Let Us Be People of Easter

A devotion I wrote and gave to MOPS this week:

 

Friends it’s a joy to proclaim to you this morning that He is Risen!  I know it’s easy to think Easter is over--Target quickly put away the plastic eggs, obnoxious Easter grass that gets all over everything and doesn’t vacuum up easily, and marked down all the leftover peeps, but in the life of the Christian church we’re still smack in the middle of the Easter season.  I used to teach a class for children ages 4-6, and it was a program called Godly Play, where we taught children how to worship, how to participate in the life and liturgy of a congregation and we used to help them recognize and celebrate the various seasons of the church year.  We would explain to them when they saw the purple banners and cloths show up in the church it meant we were in the season of Lent, the 6 weeks before Easter, and that purple meant we were waiting for something huge to happen--Easter was so important it took us 6 weeks to get ready for it!  But what many people don’t realize is that the 7 weeks after Easter are called the Easter season--we’d tell the kids that easter was SO huge, was SO important to our faith that one sunday wasn’t nearly enough to celebrate it fully, the church needed 7 sundays where we would proclaim “he is risen! he is risen indeed!” to one another every week.  Many congregations have lost that practice, using those words, “he is risen” only one week a year, but i wish that was something we could reclaim.  Because those words matter.  They’re game changing, life changing words, history changing words.  And many of us only hear them once a year.  But i want to tell you again today that He is Risen.  Or as my 3 year old likes to run around saying “he is risen and fabulous!”  We have absolutely no idea where those words came from, but I love them.  Jesus is risen and fabulous.  

Jesus is risen.  But that doesn’t mean everything is perfect, it doesn’t mean life is without hard times.  We heard three incredible stories two weeks ago from our friends who freely shared about very difficult times in their lives.  Life is messy.  Life is downright painful at times.  There is a constant mixture of the beautiful and the bitter, and Jesus’ resurrection does not promise to take away the bitter as much as we wish it would.  At least not here, not now, not yet.  Shauna Niequist calls this life bittersweet, the idea that in all things there is both something broken and something beautiful--a sliver of lightness on even the darkest night, a shadow of hope in every heartbreak.  That if everything in life was sweetness, it would rot our teeth and our souls.  The bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the calluses on our hands.  Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, full of depth and complexity, it’s courageous, gutsy and earthy.  It’s the bitter parts of our stories that allow us to sit with one another, to reach out when we see others suffering a similar pain we’ve endured.  It is after having walked through those bitter moments and seasons in life that we are able to utter what I’ve come to believe are two of the most powerful words in a friendship.  The words “me too.”  Me too.  I’ve been there too.  You’re not the only one who has been so sleep deprived you’ve considered walking away from your kids.  Me too.  You’re not the only one who has been so fed up with a spouse that you’ve found yourself entertaining the question “do I want to do this for the next 50 years?”  Me too.  You’re not the only one who has worried over the health of a loved one, or grieved in the emergency room over the loss of someone dear to you.  Jesus is risen, but life is still messy, and walking through those messy times gives us the privilege of proclaiming to one another “you are not alone in your messy and bitter moments.”  

But friends, here is what the resurrection of Jesus does promise us.  It promises us that our messy, sometimes painful and bittersweet life won’t be that way forever.  The book of Revelation promises us, in what might be one of the most hope-filled passages in all of scripture that one day all suffering will end.  I believe that one day we will stand before the throne of God and never again will we hunger.  Never again will we know the scorching heat of the sun.  Never again will we shed a tear, in fact I believe it with all of my heart that one day God will wipe away every tear we have ever shed from our eyes.  Because Jesus is alive we have this hope.  I believe that the same Jesus who was put to death on a cross 2000 years ago is alive again today, and because he is risen we have hope.  One day there won’t be any more depression, there won’t be any more cancer, there won’t be any more drunk driving accidents, one day there will be a cease-fire forever in war torn parts of this planet.  Life is still messy friends, sometimes life is downright painful but I believe with all my heart that Jesus is alive and because he is alive we can live with hope.  

My favorite song-writer, poet, prophet, is the late Rich Mullins, who died tragically way too young.  But he left behind a treasure-trove of words that over and over again point me to Jesus, and to the hope we have in him.  One of my favorite songs of his is called If I Stand, and the chorus says

 

So if I stand let me stand on the promise

That You will pull me through

And if I can't then let me fall on the grace

That first brought me to You

If I sing let me sing for the joy

That has born in me these songs

But if I weep let it be as a man

Who is longing for his home

Friends because Jesus is risen we have the promise of another home someday. The resurrection does not mean we will never grieve here on earth.  It does not mean everything in our lives will be springtime and sunshine and roses.  But because of the resurrection we can say “i know this isn’t the end.  I know in my head, even if I don’t always feel it in my heart, that someday I won’t cry anymore, someday my loved ones won’t suffer.  As i look at the world around me I HAVE to believe that, I have to believe the pain in this world isn’t how God intended life to be.  Even in the midst of dark times, may we be people of Easter.  People who can help proclaim to one another that Jesus is risen, and because of those 3 words, everything in our lives will be made new someday.  We can grieve, cry, laugh, dance, fight, make up, parent our kids, care for our loved ones, and walk through the ordinary everday moments with great hope.  Jesus is risen friends, he is risen indeed.  

 

Eshet Chaiyl! Woman of Valor!

Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking at our church's women's tea, and I thought I'd post here my manuscript from that talk.  It's mostly for my own family members who had wanted to hear what I was going to say, but if you need some encouragement or aren't feeling like you are "doing" enough in life, maybe these words can offer you a bit of perspective and hope.  

How many of you write to do lists in some form--whether that be on a sticky note, in a day planner or on your smart phone?  Who here gets a little twinge of pride and accomplishment when you cross something off your to do list?  Ok time for the real confession....who here adds something to your to do list after it’s been done just so you can cross it off and see that you accomplished one more task in your day?  I do.  I have always done this, usually without thinking about it much.  Whether it’s a large task, like for me that might be conquering costco with a one year old in tow, or it’s a more minor task like “make dinner,” I am a person who has always loved crossing things off my lists,  and I get an incredible sense of satisfaction when I get to respond to my husband’s question of “what did you do today?” with a huge litany of tasks.  Inside I’m practically bursting with “look how productive I was today!  Look how much I contributed to our family or home or church.”  When I stop to think about it I have to wonder if I am really saying “Look how valuable I am.”  And I know deep down I am constantly tempted to find my value and worth in what I accomplish in any given week.  Conversely I know that I am often tempted to feel down on myself when I am unable to work my way through my lists or when my only response to “what did you do today?” is “not much.” As I talk to other friends, as I scroll through my Facebook pages, as I read people’s personal websites and pay attention to what women are saying around me, I suspect I am not the only one who battles this temptation to constantly feel productive in order to feel useful and valuable to a family or society.

There’s a little note that has circulated around the internet world lately that says “To Do List:  Wake Up, Do Something Amazing, Go Back to Sleep.”  “Do something amazing.”  But what about those days when “amazing” seems a bit out of our reach?  When it’s all we can do to stumble out of bed and to the coffee pot and pray our children don’t wake up until the caffeine is moving through our veins?  What about those days when we just don’t feel like we have any “amazing” left in us?  Those days when our knees seem to creak a bit more than they did previously and our brains seem a bit foggy and weary and our hearts are heavy with fear and worry?  What then?  And what does God have to say to us as women about our value, about our to do lists?  This afternoon I’d like to spend our next few minutes together looking at those questions and exploring some of these ideas. 

