Love and Disgust for the Church

I am sure that many of us deeply love the body of Christ and at the same time, loathe it. The way the church behaves makes us want to cringe and vomit (but we'd have to admit of and consequently gag over our own sin and misbehavior too).

I cringe nearly everyday. Dry heave. Throw up bile.

The advent of social media allows me to hear of and see of things I would've been ignorant about ten years ago. I am sick over things associated with Christ's church. I want to run and hide. I want to apologize. And I want to disassociate myself.

The more I think of it, the more I think deeply about it, I am driven insane. It's an insanity of wonder over God's love for us. How can he love and serve us when minute by minute we heap abuses upon his name, when we like the Roman soldiers, pluck the hairs out of his beard and spit in his face? How in the universe could he say to us and about us, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do?" How can he be madly in love with us when we sequester and quench his divine Spirit-life?
I don't know.

We deserve to be destroyed. But there is an incomprehensible grace. He redeems us. It is beyond understanding and deserving.

And everyday I am filled full. Everyday, I walk around in wide-eyed wonder because of God's deeply good and beautiful and loving character and because of the beauty of his church.

In no other place have I spotted the most beautiful, brightest, morning stars in all of creation. I've happened upon them in the church. The love and goodness and beauty I see keeps me within the church's embrace and gazing at the face of Christ. I know all this goodness, it's real. And all the distortion and sin and evil is not God or of him. It will fade away. It's temporarily, sometimes seemingly eternally real.

The church. It's all a deep mystery of goodness and of evil and of beauty and of the ugliest ugliness. In the end, we know that the good and the true and beautiful--the holy, will manifest itself and that every form of evil will be gone.

But it hasn't left yet and I can't ignore the evil or the things I loathe in the present. Therefore I am driven to prayer and action and a search for the wisdom of God.

Carlo Carretto shares some of these same sentiments. He writes:

"How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I should like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms. No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, although not completely.

And where should I go?"

~An excerpt from The  God Who Comes by Carlo Carretto found in A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants (Upper Room Books)

Evil Hiding Among The Good

"In his People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck says that if one is looking for genuine evil, then one ought to look first within the synagogue and church. It is the nature of evil to 'hide among the good.' Satan masquerades as an angel of light. Lucifer is his name, after all. Leaders of the church beware, not only because we work among the godly, but also because we ourselves, called to speak to and for God and to God's people, are in a morally vulnerable position where sin is always lurking about the door (Gen. 4:7)."


Will Willimon in his book Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. p. 266

The Devastation of Divorce

This is a post that I wrote for Christianity Today's Her.meneutics blog. It was posted today. Dr. Root's suggestions to the church for becoming a community of belonging for children of divorce is also applicable, I believe, for becoming a community of belonging for anyone. The church should be the community of the beloved.

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2011/05/how_divorce_devastates_childre.html

Dames Rocket: Life on the Edge

This is a beautiful and honest reflection from a friend of mine who does not want to masquerade in church. I have included the entire reflection below. Do check out her blog: http://leftbehindagain.com/homealone

The first time I saw Dame’s Rocket was in my first Ohio May, and I fell in love with it. I have been partial to purple flowers for many years, and Dame’s Rocket spans almost the entire spectrum of purple: from the palest wisp of purple to a vibrant, full-throated trumpeting of the glorious color – all against the background of the freshest green of new Spring. But Dame’s Rocket is mysterious and sneaky, and you might only see it if you have eyes that seek out blossoms that grow in the wild as mine do. It likes the edges of nature and specifically, the edges between woods and field. Dame’s Rocket seeds itself readily in dappled sunlight but not in complete sun or full shade. It also reminds me of deer that are more often than not seen at the edge of a wood, tails flashing as they disappear into a copse or forest. I feel lucky when I see them, as I do when I see Dame’s Rocket.

Ohio is once again in the season of Dame’s Rocket, and as I drove by woods and fields today, I searched for it. Perhaps not a great idea when one is driving solo, but I couldn’t help it. My eyes have been searching it out for 16 springs now. It beckons me every year, and today I discovered yet one more reason that it calls me so strongly. It is this: I am not unlike Dame’s Rocket. I have lived on the edge of worlds for a good portion of my adult life, and I need to believe that I, too, exist there as a thing of beauty. That when someone searches the between-spaces of life, I will be blooming and showing forth for anyone who cares to observe.

