Month: April 2006

Our faith-community has begun a new discussion topic. For the next 14 weeks, we’re examining the Songs of Ascent (Psalms 120-134). As a supplement to our discussion, we’re also reading Eugene Peterson’s, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Our first discussion was a great start and I’m looking forward to our conversations.

As we discussed the first Song of Ascent, Psalm 120, a particular phrase unlocked a door inside of me, “I am a man of peace.” This one line has churned eight months of restless thinking into a froth. Let me explain:

In four months, I’m turning forty years old. And that fact has occupied my thoughts quite a bit since my birthday last August. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not anxious about growing old. In fact, I’ve always looked forward to each new year. Turning forty isn’t a crisis of that sort. Nor is it the catalyst for some sort of a mid-life crisis. I’m very happy with my life, my family, and my friends. I like who I’m becoming in my journey with Christ and I’m blessed by the people that he has surrounded me with.

So what’s my problem? I don’t know if any of this will make sense, but I’m going to try and put words to stuff that I’m just discovering has been swirling around inside of me. And I apologize if any of this offends you in any way. That’s not my intent. I’m simply trying find expression and to pin down what has been rather elusive to this point. In finding expression, I may actually discover that I’m completely wrong and need to alter how I think and feel. But I can’t do that until I put words to what I’m thinking and feeling. So I appreciate your listening ear and any correction you feel led to bring.

I think I’ve viewed entering each decade of adulthood as significant milestones. As I approach the forty-year milestone, I’m discovering that personally, it’s probably more significant than the twenty-year and thirty-year ones. For me the twenty-somethings categorize young adulthood. A person moves from the youth of their teens into the larger life of adulthood. Yet, like packing clothes that they will quickly outgrow, the only thing one can bring on this new journey is the experience of their youth. As they explore higher education, or a newfound career or perhaps the formational years of a marriage and family, they soon discover that the experiences of their youth are quickly replaced with newly formed adult beliefs, values and character. Granted, this is an over-exaggeration, but I think this was my experience.

The thirty-somethings are a transitional decade. It’s a time when a person shifts from their from their youthful zeal and naivete into a more mature perspective on life. It’s a time when all a person has formed in their twenty-somethings is tested and re-calibrated in preparation for their established adult years. This is what I experienced in my thirty’s. The beliefs, values and character that I had formed in my younger twenty’s were being measured against something much larger than myself. And, too be quite frank, I came up sorely lacking. It was in my thirty’s that I experienced a significant course change to my life. I realized that if I continued on my present course, I was becoming a man, a husband, a father, a pastor, and a Christian that I didn’t like and that was completely out of sync with the biblical portrait of apprenticeship to Jesus.

So with God’s grace, I launched on an alternate journey in my mid-thirty’s. Following a severe episode of burnout and inward crisis, I began exploring the realm of Christian spiritual formation. This eventually led to the deconstruction and reconstruction of much of my theology and practice and ultimately to my leaving professional ministry.

Now, as I face the impending approach of my forty-something decade, I’ve begun to feel “weird” about turning forty. It wasn’t until our discussion on Thursday night when the line from Psalm 120 initially flushed my feelings and thoughts into my consciousness. I’ve become aware that when I think of forty-something, I associate it completely with established maturity. I equate forty-somethings as the beginning of truly impacting the world at large with character and wisdom. While I would have associated immaturity with the twenty-somethings and even excused it in the thirty-somethings, it becomes sad and intolerable when discovered in the forty-somethings and a tragedy in the fifty-somethings and beyond.

Until now, all of this has been agitating below the surface of my conscious thinking. It wasn’t until I read the line, “I am a man of peace,” that it really hit me. I’m entering what I’ve accepted as the decade of established maturity. And I don’t have it. I wish I could say, “I’m a man of shalom. I’m a man of mature harmony and wisdom ready to impact this distorted and disjointed world with God’s love, compassion, reconciliation, healing and justice.” But when I look inward, I find that I’m terribly lacking. I’m consumed by immaturity when I should be marked by the maturity of Christ’s character. It shames me when I discover that large portions of my character are still marked with the passions, thoughts and values formed in my teens and twenty-somethings — stuff that although excusable in my thirty’s, should have been replaced with deeper maturity.

