Journey Musings

New Home Construction

2012-01-06T10:26:00.000-06:00

Today I read these words from Paul's letter to the church in Ephesis:
      Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit. (2:22)

So we are Christ's construction projects. Christ is making us dwellings for God to inhabit.
In most our cases this is remodeling and renovation work. Sometimes dwellings have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Such is the work of Christ in us!

I think we would all live differently and more fully alive if we continually reminded ourselves that we are Christ's construction projects.

Charles Wesley catches to message of Paul's words in the hymn, "O Come and Dwell in Me":
                     O come and dwell in me, Spirit of power within,
                     and bring the glorious victory from sorrow, fear and sin.
                                   UM Hymnal #388, verse 1

The journey we are on is a construction project of the work of God grace!

God Has Not Left the House

2012-01-03T14:11:00.000-06:00

I was in a restaurant today. On the wall was a parking sign reserved for Elvis Presley. My first reaction was "Elvis has left the house." As I thought about this later, I realized that "leaving the house" is not something I/we could say about God. God does not leave the "house" for in Jesus Christ, God has committed himself to be with and for the whole of the creation.

As I read Mark's account of Jesus' baptism, I heard the words addressed to Jesus also addressed to me/to all of us: You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.

I reconsidered how God takes delight in us, even when our lives are not very delightful to him, when our lives and our choices bring God to tears. Yet God is committed to us.

             "My dearest daughter, fondest son,
              My weary folk in every land,
              your souls are cradled in My heart,
              your names are written on My Hand"

              Then praise the Lord through faith and fear,
              in holy and hopeless place,
              for height and depth and heaven and hell
              can't keep us far from His embrace.
                                   Celtic Daily Prayer, pg. 305

May we live with the assurance that God has not and will not leave the house!

A Community of Wonder

2011-12-28T10:34:00.000-06:00

"Once a year, each Christmas, for a few days at least, we and millions of our neighbors turn aside from our preoccupations with life reduced to biology or economics or psychology and join together in a community of wonder." (Eugene Peterson)

I read this quote at our Christmas Eve service. It is found in a book of devotionals devoted to Dietrich Bonhoeffer entitled, God is in the Manger, pg 29. The phrase, "community of wonder," captured my imagination. We all need communities that strive to create a deep sense of wonder, awe, and mystery for us.

To try to live without some sense of wonder is like living in a world devoid of color and contrast, a bland and tasteless world. A world without wonder is a world that has lost the capacity for both joy and pain, celebration and grief, where laughter and groams are both silenced.

The surprise of wonder is that it infuses groans with joy and joy with groans. I don't know how wonder happens like that....I just know that it does.

In this new year, may all our hearts be infused with a spirit of wonder!

Dry Spells

2011-11-16T11:00:00.000-06:00

I have just completed reading an article by Rodney Clapp in the November 15th issue of Christian Century.   He writes about dry seasons, those times when God's presence is felt as absence, the "sterile patches in the life of faith" (St. John of the Cross), the dark nights of the soul.

I deeply appreciate Clapp's wise words. He identifies the following responses:
        1. Dry seasons are not unique. They are not signs of a weak or faulty faith. Dry seasons are part and parcel of living faith.
        2. Trust the momentum. Continue to practice faith, participate in worship and service as habits to ride the dry season out.
        3 Recall the past experiences of God's faithful presence. Israel's history and practice inform us here. I find the Psalms are worthy resources here.
       4. Especially for long dry seasons, consentrate on future hopes when "the Kingdom WILL come  to completion. Trust in the ultimate victory of God's life-giving and redemptive work that lies in the future. In my mind , this is resurrection hope.
       5. Lean on the community of others who do experience God's presence. "Participating in worship and church activities keeps us around people who do feel God's presence."

Clapp reminds me that by sticking with the journey of life and faith through the dry seasons teaches me about the bigness of faith and of God's care. "it is grace and our stubborn trust," Clapp says, "that keeps us going, keeps us in faith, during periods of unfeelingness."

Wise and good words for all of us at all time....especially in dry times.

What We Believe is Important

2011-10-21T15:48:00.002-05:00

The man in the hospital bed was in his mid 40’s. He was recovering from an accident. As he said, “ I was hit by a city bus.” I was visiting him because I was one of the chaplains on duty and he was one of the patients on my floor.

In the course of the conversation he told me “God’s plan was that the bus hit me and I end up in the hospital.” “Oh really?” “How do you know God wanted you to be hit by a city bus?” “Well, chaplain, isn’t that how God works?” “If we are bad people, then God punishes us.”