One of the roles I have had for a large percentage of my life is that of student.  I have always enjoyed school and enjoyed learning and while I haven’t always been a straight A student, I’ve always found a lot of joy and pride in coming home with a good grade on a report card...and except for a few years of high school math classes that we just pretend never happened I have always done well.  When I was in my 3rd year of seminary I was plugging along checking things off my to do list for the year.  One day I somehow discovered that my glands on my neck were swollen.  I didn’t think much of it, I felt a little tired and had a sore throat but I figured I’d be fine in a few days.  I wasn’t.  I developed a fever the next day and finally dragged myself to the doctor for some tests.  The results came back that I had mono.  Within two days I was so exhausted and sick I literally could not do anything.  I had to crawl to the bathroom and back, I had to shower sitting down because I did not have the energy to stand up for more than a couple minutes at a time.  All of a sudden friends and my then boyfriend Charles had to bring me food and do my laundry.  I had to drop all but one of my classes for the quarter, and I spent weeks sitting on my couch, without any energy even to pick up a book.  Suffice it to say I was no longer crossing anything off my to do lists. 

I remember feeling incredibly depressed, for the first time in my life I couldn’t do anything.  What good was I to my friends or to Charles or to my church community when all I could do was sit there?  I spent a lot of time soul searching during that season, prayer was about all I could do in between naps and over the course of those few weeks I learned an important lesson that I have to constantly remind myself of...my value as a woman, as a person, as a friend, a wife, a mother, is not found in what I do or do not accomplish on any22 given day.  My value and identity are found in the water and the words spoken over me at my baptism when I was 3 weeks old.  I am a child of the covenant.  I have been claimed by God and marked as His forever by that water.  I am God’s beloved daughter and absolutely no circumstances here on earth could ever change that.  No amount of what I deemed as productivity or lack of productivity could ever change my true identity. 

I think there is a bit of a myth in the church today that the valuable women are the ones who do a lot, who seem to have everything all pulled together both at home and in their life outside the home.  We honor those who are capable and able to give many many hours to various events and programs at the church and don’t get me wrong, churches wouldn’t function without the help of people willing to give of their time!  But what about those for whom home life is especially challenging and the abundant hours of service just aren’t feasible?  Or those of us who have health challenges that make it difficult to do a lot?  I want to invite us this afternoon to consider how we might honor, celebrate, and bless one another as we each accomplish the ordinary everyday tasks that lay before us. 

How many of you are familiar with Proverbs 31, specifically the verses that pertain to describing “a virtuous woman?”  In many churches this is a passage of scripture that is held up as describing the characteristics of the perfect woman.  I recently wandered by a Christian book store to browse and I was amazed at how many books and resources there actually are for women based on this one passage of scripture.  If you haven’t read it, it’s basically a description of superwoman.  The virtuous woman rises while it is still dark to begin her day.  She stays up late into the night continuing her work.  She provides food for her household, buys and plants vineyards, manages the family land and wealth, clothes her family with homemade clothing, takes care of the poor, praises her husband, speaks with wisdom and kindness, is not idle, is praised by her children, and fears the Lord.  Phew!  I might be exhausted just reading that list! 

Recently, a young woman from Tennessee who is a writer and theologian decided to spend a year living out as literally as possible every command in scripture that had to do with women and wrote about her experiences as well as some beautiful and powerful theological reflections in her new book A Year of Biblical Womanhood.  Author Rachel Held Evans combed the pages of scripture and came up with a list of everything a “biblical woman” should be doing, from covering one’s head to calling her husband Master, to learning how to sew in order to clothe her family with the work of her hands.  Now as you might imagine Proverbs 31 played a large role in her year of biblical womanhood, and I wanted to share with you a few excerpts from her chapter on this passage.  “By the second week of January the Proverbs 31 woman and I were not on the best of terms...each time I let a writing project take priority over a sewing project I was supposed to be learning, or ordered pizza instead of making an exotic meal, shame overtook me.  I hated that all my carefully chosen fabric sat in its Hobby Lobby bag untouched and that I’d already skipped a week at the local health clinic where I was supposed to be serving others.  On days that I remembered to work out, I neglected to do something nice for my husband.  Weeks in which I volunteered, I let the house get dirty.  When my knitting finally improved the sewing machine sat idle.  When I got up early I crashed at night.  I wasn’t conquering Proverbs 31.  On top of all that I’d run into a little snafu regarding my Proverbs 31 inspired real estate venture (remember the Proverbs 31 woman buys vineyards).  Mainly, I couldn’t afford it.  I had to hand it to her, in less than 14 days the Proverbs 31 woman had made me feel guilty, inadequate and poor...I knew from my research that Proverbs 31 was never meant to be turned into a to-do list, but there was something about the spectacularity with which I was blowing this that beleagured my confidence.  Most women walk around with the sense that they are disappointing someone.  This year, I imagined that Someone to be God.  Though I knew Proverbs 31 represented a poetic ideal, I couldn’t shake the feeling that if these were the accomplishments of a competent, capable, virtuous, valiant and worthy woman then I must be none of those things.” 

“Most women walk around with the sense that they are disappointing someone.”  I know I’ve been there.  Whether it is the sense that I disappointed my parents somehow, or that I had let down a good friend by not spending enough time with her, or that I’ve let down my spouse by not being something he was hoping for, or that I’ve let down God because I didn’t think I had done enough to please Him.  I look at the world around me and I see this subtle sense of competition and disappointment among women everywhere.  This sense of not doing enough or not having enough or not being as good as one of our neighbors permeates the internet with sites like facebook and pinterest.  As women we envy others homes, fashion sense, marriages, children, decorating styles, jobs, and social lives.  We feel twinges of disappointment that our own lives don’t look the way we had always dreamed they would.  I think many of us might live in a constant state of fear that somehow we aren’t doing enough--we aren’t doing enough to prepare our children for school or college, we aren’t taking enough care of our own bodies, we don’t exercise every day and sometimes we put meals on the table that aren’t full of fresh vegetables like the news tells us they should be.  Something bad might happen someday in our marriage or family or career and deep down we are so afraid that if it does it will be because we didn’t do enough. 

Friends, if you resonate with any of these thoughts today I want to offer some words of hope, from Proverbs 31 actually.  Proverbs 31 isn’t a to do list for us.  Rather, Proverbs 31 is actually a beautiful poem that Christians have misread and misused for a long time now.  In the Jewish community this passage of scripture is not seen as a poem written to women to burden them with more and more work, it is a poem that the men of the community memorize and say over their wives as words of praise and blessing for who she is and how she has contributed to their family.  In many families it is a weekly ritual as part of the sabbath meal.  It starts out with a Hebrew phrase “eshet chayil” which is actually best translated as “woman of valor!”  Most English versions say something like “a capable wife, or a virtuous woman” but when the whole poem is read together in the Hebrew, the translation of “woman of valor!” ends up making the most sense.  Valor isn’t a word we use much today, in fact I had to go look it up to find out what it actually meant.  It means a strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter situations with firmness and personal bravery.    Husbands and other men in the community use these words “eshet chayil!” to praise their sisters and wives.  Women of valor!  Women of bravery, of strength, of courage!  Eshet chayil is at its core a blessing--one that was never meant to be earned, but to be given, unconditionally.  It’s also a phrase used in Jewish culture by women to celebrate, bless and encourage other women.  Rather than envy the job or home or family of another woman they proclaim these words, eshet chayil to one another.  Woman of valor!  You passed a difficult test?  Eshet chayil!  You were hired for a new job?  Eshet chayil!  Bravely faced walking into a doctor’s office for a round of tests?  Woman of valor!  Woman of courage!  Eshet chayil! 

