The Visible Invisible

We had a bout with H1N1 here at the Melchior’s. That is not a new or unusual tale, because MANY households are experiencing this nasty flu.

When my kids are really sick, I am reminded of the fragility of life. I sometimes imagine the invisible war going on all around us – the microscopic germ that can wreak complete havoc on a huge body vs. the antibodies within our bodies that fight to ward off more attacks. It’s like a game of Risk.

Faith – believing in something you cannot see – can seem a little risky too. I wrestle with doubt, just like everyone else, and believing in the unseen isn’t a popular choice in our culture either. Oh no, we are far too advanced and self-sufficient for invisible things, aren’t we?

Here’s the thing, though. God is really not invisible. Unfortunately, however, some who claim to represent Him are wreaking havoc and they seem to be the ones who claim the spotlight – ensuring their visibility. They remind me of the flu.

There are faithful people of God quietly making His presence tangible all over the world – digging wells to find water, feeding hungry children in urban centers, rescuing women from human trafficking, honestly loving their neighbors – all clearly in the name of Jesus.

Just because God doesn’t clamor for your attention doesn’t mean He isn’t there. Have a look around today.

Oh my God?

There is a new documentary entitled, Oh My God?, that is already playing at film festivals and will hit the U.S. in November (select theatres). The director, Peter Rodger, told reporters at the Jerusalem Film Festival, “My goal was to find out what this entity that goes by the name of God means to people.” He went on:

“I was fed up with the childish schoolyard mentality that permeates this world, what I call the "My God is Greater than Your God" syndrome. By throwing out the question in an interview as 'What is God?' instead of 'Who is God?' it makes the interviewee look at God from the outside in rather than from the inside out.”

Hmmm. Interesting questions.

Let’s personalize it a little. Would you ask, “Who is Wendy? or “What is Wendy?” and how would I feel about either question?

I completely agree with Rodger’s idea about the childish schoolyard mentality, but I must disagree with his thesis that asking WHAT instead of WHO uncovers truth.

When I was a pastor to 20 somethings, I used to say over and over to them, “Always start with God. Don’t begin with your own perspective or circumstances or learning, because your conclusions will end up faulty. Find out who God is first, then see yourself in light of Him – not the other way around.”

What is God? God is the Great WHO, the Great I AM. It is amazing hubris on our part to think that we can define Him on our whim or point of view. God does not exist to fit our individualized need for a god, He exists to expand our smallness and give us a taste of His power and eternity. We were made by Him remember? Oh how we love to think we invent Him though.

Rodger’s documentary interviews several celebrities, one of which is Hugh Jackman. He says something in the film that made me smile:

"If you put Buddha, Jesus Christ, Socrates, Shakespeare, Arjuna, Krishna at a dinner table together, I can't see them having any argument."

I agree. God has no need to prove Himself, just the fact that Christ joined us for dinner is enough.

Towering

So, while in Toronto, we went with my cousin Wayne and we took the kids to the CN Tower. If you’ve been there, you know that it is really cool, and you are able to go 147 stories (1465 ft) up and look down. There is even a glass floor where you can stand as if you are standing on air and the rest of the world is far below.

Toronto is one of the biggest melting pots I have ever experienced. While we stood in line at the bottom of the tower, waiting for the elevator to take us up and away, I heard so many different languages, saw so many different skin colors and native dress, that I felt very global and cosmopolitan. A group of adults with Downs Syndrome were in line too, and one gentleman reached out to grab my hand across the ropes as I smiled at him. I marveled at us all there lined up, so different but somehow connected.

After we arrived at the top observation deck, I looked down at the world below and I could no longer make out all the differences in people or hear all the noises we make. When I was a kid, I imagined this to be God’s perspective – looking down on the world from far above in heaven – watchful over His Earth. I was always impressed that He knew so many languages and could pay attention to so much going on at once – a fact that also made me wonder if I ever got lost in the shuffle because He was such a great distance away.

Towering as I was last Friday, I had new insight into Jesus and His coming to Earth. God’s desire to connect, to join us at the bottom and touch, to jump in line and speak our language so we could understand His heart, must have been so great that He just went ahead and did it. Sometimes I think we only remember that He came to die, but oh, His arrival was multi-dimensional and multi-purposed. Frankly, His death was certainly important, but His LIFE – then and now – is the real story.

You and I are not lost in the shuffle. Is there distance between God and us? Yes, for sure. But His decision to descend, to break the glass floor, closed the gap forever. He is here and He is now and He hears your noise.