Needless to say, there are lots of issues to discuss here: How God works, why he feels he’s a bad person, God’s responses to our sinfulness. Just to name a few.

Last month I invited you to ponder what difference being a Christian means for your life. What did you discover? You might even want to ponder the question again. What we believe makes a difference.

It makes a difference in how we life if we believe (use the word, “Trust”) that God is good and God’s will is directed toward our good (not our ill). It makes a difference whether we view God’s judgments, God’s “no”, not a punishment but as “appraisal” of our lives and our actions and as God’s means of restoring us to a healthier relationship with Christ.

As one Christian has observed that what the Cross says about God is NOT that God thinks human kind is so wretched that it deserves death and hell. Rather, God thinks human kind is so beautiful, so good, so precious and valuable that its salvation and redemption are worth dying for.

The Cross of Jesus is God’s NO to sin, evil, destruction, death and anything that would destroy the goodness of human kind and creation. The Cross is also God’s YES to everything that brings life and light, hope and healing, restoration and renewal of human kind and the whole of creation.

I’m for making a difference in this world of ours……How ‘bout you?

Musings on Psalm 1

2011-10-17T11:30:00.000-05:00

I have often wondered why Psalm 1 begins with describing all the places a blessed/happy person avoids: advice of the wicked, where the wicked travel, and where they settle (sit). I wonder about this because I am troubled when I get caught up in pointing fingers and dividing folks into opposing camps of righteous and wicked. If i do this with Psalm 1, I will have missed its wisdom.

The passage, however, reminds me that I am/we are shaped and formed by what we connect ourselves to, where we spend our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical time. What I give my mind, heart, soul, and strength to become those influences that make and shape me.

In short, this Psalm challenges me to consider those places and environments where I spend the most time. It is hard to taste blessing when I am consuming bitterness and sour wisdom. Thus, the wisdom gleaned from tasting God's instructions should be more than a bittler pill to swallow. Rather, they are teachings that breathe life!

Christianity's Difference

2011-10-17T10:02:00.000-05:00

The following was first printed in the newsletter of the church I am presently serving. If you read this blog and practice a different faith tradition, I hope you find it helpful in gaining a perspective on the Christian experience of faith.

I have recently joined a study group of ministers that has raised some challenging questions for me about my life and about my love for the United Methodist Church.

While I grew up in a Methodist family, I grew up with friends in various churches and often we would “swap” out going to each other’s youth groups or churches. I have grown up thinking that most denominations have more in common than we like to talk about; but I am still a Methodist in heart and spirit down to my bones and toe nails. But I am not a Methodist first. I am a Christian who happens to be Methodist by choice. I am a Christian Methodist or a Christian who happens to be Methodist.

So this group I am now part of is challenging me to ask of myself this question: What difference does it make in your life that you are a Christian? Another way to come to terms with this question is to ponder: If I stopped being a Christian today, what about me would change?

Here are a few differences being a Christian makes for me:

· I am held by a love that will never turn me loose. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we meet the depth of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, and life changing power.

· When life gets scary, my hope is anchored with a God who chooses to go with me and go before me into whatever life holds for me. I can trust the one who holds the present and the future in grace.

· When all is said and done, what Jesus teaches me to pray is true: God will bring his kingdom; God’s gracious Will will be done on earth as in heaven. Jesus’ death and resurrection make this clear to me.

· The Christian life sets before me a way of life, with values, choices, and priorities that shape how I need to treat and relate to others. “Treating others as I want to be treated” gives me a way to life well and continually challenges me to live better and be a better person.

These differences are not fully exhaustive of what difference being a Christian makes. I share them with you to encourage you and challenge you to seriously ponder what difference being a Christian makes for you.

The Norm of Sacrifice

2011-10-07T09:44:00.002-05:00

Sacrifice is a word that gets mixed reviews from folks. Especially in our times, sacrifice evokes unease and displeasure. Maybe self-giving would be more appealing to our spiritual, ethical pallets. Yet we are confronted by a God who chooses sacrificial self-giving as a way of reaching out to us.

I like what Thomas Merton writes in Life and Holiness: The norm of sacrifice is not the amount of pain it inflicts, but its power to break down walls of division, to heal wounds, to restore order and unity in the Body of Christ. (p. 41)

Merton notes that "what matters then is not precisely what the sacrifice costs us, but what it will contribute to the good of others and of the Church." (p.40)

Perspectives for our journeys worth pondering.

2011-10-07T09:28:00.002-05:00

I have recently joined a study group of ministers that has raised some challenging questions for me about my life and about my love for the United Methodist Church.