Rachel writes at the close of this chapter in her book “as I saw how powerful and affirming this ancient blessing could be, I decided it was time for Christian women to take back Proverbs 31.  Somewhere along the way we surrendered it to the same people who invented air brushing.  We abandoned the meaning of the poem by focusing too much on the specifics, and it became just another impossible standard by which to measure our failures.  We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description.  But according to the Jewish culture, the woman described in Proverbs 31 is not some kind of ideal that exists somewhere out there; she is present in each of us when we do even the smallest things with valor.” 

Friends I look around this room today & I see about 150 women of valor.  I see cancer fighters and survivors, I see adult children who spend hours courageously caring for ailing parents, I see women who bravely speak the truth to their children in love, even if those words of truth are not what that child wants to hear.  I see mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers who have spent hours and hours sitting up long into the night with little ones who are ill.  I see teachers in front of me, many of whom fill in as surrogate moms for many of the little ones in their classrooms.  I see nurses and doctors in front of me who enter a patient’s room with strength of mind and compassionate hearts.  You know that to do list I mentioned awhile ago?  The “wake up, do something amazing, go back to sleep?”  I see in front of me 150 women who do that.  Every single day.  Every one of us has a different “amazing” thing to do with our days--some are in the thick of raising little ones, some are serving as prayer warriors in this season of life, some are caring for elder family members, some are out in the community working with integrity.  No one’s task is more or less valuable or important.  What is important is that we enter into whatever is on our to do list with courage of conviction and strength of heart, with valor if you will.  As we go from this place today I pray that your heart will be able to hear me when I say to you “eshet chaiyl” my friends.  Women of valor it is an honor to be in community with you.  And I pray that we will begin boldly proclaiming those words over one another as we all start to celebrate the ordinary everyday things God has called us each to do.

Live for Now

**This was a devotion I gave for our MOPS group this fall, but as I'm reflecting on a new year, it still seems pertinent to what I'm learning these days!

So there is this billboard I keep passing that is a Pepsi ad.  It’s tag line that keeps catching my attention says “Pepsi.  Live for Now.”   The first time I passed it my initial reaction was “that’s kind of what’s wrong with our culture today…everyone running around living for now…living for the moment….doing what feels good and right in the moment with no thought about future consequences or the impact our choices have on our own futures or the futures of others.”  The next several times I drove by it I had the same reaction.  It seemed selfish to me to live for now…this billboard seemed to be saying to me “go ahead, do what you want, life is short, it’s okay to throw responsibility to the wind and live for the moment.”  I didn’t feel like our society really needed more  permission to behave this way, and every time I went by this billboard I found myself irritated at Pepsi. 

I passed it again yesterday and for some reason its message struck me a completely different way—in a way I’m not sure the masterminds behind Pepsi’s advertising intended, but in a way I thought I’d share with you.  I’ve been working on my 2011 Shutterfly scrapbook this past weekend quite a bit, so the events of that year are fresh in my mind and heart right now.  2011 was a bittersweet year if I’ve ever had one, and through the experiences of the year God patiently taught me over and over again to stay in the present, to not worry about, plan or control the future.  In essence, God was teaching me to “live for now.”   

In January of 2011 my husband and I both finished up our masters of divinity degrees from Fuller Seminary, packed up our apartment in Pasadena, said goodbye to close friends and headed north up I-5 to the new townhouse we had just purchased in Seattle, WA.  Charles had just been given the job as youth director at a church there, and I was going to be helping him out, working along side him, using my degree and training as well while we settled in and prepared to start a family.  We moved in Martin Luther King weekend of 2011 and on January 18^th he started his job.  I was looking back on my journal entries of that winter and realized it only took exactly 3 weeks of working at this church before I wrote the words “Lord, did we make a huge mistake?” It’s a long story but we quickly realized the church we were serving at wasn’t exactly the church that had been described to us in the interview process.  The next several months were full of literally working 70+ hour weeks, panic attacks, accidentally trusting the wrong people with information, learning a lot of lessons the hard way, and feeling utterly & completely exhausted and burned out.  And we found out in the midst of all this that I was pregnant. 

We shared our exciting news with the pastor and mentioned that over the next 9 months we might need to make some changes to our current youth schedule, there wasn’t any way we could keep us that kind of pace when a baby was added to our family.  Two weeks later, in mid-june, he called my husband into his office one Wednesday morning.  He was told they had voted at their meeting the night before and had decided that he wasn’t the right youth director for their church, that he was being let go immediately.  

Honestly our first reaction was “oh thank God we never have to go back to that place, it was killing us.”  But our next reaction was “holy crap!  We are 9 weeks pregnant, we just bought a house, we have absolutely no idea what is next!”  Plus, we were hurt.  We were so angry and so disillusioned by everything that had happened in the past 6 months. 

If there are a few adjectives I could use to describe myself it would be “planner,” “control freak” and “not a fan of surprises!”  Needless to say I wasn’t a huge fan of what God was doing.  I kept trying to trust that whatever he had in store for us had to be better, but I wanted so so badly to know the “whats” and “whens” and “hows.”  We started another nation-wide job search, there were no youth director jobs in seattle at that time, so we knew staying there wasn’t going to be likely.  Doors seemed to be closing right and left throughout last summer.  We kept having this feeling that we were waiting for something but we just hadn’t figure out what it was yet.  We did a lot of traveling, spent a lot of time with family, and Charles even spent the whole month of August at a camp in the middle of nowhere in northern Minnesota doing some youth ministry training and a lot of healing.   In mid-September the job here at First Pres literally fell in our laps.  God worked through some amazing logistics and details and circumstances to bring us right back here, not far from where we started our 2011 journey, to a staff full of close friends of ours from Fuller, to a community that has embraced us and our child wholeheartedly from the beginning.  It was an incredible whirlwind of a fall last year—selling our house, moving down here and in with a family from the church for a month while we figured out where we were going to live, getting health insurance switched and finding a new OB at 32 weeks pregnant.  We moved into our apartment over Thanksgiving last year, spent December getting settled, and Aidan was born MLK weekend of 2012—a perfect beautiful bookend to our bittersweet journey of 2011. 

Through it all, the recurring theme kept being “stay in today.  Live for now.  You can’t do anything about your future until I choose to reveal it, so do not worry.”  In the moment, it was excruciating, but for the first time in my life I felt so strongly that God was somehow in control.  God was bringing us through the desert into a place he was preparing for us, and that somehow it was all going to fall into place before this baby arrived.  I swung back and forth between panic and peace.  But I started to slowly understand what scripture meant when Jesus tells us: “²⁵ “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[e]?  ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Live for now.  We have so many things in life we can get caught up in worrying about.  Finances, health, education, our marriages, jobs…the list goes on and on.  But Jesus invites us to let go of those things, to not live in a state of fear and panic about the future.  He invites us to live in this day.  In this moment.  Maybe not exactly in the way the Pepsi folks meant it when they chose their slogan, but I think by choosing to live in the here and now is our way of saying “okay God, I trust you.  I can’t see around the corner.  I can’t see what’s coming up, and that scares me to death, but I choose to trust you.”  We’re entering a new year…January is almost behind us.  What is looming on your horizons this year that has you worried?  What can we place into the hands of Jesus?  I don’t know that I’ve made any new year’s resolutions this year, but attempting to let go and live in today is definitely one of my focuses.  Will you join me in saying no to worry this year? 