It is not easy living on the edge. If you stop and think about what it really means to live on the edge, it doesn’t take long to figure out that it means that you don’t really belong to one world or the other. Or, if you relate it to the “edgeness” of Dame’s Rocket, a person on the edge may exist partly in one world and partly in the opposite world. Sun and shade, Christianity and secularism, fundamentalism and heresy, political liberalism and conservatism, art and utilitarianism, smoking-hot short skirts and denim jumpers. As I went through today, so many of the things in this aforementioned list reared up and challenged each other, but the one that sucker-punched me was the contrast between fundamentalism and heresy.

It came in the form of an email, an email from someone to whom I am very close. The gist of the email was this: that a guy who has devoted his life to serving Christ in the Mennonite Brethren Church among its youth has been blacklisted from speaking at any Mennonite Brethren youth camps in the future. The reason? He has blogged about prayer labyrinths, U2, dreams, and (gasp!) Rob Bell. The camp director believed that it would put youth at risk if they were to look up his blog, that they may be tempted to leave the faith as a result of reading discussions about such things. In other words, to even discuss these things objectively puts one in the murky places between orthodoxy and heresy, and any person wishing to do so must not be tolerated in the Mennonite Brethren Church.

This comes only a few days after I told a person that the Mennonite Brethren, unlike the Old Mennonite order, do not engage in the practice of shunning. Well, maybe they do and just don’t have the guts to call it shunning. While this is the “same song, second verse” in my own experience over the last 10 years with evangelicals, it is also, undoubtedly, “a little bit louder and a little bit worse” because now it is coming from the denomination in which I first met Jesus.

Jesus. As a child, I loved Jesus immediately. As I understood it, Jesus was the best Christmas present of a Father who was even better than my own father, who I thought was pretty amazing (and still do!). The stories of how Jesus met bad people, loved them, and made them good captivated me. The drama of the death and resurrection of Jesus spoke to the deep places that even a five-year-old can sometimes have. As a result, I went through my early childhood feeling a sense of belonging to a group of people who also loved Jesus. My people defined themselves as a people who believed that loving Jesus and living out the things that he spoke about, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, was paramount to being a part of God’s kingdom.

But over time, American politics has polarized Christian denominations and claimed many of them as its own, even a denomination who used to claim the strongest of allegiances to the Kingdom of God and minimize allegiance to any of the kingdoms of this earth. But now, if I believe in social justice – yes, the kind of Kingdom of God-justice that the Bible talks about – I am suspected of being a heretic and (dare I say it?) unAmerican, which in today’s fundamentalism is the same thing as heresy. If I honestly labor over questions of God’s character, his love and holiness, it is urged by more denominations than I care to think about that I be held as someone not trustworthy to lead the coming generation. Never mind that these are some of the burning questions of this generation.

And I don’t belong in the world of heretics either. I actually believe that there is something to this story of Jesus. I believe that he was the unique God-man who came to bring forgiveness and a new Kingdom that we were commanded to continue building between his appearances. And I believe that Jesus, not man, will be the reconciler of all creation (Col 1). So the liberals definitely don’t want me.

I find myself here, once again, on the edge of orthodoxy and heresy, according to someone else’s definition, but not the definition I see in the Bible itself. I am deeply saddened to think that evangelical faith has been politicized, co-opted by people who do not even claim to be evangelical – Sean Hannity: Catholic, Glenn Beck: Mormon, Michael Medved: Jewish – and rubber stamped by evangelicals who are now toadies of civil religion.

I cannot live in either world. I must continue to exist in the between places of conservative and liberal faith, sun and shade. Some of my leaves and petals are warmed by the sun, and some of them are cooled by the shade. But I cannot exist where it is either only hot or solely cold. To do so would mean death to my soul, to the very elements that make me grow and blossom. And so my commitment to being spriritual Dame’s Rocket on the edge of faith and belief remains. And I hope that one day, I will find that this supernatural purple will have reseeded itself so that there are more and more beautiful blossoms in the wild places between spiritual field and forest. For it is there where much of life’s beauty and mystery is found, and it is there where I am waiting.

A Masquerade Ball in The Church & Christian Institutions?

"Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God." I Peter 1:17-23

We always hear, "take your mask off, be yourself." That is good advice. But what if the people around you hand you a mask to wear? What if you find yourself in an environment where people hand you a mask that looks like everyone else's? What if your environment forces you to masquerade because not masquerading will rock the boat and cause those in power to lose control?

This is terrible when it happens in the church and in Christian institutions. And boy, does it happen! There are people who do not want you to be yourself, to think and act for yourself. They maintain control and put on a false front. They foist upon you their masks and get bent all out of shape when you refuse to wear them, when you refuse to play along. Isn't it sickening? Is that what Jesus would do?