Here are a few differences being a Christian makes for me:

· I am held by a love that will never turn me loose. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we meet the depth of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, and life changing power.

· When life gets scary, my hope is anchored with a God who chooses to go with me and go before me into whatever life holds for me. I can trust the one who holds the present and the future in grace.

Living our Witness

2011-01-26T11:23:00.000-06:00

In his book, Reading the Signs, From Empty nets to Full Lives, Dr. Ellsworth Kalas writes:
      Most of our witnessing is likely to happen in passing moments of conversation
      those occasions when we show, in relatively minor ways, who we are and
      to whom we belong. I am thinking of a surburban woman who was playing
      tennis with her good but quite secular friends. In a conversation break between
      sets she began referring to something she had read that morning. It would
      have been easy to say, "I read somthing this morning." Instead, with no attempt
      at piosity, she simply introduced one word: "in my devotional reading this
      morning." It was not a major soul-winning engagement. It was, however, a true
      sowing of seed. By a word, she had opened the door for some future
      conversation.

Dr. Kalas notes that our greatest hindrance in witnessing is that we are not sensitive and intentional enough to make use of the ordinary, small, seemingly insignificant occasions to witness in a natural, significant way. We don't have to say someting dramatic or life-shaking to make a difference in people's lives and faith journeys.

Dr. Kalas goes on to say that we are immersed in waters of human need and we dont seem to act like we know it. He writes:
      The issue is not we should become more aggressive about sharing our faith.
      It is that we should be more sensitive to the needs of the world around us,
      and more sensitive to the subtle proddings of the Holy Spirit....To be sensitive to
      the Holy Spirit must mean that we will be more sensitive to people and
      their pain; to be more sensitive to people ought to make us more open to God
      and his purposes.

I like how Dr. Kalas describes the work of witnessing. Sharing our faith is simple, profoundly ordinary ways encourages us to be authentic, open, and very human.
My journey could use the ordinary spice Dr. Kalas suggests. How about your's?

Sticking out like a sore thumb

2011-01-26T10:58:00.000-06:00

I don’t remember where I first heard the phrase: Sticks out like a sore thumb.
I remember getting a cut infected and having a bandage on my thumb that looked like a watermelon. One of our children sucked thumbs, both thumbs.
There was a time when both thumbs were almost raw from the use they were given.

Most of my recollections of “sticking out like a sore thumb” were references to people who just didn’t seem to fit in. Like the time I went to a party wearing blue jeans and others showed up in shirts and ties. Yes, I felt really odd and out of place.
I also had other guys come up and say, “Wish I had worn jeans, Boone.” There may have been times you felt like you were sticking out like a sore thumb.

I think one of the callings for us as followers of Jesus our teacher, example, Master, Savior and Lord, is to stick out like a sore thumb. He calls us to march to a different drummer from the one playing the tunes our culture marches to. We are called to live a life that presents a clear and compelling vision of what compassion, truth, faithfulness and self-giving are like. Such a vision guides us all the days of our journey.

Sticking out like a sore thumb is not be easy. We are so into being relevant, user friendly reflections of the world around us. Standing up for what is healthy and right while expressing forgiveness and compassion for others who disagree with us is not a comfortable spot. To stand our ground with sensitivity to the positions of others, to be courageous and humble in the same breath are often times a stretch.

Sticking out like a sore thumb is not a comfortable image of following Jesus. We disciples of Jesus tend to become comfortably settled in our ways. But sticking out like a sore thumb as faithful disciples of Jesus is worth pondering. It is also worth forming intentional community to support, care for and guide us on the journey.

God knows our hearts

2010-10-05T12:14:00.000-05:00

The Good News Bible translates Psalm 17:3 this way: You know my heart. You have come to me at night; you have examined me completely...."

While the writer of this psalm pleads innocence, I for one would not make such a plea for myself. Sometimes my heart is a clear as freshly fallen snow. At other times, my heart resenbles a gall bladder filled with stones. The stones have names like, envy, harted, prejudice, bitterness, ill-will, selfishness.

Yet the psalmist knows that God knows his heart. Such knowledge can become for us a personal source of courage to look upon the mixed nature of our own hearts, affirming those aspects that reflect God's likeness in us and confessing those aspects that reflect our hearts in need of transformation.