Naked truth

When I am without a book, I am about as uncomfortable as when I wake up from those dreams where I am walking around naked in public (you know, the school bus, the supermarket…). Bookless, I wander around unsure what to do with the very little extra time I have and I constantly wonder what I am missing.

I recently finished a great work of nonfiction, so as I meandered through my book shelf desperate for a temporary fix until I could acquire a new book, I glanced at my collected works of Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor wrote fascinating fiction, most of it taking place in the sweltering South, and since the humidity has be HIGH here in Philadelphia, I decided to pick old Flannery up.

Her best known work is probably Wise Blood, a tale about a disturbed young man named Haze whose late grandfather was a screaming traveling evangelist. Haze spends much of the book convincing himself, and the other characters, that he does not believe in Jesus. At one point, he stands before a crowd (not unlike his late grandfather) and declares, “I’m going to preach a new church – the church of truth without Jesus Christ Crucified. It won’t cost you nothing to join my church. It’s not started yet but it’s going to be.”

As I continue to reread Haze’s struggle, I am struck at how like him we all are. Often we believe or disbelieve things in REACTION to someone or something else, not because they are true or not. Haze’s Bible thumping grandfather left him faithless, but his struggle had nothing to do with whether Jesus is a fact or not.

I do not want to be a reactionary believer, or a reactionary skeptic. Absolute truth is not popular these days, but that does not mean it’s not a fact. If we begin to seek truth, instead of responding in involuntary ways based on experiences, we may be surprised at what does and does not ring true deep within us.

Strip it all off.

I'll turn this car around

My cousin Wayne sent me the link to THIS fascinating article. Essentially, a mother became frustrated with her two daughters’ bickering in the car. The girls were 10 and 12 years old. The mother pulled the car over and told the girls to get out – and then actually drove away – without returning.

The two girls were left on the road, and somehow got separated, leaving the 10 year old very distraught about not being able to find her mother. A good Samaritan (word choice by reporter) stopped to help her, taking her to police. When the mother arrived to collect the little girl, she was arrested for child endangerment. It’s fortunate that she is a high-powered Manhattan attorney.

I have a 9 year old, an 11 year old, and a 12 year old. There is bickering, for sure, and I can relate to the temptation to have a peaceful and quiet ride all by my lonesome, but this story disturbs me on several levels.

Being alone and afraid is one of the most terrible states ever, and as an adult if I make choices that leave me alone and afraid, I understand them to be consequences of my decisions. At 10, however, it can be nothing less than traumatizing to wonder where you are and why you were so bad that you were abandoned.

When I was a kid, I had a father who was truly extraordinary (I still have that father and he is still extraordinary, but I’m no longer a kid). My Dad’s graciousness toward his children has left me with me an untainted idea of who God is and how He feels about me. Dad is not perfect, but he always liked me, even when I was pretty unlikeable.

Friends and family have giggled over the fact that I often tell my kids that I will love them no matter what – because I often include extreme examples to prove my loyalty – examples of them committing crimes or mistakenly burning the city down or streaking naked across the field during a nationally televised Phillies game (mooning someone out the schoolbus window is already a given, but full-fledged streaking?). It is my job as a parent to point them to Jesus and I suspect the mother in the article should have asked herself, “What Would Jesus Do?” no matter how corny and hackneyed the phrase is now since the bracelet craze.

So, here’s your reminder to turn things around: Whether you are 10 or 110, nothing you have ever done is so bad that you have been left abandoned. He has always liked you. He always will.

Although, if you are 110, I wouldn’t dare the streaking thing - traumatizing on many levels.

Easter's on its way

I will be taking an Easter break, and the blog will be quiet until Tuesday, April 14. Until then, an old friend sent me a fascinating quote, and somehow it resonated with Lent and Easter (and death and new life) for me - so I am sharing it.

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life . . . No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit."

-Helen Keller

Don't look for the living among the dead. He has risen. He has risen indeed.

LOVE and GRACE to you.

Pastors and prostitutes and bribes - oh my

I read the sad news yesterday that, besides the male prostitute, Ted Haggard had another relationship with a man from his church – and the church paid the man to keep the relationship secret – oh, and for counseling, too. I think I read that Ted is appearing on Oprah today.

I am intimately familiar with clergy sin. I have never been with a prostitute myself, but I was on staff at a church when the pastor was caught in an affair. So, when I hear about Ted, I have all sorts of thoughts.

I attended a conference once where the speaker said, “Pastors, there are two things that you simply cannot do. You cannot sin and you cannot quit.” I have never forgotten.