I remember a saying John Wimber used to say, “I want to grow up before I grow old.” That sentiment is very poignant as the inward restlessness of the last eight months begin to find its voice.

Now having said all of that, I also want to say how grateful I am that God intervened in the latter half of my thirty-somethings. He allowed events to force me to a decision that I would not have been capable of making on my own — leaving professional ministry. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my identity and worth as a human being was completely tangled and knotted with my concept of pastoring. So a lot of my immaturity and distortion were being enabled by what I had allowed myself to become as a professional pastor. And with the value of hindsight, I now realize that much of the healing I’ve experience and that now enables me to follow Christ in a new and healthy way could not have taken place if I remained the kind of professional pastor that I was. I needed to step away from it so that Christ could successfully disentangle my being from my profession. The last three years have been filled with both incredible difficulty and grand healing. I liken it to the physical therapy that one must engage with in order to experience new health. And I’m so grateful for my wife and kids and friends who have been with me through the rehab I’ve experienced since “detoxing” from church. (Who knows. Maybe I’ll need follow-up my “detox” article with a sequel “rehab” article to discuss the journey toward health.)

Ready or not, in four months I will step over a symbolic threshold. I’m scared, not because I’m growing old, but because I haven’t matured enough. I know I do not possess the necessary maturity of Christ’s character and power to be what I envision my forty-somethings to be. Yet, I’m convinced I’m now on the right path. I also have greater confidence in Jesus ability to teach than in my inability to learn. I don’t know where this journey will take me. Part of me still feels that the calling I sensed in my early years to professional pastoring will come back into greater fruition. If so, it will be in a new way than what I’ve experienced. But if not, I’m okay with wherever Jesus leads me. Over the last several years, God has proven himself more faithful than I could have imagined. It’s one thing to read about God’s faithfulness and nod at it. It’s an entirely different thing to feel like you’ve gone as deep and as dark as you could go and find God enabling you to go further and then emerge from the other side, finding forgiveness and compassion where originally I only felt hurt and bitter.

I found this story on digg.com.

Fifteen-year-old Ava Lowery is getting herself into a lot of hot water these days. She’s a peace activist and produces short Flash animations on her website, peacetakescourage.com. She submitted an animation called, “WWJD,” to a contest. It is a powerful animation of children singing “Jesus Loves Me,” while showing image after image of wounded Iraqi children. (Please be warned that these image are very graphic.)

Although she has received a lot of positive comments, she has also received vicious threats and slurs for her work. You can read the article about Ava here. (Please be warned that the article contains graphic quotes from email that Ava has received.)

Church of the Saviour has a blog! This church has been doing missional church way before many of us were even thinking about it.

Gordon Cosby has posted a great article entitled, “Becoming the Authentic Church.” What he writes about is what I dream our community could become — an authentic community of God’s love expressed in diversity, reconciliation, and justice through nonviolent love.

Or as Alan Roxburgh has defined in his book The Missional Leader, to be a “community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all of creation in Jesus Christ.”

I don’t have much to say this morning so I’ll leave you a cool quote by N.T. Wright from his newest book, Simply Christian. Great book, by the way.

“The whole point of Jesus’ work was to bring heaven to earth and join them together forever, to bring God’s future into the present and make it stick there. But when heaven comes to earth and finds earth unready, when God’s future arrives in the present while people are still asleep, there will be explosions. And there were.”

N.T. Wright, Simply Christian

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

John 15:13-15

As I read this passage this morning I was struck by the frequent use of the word “friend.” The word “disciple” occurs far more frequently in John than the word “friend.” Yet in this portion of the farewell discourse, Jesus calls his students friends three times.