Jesus upset the religious people of the day because he didn't play by their arbritary rules or wear the masks that they were foisting upon him. He did anything but masquerade. They tried to mask the face of God. God would have none of it. When he refused, they said he wasn't playing by the rules; he was stirring up revolt. He had a rebellious spirit, they said. They called him Beelzebub.

We do it today. People try to do it to you and me--all in the name of their version of Christianity, not historic Christianity. Here I am not advocating rebellion against Jesus, or sinfulness in order for us to "be ourselves." Nor am I advocating rugged individualism. I am advocating that we allow each other to be the people that God has called us to be. So many people rail against cookie-cutter Christianity, but in the end they'll have nothing else. They can't handle anything else.

Being a non-cookie cutter personailty yet a devout follower of Jesus may lead some to lable you as a trouble-maker, as an insurrectionist. But I say, wherever you are, love and honor those around you, but don't let them mask who God has made you to be. Don't masquerade. Loving them doesn't mean you aquiesce to their sinful attitudes and postures--to their control. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is live and speak the truth in love.

Ugh. I have to say it again: masquerading is sickening. It's untruthful and lacks integrity. It is playing to the crowd and people pleasing. It accomplishes little--doing more harm than good. If you put a mask on, that's out of fear and perhaps self-protection. If someone tries to force a  mask on you--that is diabolical control.

Let us, as Peter said, love one another from the heart with a mutual love. May we not force our political leanings, denominational preferences, or belief about peripheral doctrines upon one another. God is not threatened by who we are, why should we be?  If others are while we are obediently following Jesus, let God be true and every man or woman a liar.

When Discouragement Invades

A Repost from 2009.

It is imperative that we recall God's goodness to us throughout our lives. Otherwise we'll focus on the negatives, on the negatives in life, on the negatives in our current situation. When we are discouraged, our eyes are quickly drawn to the darkness. Amazingly, it is the human way (sin) to be discouraged or discontent even when in paradise. If we find ourselves in that situation, it could mean something is off spiritually. But we can give ourselves to God, prayerfully read Scripture and prayerfully recall all the ways in which he has blessed us, never abandoned us, and it will give us perspective. If we are in a slump, such recollection will reorient us. Also, we should let friends or godly people know what is afflicting us. That way they can speak truth to us, pray for us, and help to give us the right perspective. Also, even if we are not in the mood, serving others will help them as well as us. It gets our eyes off of ourselves. Do not dwell in discouragement alone. May you be encouraged by God dear brothers and sisters.

Busy Service For Christ Keeping Us From Living Like Jesus?

There are many people--children, women, and men . . . who are being abused, and mistreated--oppressed all around us. We can all prayerfully do something for those who are oppressed. Right now, my heart is focused on those who are undocumented workers in the U.S. Close to where I live, many are being robbed and taken advantage of because the perpetrators know they can't/won't go to the police for fear of deportation. How would God have you prayerfully act wherever you are?

The Church has often been guilty of failing to act and speak out when it should. In fact, many times its because she  ignorantly tows the political party line. Those who do act on issues of justice or who sound the alarm are denounced as liberals and demonized. I fear this is the case in America. Although many have said that in the U.S. that immigration is the new Civil Right's issue, the majority of Americans and even those in the American Church seem to be on the wrong side yet again. It's a complicated issue, yes, but sometimes doing that right thing can be complicated. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

 Most of those in the German Church also towed the party line during World War II. And some live to regret it.  Read this account by a German Christian who was there. It is found in Erwin Lutzer's book, Hitler's Cross:

I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it, because, what could anyone do to stop it? A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. we realized it was carrying Jews like cattle in cars!

Week after week the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sounds of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to a death camp. Their screams tormented us.

We knew the time the train was coming and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top  of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.

Years have passed and no one talks about it anymore. But I still hear the train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians yet did nothing to intervene.