When the speaker mentioned “sin” I do not believe he was asking us all to be perfect. Frankly, that would be impossible. But when we do things that taint the reputation of the church, and in turn, the reputation of God, it is a very sad day.

I thought that it was worth reminding both me and you that God is God and we are not. People do all sorts of things that misrepresent who God is, but their behavior doesn’t dent who He really is. I often say things that I regret, but that doesn’t mean that God is equally impulsive.

I apologize. I am sorry for all the Teds, for all the televangelists, for all the fakers, for all the Wendys. They are only people. People who God loves, as a matter of fact.

Sometimes I am a faker. Sometimes I have to determine to be loving because it is not my first impulse. I pray and I ask for courage, but often I fail. Forgive me and remember that Jesus never fails, even when His people do.

DAY SEVEN: Piece of work

I don’t know what is wrong with me. It is December 23, and I have barely introduced the Christmas story. I can’t be trusted.

TODAY I promise to at least use a familiar Christmas passage. In an effort to move things along, let’s pretend we’ve talked about:

An angel tells Mary she’s pregnant with God. (crazy)

Joseph, a GREAT guy, doesn’t want to embarrass Mary, so he plans to divorce her quietly. Instead, God speaks to him in a DREAM and he begins to care for Mary and face the gossip and humiliation with her.

Caesar Augustus decides he wants to count all the people that he rules over, and he requires that they return to their hometowns to be registered. Joseph is from Bethlehem.

Mary rides a donkey for 60 miles (!) while 9 months pregnant.

They arrive in Bethlehem only to discover that every other person got there before them. There is no place to stay, and Mary goes into labor.

Seeing her condition, one man offers them his stable (which was really a cave – not the wooden structures we see in manger scenes). Desperate, Joseph accepts the offer, and the God of the Universe is born amongst domestic animals. And, for one breathless moment, no one on earth understood the heart and plans of God better than a teenage girl, a carpenter and some goats.

Which brings us to today’s Christmasy thoughts.

I don’t know why God chose to tell shepherds first, but it makes me smile. It may be of interest to you that shepherds were the lowest of the low in that society. As a matter of fact, in a court of law, a shepherd’s testimony was not even considered admissible because they were so untrustworthy. They were dirty, slept outside, and smelled like the animals they tended.

It is to these folks that an angel appears. He says:

"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

Just think. You’re sitting by the campfire. You were bummed to get the night shift. Your shepherd buddy is going on and on about how he plans to attend business school some day and work his way out of this shepherding gig, and something appears in the sky…

I am particularly interested in what the angels say. They are crazy well-known words if you’ve ever gone to a Christmas Eve service, but look at it again: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

PEACE. Peace seems like such an unattainable thing, and I’m not just talking about the Iraqi War type peace. Peace amongst neighbors. Peace on TV. Peace deep inside my spirit.

It makes these words even more intriguing. Peace to men on whom his favor rests. Besides the regrettable fact that the men who wrote and translated the Bible came from patriarchal societies and failed to say, “Peace to men AND WOMEN,” there is this additional thought, “on whom His favor rests.” What does that mean?

Before you accuse God of being selective and/or exclusive, consider this idea. In order for God to fix the world (bring peace), He wants to fix me (give me peace, so I can be peaceful). Being fixed requires my cooperation. When I offer up my life, open up my mind and heart, I am available to receive His favor. I can taste peace.

But I can be a piece of work, believe me. I can be stubborn, and a know-it-all, and unyielding (think yesterday). I am, however, open. I have decided to believe and confess that Jesus is the God who came to get us. My heart is bent toward cooperation. And every once in a while, God and I celebrate when our partnership works as designed, and I am changed.

So I guess that makes me a work-in-progress on whom His favor rests.

Peace is work for a piece of work, and favor RESTING on me sounds like Christmas.

One last thought. The Scripture goes on to say about our shepherds: So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

God chooses the most unreliable, untrustworthy witnesses to tell His story. Oh, I feel like that sometimes! Why would God pick me?

I'm just one more tangible proof Christmas. There is no challenge too big, there is no person so lost, there is no doubt so overwhelming, there is no pride too steep, there is no world so mixed up, that He cannot step into and redeem. All we need to do is cooperate by believing in the God who came to get us. And then His favor rests.

Peace to you this Christmas.

DAY SIX: Getting down to it

Day Six. Catch up if you need to.