And each use of the word, Jesus defines his friendship with us. First, the greatest expression of love is laying one’s life down for his friends. Friendship is not simply possessing warm fuzzy feelings for another person. Rather, friendship is built upon self-sacrificing love and intimate trust. This must have been like a splash of water in the disciples’ faces. Throughout their ministry they seem to be competing with each other for the best positions in what they understand to be the political kingdom Jesus is about to establish. Their relationships with each other are more about measuring one another up, outdoing one another, and jostling for the closest position to Jesus so that when he establishes his kingdom (as any good Messiah would) he would then choose the wisest, closest, and most exceptional to be his highest lieutenants. (It almost feels like the myriad reality shows that fascinate our culture.) But Jesus turns the disciples idea of relationships completely on its head. The greatest expression of love, which is the fruit that Jesus’ students will yield (John 15:8-10), is sacrificing oneself on behalf of others.

Second, friendship to Jesus is living in sync with who Jesus is and what he is doing. It’s more than shaking Jesus’ hand or saying a prayer that transfers possession of admission into heaven. Rather, as Paul says, it’s having the mind of Christ. It’s partnership in Jesus’ character, life, and mission. Read it slowly and let it sink in, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” You’re my friends if you become like me — filled with my life, my love, my compassion, my power — and do what I’m doing — completing, renewing and rescuing my Father’s good world by loving God and loving others.

Third, friendship with Jesus is hearing God’s will through Jesus. Notice, Jesus hears from his Father. And then he shares what he hears with his friends. Being friends with Jesus transcends the servant/master relationship. Jesus doesn’t just give commands to follow blindly. He doesn’t keep his friends in the dark regarding his Father’s mission. Jesus is the revelation of God, continually keeping his friends in the intimate Father-Son communications. He makes known everything he hears from his Father. But this means abandoning our values and beliefs as Jesus makes known his Father’s mind and heart. This includes personal hopes and dreams, wounds and hurts. It includes our culture’s indoctrination regarding what we value and how we measure success, beauty, worth and goodness. It includes nationalistic pride and political affinities. As Jesus shares with us the intimacies of his Father, drawing us closer to him by sharing the Father’s deepest plans for his creation, it assumes our drawing near by casting off everything that contradicts what is shared. Jesus shares what he has heard and learned from the Father so we may join in partnership with him, not debate its viability or determine how it can be assimilated into our current value system or personal quests.

The strange title is sound advice from Phyllis Tickle, the author of The Divine Hours as she responds to some Q & A. The question that evoked this response was:

“In a typical day, how do you use The Divine Hours or equivalent at this stage in your life and how did your daily practice of prayer work when you were in the labor-intensive, kids-at-home stage of life?”

Tickle responds that she and her husband raised seven children. Spending a lot of time in the bathroom to pray was essential to developing a divine rhythm among the demanding needs of young children. What I find interesting is that Tickle also says that her children have become so accustomed to her Benedictine schedule that they hardly notice.

This is encouraging to me. I’ve found that my spiritual life has become segmented once again. With four children, I find myself needing to get out of the house to pursue a rule of life. That means, when I can’t get away, my rule of life crumbles rather than sustains me. But Tickle’s words challenge me to develop a rule of life in the midst of the often chaotic and distracting activity of my family’s life. And if her experience is normal, it seems my rhythm will not only become natural for me, but also for my children.

You can pray The Divine Hours online here or here.

I enjoy Despair.com. If you’re not already familiar with them, they’re a company that specializes in the art of demotivation. They create and sell, “demotivational” posters that are downright hilarious.

Well, I just found out that they have audio and video podcasts. You can subscribe to the audio podcast here and the video podcast here. The video entitled “Addressing Employee Complaints” busted me up! I’m a big fan of The Office and the video podcast is in the same genre.

Well, it had to happen — The Left Behind Video Game Series. I first saw this on Justin Baeder’s blog. Here’s the game’s actual site. And below is the game’s description from the site:

Wage a war of apocalyptic proportions in LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces – a real-time strategy game based upon the best-selling LEFT BEHIND book series created by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Join the ultimate fight of Good against Evil, commanding Tribulation Forces or the Global Community Peacekeepers, and uncover the truth about the worldwide disappearances!

· Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series , including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce against Nicolae Carpathia – the AntiChrist.

· Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.

· Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.

· Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City .

· Control more than 30 units types – from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!

· Enjoy a robust single player experience across dozens of New York City maps in Story Mode – fighting in China Town , SoHo , Uptown and more!

· Play multiplayer games as Tribulation Force or the AntiChrist’s Global Community Peacekeepers with up to eight players via LAN or over the internet!

I’m not sure if I want to laugh or cry.

Deb and I took the kids to Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center to visit the Stations of the Cross. It was gloomy and rained pretty hard during the first several stations. Yet, the weather seemed appropriate for the occasion. I was moved during several moments. One was when Danielle was praying at one of the stations and she said, “God, make earth like your heavens.” Another time was when Christopher prayed, “God, help me to be a good person.” Also, during the drive home, all of shared which stations were particularly gripping for us. It was a very special time hearing the kids and Debbie which stations were memorable for them.

I posted this on Good Friday last year and decided to post it again. I’m hoping to take the family to walk through the Stations of the Cross later today.



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About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” — which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — Matthew 27:46

Being in the middle of God’s will, climaxing his age old dream, and all the while being abandoned by God. For that is the irony of God’s plan. The climax of God’s saving work upon the earth is the Great Reversal. The healing one wounded and suffering. The sinless one becoming sin. The eternal life dying. The Father’s beloved abandoned.

In this climactic moment, the unthinkable occurs. Suspended above the earth like a hypodermic, Jesus becomes the anti-venom necessary to save creation. Woundedness, evil, death and abandonment are injected into the healing one, the sinless one, the eternal life, the Father’s beloved. And the poison courses through his body, racking him with a pain only he can bear. And when the toxin has taken its toll, it is injected back into the earth from which it came.

And the reaction is almost immediate. Creation shudders and retches under the introduction of this new element. Centuries of momentum seem to cascade back upon itself within the bowels of the world. Feverish, the world closes its eyes, blanketing the land in darkness. Unable to stomach God’s eternal life, death trembles and vomits, spewing forth the righteous dead from its gullet.

Earth spasms under the force of two powerful currents colliding into and mingling with each other.

And as suddenly as the convulsive violence began, it ends. Silhouetted against a darkened sky, the divine syringe has been spent, its healing elixir expulsed into creation’s soil. The fever breaks.

And there is silence….

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.”

The fragrance of roasted lamb, fresh unleavened bread and bitter herbs hangs heavily in the air. Oil lamps bathe the room in a warm glow and cast specter-like shadows upon the walls. These wraithlike spectators seem to hover, bearing silent witness to the drama that is unfolding. It is an ancient drama, but one being infused with fresh life and meaning.

Thirteen men recline at the table, enjoying a meal. Embedded in the meal’s elements are antediluvian reminders, residues of an age-old story. In that moment, time and space collapse, plunging these men in a river of antiquity that once again spills over history’s banks to flood the present with reviving water. God is alive and faithful to his covenant. As he once delivered, he will do so again.

Then the unthinkable! The storyteller sheds his robe and dons a servant’s apron and towel. Filling a basin, he begins to wipe the day’s grime and filth from their feet. Suddenly the atmosphere grows tense with instinctive recoils and embarrassed glances.

But a new chapter of God’s ancient story is being etched upon their hearts. God’s delivering presence, his awesome pillar of cloud and fire, is manifesting once again, yet, in a startling unexpected way – a towel and basin. God’s rescuing and restoring presence tangibly fills the room as it did Israel’s camp through the intimate, cleansing, even embarrassing touch of a friend’s serving hand.

In that moment, one can almost hear the pursuing army crest the hill in hot pursuit as it did millennia prior. But this army is neither Egyptian nor Roman. No, those empires were only puppets in the hands of the true enemy, an enemy that God now comprehensively engages. This time the enemy charges at us from within. Pride. Arrogance. Anger. Contempt. “You shall never wash my feet!” The worst sins are often cloaked in the noblest rationalizations and intentions.