And Then What, American Church?

This morning I wanted to share a (lengthy) excerpt from the book I wrote about last week--7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker.  I found myself underlining the beginning of this passage and then kept underlining and then realized I loved this entire section.  I was so challenged by it, so hit by these words.  This week my husband is teaching the confirmation class on "What is the Mission of the Church?" and so we've been talking about that and thinking about that a lot lately and then I came across this.  I'm not going to offer commentary (it's long enough as it is) but I invite you to read her thoughts on the church.  Lets be bold enough to ask ourselves "have we strayed away from the mission of the church?  Are we spending too much time focused on "serving the saved" as she says?"  (Always a tricky, sticky question since it's the "saved" the give the money to keep our churches going...)  I'm not some crazy fanatical person who is criticizing the Church, I just am a reader and lover of powerful words, and these words struck me.  So I wanted to share.  So here's your food for thought this week...

Taken from 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker

"What would the early church think if they walked into some of our buildings today, looked through our church Websites, talked to an average attender?  Would they be so confused?  Would they wonder why we all had empty bedrooms and uneaten food in our trash cans?  Would they regard our hoarded wealth with shock?  Would they observe orphan statistics with disbelief since Christians outnumber orphans 7 to 1?  Would they be stunned most of us don't feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, care for the sick or protect the widow?  Would they see the spending on church buildings and ourselves as extravagantly wasteful while 25,000 people die every day from starvation?  

I think they'd barely recognize us as brothers and sisters.  If we told them church is on Sundays and we have an awesome band, this would be perplexing to them.  I believe we'd receive dumfounded stares if we discussed "church shopping" because enough people don't say hello when we walk in the lobby one hour a week.  If they found out one-sixth of the earth's population claimed to be Christians, I'm not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we're living in excess.  They'd wonder if we had read the Bible or worry it had been tampered with since their time. 

But listen Early Church, we have a monthly event called Mocha Chicks.  We have choir practice every Wednesday.  We organize retreats with door prizes.  We're raising three million dollars for an outdoor ampitheater.  We have catchy T-shirts.  We don't smoke or say the F word.  We go to Bible study every semester.  ("And then what American Church?") Well, we go to another one.  We're learning so much.

I think the early church would cover their heads with ashes and grieve over the dilution of Jesus' beautiful church vision.  We've taken His Plan A for mercy to an injured lost planet and neutered it to a clever sermon series and Stitch-and-Chat in the Fellowship Hall, serving the saved.  If the modern church held to its biblical definition, we would become the answer to all that ails society.  We wouldn't have to baby-talk and cajole and coax people into our sanctuaries through witty mailers and strategic ads; they'd be running to us.  The local church would be the heartbeat of the city, undeniable by our staunchest critics.  

Instead, the American church is dying.  We are losing ground in epic proportions.  Our country is a graveyard of dead and vanishing churches.  We've made it acceptable for people to do nothing and still call themselves Christians, and that anemic vision isn't holding.  

Preparing for the Shadows

Ash Wednesday is in two days. Many of you are part of traditions that don't celebrate this day, and that's okay, but for me it's an important day--a holy day that is essential in the rhythm of my spiritual life. I don't think I have ever missed attending church on Ash Wednesday, so 29 times I've heard someone proclaim the solemn words over me, "Sarah, remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." It's these words that usher me into a season that always feels different than the rest of the year. These 40 days leading up to Easter have been intentionally set aside by the historical church to allow people the space to examine our lives. What is it in our lives that have taken a strong hold? Is there anything in our lives that we've allowed to become a god or an idol? As the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, and as Jesus wandered in the wilderness for 40 days, so we too wander through the shadowy Lenten season waiting for Easter with hope and expectation. And while we wander and wait, we hopefully slow down a bit. We let go of something that is taking our time and attention away from the One who so rightly commands it. We find joy in the midst of the Lenten shadows too, as we extract ourselves from the things that entangle us and discover the freedom Christ promises as we trust and obey His leading. Last year I had the opportunity to speak at our church's Ash Wednesday service, and I posted my 5 minute reflection here in case you want to read more and want to ponder more the other time in our lives we find ourselves marked with the shape of a cross upon our foreheads.

I've talked a lot lately with individuals about the idea of "giving something up" for Lent, and I just wanted to share a couple thoughts about that, hopefully to encourage us all to think a little broader about this ancient practice. The typical things to give up are chocolate, caffeine, sugar, or meat, and all these things can be really good options for a person to let go of, especially if these things have become intense crutches or cravings for a person. However, I have many friends who have thought really creatively about what to do to celebrate the Lenten season, things that they choose intentionally to draw them closer to the cross instead of simply giving up sugar because that's what everyone else does. These are just a list of a few things that people I know personally have done, but let these ideas jump start a conversation in your family about what we can creatively do during this season as individuals, families, or communities. Remember, it's not just about giving something up, it's also about putting something healthier in it's place--giving God space to fill the place the item we let go of for awhile has left in our lives.

**Give up going out to eat lunch at work or for the daily latte, instead take a sack lunch and calculate what you normally would spend in 6 weeks of eating lunch out. Donate that money to a local organization working to end hunger in your community.
**One friend gave up text messaging, instead she disciplined herself to actually call and have a real conversation with anyone she needed to get in touch with.
**Disconnect from Facebook or social networking for the season, and use the time you would have spent connecting with people on computer screens to read the daily lectionary (scripture readings), or connect with a person on the phone or in person.
**One friend from seminary felt like he loved reading theology too much, it was becoming a source of pride for him, so he actually gave up reading theological books for Lent, instead forcing himself to read stories, poetry and fiction. This was tough for him, but he loved that he did this.
**One friend of mine is practicing the discipline of giving away one brown bag of her possessions each week throughout Lent while at the same time is keeping a gratitude journal to count her blessings that are not material.
**Another friend of mine loves movies, and watches several a week. He gave up movies for the season and attempted to spend more time with people in conversation or reading great books.
**One friend realized he enjoyed spending hours just aimlessly surfing the net, so he disciplined himself to set his cell phone alarm and gave himself 15 minutes a day.
**Another friend decided to give up being critical of herself for Lent. She recognized she spends a lot of time in front of the mirror analyzing and critiquing her appearance. She started practicing the discipline of saying "I am beautifully and wonderfully made" as she smoothed lotion on her skin in the mornings, put her make up on, or styled her hair. It became her mantra and at the end of the 40 days she actually believed it.

The possibilities are endless, and there are so many ways we can experience this season with our families or small groups or communities. I think it's also important to remember though that practicing a spiritual discipline during Lent is not done to earn God's favor or impress God in any way. God loves us immeasurably more than we can ever imagine, we participate in a Lenten practice to free up space in our chaotic, crowded, and sometimes sin-entangled lives to free ourselves up to more fully experience that love and the grace God has already given us.

May you more fully embrace and experience the mysterious joy that can come as we wander through the shadows on the way to Good Friday.