We’ve been talking about how God wants to use Christmas introduce us to an alternate reality. I’m actually inclined to believe that His way, His Truth, is the only real thing and what we live in now is more of a foggy, chaotic mess than we realize. But anyway…

I have a friend named Jeff who was in the theatre with me. As a matter of fact, he is now a professor of theatre, and I have always loved the way he THINKS. He directed a play, years ago, that he adapted from a book by a man named Calvin Miller. It is an allegory about God, and when Mr. Miller refers to Christmas, he says, “And now the great reduction has begun…”

One profound way that God demonstrated not only His love for us, but this alternative way of seeing the world, was His choosing to become a man in order to communicate with us – to blaze the trail to real life - so to speak.

Take a look at Philippians with me – another not so famous Christmas book (along with Job). Paul, its author, describes Christmas this way:

5…Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Now this is a fairly significant alternative reality if we understand it correctly. God REDUCED Himself to be a baby. He reduced Himself to be a man.

As funny and obvious as this sounds, you and I are not God. We so live like we are though, don’t we? We rely on ourselves, we follow our own code of life and conduct, we base our decisions on our feelings, we trust our logic. We think we’re in control. And, oh, how we self-aggrandize! EVERYBODY wants to be important, everyone wants to be known. We look for affirmation around every corner, and if we do not get it, we invent things that make us valuable and noticed.

The idea of CHOOSING to be reduced just seems nuts, in a culture that insists that we claim our rights, that we are always satisfied, that comfort and happiness are always the goal. And yet, the God who came to get us chose this path.

What if Christmas is saying to us, “There is a way to be satisfied, but you must dare to see and do everything differently.” Christmas makes every day Opposite Day! When you think you need to self-aggrandize, serve someone. When you have the right of way, yield instead. When you are tempted to think you’re God, choose reduction.

Sounds painful and hard, right? Yeah, it often is. I faced a situation last week where I felt like taking someone’s head off. I quite literally had to remember my Lamaze classes (my youngest is 9) in order to maintain my composure with this woman. In the end, I didn’t tell her off, I didn’t even overwhelm her with words (even though my words would have been true and I am particularly gifted at out-talking people) and I made space for grace to work. Yes, my tongue was bleeding from being bitten so hard. Yes, I had to yell into my pillow after the phone call. Yes, I felt like calling my closest friends to gossip. Yes, I felt reduced.

Yes, I knew I had done the right thing and had no regrets. Yes, I know that God is already working things out for my good. Yes, I represented myself, my family and my God well. Yes, it’s going to be okay.

Here’s that Philippians Christmas scripture in its entirety. It’s not just about the reduction of God, it’s about the reduction of us:

1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father….

14Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe 16as you hold out the word of life…

Imagine a world without self-aggrandizing, without complaining, without selfish ambition, without arguing. It’s the world that God came to introduce us to. We think December 25 is Christmas Day, but in truth, it’s Opposite Day.

Get reduced for Christmas this year. I suspect it really is the gift that keeps on giving.

DAY FIVE: Waiting vs. Ready

OK – Day 5. Let’s look at the idea of God using Christmas to introduce an alternative reality (remember The Matrix reference on Day 3?).

On the church calendar, this time of year is called Advent. The name Advent comes from two Latin words, advenire (to come to) & adventus (an arrival). People who understand it correctly know that it is a time of waiting – remembering the waiting that the world did before God came to get us, and waiting for when He will do it again.

When I was a kid, I hated to wait until Christmas Day. I can remember looking for the hidden gifts, wanting to just rip off every little flap on the Advent calendar, and wondering why time moved SOOOO slowly (I no longer think it does, by the way). To make matters worse, my family took an eternal 9 hour car ride to get to Ontario for Christmas every year. I had heard about other families who opened gifts on Christmas Eve and badgered my father about why we didn’t adopt such a fine tradition. Basically, I was in favor of anything that meant less waiting.

In the Old Testament we learn that the Jewish people were waiting for their Messiah to come. After all they had been through (captivity, exile, wandering around in the desert for 40 years, some seriously terrible kings…) they waited for God to come and FIX the situation. They envisioned a mighty warrior king who would conquer their oppressors and reclaim their status. Their prophets described a different God, but I always amaze myself when I EXPECT what I long for, not necessarily what is, so I kind of understand how they got it mixed up.

Hindsight is 20/20 though, right? Having the benefit of the whole story, it now seems pretty clear. Take for instance this snippet from the book of Isaiah, written generations before Jesus’ birth:

13 Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Now at the risk of committing heresy, here’s my own paraphrase: Listen up, people! Why are you being so awful to each other? Don’t you realize that every time you act like idiots, you hurt God too? Well, He's going to come and meet you, talk with you, help you understand the truth you are missing, prove His love - but be forewarned, He's going to come in an unbelievable way and His name will affirm His Presence with you. You get the idea, right?