Once again, as in ages past, the pillar of cloud and fire sweeps between God’s people and their foe. “If I don’t wash your feet, you can’t be a part of me.” Sin is exposed and routed, yielding to clarity and invitation.

Jesus’ words are not a threat, simply a statement of fact. He is enacting a new climactic movement in the divine drama and invites his friends to join the inspired improvisation. “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

The cloud and fire – now the towel and basin – not only rescue and restore, but also commission, foreshadowing a forthcoming charge, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Like Jesus, we too must embody the rescuing and restoring presence of God. We must wield the towel and basin. We must disrobe, kneel, touch and restore.

So Jesus’ chastisement of Peter’s swagger makes sense. In order to improvise authentically Christ’s pattern, one must first abide comfortably in that reality. One cannot participate in Christ’s restorative work unless he or she has been the humiliated recipient of Christ’s love. Otherwise, our attempts to serve and love others easily dwindle to our own pride and superiority cloaked with false sentiment. And this, by far, is more insidious than any conquering army.

Station 14: Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb

Their hope is sealed with the finality of grinding stone and clanging centurion armor. They turn and depart, each step rending them from their dreams. The swelling darkness and silence smother the fading cinders of ardency from their hearts.

Station 13: Jesus Is Taken Down From the Cross

Limp. Lifeless. Ravaged by evil, now gently handled by friends. Even in death, he draws the fearful from the immunity of shadows.

His body is already cold. Mary tenderly holds her son. She weeps and whispers her love, unwilling to surrender him. But the ebbing sunlight infuses the companions with haste. Reluctantly, she releases her firstborn into their waiting hands. And they bear him to the tomb.

Station 12: Jesus Dies on the Cross

It is finished. The antidote for creation’s curse is discharged. God’s great reversal is complete. But not without its pain and price. The Pure One has become sin. The Just One consuming humanity’s crimes and consequences. The Living One swallowed by death’s maw. The pall of stunned silence only intensifies ruination’s rank.

But from the nadir of creation’s rue, a roiling surge of renewal gathers momentum. Powers are broken. Redemption is purchased. Creation is reconciled. The new heavens and new earth are about to dawn.

Station 11: Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross

Healing hands forever wounded. Comforting hands locked in clawed agony. Eternal life fused to the instrument of death. Yet, love, not nails, secures them in paradoxical union.

Suspended between heaven and earth, a lightning rod before evil’s wrathful thunderstorm. Black havoc strikes at beauty’s core. Fury upon fury unleashed upon the Abandoned One.

Station 10: Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments

A moment’s reprieve. The course and heavy cross lifts from his shoulders and is laid upon the ground before him. Crossbeams silently outstretched, beckoning him to its rough-hewn bosom for a final deadly embrace.

Time slows as he waits. Two others groan in pain from above. Birds circle, waiting to feast. Onlookers murmur, seduced by morbid fascination.

The soldiers approach. It is time. They strip off his clothes, exposing his ravaged body. The last humiliation before evil’s rapacious barbarity.

Station 9: Jesus Falls a Third Time

He is almost there; the last several steps. He gazes upon the blood-soaked ground. He hears the screams of terror and agony. He stands at hell’s threshold. This is despair’s domain. And it almost crushes him. He stumbles once again. Has evil defeated love? Will God’s renewal fail? Bracing himself, he rises. The heights of heaven descends into the depths of hell. Eternal life pounds on death’s door. Creation’s anguish will soon be sated by the sweet elixir of God’s renewal.

Station 8: Jesus Comforts the Women of Jerusalem

The din of aching and fatigue is punctured by sobs, though not his own. Women mourning his devastation, not realizing it will soon be theirs… and their children’s. They, not he, are in need of comfort from the unseen terror that approaches. So the Shepherd comforts. And warns. And mourns.