Because God knows our hearts, we can pray with Howard Thurman:
                    Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart.
                        Here is the citadel of all my desiring,
                            where my hopes are born
                             and all the deep resolutions of my spirit take wings.
                    In this center, my fears are nourished,
                         and all my hates are nurtured.
                    Here my loves are cherished,
                          and all the deep hungers of my spirit are honored
                             without quivering and without shock.
                    In my heart, above all else,
                          let love and integrity envelop me
                            until my love is perfected and the last vestige
                            of my desiring is no longer in conflict with thy Spirit.
                    Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart.   Amen.
                                 (from the United Methodist Hymnal, pg 401)

And that can be our prayer, because God does know our hearts. A grace worth pondering.

Rethinking Repentance

2010-09-15T09:42:00.000-05:00

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." (Matthew 4:17)
That's the TNIV and NRSV translation of Jesus' first sermon. A new translation that is out in its New Testatment form, the Common English Bible, translates this verse in Matthew: "Change your hearts and lives. Here comes the kingdom of heaven."

I like that new translation of that passage for a couple of reasons. First, it reminds us that one of the first ways we welcome the grace of God is altering our lives and our hearts to align with the force and reality of the kingdom of God that comes to rule in our midst. Such a response is exactly what the word, repentance, means: to change our minds, to reverse our judgments, to change our directions, to turn around.

I know we hear repentance spoken of as expressions of regret, as being sorrowful for our faults and foul-ups. Yet the truth is "I'm sorry" is a sad and useless excuse when not followed by changes in actions and behaviors.

I suspect God hears enough of the "I'm sorry." Given the intolerance and uncivility of our culture right now, the unchristian comments and behaviors toward other religious faiths, the condeming of other religious groups because they are not like we are, the threats to burn their holy scriptures, "I'm sorry" is a pretty lame response.

Fortunately ( or unfortunately) I have been reading the book of Jeremiah for the past weeks. Jeremiah 8 and 9 are particularly insightful right now. The chapters immerse us in the grief of Jeremiah and of God over the condition and the consequences facing the people. In frustration and grief, God and Jeremiah announce that the people are not ashamed at all about their lot, "they don't even know how to blush!"
(Jeremiah 8:12)

So I am rethinking my practice of repentance. Recovering the capacity to blush at my actions and the actions of others AND realign my heart and life to more adequately correspond to the rule of God that is coming toward me.

This aspect of the journey with God is worth pondering.

Rethinking Repentance

2010-09-03T11:49:00.001-05:00

Like most religous words, "repentance", often needs reinterpretation. It is not that the word and action have changed.  It is more that our understandings need retuning from time to time.   This week I began to consider a little different way to think about the action and necessity of repentance to add along side some of these understancing.

Repentance is:
                        Turning around, changing directions.
                        Turning "God-ward."
                        An appraisal of my life, actions and behavior.
                        Being changed for the better.

This week I have been thinking about repentance as realignment. As my car need realignment from time to time, so my life needs realignment with God's will.

We practice the alignment of repentance when we ask ourselves, "At what times today did I fall short of faithful service to Christ? When were those times I failed to act as God depended upon me to act?"

The journey of faith is a day by day practice of realignment.

Naming Judgment

2010-08-23T14:08:00.000-05:00

Maybe it is because I make so many snap judgments based on my impressions of someone or something said. Maybe it is because I sense we are living through a time when we are more prone to making judgments about people and things than we are prone to recognize our own accountability for situations and circumstances we experience. So placing blame is much easier than owning up to responsibility. Or maybe it is because "yes" and "no" seem to be two sides of a single coin.

Well, for whatever reason, judgment has been on my mind . Not just any judgment, God's judgment, which unfortuantely has generally been perceived in religious circles as a "dooms day" expression of God's intense anger and fury. I remember how I was exposed to the idea of judgment. It was God's retailation for evil done, for sin and sin's consequences. God's backlash or God lashing out at a rebellious, sin-sick world.

So if good things happened to us, we celebrated God's blessing. If something bad happened we begin to assume God was angry and had struck back. What faulty and misguided perceptions!

Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, writes "The biblical word judgment means 'the decisive word by which God straighening things out and puts things right'...Judgment is not a word about things, describing them; it is a word that does things, putting love into motion, applying mercy, nullifying wrong, ordering goodness." (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, pp. 54-55)

I have come to realize that God's judgment is a response of God's intense sadness and grief, a cry of divine pain for the brokeness of human life. It is God's appraisal for what needs changing in my life and the world around me so that God's hopes and dreams may take shape and form. In that sense judgment is mercy directed toward our restoration and healing. Biblically the end product of judgment is not destruction but restoration and renewal.

Such judgment is worth pondering.

The Courses We Set

2010-07-27T12:23:00.000-05:00

A friend was telling me about a recent trip. We were both amused at how the GPS tended to set the course. We both had stories of courses gone awry.