I wish the Gospel writers had been more like the writers of soap operas. You know how you can miss two whole weeks of a soap opera, but not miss much of the story line? I have this longing to read all the “in between” words – the words in between Mary’s visit from the angel and the day she and Joseph left for Bethlehem. The Jews knew their scriptures, so when Mary told her parents that an angel had appeared, that she was a pregnant virgin, and that she had been instructed to call the baby Immanuel, did her parents recall Isaiah’s prophecy? Did the people in her town remember it as her belly started to grow?

Or, perhaps, they were waiting for the Messiah, but not ready for Him.

I suspect we approach the truth of Christmas in much the same way. We are waiting for God to come FIX this mess – or we wonder why, if He is such a gracious and all-powerful God, He let things get so out of hand in the first place. We expect Him to do things on our terms (remember our ideas about Job and self-interest? Do we embrace God so that He will bless us and give us good things?) instead of being ready to let Him lead, let Him reveal the truth to us, let Him fix us so He can fix the world.

There is a whole different way to live and relate to each other and to God. God orchestrated Christmas in an unexpected way to challenge all our pre-conceived ideas about Him and about our reality. A pregnant virgin? Angels? God born in a stable? Doesn’t make any sense in my world.

Now that I am grown, I do not necessarily like to wait, but I have at least recognized its merits. Something about waiting is often good for me - delaying my own desires, forcing me to see things differently, giving me time to step outside my preconceived ideas and entertain a different way instead. Waiting teaches me patience and perseverance.

It gets me ready.

DAY FOUR: What's the 365 day deal with angels?

I am starting to wish I had never started these Christmas posts. I don’t think I can do them justice in under 5,000 words. Anyway, we’ll keep trying and this is only Day Four.

Let’s talk angels. Angels played a significant part in the Christmas story. So much so, in fact, that many churches dress people in sheets and garland halos for their holiday programs. I am a Christmas angel detractor, myself, because if we are true to the Bible, we may be doing it all wrong. Truth be told, angels are fierce warriors who wield swords, not singers and harp players (there is not one reference in the Bible to them singing or making music). They have, however, eaten food with humans (Abraham and Lot), wrestled (Jacob), obstructed paths (Adam and Eve, and later Balaam) and delivered God’s messages of hope or judgment – revealing the mind and heart of God to humankind.

Angels are really cool creatures, but are nothing like the little cherubs that we wear as guardians on our jackets. The Bible does not describe any baby angels. This concept arose from Greek and Roman mythology. Cherubim in the Bible are described in Ezekiel 10 as having wings and hands, being full of eyes all over their bodies, and with eyes even on their mysterious wheels. Cherubim have four faces pointing in four directions and seem to be symbolic of heavenly realities. Now that I would like to see in lapel pin form.

For our Christmas tale, however, angels influence history at several major moments. First, one appears to Zechariah. Second, an angel appears directly to Mary. Angels speak to Joseph in two dreams. Lastly, a group of angels announce the birth of Christ at night to some shepherds.

As distorted as our understanding of angels is, two things are for sure: 1. they often act as messengers and/or ambassadors for God. Sort of like a reflection of Him and His desires, but they are not God Himself. 2. with almost every appearance, they provoked FEAR.

Examples:

Luke 1:11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear.

Luke 1:26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

Luke 2:8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

So, if they are the messengers of God, and they scare everyone they come in contact with, what do you think God has them say first?

To Zechariah, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah…” (Luke 1:13)

To Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary…” (Luke 1:30)

To the shepherds, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news…” (Luke 2:10)

As a matter of fact, the words “Do not be afraid” appear 365 times in the Bible. That’s one for every day of the year. Makes for a pretty reassuring 12 months. On days you're having trouble hearing Him, these words might be a great place to start.

Here’s one of my Christmas conclusions. God is a little scary. He seems HUGE and POWERFUL and AWESOME and I believe that a healthy reverence for His bigness, as opposed to our smallness, is definitely in order. Sometimes we read the Old Testament and wonder why in the world He seemed to wipe out whole races of people, why He would send a flood, why He would allow Job to suffer so (remember Day 2?). He is just too big to understand - even His messengers need to soothe the panic of humankind. “Do not be afraid…”

Funny, on the occasion of Christmas, when He chooses not to send a messenger, but opts to come get us Himself, He comes as a baby. A baby is almost the opposite of an angel (not the fake lapel kinds, the real ones). A baby is the farthest thing from scary that I can think of, unless he’s colicky, of course.