Sketchers, the Superbowl, and Practical Theology

I know, I know, the Superbowl was so last week...or was it two weeks ago? I've been ruminating on something and am finally finding a bit of space to sit down and write about it. I love Superbowl commercials, unless the Seahawks or 49ers are playing, the commercials really are the reason to watch the big game (that, and it's an excuse to consume large amounts of sour cream-based dips which somehow seems allowable because it's practically unpatriotic to not eat potato chips and onion dip on Superbowl Day). For the most part, the commercials are entertaining and relatively clean, and we "consume" them with about as much thought as we are giving to the quantity of potato chips we're ingesting. Go Daddy (some internet hosting site, whatever the heck that means) has always pushed the boundaries using sexy models to get guys to go visit their website, but I've never been interested in internet hosting, so besides being annoyed by their commercials the company has no impact on my daily life. This year, however, many of you might remember the Sketchers commercial towards the end of the game where Kim Kardashian sexily leads her physical trainer on, then breaks up with him because apparently the Sketchers Shape Up shoes work better than he ever has. Some of you may disagree with me, but I would argue that it was borderline pornographic. She had some clothes on, but the commercial was so suggestive and so blatanly using sex to sell their product that I was uncomfortable watching it. We were watching with the youth, and several moms in the room started telling the boys to look away. I agree, this wasn't an appropriate commercial for any age really.

The next day in class we were talking about practical theology--what it is and how it works. Chap was explaining that we all participate in practical theology, most of us just aren't consciously aware that this is what we're doing. But everytime we make a choice based on our theology, that's practical theology--where the rubber hits the road if you will. He used this commercial as an example. We discussed how over the top inappropriate this commercial was, and now as Christians we have a choice to make--will we continue to purchase Sketchers products? Or will we choose a different brand of shoe that has advertising that better lines up with the values we have? I hadn't thought about it much, but at some level, this is a theological issue. Where we choose to spend our money, the companies we choose to support, the brands we wear and what these companies do or don't stand for are all theological issues. I have a pair of Sketchers, I love them, they've lasted 4 years now and are wearing out, so I was recently thinking of replacing them. However, I hate the way they used their Superbowl slot. As much as I love the shoes, my theology says our bodies are God's temple not advertising ploys, that sex is for marriage, not for selling foot wear. It's tough in our world today. Will my choosing to not buy a brand of shoes for my family anymore have lasting impacts on a company? No, and I realize that. However I think at some point we have to start taking some small steps to say "hold on, this isn't right...my kids are watching this game and I don't want to have to tell them to turn their heads at commercial breaks." What I do know is that it is important to be mindful patrons of businesses, to be wise in how we use our money to support companies and causes, and that we are all called to be practical theologians--to let the rubber hit the road as we live out this crazy journey of faith.

They Said I'm Sorry

I'm Sorry. Probably the toughest short sentence to say for most of us. We don't apologize well, to those we live with and love, much less to total strangers. Yet, back in June, apologize is exactly what a group of Christians did. Every June, Gay Pride Day is an event that occurs in most cities, celebrating people's pride in their various sexual orientations with parades, rallies and other such events. Flamboyant costumes, streakers, music, dancing, floats--and pretty much anything under the sun is fair game to show up at a Pride event. Also always present are Christians. Generally with angry protesting signs in hand. Messages such as "God hates people like you!" "You're going to hell!" "Homosexuality is a sin!" are always found lining the streets of Pride parades. And of course, this is what makes the nightly news. This is the image of Christians so many non-Christians (especially people who are part of the GLBT community) have when they think about people who claim to follow Jesus. No wonder they don't want to have anything to do with us. I wouldn't either. I've had conversations with people who are gay about this very issue. "Sarah, if that's really what God thinks of me, why should I want to have anything to do with Him? If that's really how his followers are going to treat me, why would I want to join them or get to know them?" Countless men and women have turned away from their Savior because the Church as a whole can't seem to figure out how to see past a person's outward behavior. (Yet, we turn a blind eye when someone in our congregation buys their third Lexus but there are people in our community who are still hungry. But that is a whole different post...)

A group of Christians who are taking seriously the idea that Jesus calls us to go out and love others had an idea. At this past year's Pride Parade in Chicago, a group of about 30 young adults from various Chicago churches showed up in matching t-shirts with signs of their own. Their t-shirts were black, and simply read "I'm Sorry." Their signs were a bit different than other "Christian" signs found at the parade that day. Their signs read: "I'm sorry for how the church has hurt you." "I am sorry Christians have judged you." "I used to be a bible-thumping homophobe, I'm sorry." The impact was enormous. These 30 people became the talk of the event. People in the parade waved, yelled "thank you!", blew kisses, ran over to hug them and even led to some follow up conversations between people in the parade and those wearing the t-shirts.

Every time I see Christians on the news picketing something, holding up rude signs, or even resorting to violence and hate crimes in "Jesus' name," I want to run the other way. I don't want the word "Christian" anywhere near me. These folks give me hope. These are the kind of Christians I want to hang out with--people who take seriously the call to love first. I am not saying I'm in favor of homosexual behavior, because I'm not. I believe strongly that God created us male and female for a reason. But I also believe strongly that every single one of us is a sinner, redeemed and saved only by the grace of God, not because of any works we could do. So to be on the side of casting stones isn't our "right" or our place. We've all got stuff in our lives that doesn't line up so well with how God asks us to live, and until we figure out how to follow him perfectly, maybe we should practice our apologizing instead of our condemning.

To read more about this event, click here.

It is for Freedom...

I have developed a bit of a tumultuous relationship with the 4th of July over the past few years--it used to be one of my favorite holidays--and in many ways, it is. I love BBQ's, picnics, hanging out with friends in the dusky summer evenings as fireworks light up the sky. Everything about that is fun and quite enjoyable to me. (We won't talk about the 4th of July of 2006 where I was "elected" by the Presbyterian student leadership team here at Fuller to join our very determined leader at 6 AM to stake out our spots for the fireworks display that night. Yes, I literally sat in a park for 15 hours waiting for fireworks to begin. Or the following 4th of July where a group of us went to Long Beach to see the fireworks and never saw any of them--it seems we were facing the wrong direction and never saw or heard them being shot off behind us. Then it took us at least 3 hours to get home in traffic....yeah we won't talk about those years....)

I am all for remembering our nation's history, and I think having celebrations of our country is important. I may not be 100% pro-military or completely on board with the current war we are fighting, but I am 100% for honoring and remembering the sacrifices our service men, women, and families have made. I think it's important to ask veterans to stand during the announcement portion of our worship service and let people see who around them have served our country so selflessly. Where I tend to get a bit wary (okay, maybe flat out frightened) is when our worship services on the Sunday surrounding a patriotic holiday turn into a worshiping of America. I am so grateful that I was born here, that I am a citizen of a terrific place to live, but I am also very aware of the tragedy that can (and has) happened when people confuse God and country, and begin to see them as they same entity. We've seen throughout history what has happened when individuals begin to look around for something to place their trust in, for someone to rescue them when things are difficult. Jesus knew our human propensity to want someone to believe in, to follow, to trust. He also recognizes that while we're on earth, there has to be powers and systems in place to govern how society functions. He commands his disciples to give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's--there's a distinction and separation here that I think is essential. I don't believe teachers should be teaching our kid's how to pray in school (I want to be the one to shape that in my child and I imagine my child's Muslim or Jewish friends would feel the same way) and I don't think our worship services on Sundays should venture into the realm of patriotism.

A friend of mine was asked to preach a few years ago on 4th of July weekend. The choir anthem immediately before the sermon was "America, America, we Give Our Best to Thee." My friend was appalled--the lyrics of the song bordered on flat out blasphemy--yet no one else seemed to have a problem with the fact that this was sung as the sermon preparation hymn on this particular patriotic weekend. There was no mention of Jesus, no mention of the fact that we actually do NOT give our best to America, we serve God, and those are two entirely different things. He preached his sermon, focusing on the text of the day, preaching the Good News of the freedom we have in Christ, and later received complaints that he didn't preach a "4th of July sermon" (whatever that is). That is a very telling statement about where the hearts and focus of this particular congregation was that weekend.