Then, just the other day, as I was reading Psalm 26, I stumbled across the best GPS (Growth Positioning System) for our faith journey. Here is the Jewish Study Bible translation for Psalm 26 verses 2-3:

Probe me, O Lord, and try me, test my heart and mind; for my eyes are on your steadfast love; I have set my course by it.

The translation inspired me to begin considering those things that set my courses in life, those directions, goals, values, and commitments that I set my heart and mind upon. Over the years those objects of my course have shifted. New objects have taken their place. What guided my course twenty years ago is not exactly what guides my course today.

One certainty over the courses of our lives is this: Though we may experience many changes, the steadfast love of God can be trusted to be stable and secure.

The book of Lamentations was written out of the experience of the nation of Israel losing everything and being taken into exile. It is written to guide the community toward resources for dealing with pain and loss. Here is its profound theme found in the third chapter, verses 22-23:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.

As these verses rattle around in my mind and heart, I hear the voice of my GPS, ”Recalculating!”

The courses we set for our lives by are worth pondering.

The Scent of Obedience

2010-07-21T16:02:00.000-05:00

If you had to identify a scent to the word "obedience," what would the scent be? Ok, I know that is an odd question, but sometimes it helps to stretch our imaginations a bit when it comes to words like obedience, words and perspectives that bring with them so much baggage.

Well my preparation for Sunday's sermon on the passage from 1 John 5:1-7 has pressed me outside my comfort zones of thought.  1 John 5:1-7 is about obedience, learning to love God by keeping his commandments, carrying out what God asks. These commands, the writer says, are not burdensome.
"Not burdensome!?"  Doesn't smell like the scent of obedience I am most familiar with.

I have grown up on a diet of obedience governed by Webster Dictionary's definition for obey: to comply with the orders of; to yield submission to; to be ruled by. Ah, the scent of domination and the smell of oppression.  Toe the line or sit down.  When I say "jump!", you ask, "How high?"

Needless to say the very idea of obedience, raises red flags in our minds and hearts. Too bad. For as someone has said, "You can have obedience without faith; but you can't have faith without obedience."
Maybe one of the reasons faith communities struggle in our culture is that the core of faith calls for obedience and we treat the very idea with resistance and avoidance. We perceive obedience as a threat to freedom and a free exercise of will. (How we perceive freedom is also a topic for future consideration)

Yet from a biblical perspective obedience means "to listen". To listen, to pay attention to, to give our attention to someone or something. The biblical command to Israel was "Hear, O Israel..."
( Deuteronomy 6)

The scent of obedience as listening, giving attention to God through keeping the commands to love God and others is a fresh breeze and an invigorating smell. Could I possibly be most free when I am choosing to live a life that listens for God as I love God and neighbor?

Try this scent. It comes from Henri Nouwen's book, Letters to Marc about Jesus:
      What counts is being attentive at all times to the voice of God's love inviting us to obey,
      that is, to make a generous response. (pg.83)

I think my journey is going to be a bit different as I ponder these fresh scents of obedience in carrying out God's commands. What about you?

Prayer Challenge

2010-07-02T09:21:00.000-05:00

Dallas Willard says that prayer is the conversation we have with God about what we're doing together.
He tells of going to a workshop led by Agnes Sanford. Sanford asks participants to engage in the following exercise over the three day workshop:

            "I want you to choose something that you are going to pray for for the next three days.
             It doesn't matter what it is:something that you're concerned about, and you want to
             take up with God for three days."

When I read Agnes Sandord's challenge many concerns rolled through my head: concerns of my family, a variety of national situations, concerns among the members of the congregation I serve as a pastor, the two wars we are presently fighting, the devestating oil spill in the Gulf, anxieties over the future and my own personal concerns for the future, the nature of my leadership for the congregation, my need to develop a richer and more fulfilling prayer life in general.

To pick one of these does not mean I cease to pray for the rest of these concerns. But as I pondered the concerns on my plate, I became aware that the deepest need I have is to trust that God is present and active in these situations already. Complicating this need is the way I go about my prayer life. I do it on the run except for a brief time when I sit in silence.

In other words, my issue to talk over with God is our hit and miss communications and brief conversaton times. My prayer life is like passing a friend in the school hall way and waving. Not much depth to the conversation at all.

So what about you? How would you describe your conversaton moments with God over the things you are doing together?

Practicing Faith

2010-06-22T15:46:00.000-05:00

I had a football coach who lived by the proposition that “we practice hard so we can enjoy the game.” And practice hard we did Monday through Wednesday. Thursday we practiced a lighter routine in preparation for the Friday night game.