Do not be afraid, humankind. Let me help you relax and understand and feel safe. I’ll come as a baby. No sword. No power. No clothes. I’ll take the same path to enter the world as you did. Think of it! We were both babies once, you and Me.

DAY THREE: He's makin' a list...gonna find out who's naughty and nice

If you are just joining us, make note that we are on Day 3. You may want to scroll down and catch up first.

We discussed yesterday how God decided to come get us for a multitude of reasons: to reconcile His relationship with us, to clear up our misconceptions about Who He is and how He longs to relate to humankind, and to give us directions to the true reality – a reality that we have replaced with a life that seems real, but isn’t (think The Matrix). There are other reasons too – not the least of which I’m sure was to touch us and be touched - but the former are the ones we mentioned yesterday.

Not to prolong the inevitable appearance of shepherds and Magi even further, but I think it may help us to look at HOW He came, or at least one aspect of it.

When I talk about the Gospels, I am talking about the first four books of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These books tell the story of God as a man – Jesus – from birth to death to life. Both Matthew (1) and Luke (3) include a genealogy for Jesus. Fair warning, the genealogies differ, but it’s Matthew’s that I am interested in today.

Matthew writes a long list of strange names. It was always a joke, when I was still on a church staff, if one of us had to read this part of Scripture out loud in front of the congregation. We knew, amongst ourselves, that none of us really knew how to pronounce many of these names, but if you stood behind the pulpit and read with confidence, no one was the wiser. Here they are:

1A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham: 2Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, 4Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, 6and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife, 7Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, 8Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, 9Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, 11and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. 12After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, 14Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud, 15Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, 16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Later, Matthew tells us that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit, which is a somewhat abstract concept to grasp, but here he is being quite literal and definite. THIS is how God came, he is telling us, through these people, generation after generation.

The list is fascinating and important for a ton of reasons, but I will resist writing a dissertation on my blog today. Instead, let’s just focus on the dubiousness of this list.

Matthew does something unheard of for his time and place in history. He dares to include four WOMEN (gasp) on his list. Not only did he include their names in the middle of a patriarchal society, but two of the women he mentions had interesting sex lives (Tamar had sex with her father-in-law, and Rahab was a prostitute), one an adulterer (Bathsheba was married to Uriah when King David saw her bathing on a roof and had an affair with her), one worked for a living (Ruth) and one who would become the most famous teenage mother in history (Mary). And it gets worse because two were foreigners, one was married to a Hittite (Canaanites, Moabites and Hittites, oh my…) and one claimed to be a pregnant virgin.

These are the women Jesus comes from. These are the women God included in His plan to come get us. A questionable group, to say the least, and I think it would be awesome to see them all in a front lawn manger scene.

Why did Matthew do this? Well, scholars have debated the reasons for centuries, and it is interesting to note that many greater and more virtuous women could have appeared on this list, but don’t.

For me, it is simply one way that God is beginning to clear up our misconceptions about Him through Christmas (remember His reasons for coming?). God is gracious. God is inclusive. God longs to fix broken things. God wants to prove that seemingly shameful and ugly things can be used for good - they can be REDEEMED. No matter what has happened, no matter what you have done, you are not outside the reach or heart of God.

Questions (quickly, since you’ve almost gotten fired for reading this novel while at work): Did you know that Jesus had such questionable relatives? What does that tell you about God and how He came? Have you ever felt outside the reach of God? Aren’t you glad these names didn’t appear in your 7th grade spelling bee?
‘Til the morrow.

DAY ONE: An understood Christmas

We’ve talked on this blog so many times about how radical the Gospel is. And we have discussed how its revolutionary nature is quite often ignored, even by those who claim to live by it. Or, perhaps, I should be more generous and say that the core of the Gospel is simply misunderstood (I have been in a great discussion on another blog about GENEROSITY). In my little opinion, there is no other time of year when this contradiction is more in-your-face than Christmas.

I thought it might be interesting, from now until Christmas Day, to try and understand Christmas in a Gospel sort of way. This idea may not excite all of you, so I’ll see you December 26, but until then, let’s pick apart Christmas.

You will not likely read any catchy little phrases like “Keep Christ in Christmas” or “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” here, so consider yourself warned. As cliché as Christmas has become, it certainly wasn’t so when God chose to be hemmed in by skin.

So, tomorrow we will jump into who begat who, or maybe we’ll investigate what transpired before, kind of like reading the prologue to Christmas.