Station 7: Jesus Falls the Second Time

The road of suffering becomes steep. Shuffle. Stagger. Stumble. Face-first into the ground, the taste of dirt and blood mingle. Stark reminders of his destination. Planted in the earth, watered with his blood, God’s new creation will bloom.

Station 6: Veronica Wipes Jesus’ Face

Kindness in the heart of atrocity. Tenderness in the midst of savagery. Sweet mercy and a soft cloth to wipe the sting of sweat, blood and thorns. Seemingly insignificant actions form the minute shoots of renewal reaching up through the cracks of human desolation.

Station 5: Jesus Is Helped by Simon

Replacing evil with good is never a solo endeavor. More than two hands are needed — a community of transformation. In a project so divine, there is no shame in accepting aid. Such an unique privilege, to help the Messiah carry his cross. Eyes meet. Heads nod. And together, step by step, they carry creation’s hope.

Station 4: Jesus Meets His Mother

Imagine the anguish of a mother watching her child die. His body broken, heaving with exhaustion. Sweat, blood and agony. She longs to caress his face, to salve his wounds, to sweep away the afflictions. Yet all she can do is look on through a veil of tears and pray for mercy. A sword has pierced her heart.

Station 3: Jesus Falls the First Time

The cross. Pilate’s instrument of death being transformed into God’s instrument of life. A process of pain; a journey of anguish. So staggering, it drops Jesus to his knees. We wince at a stumbling Messiah. We cringe at frail humanity. But with each taxing step, his frailty accentuates our own. Jesus stumbles not under his own burden, but ours. Our fall causes him to fall. Such is the calamity of our sin.

Station 2: Jesus Bears His Cross

Innocence accepts guilt. Goodness embraces evil. Love touchs contempt. Jesus shoulders the unbearable pain assigned for the worst of humanity. And in doing so, our cross becomes his cross. Our backs straighten as Jesus’ back sags under the sharp unyielding weight of the lumber. This timber, which is meant for death, will soon be shaped and crafted into the new tree of life.

Station 1: Jesus is Condemned to Death

Pilate and Jesus. Kingdoms in conflict. Face to face; toe to toe. The love of power assuming the upper hand against the power of love. Pilate fearfully wielding the power of death. Jesus confidently resonating the gift of life.

One will live and one will die. Evil lashing out at goodness, burning itself out upon unending love. And in the end, the one who lived dies forever and the one who died wins life for all. Such is the great reversal of love.

The accompanying images of the Stations of the Cross are from St. Anthony’s Catholic Church.

A Florida State University Professor of Oceanography stated that based on his study, Jesus most likely walked on a patch of ice and not on water. He says that his study points to a rare combination of optimal water and atmospheric conditions that causes unique and extremely rare localized freezing called “springs ice.” Check out the article here.

Okay… I’m not sure which would be the greater miracle, 1) Jesus walking on water, 2) Jesus walking on a huge patch of ice that extended from the shore and into the middle of the Sea of Galilee or 3) Jesus floating on a smaller chunk of ice from the shore to the boat in the midst of fairly severe wind and waves (Matthew 14:24).

But if Jesus did walk on ice, he’s a great practical joker — “Hey Peter, come out here with me.”

Kersplash!

<Snicker, snicker, snicker.>

“Hey, can someone help me onto the boat, my feet are freezing!”

“The most powerful apologetic for Christianity is a local church body living the way it should.”

I love that line. Okay, it’s probably not original, but it’s awesome!

It comes from the article, (you’ve got to love this title) “Church Advertising is a Waste of Time.”

Update: After posting the quote above, I came across the article about the Church of the Nazarene in West Palm Beach. It seems that after a string of burglaries and losing about $25,000 in equipment, the church members decided to take matters into their own hands. Armed with baseball bats, they slept at the church and waited for the next burglary. When Ralph Thomas broke into the church, they hit him with their bats and tied him for the police.

(I bet you that church has some hot advertisement brochures, though.)

You can find the article, video, and picture here.