The necessity of practice does not just apply to athletic events. What musician would even think of stepping up to preform without adequate practice time? Our choir practices in preparation for morning worship leadership. Linda Swearingen also comes to church early Sunday mornings to “run through” her music presentations for the day.

Throughout the week, I practice what will become the Sunday sermon, what I will say, how I will say it, what particular translation of the scripture I will read in the worship service.

Practice does not mean perfection. Practice means putting something into action. Without practice the action has no focus or direction. Practice refines us.

Living faith takes practice, too. It astounds me how often we seem to think and act as if a “hit and miss practice” of the essentials of Christian practice…a prayer here, a worship attendance there, a study of scripture sometimes…really helps develop the level of faith that can endure the struggles and the difficulties of life, help us make wise choices and bring us joy, peace, and hope.

If your practice life is suffering, consider one of the following suggestions:

Begin using the Upper Room devotionals. It’s also online at www. upperroom.org.

Read a Psalm or portion of a Psalm every day. Start July 1 with Psalm 1 and read one a day…in 150 days you will have read the entire book of Psalms.

Be more active in attending either morning worship or join one of the Sunday School classes or study groups.

Find a need in the community and volunteer to help.

How we practice faith is worth pondering.

Bearing Up

2010-05-28T09:58:00.000-05:00

From time to time, I hear the comment, "Well, we all know God will not give us more than we can bear." Usually, someone is responding to a painful personal struggle, a series of overwhelming circumstances of trouble, or someone else's trials and difficulties for which the answer is "God doesn't give us more than we can bear."

In support of that understanding of God, suffering, and God's role in suffering folks will quote 1 Corinthians 10:13: No testing (temptation) has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. (New Revised Standard Version)

I don't think the passage from 1 Corinthians and the statement that" God doesn't give us more than we can handle" are connected. In the Corinthians passage, the emphasis is on God being faithful to provide what we need to face, endure and work our way through the times of difficulty, even times of testing and temptation we will all face. Christians and people of faith are not exempt from these times. We are not shielded from suffering, but we have help in the midst of the sufferings to get through them. God is faithful to offer ways through to everyone. I call that offer "grace with us".

The statement, "God doesn't give us more than we can bear" is and always will be a way we try to explain suffering that comes to us. I think it is a trite explanation that finally makes God the author and giver of the suffering rather than the One who walks with us and leads us through the suffering.

There are too many biblical examples of God that contradict the perspective of the statement. Take for example, The Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 and John 10. Take Luke 15 with the parables of lost coins, lost sheep and the lost sons and consider the shepherd who goes out seeking and the father who goes out to seek and welcome wayward sons.

If we as parents refrain from inflicting pain upon our children, how much more will the Loving Father refrain from inflicting pain upon his children up to what they can bear.

Granted there is suffering that breaks our hearts and our lives...and breaks the very heart of God.

Having written all this, I know there are folks who will hold out for a God who dumps stuff on human beings
I choose to trust that God is one who dares to suffer with us and for us and along side us in order to guide us through.

Finding Our Way

2010-05-03T12:09:00.000-05:00

I am planning my travel to Lake Junaluska for a few days of spiritual retreat. I am aware that Interstate 40 is shut down between Knoxville, Tennessee and Junaluska due to significant rock slide damage and needed repairs. So I am in the process of consulting maps and travel alternatives for my journey.
As I go about this planning, I am aware of how this shift is much like how we plan our faith journeys and our life as a people of God, the Church. So much in our world and church life seems to be shifting. People who watch the movement of religious life in culture seem to be telling us that the institutional church is going through a time of transition…what has been is clear but what lies ahead is murky as best.
In the murky water of the present and future, I am convinced of this: We have been satisfied as people of God to confine Christian Faith to a set of beliefs. Ask someone, “Are you a Christian?” See what kind of answer you get. I bet they tell you “what” they believe.

While what we believe is important, belief by itself does not make Christian faith.
Faith has become a matter of what a person believes or doesn’t believe. And there we have missed what Jesus is all about. The bottom line is what we do based on what we believe.
It is time we shift our focus to putting our faith into action.
John Wesley stressed “responsible grace.” He was concerned with how our experience of God’s love and care gets translated into love and care for others. For Methodist folks, faith is best understood as a “Way of Life”.
If there is a “map” for being a Christian it is found in how we live out God’s love for us in Jesus Christ with folks we live among and meet day by day….grace able to respond to the life around us.
It’s worth pondering. Blessings on the journey!