I fully recognize that many of the people who read this blog are not even sure that God is real, let alone whether Jesus was the man-form of this doubtable God. If you know me in person, you know that I have no notion whatsoever that it’s my job to convince or persuade anyone of anything. God doesn’t need me to defend Him. As always, I will tell you the story of God as I have learned to understand it – through Scripture, experience, tradition and reason. You may take it or you may leave it. Either response can be found in the Gospels, too.

Are you in?

Starting with God

If I were to identify the single issue that I hear from struggling believers (or those who are tempted to believe or are curious – you get the idea) is that we do not start with God. The craziest part is that we do not know it.

We tend to understand God from our own point of view – through the goggles of our own experiences and preconceptions. Sometimes we see Him through the church (which can be both a blessing and a curse). Sometimes we see Him through sickness or loneliness or even success.

Couple of examples:

Our fathers have/had a lot to do with how we feel about God. If our fathers were absent or harsh or loving or lenient or busy, we often see God in a similar way. But if we START WITH GOD, we discover in Exodus 34:6, “"The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness…” He is by nature gracious. This grace is not selective or arbitrary – it is the essence of Him. He is slow to anger, full to overflowing with love, and always faithful. How is this different from your Dad? To see the truth, START WITH GOD and work your way to other people.

Our childhood church has a lot to do with how we feel about God. Was it formal and stuffy? Were the members “separatists” and did not engage the world around them? Was it full of hypocritical people? Was it warm and loving? Did the members hold long term grudges against one another? If we START WITH GOD, we realize in Ephesians 5:25, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” God and the Church are separate entities, and He recognizes her imperfections – that’s why He is longing to remove her stains and wrinkles. The Church does not always represent the heart of God, but He longs for her to and has the power to make it a reality. To see the truth, START WITH GOD and work through your ideas about the church.

Our circumstances have a lot to do with how we feel about God. I read an intriguing article last week about how the current economic crisis is God’s punishment of a self-centered America, and how a famine is coming. Our self-centeredness aside, I thought to myself, since when is our perception of God shaped by economics? Perhaps you suffer with an illness – is God unfair? Maybe your marriage has gone bad – is God unloving? Perhaps everything is perfect – does God arbitrarily bless you and not others? If we START WITH GOD, we learn in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” This truth does not mean that He is immovable or distant, it means that the essence of Him remains the same whether it’s the Reagan Administration of the Obama Administration.

Lastly, our own choices have a lot to do with how we feel about God. I think people who have screwed up a lot tend to live with a lot of unnecessary weight (myself included). We remember the relationships we’ve ruined, the bridges we’ve burned, the stupid things we’ve said, the times we have fallen short of God’s ideal. It’s called sin. When we find ourselves unable to escape these moments, we live unforgiven – which is a miserable way to live – sad, troubled, paranoid. BUT IF WE START WITH GOD, we are liberated by 1 John 1:5, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” It is so important to understand that if we confess who we have been and who we are to God, it is in His very nature to forgive us. In Him there is no darkness at all, He WILL NOT VIOLATE HIS HOLY NATURE. In other words, no matter what others say and no matter what you tend to tell yourself, you are forgiven. God is not withholding. To see the truth about yourself, and to start living forgiven (!), START WITH GOD. See yourself in light of Him. Not the other way around.

Grab a spoon

I made chicken soup yesterday. No, I’m not sick, although my knees have been staging a revolt since Monday. I just wanted chicken soup.

Don’t you love it? There is something so comforting and warm and generally wonderful about chicken soup. I suspect that is why we have those strange little “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books that I can never quite figure out, but are nevertheless immensely popular. The title of the book implies that something universally soothing happens when we have chicken soup and we have come to believe it promotes well-being.

I was thinking all these things as I had a bowl yesterday afternoon. As I swallowed each spoonful, I could feel the warmth flowing down my throat, imagining it heading straight to my knees to ease and reassure them too. I was amazed at how good I felt, even if it was simply the placebo effect.

I want to be like chicken soup to people. I suspect if I was comforting and warm and generally wonderful all the time, people would feel soothed around me. Unfortunately, I am often soup impaired, and I act more like liver and onions that have to be choked down.

At the risk of stretching this idea so far it may break, I think the chicken soup thing is a great way to understand how we are made different by God. The more of God that I take in – through prayer and the Scriptures and serving others and living in community – the more I am filled up with the right stuff, the God stuff, the comforting, warm and wonderful stuff. Being right inside leads to doing right outside. It’s called having the fullness of Christ (Colossians 2:9-11).

I have a friend, who I love a lot, who keeps intimating that my faith is the result of a gene that scientists have successfully identified. Some people apparently have a propensity to need a god and dear Bill Maher investigates it in his new movie, Religulous. Kind of like the placebo effect, I guess.