As we enjoy our celebrations this weekend, let us do so with excitement and joy! But as we go into worship tomorrow morning, let us do so remembering that the only true freedom that matters, the freedom that will be there long after America has passed away, is the freedom we have in Christ, because of Christ's sacrifice. For it is for freedom from the powers of sin and death that Christ has come to set us free.

We Exchange the Truth About God for a Lie

"they exchanged the truth about God for a lie..." Romans 1:25. I don't know about any of you, but I've done this. A lot. It hasn't been until recently that I've been confronted with the reality of just how many lies I do believe about God--and how these lies have drastically impacted my emotional and spiritual health during various seasons of life. See if any of these sound familiar. "God wants me to do better, try harder, or be a better person." "If I would just be able to get _____ under control in my life, I'd be a better person and God might love me more." "God blesses me when I am good, and punishes me when I am bad." "God is angry with me." "God causes bad things to happen to teach us lessons, therefore we can't trust God because God is so vengeful." We don't like to admit that we believe these things, but studies show that a huge percentage of Christians in America do. These seem to be the dominant narratives that have somehow been communicated about God in our churches, and the problem is, they're lies. None of these things are true, but they greatly impact how we live our lives.

Author James Bryan Smith has written 3 books (book 3 will arrive in September) called The Apprentice Series, and book 1 deals with exactly this issue--what we believe about God, and, more-so, what do we believe wrongly about God. I'll be honest, most Christian pop-literature drives me nuts. I've never read (nor have I ever wanted to read) Rick Warren's book. I usually get about half way through a book on faith, prayer, the church etc and quit. That isn't the case with this one at all. I'm over half way through with The Good and Beautiful God and am already soliciting people to go through it again with me as a small group (it's designed for small groups, but I've been doing it individually and it's still amazing). I can't even tell you how much it's daily challenging and changing the ways I think about God, and the overwhelming sense of freedom I'm feeling as I think about how I relate to this God that I intellectually know loves me but don't always feel it.

He spends this book making the case that the only real way to understand the character and nature of God is to look to the person of Jesus, who says he came to show us the Father. How did Jesus act? What did his parables teach us? What does Jesus say about God? Smith writes that as we begin to know Jesus, we are then able to begin falling in love with the God Jesus points us to. Each chapter takes up a different character trait of God and involves spiritual disciplines to help us interact with this aspect of God's character to understand it in a way that is perhaps different from how we're taught Sunday mornings. Each chapter has a different discipline to practice throughout the week and great questions to think/journal/pray about throughout the week. For example, chapter 3 is God is Trustworthy and for a "Soul Training" exercise that week he has us spend time making as long of a list as we can of things we're thankful for--ways God has blessed us. As we intentionally take time to do this, we are reminded of all the ways God has provided for us in the past and that helps us understand God as the God we can trust with the future.

I haven't read books 2 and 3 yet (The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ, and The Good and Beautiful Community: Following the Spirit, Extending Grace, Demonstrating Love) but I'm excited to, and hoping to find others who will go through them with me. This is a man who has been mentored and has personal friendships with Rich Mullins, Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Brennan Manning and Henri Nouwen. With a cast of spiritual cheerleaders like that, we know he has something to say worth listening to!

"Have You Done Your Quiet Time?" Why I think we have got it all wrong...

I've been reflecting lately on Spiritual Disciplines, and on how they are often taught in our churches. If you are anything like me, spiritual disciplines often become part of your weekly checklist that sometimes become a scorecard to determine what kind of Christian you have been this week. Does this mental conversation ever happen to any of you? "I read a Psalm today, so I think I get a 'point' for that, and I went to church on Sunday and mostly paid attention to the sermon, so that is probably another 'point,' but I came right home and yelled at my husband because I was tired, hungry and cranky from all the time at church, so that's probably a minus point. I forgot to pray before I ate last night, so that might be a minus point too...dang....back at zero...guess I'll try again tomorrow...." Does that resonate with anyone else? So often we are led to believe that the definition of a good Christian can be boiled down to how many Bible verses one reads in a given week, how many bible studies one attended, how many pages filled with meaningful, thought-provoking prayers and reflections in one's journal, and of course, did we listen to Christian music on the radio, or did we (gasp!) listen to the pop station 'all those teenagers listen to?' I've had several conversations this past week about this very topic and have been inspired to try something new. This whole "spiritual check list" just wasn't cutting it for me because well, I'm not sure this is what God asks of us. I think we've been doing our teaching on spiritual disciplines and on cultivating one's relationship with God all wrong.

The bottom line is that all these actions are trying to draw us deeper into a relationship with God. A relationship. And we all have different ways of developing relationships in our lives. Which means I think that it's okay if we all have different ways of developing our relationship with God. One thing I have always loved about my husband is that he is so disciplined in his life (for the most part!). When it comes to his relationship with God, he does the same process of walking through prayer and scripture every morning. When we got married I tried emulating him a bit. Yeah...it worked for all of 1 day for me...I just could not connect with God the same way he does. Then I realized, well, he and I connect with people very differently, it makes sense that we would connect with our Creator differently. I need a bit more flexibility in my "quiet time" routine. And until recently, I wasn't sure how to create that space.

So I've started trying something new, and I realize this is completely impossible for most people with little kids at home (unless you tried during a naptime maybe?) or who work full time, but I wanted to share what I've been doing. This is literally something I have struggled with my entire life, never really being "in the mood" to read my bible or pray very well. This seems to have changed a bit for me recently and I think the catalyst was giving myself a bit more space for variety in my 'quiet times.'

My friend Jenn gave us bridesmaids beautiful photo storage boxes and I decided to make that my quiet time box.I filled it with my journalMy gratitude journalThe Book of Common Prayer (which has the daily lectionary readings in it...more on that in a second)Note cardsAnd a book I'm now reading at the raving recommendation of two friends of mine in Seattle, The Good and Beautiful God
My ipod is nearby if I want worship music and I bought a special candle to light only during my alone time. My idea was this. Somedays, I want to write in my journal and process something. Some days I have a ton I'm thankful for and want to add to my list in my gratitude journal. Some days I am praying for someone and feel like one of the best things I could be doing at that point is to write a quick note to them to stick in the mail. Some days I want to get lost in someone else's ideas of God and want to read a book for awhile that helps me think and connect with God differently than I would choose to on my own. I have come to believe that reading something from God's word each day is a must, even if I am not "feeling" like it, so I do start each day reading the daily readings from the lectionary (part of that is because my Committee on Preparation for Ministry has asked me to practice this discipline for 2 years, and I think it is a great tool so I am agreeing to try it). (An explanation is below for those who don't know what the lectionary is).

What I have found is that this seems to be working for me. I have given myself freedom to not do the same exact routine every day. I don't want to be doing a formal "bible study" right now where I have to answer questions someone else has come up with, I want to be free to read, think, form my own questions, and write about what I am actually getting out of a text rather than what someone else is telling me I should be getting out of a text. (But during other seasons I have wanted a more structured learning time, they key for me has been letting myself learn to be flexible with where I am instead of doing what others tell me I should be doing). I start my day with a cup of coffee and time alone at my desk with my quiet time box and see where I end up. Like I said, this isn't going to work for everyone, but I'd encourage you, if you're like me and often struggle with how to connect with God, to think outside the box a bit. What are ways you connect with people? Could they be applied to God? What things do you enjoy doing when you're alone? Reading, writing, thinking, praying, drawing, making lists? Could any of those things help you connect with God? (Another fun resources I have been given is called Praying in Color and is a great, super easy, fun way of incorporating doodling and color as we pray for people). People always told me to have a specific space that you regularly came to meet with God and I've never tried that. But now, having cleaned off my desk completely, sans framed photos of my closest family and friends, I have a space that feels like "mine." And it seems to be working. Any other suggestions or ideas for people? What do you do to help you connect? What about keeping going through dry seasons?