By This We Are Known

2010-04-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

It was show and tell day at school. The little kindergartener wanted to create someting to take.
He told his mother, "I want them to see what's in me. I want them to see I can be an artist."

So he took a small box and with his mother's help creatd a jungle scene with green construction paper
for grass, blue paper for the sky, darker blue paper for a watering hole and a collection of cut out animal figures he had colored.

This is quite a risky move on his part. What if the kids in his class laugh at him? What if they don't see the artist inside him working its way out? What if his work of love and self-giving is not appreciated?

Jesus told his disciples, "Love one another as I have loved you. By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35) Earlier Jesus had gathered up his robe around himself, knelt down, and washed their dirty feet as a sign of servanthood. Later, he would lay down, offer up his very life on their behalf and for the whole creation.

For too long we in the Christian community have settled for a faith that is based on affirming certain beliefs.
While beliefs are important, they are not the whole picture.

People need to see the workings of God's love in us. No amount of fancy PR or slick advertizing will do.
Only faith making itself active in loving action. And until people see God's love working itself out through our lives, we will continue to struggle to find a way to impact the hearts and lives of our culture and communities.

They will see God's love through our weaknesses and our strengths, our failures and achievements...and most of all in our risks of self-giving. Then the Word of God will become flesh and blood through us.

It's worth serious pondering on the journey.

Roots

2010-04-06T11:23:00.000-05:00

"Singers and dancers alike say, "All my roots are in You."   Psalm 87:7 (Jewish Study Bible)

Various translations for this verse simply add multi layers of meaning and depth to the passage.
           " All my springs are in you."   NRSV
            " In Zion is the source of all our blessing." TEV
            "All my fountains are in you." TNIV
            "All find their home in you."   Jersualem Bible

While the writer is stressing that Zion, the city of God, Jerusalem is the center of life for all nations, I think the deeper theological insight of this passage is that God is the ground, the source, the home for all life.

When I was in seminary studying to be a pastor, I read a theologian who talked of God as the "Ground of all Being." At the time, I thought "ground" was much too static a image for God. Now, some 40 years later, I have a better understanding of how alive ground is. Ground is that which anchors the roots of growing things, a source of nourishment for plant or tree roots.

And as I consider this connection, I remember the words I spoke at our Ash Wednesday service, "Dust you are and to dust you shall return." Just recently at a grave side I spoke the words, "This body we commit to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."   I spoke those words in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to life initiated by the raising of Jesus.

I recognize I can choose to plant my roots in a variety of places, even places that have little or no obvious connection with the light and life of God's presence. And I do make that choice, sometimes consciously and at other times unconsciously. So prayer, worship, study, witness and service become key practices for me to be rooted deeper into God's presence.

I am convinced that God has given us life so that we might plant our roots deep within his springs and fountains of life, within the good earth of divine grace and compassion. To that end, God pursues us and plants us. So be it.

Awaiting the Son Rise

2010-04-01T10:22:00.000-05:00

A couple of years ago I was attending a spiritual growth retreat for United Methodist pastor at Kenlake. The leader of the sessions had invited us to meet him at the lakeside to watch the sunrise. The small group that gathered waited and waited and waited. The morning was gloomy and the clouds were thick. We told ourselves that we trusted the sun rose somewhere today, even if not immediately here with us. Just as we were getting ready to leave and go to breakfast, the sun broke through the gloom.

In the gospel accounts of that first Easter, when the Son rose, gloom and thick sadness covered the first witnessses. They came to Jesus' tomb expecting to find him lifeless and prone, flat on his back in death.
What they found was an empty tomb. Jesus had stood up. And depending on the gospel story teller, Jesus was to be found out ahead to them in Galilee, or on the road to Emmaus, or showing up behind locked doors later in the evening. Other places, but definitely not back in the tomb.

According to Barbara Lundblad in a 1996 article in Journal for Preachers, a Dutch word for resurrection is "opstanding", which to me catches the dynamic nature of resurrection...up standing.

In a world that seems so captive to the gloom of despair, anger, violence and bad news, I take heart this Easter season in the One who breaks into those dark and lifeless places in our lives, our relationships, or world with upstand breaths of fresh air and hope. God is not finished with us and that which is created just yet. We may, though, have to wait through the gloom to witness the Son rise.

The Prodigal God

2010-03-29T10:29:00.002-05:00

I am in the midst of reading Timothy Keller's book, The Prodigal God. The subtitle is "Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith."