Feedback like that is like having someone standing in the grass telling me how wet the pool is. Until you dip your own toe in, it’s pretty hard to understand the reality of it all.

I am not unaware of the issues, however. The practice of religion has screwed up the world significantly and I can clearly see why we long to explain it away as a biological anomaly. It has messed up people, but mostly because of messed up people. I saw a great bumper sticker last week that simply said, “SCREW GUILT.” I laughed out loud and thought of how twisted our view of God is and how we choose to live with so much unnecessary baggage.

Maybe if we understand that it’s far more like chicken soup. God wants to comfort the world by warming people from the inside. So, imagine something universally soothing, and once it enters and fills you up, you are truly different. Jesus the soup.

And just think, without liver and onions, things sure would smell better too.

From french fries to moths - another Jesus sighting

Click here for video of the latest appearance of the Christ. Somewhat better than His face on a Cheetos puff, (and I don't question His choosing to show up at an RV repair shop) but the image looks more like Bruce Lee to me. Kung Fu messages from the grave?

Outreach on I-95

For those of you who do not live anywhere near the east coast, we easterners travel something called the I-95 corridor. According to Wikipedia, “Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main highway on the East Coast of the United States, paralleling the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to Florida and serving some of the most populated urban areas in the country, including Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Miami.” There have been stories about drug busts on our infamous I-95 and, Wikipedia also outlines “Notable Disasters” such as, “In March 1996, an illegal tire dump in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia caught fire, destroying 22 spans of the Port Richmond viaduct. Although the fire occurred during the overnight hours, it caused major traffic delays within Philadelphia itself, along with the paralleling I-295 and the New Jersey Turnpike in New Jersey. The entire span and its support columns were replaced in an emergency repair project that took nearly 3 months to complete. The property owners were later convicted in both federal and state court.”

If you know I-95, you realize there are other notable disasters – especially if you have traveled between the Carolinas. If you are traveling south, there is the whole South of the Border nonsense, which quite literally may be the tackiest place on earth – and yet 8 million people stop and buy fireworks and eat a taco underneath a giant sombrero each year. If traveling north, you experience what I will call, “Outreach on I-95,” and it includes some of the most fascinating billboards I have ever seen. The plethora of billboards, that invade both sides of the highway, can be separated into three categories:

1) hotel and restaurant advertisements
2) topless bar advertisements
3) Jesus advertisements

Interestingly, the first two types promise comfort, fulfillment and hospitality. The third most often promises hell.

For a short stretch, it was every other billboard. One would simply say, “TOPLESS! TOPLESS! TOPLESS! Next exit” or the poetic, “We dare to bare.” Then the next would say, “It’s your choice! Heaven or HELL! Read John 3:36,” and there were two pictures – one of fluffy white clouds and the other of burning flames. Thankfully, my children were absorbed in a DVD (without any nudity and/or hell) so they did not notice or ask questions – but I was fascinated by this back and forth. It was almost like watching a competition or a volley.

I have no doubt that some well-intentioned churches are upset about the stripper ads and so they prayed and organized and raised funds to combat the problem. In my opinion, they have contributed to it instead, and unwittingly created a boxing match of sorts – one jab following another. The strange thing is, as I traveled along, neither advertising was appealing. The topless bars seemed seedy and pathetic, and Jesus seemed scathing and angry. Pathetic vs. angry.

Given the choice, I’d take the Cracker Barrel. You say, "Collard greens, next exit" and I'm in.

Thomas Merton on billboards

What about the men who run around the countryside painting signs that say "Jesus saves" and "Prepare to meet God"? Have you ever seen one of them? I have not, but I often try to imagine them, and I wonder what goes on in their minds. Strangely, their signs do not make me think of Jesus, but of them. Or perhaps it is "their Jesus" who gets in the way and makes all thought of Jesus impossible. They wish to force their Jesus upon us, and He is perhaps only a projection of themselves. They seem to be at times threatening the world with judgement and at other times promising it mercy. But are they asking simply to be loved and recognized and valued, for themselves?

In any case, their Jesus is quite different from mine. But because their concept is different, should I reject it with horror, with distaste? If I do, perhaps I reject something in my own self that I no longer recognize to be there. And in any case, if I can tolerate their Jesus then I can accept and love them. Or I can at least conceive of doing so.

Let not their Jesus be a barrier between us, or they will be a barrier between us and Jesus.

- Thomas Merton here

O Ye Tight One

via david & goliath

Reverse Graffiti

This video reminded me so much of what God does. Have a look.