screaming, “Full steam ahead…more power!”  I laid in bed wondering what would be said of me if I’m fortunate to make it to 90.  How do people view me now?  What is up on my docket for tomorrow?  How will I get everything done on my to-do list that needs to be done?  And, by the way, one of the heroes of my faith passed away recently!

Today, I received a wonderful phone call.  I was asked by the family of Charles Munson to be a pall-bearer at his memorial service.  My heart sank upon the request.  The full weight of the moment hit me.  I paused.  How in the world did I get asked to participate in the memorial service of one of my heroes?

What I think I felt, though, was a collision of the two forces woven all throughout this post.  My soul grieves at the lost of Charlie.  He was a mentor, a hero, a legend, but, above all, a friend and brother in Christ.  Upon hearing of his passing I felt the happiest sadness I’ve felt in a long time.  My mind continues to race processing his death, processing my schedule, processing processes!

At the same time, I keep asking myself, where is Jesus in all this stuff?  In asking the question, an answer comes to mind.  Jesus is not to be found but to be experienced in the process of journeying.  It’s not as if He’s some cosmic Easter egg hidden just behind the divine lilac bush.  Rather, like an afternoon hike in the mountains, he is the realization when you get to the top of the mountain and realize that all along you’ve been walking in him and the ‘finding’ was just a grand vantage point He gave you as you peered from atop a cliff over a pristine valley below.

As I write this, two images from Scripture come to mind.  The first comes from the John’s gospel.  Jesus says in this passage:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

The call is to “abide” in Jesus.  To make our home in Him.  Our primary calling is intimacy with Him.  Intimacy entails time.  Time entails moments of movement and moments of rest.  Like a piece of music, we are sung along by a long string of notes and rests.  The beauty of music is that in the act of listening, we often fail to realize where movement ends and rest begins, and vice-versa.  Eliminate either rest or movement and the music fails to be.  Might Jesus be calling us to continually rest in Him?

The second image comes not so much from an exact passage of Scripture but a period of time brought forth in Scripture.  What might the world have been experiencing on the Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday?  I believe that many Christians fail to understand rest and presence because we too quickly rush from Good Friday to clean it all up with Resurrection Sunday.  In the cosmic scope of things, is our world not living in a continual Saturday?  Is creation not groaning for the ultimate restoration and renewal promised at the end of the age (Rom. 8)?

Several years ago, a professor of mine prayed a powerful prayer at a chapel service.  The words he uttered to conclude that prayer have stuck with me for years.  “And now, Father,” he prayed, “may we live as the light of Resurrection Sunday in the darkness of a Good Friday world.”

Maybe that is why I grieve Charlie’s passing so much.  The world still looks so much like Good Friday.  Hope is so hard to move away from the abstractness of imagination to the concreteness of reality.  At the same time, is reality merely something to be grasped?  Merely a thing?  Or, is reality a presence!  Might the hope that Charlie and I share be just as real as the computer on which I’m typing this post?

In the tension of life and death, movement and rest, song and silence, may we find hope.  My friend, Charlie, was a shining example of a man who experienced hope not as theory but as reality.  In the mystery of Creation and Creator, Charlie basked in the love and light of Jesus Christ.  Maybe my grieving is not so much for Charlie but for all of us who wait eagerly for our hope to be fully actualized.  Maybe I’m struggling to be a Resurrection servant in a world reeling from Good Friday.  Maybe my immature spirit is trying to grasp for words to describe the tension between being happy and sad at the same time.  Or, and I believe they’re all true, maybe I just woke up at 4:00am to process with God that I’ll miss my friend and cannot wait to see him again!