Though I have not completed the book, I want to suggest it is well worth reading. Keller takes the parable of the prodigal son and opens up a variety of avenues for understanding the character of God, the implications of a father with TWO sons (since we have tended to spend most of our time on Son #1 who obviously is rebellious) and our need for a grace that is life changing, a grace that is given to both sons even before they've had a chance to clean up their lives.

Keller's perspective on the elder, "obedient" son is especially insightful for those of us who would maintain our love and devotion, our obedience and faithfulness should count for something with God.

As I continue to read and reflect on Keller's insights, I am hopeful that this journey will assist me to recover
a heart of faith that is rooted in the prodigal (extravagant, over the top) grace that only God can supply.
If you are encouraged to read Keller's book, may the journey for a rediscovered heart of faith be your's, too.

Grace for the journey,
Ben

Who has your back?

2010-03-29T10:15:00.000-05:00

Just finished a youth group program using a clip from the film, The Blind Side. A movie well worth watching.
The youth group, leaders and I brainstormed what it means to say, "I've got your back."

As you might expect, we talked about trust, caring, support, empathy, safety and comfort. We talked about how important it is to have people who are actively supporting us, folks we can truly count upon to be with and for us.

I asked the group to go off by themselves and list those persons they believe have their backs and whose backs they have and watch over.

Then we looked at Psalm 138:7-8 and Psalm 139. I asked them to simply circle the verses that speak to them about God "having our backs."

Through all this conversation, it reminded me how crucial community with one another and with God is for our very survival and well-being. Such community is what frees us from a sense of aloneness, isolation, and despair.

One translation for Psalm 139:5 is "You pursue me, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me."

So as you read this reflection on our journey with each other and God, consider:
            Where have you sensed God's pursuit of you?
              Who has your back?
              Who depends upon you to have their back?

Christ Behind Me

2010-03-10T12:32:00.004-06:00

A devotional I read for March 8 reflected on a phrase from St. Patrick's breastplate, "Christ behind me."
The devotional piece noted:

There He walks in your past. He walks in all the dark rooms you pretend are closed, that He may bring light. Invite Him into your past. Experience His forgiveness, His acceptance of you. Offer all you are ashamed of . . . all you wish to forget . . . all that still pains and hurts you . . . all the hurt you have caused others. Walk there in the places you are afraid of, knowing that He walks with you and will lead you on! Celtic Daily Prayer, pg 348

I have pondered these lines, for they remind me that the love of God in Christ penetrates the dark, hidden places of our lives -- places we would rather deny and avoid -- with the promise of healing light.

My journey is marked with many such places. Places where I fear to venture because of the pain caused me or the pain I created and left behind.

Yet, I know in the depth of my soul that these places can only find relief and healing if they are lifted up and surrendered to the light of God--a presence I seek to avoid and yearn to know.

The promise of life on the journey is that God does walk into those dark, foreboding places with us.

Come, Spirit of Life. Break through our darkness and penetrate our lives with your Breath of Life. Cause us to seek and do your will with glad and generous hearts.

Journey Musings

2010-03-02T12:52:00.003-06:00

Musing is an exercise in contemplation, reflection, imaginative pondering and breathing deeply of the life that unfolds around us. For me musing upon my journey of life is a challenging undertaking. I do not take a step back from my routines and experiences easily. It is often easy for me to go from one situation to another without stopping to take a deep breath or to ponder what I have just experienced.

This last week, standing in a checkout line, I found myself behind a young mother and her two year old son. The mother stepped out of the little boys range of sight and stood right behind him. Unable to see her, the little boy called out, "Mommy, Mommy, where are you? Mommy, where did you go?" So I just responded, "Did your Mother disappear?" He answered me, "Where's Mommy?" "She'll be back soon," I told him. Of course, my response didn't do much to help his ill-ease.

Just when I wasn't sure the little guy and I could handle the uncertainty much longer, his mother stepped back into his line of sight. "Mommy", he beamed with delight, "where were you?" "Oh, I was right here all the time," she assured him.

How often I am like that little boy with God's presence. Just because I think God's signs are not visible and in front of my eyes, I act as if God is not present or near. And when dark times seem to hide God's light, I assume God's light is not present or available.

I am not one who tries to see God's handiwork in every little event and activity around me. There are many events that I would not even dare attribute to the gracious workings of God; yet, there are moments that are "thin spaces", when the things of God and the things of life interconnect in wonder, beauty, hope and restoration. Places where the stuff that makes life worth the living and bring out the joy of living it, just slip by my gaze.

It took a two year old little boy to remind me to be open to the truth of God's presence on my journey in living.

How do you experience the presence of God on your journey?