**The Daily Lectionary, for those who aren't familiar with it, is a 2 year cycle of scripture readings that you do each day. Each day there are assigned texts to help you experience the whole bible in two years. For every day there are 2 morning Psalms (one is always one of the praise psalms from the end of the book--Psalms 145-150), two evening Psalms, an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading, and a Gospel reading. The readings aren't usually long, often a 1/2 of a chapter, and you do move around a bit throughout the church year (so the readings during advent would focus on the birth narratives etc) but in the course of 2 years you will read through the entire Old Testament once and the entire New Testament twice, and the Psalms multiple times. It's used by all denominations, and has been in existence for centuries, which I like. So many people read the lectionary every day that I know when I do so I am joining with people literally all over the world reflecting on a given text that morning. You can google it to find out more, but for the daily lectionary text you can visit the Presbyterian Church's devotional page here.

Protecting Love

If you have followed my blog or facebook status updates lately, you already know I'm thinking a lot about the idea of boundaries--what they are, how to use them, why they are important etc. In my conversations with people I am often amazed to hear that "boundaries aren't biblical," and I've seen people be convinced of this by the church. I really disagree with this, and think we do a lot of damage to people and families when we support this kind of rhetoric. I think boundaries are very biblical--Jesus set them all the time with people, he definitely did not give every person he encountered exactly what they thought they wanted from him. He withdrew to be alone many times. He chose three individuals to share special information with that others were not privy to. He rebuked behavior when people were acting outside the lines of their allocated sphere of power or responsibility.

In my reading on the topic I have found several things to be helpful as I think through why this is so important, and I thought I'd share just a couple of the things I'm chewing on these days. What I'm really learning is that we are never able to control another person's choices or behavior. I know, duh, right?! Sounds so simple, but how often do we attempt to manipulate, coerce, or bully others into changing something WE want them to change? A lot! This is what I am really really trying to hard to remember. I am in charge of me: my feelings, emotions, reactions, and behavior. I am not able to change or control anyone else no matter how badly I may want to. Therefore, since I can control what I do, I need boundaries in place because I cannot control what others do. It essentially works like this. Say I am in relationship with someone who does nothing but gossip or talk about others all day long and I'm tired of listening to it. We'll call her Terry because, well I don't know a Terry. Spending time with Terry listening to her gossip all the time is making me feel guilty, it's negatively influencing my opinion of the poor people Terry continues talking about, and I am generally feeling more and more negative as I spend time with her. I can't make Terry stop talking about others. I can't control what comes out of her mouth. But, what I can do is choose to not listen or engage in this gossiping behavior any longer. I can tell her, "Terry, I love you and value our friendship. I want to stay in relationship with you, but I'm not comfortable engaging in conversations with you about other people. If you would like to change the subject and talk about something else, that would be great, but if not, I'm afraid we can't meet for lunch each week any longer."

Some of you probably think that sounds pretty harsh, like I might hurt her feelings if I actually had this conversation with her. Well, that's the other big thing I am learning from studying boundaries: hurt is not always bad. Harm is bad, but hurt is not necessarily bad. When we set boundaries, we will probably hurt people's feelings. But more often than not, that hurt might inspire a person to look at the behavior they are engaging in that is causing damage in relationships, and can possibly inspire change. Harm is when we purposefully and maliciously try to hurt a person. This is wrong, but hurt isn't always wrong. We can't go through life never hurting a person's feelings, and I don't think that should be our goal. If we hurt someone's feelings by setting a limit with them, again, we can't control that--we can't control other people's choices or reactions, only our own. We can choose to live in a sober environment. So if we are living with an alcoholic, we can say "I choose to live in a sober home, you may join me and get help, or you may choose to drink, I can't control which choice you're going to make, but I can choose to live in a safe, sober environment." Sure, the alcoholic may have their feelings hurt, but are we harming them by protecting ourselves? I don't think so, not at all.

"Scripture is full of admonitions to separate ourselves from people who act in destructive ways. We are not being unloving. Separating ourselves protects love, because we are taking a stand against things that destroy love." (Boundaries, Henry Cloud & John Townsend page 46) I am coming to believe this strongly. I have experienced this week how hard this is to do, but I have also seen first hand the pain that can come from not telling people "you're out of line. We love you, but we can't continue to engage with you as long as this behavior is not changing." I'm curious though, what have you been taught about boundaries? What do you think?

Hunger

I'm finding myself growing more and more hungry lately. Hungry for Jesus. Hungry to know him more, to follow him, even when that feels terrifying. There's a stirring deep in my soul for more. It's been a long, long time since I've felt this, felt such a desire to not just talk about Jesus, or write about Jesus, but to really know him, to see him, to touch him, to follow in his footsteps. And I am longing to see others know him, and come to love him too.

I long for this world to be different, I deeply desire to see change, to see those who have nothing finally receive their fair share, to see those who are wealthy give freely of their abundance instead of storing up treasures on earth while so many go hungry.

I wish with all my heart that the impression the world has of Christians was different. I hope for the day when the "religious right" would stop yelling about abortion and homosexuality and begin to see that "family values" and being "pro-life" should mean just as much energy and anger towards the fact that millions of children don't have food, or health care, or clean water in this world--that these are family issues too, these are pro-life issues as well.

This world is a mess, and this past week I have been hit hard with a desire to pray for change, for something to happen, for things to be different. I want to see our churches start to BE the people of God, to stop worrying about church attendance and the latest ways to "grow" or be "relevant" and start thinking deeply about the fact that "liturgy" actually means "service"--our worship service ought to be just that, serving. I had this sense while at youth group last week that I wanted more for these kids. I wasn't interested in their whining about playing link-arm tag one more time, I want to see them go deeper, and I don't know how to help them do that, and that bothers me. I'm sick of the status quo. God's calling us to a new place, and even though I am scared, I want to follow. I want to be part of something new, something bigger than myself, something eternal. And I don't know what to do with this, other than say "okay God, I'm here, I'm willing, and I'm ready to do what you call me to." And then to pray I hear him when he calls.

Remember You Are Dust. But You Won't Stay That Way!

I had the privilege of giving the homily at our church's Ash Wednesday service last night, it kind of came about last minute, but I was so honored to be asked. If you know me, you know this is one of my two very favorite days in the church year (the other being Good Friday), so I was ecstatic to get to preach on a topic/day that I am so passionate about. I love the depth, the history, the tradition, the tangible aspect of touching ashes, seeing a visible sign upon our heads of our humanness. I love how much brighter Easter is once you walk through the shadows of the Lenten season. Yes, I love Ash Wednesday. For anyone who is interested, or who missed getting to be at their own Ash Wednesday service yesterday, here's my 7 minute message:



My basis for this message was Psalm 51, so you may want to read verses 1-10 of this first!

Repentance. Confession. Sin. Transgressions. Iniquity. Death. Lenten words. If we are honest, most of us start to get a little uncomfortable when we hear these words mentioned in church. Wouldn’t we rather spend our time talking about joy, forgiveness, jubilation, and life? We like these words don’t we? These “Easter words” that bring to mind brightness, color, energy, and exuberance. The Lenten words don’t bring about quite the same feeling do they? Our tendency is to fly through the next six weeks without pausing, to race ahead to the glorious day of resurrection that makes us want to jump and shout and clap for joy. And we could do this. We could pretend Ash Wednesday doesn’t really mean anything. We can ignore the season of Lent and act as if we don’t need to prepare for Easter. But if we do, aren’t we only short-changing ourselves? We miss something. How do we know just how bright resurrection morning is if we have not paused to experience the shadows of the Lenten season? When we sing and clap and dance for joy because our sins have been forgiven with the rising of our Lord, do we really even know what it is that we are in need of forgiveness for?

King David, the author of the Psalm Elizabeth just read certainly understood sin. He had just committed adultery with Bathsheba, had Bathsheba’s husband killed so he would never find out the child she is carrying is not his own, and been confronted by Nathan the prophet, who knows of David’s sin. David understands what guilt feels like. He understands what it is like to feel as low as the dust from which he was formed. Remember you are dust. And to dust, you shall one day return. David doesn’t seem to need the reminder of Ash Wednesday as he cries out: “Cleanse me, God! Against you I have sinned. Wash me! Let me be whiter than snow again. Give me a pure heart God, for I know my sins, I have been sinful from the time I was born. Renew me o Lord, only you can restore me.”

Like David, we too know the reality of our sin. We know where we’ve messed up. We know when we have done things that were disrespectful, made hurtful comments to people we love, or have dwelt on thoughts that we shouldn’t have allowed to linger in our minds. But often, we don’t take time to pause to really think about these things, or ask God for forgiveness.

So tonight, we pause to remember we are sinners. We acknowledge we are dust, we are human, we are frail, we are finite. We are marked with ashes—black, dusty, dirty smudges on our skin in the shape of a cross. And that is where we find the beauty of Ash Wednesday. In the cross. Jesus knew how human we were when he came to die on that cross. He knows, tonight, how human we all are. He knows the shame we carry, the guilt that plagues us. But he hasn’t left us alone to wander in the shadows and darkness. He invites us to let go. He whispers to each of us tonight, “let me cleanse you. Let me carry that burden for you. Let me wash you. Let me give you a clean heart, a renewed spirit, a fresh start for I love you.”

I was reminded this past weekend that Ash Wednesday isn’t the only time in our lives we are marked upon our foreheads with the sign of a cross. My 4 month old niece was baptized in Rhode Island on Sunday, and I was struck with the reminder that for those of us who have been baptized, we’re marked with the sign of a cross upon our foreheads on that day. Only we’re not marked with dirty smudges of ash at that time, we’re marked with clean, refreshing water. This water is a symbol of God’s promise to us that we are a part of his family, his promise that he has removed our sins from us. He remembers them no more. As we leave here tonight we leave with a visible reminder upon our heads that we are human. We are dust. And we are sinners. And when we return home and we turn on the clean, refreshing water to wash the ashes from our foreheads, may we allow ourselves to remember that we have been cleansed. We are forgiven. And we await with great anticipation the celebration that is coming—the celebration of Jesus triumphing over all our sin, all darkness, over death itself, so that we might one day live with him for all eternity.

Walking Wet

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to go spend two days with a small group of new Presbyterian pastors from around the west coast at a Company of New Pastor's retreat. We gathered in Malibu at a retreat center and spent two days getting to know each other, offering feedback to people as we shared what was happening in our lives/ministries these days, and just relaxing a bit. It was a great gathering in spite of all the rain we got that week!

The rain was a bit appropriate, however, as our theme for the week was reflecting on baptism--our own, participating in others, the role baptism has played in our discipleship process, how we remind people of it in our churches, how being a baptized believer can and probably should change our lives, the theology of baptism etc. Those who know me well will know this is one of the theological topics closest to my heart, and has been for a long time. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but from the time I was little I have always been fascinated by baptisms. I loved watching babies be baptized in our home congregation growing up, and even though I didn't always understand what was being said, I knew something special was happening. That feeling has continued into my adult years, and when I show up and see a baptism set up I immediately know it's going to be a worship service that God will mysteriously appear in.

I know there are many different understandings of the sacrament of baptism, and I know many reading this blog don't agree with the way I understand it, and that's perfectly fine. One of the places I have had to come to over the years is to be able to say, "here's what I believe, here's why I believe this is the theology that makes the most sense to me, and here's what we will choose to do for our children/family someday, but honestly, we'll never know for sure." Many churches practice "believer's baptism," or baptizing people or children old enough to "choose God," which is the theology that places more emphasis on our ability to choose to follow God, and these moments in a worship service are amazing. To hear a person stand up and confess with their mouths why they are coming forward to become a part of the family of God is certainly a moment where we stand upon Holy Ground. Many churches (in fact, the entire Christian church historically, back to the 2nd century) has practiced infant baptism, placing the focus and emphasis on God's desire to draw us into a covenant relationship with him before we are able to do anything to "earn" God's grace and favor. Both views of baptism have scriptural 'defense,' both are historically accepted by the church, and both emphasize different but very important views of God and his action among us.

One of the reasons many advocate for not baptizing a child as an infant is that "they won't remember this important day, I want my child to remember this moment." That's valid. And one of the things we talked about quite a bit on our retreat. How do we help people remember that their baptism matters in their life of faith, even if it was years ago, even if they don't have a cognitive memory of it? It shouldn't just be a one-time thing that never is talked about again. It wasn't designed to just be a rite of passage or a formality that everyone "had" to do. No! It is our initiation point into the family of believers, into a community that God has made a covenant with--to be faithful to us, to protect us, to comfort us, to love us! We talked about how to bring it back to a more central place in our worship services, not just on days someone is actually being baptized, but every week. We threw out all kinds of ideas that are Book of Order approved but just rarely get put into practice. For instance, during the time of confession, announce that we are forgiven while pouring water into the baptismal font--so people see and hear the sound of the water that has washed their sins away. This is one of the reasons Catholic churches have holy water in the entrance to the sanctuary that people can touch--it's a tactile reminder of their baptism, of the fact that they have forgiveness of sins. Martin Luther once wrote that every time a person touches water--in the bath, in the kitchen, while walking in the rain, she ought to remember that is it this same water that has washed her clean, it's this water that, when combined with the Word of God, has changed her. Somehow though, most of Western Christianity has moved away from this. We don't walk around remembering we've been marked as a believer by water, we don't reflect on what happened in our baptism when we wash the dishes or clean our children. We forget. And because of that I think we walk around often burdened under the weight of our sin, we don't remember it's been taken from us! We don't remember we belong to the God of the universe, who chose to be in a relationship with us! We forget we are the adopted sons and daughters of the Risen King! What would happen if we chose to remember these things throughout the day as we washed our hands several times, as we did the dishes, as we ran through the rain to our cars? Would that change how we walk through our days? I think it might.

Friends, may you go forth into this day with the confidence that you can live as one created, redeemed, cleansed, and adored by the Father in heaven who has called you to be His own.

A prayer of confession with baptismal themes:

Eternal God, our judge and redeemer, you delivered us through water, but we long to return to Egypt.
Your Word calms the storm, but we timidly cower in fear.
Your justice would flow down like rivers, but we obstruct its flow.
You bid us bathe and be healed, but we limp and struggle in pain.
Have mercy on us, and cleanse us, Lord God. Deliver us and grace us with joy, that we may die daily to sin and rise daily to new life in Jesus' resurrection. Grant us the gift of your grace that we might always give glory to your name, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.