Erwin Lutzer goes on to say, "That story, which speaks so pointedly to the weakness of the church in Germany, speaks also to us: Do we hear the train here in America--the cries of the pre-born children in our abortion clinics, the abused child across the street, or the minorities who are daily discriminated against in the normal course of their existence? Or does our busy service for Christ drown out these muffled cries?

pp. 99-100

Jesus' Feasting . . . Our Feasting

These are the words of Jean Vanier from his and Stanley Hauerwas' book, Living Gently in a Violent World (IVP 2008):

"I want to begin by saying something about knowing and not knowing. I love chapter two of the Gospel of John when Jesus brings the disciples to a wedding feast. It is a wonderful moment of celebration and relaxation, showing us that our life is to be enjoyed and that we are all called to feast. At the wedding feast of unity, people drink lots and laugh and have fun. It is a time of togetherness and friendliness. And I imagine that Jesus came to this feast to have fun. I don't think he looked at his watch (which he didn't have) and said, 'I must hurry and do a miracle there because they need me!' No, Jesus at Cana was having fun. Mary saw that the wine was running out, knew that the family would be humiliated, and asked Jesus to do something about it. There's something profoundly human about Jesus--the first thing he does in John's Gospel is to turn water into wine so a bride's father won't be embarrassed." p. 22

Crushed By Another's Burden

"Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2

The Lord asks us to bear one another's burdens. We are to be yokefellows with others, to assist them however we healthily can with their troubles in this life. Sometimes it is just listening. Other times it is taking action, providing money or food, or childcare. It could be visiting someone in the hospital or jail. It is being  hospitable and a friend. It is helping to do what needs done. It is conducting ourselves like loving brothers and sisters in Christ. It could be offering guidance. All this involves discernment and wisdom. And certainly prayer.

Sometimes we are unsure of what to do. We wonder if helping would be hindering or enabling. That is where prayer and the counsel of wise brothers and sisters comes into play. But let us suppose that we are predisposed to helping one another however we can. That's not the problem. The problem is that the burden of the other starts to crush us. On our beds at night, we turn the problem over and over in our minds. We toss and turn. We lose sleep. That is when the weight of another's burden crushes us.

We've taken on too much. We've stepped into God's position. He tells us to carry one another's burden. But he also tells us not to worry (Matthew 6:25-33). We have to choose not to worry. After we have done all we can to assist (not more than we can that is God's work) we have to choose to trust God and leave that person and their burdens with him. We bear the burden by praying and helping.

It is God who disentangles and purifies a person. And yes, he uses others to help that process along. We do not disentangle and purify a person; we provide guidance and help. But the person ultimately must make the decision to do what is right, or to take steps toward wisdom, to take steps towards life. God is more than sufficient to help them to do so. He gives his grace (divine aid).

So if we are worrying, losing sleep, and in so doing condsidering that part of bearing the burdens of another, let us stop the worry. No one benefits by our loss of health. God says to ask for the manna we need today and not worry about tomorrow. Let us do what we can today and lay down without worry on our minds.

If we find ourselves worrying about a person or situation and losing sleep, let us turn to God and thank him and praise him for all his wonderful attributes. Let us pray or read. Anything but worry. Worry is sin and not good for us, although some of us are more prone to it than others.

On Going To Church & God's Will

"Henry Drummond warned of a 'worship which ends with the worshiper, a religion expressed only in ceremony, and a faith unrelated to life.' He goes on later to make this observation:

The great use of the church is to help men to do without it . . . . Church services are 'diets' of worship. They are meals. All who are hungry will take them, and, if they are wise, regularly. But no workman is paid for his meals. No Christian is paid for going to church. He goes there for a meal, for strength from God and form his fellow-worshipers to do the work of life--which is the work of Christ.

If all you do is sing to  God but never offer your service to him, then you're living on your lunch hour. And what kind of faithfulness is that?

No man can do more with his life than the will of God--that though we may never be famous or powerful, or called to heroic suffering or acts of self-denial which will vibrate through history: that though we are neither intended to be apostles nor missinonaries nor martyrs, but to be common people living in common houses, spending the day in common offices or common kitchens, yet doing the will of God there, we shall do as much as apostle or missionary or martyr--seeing that they can do no more than do God's will than where they are--even as we can do as much where we are--and answer the end of our life as truly, faithfully, and triumphantly as they. "

As quoted in Gary Thomas' book the Beautiful Fight p. 136.

One of  my favorite contemporary books!

A Glimpse of Grace

" . . . it is a gift of God not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:9).

God in our Lord Jesus Christ initiated salvation. God extended his lovingkindness to us, his enemies. We were hostile to him, not even wanting the gift he offered. If we were in Jerusalem, in the crowd that stood before Pontius Pilate as he asked whether Jesus or Barabbas should be released, you can bet that most of us, knowing what we knew at the time, would've swelled with passion as we screamed, "Barabbas! Barabbas!" And if we stood by at the foot of the cross, hurling insults, or egging on the soldiers who nailed him to the cross, we would've heard him pray for us, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." And we would've called him crazy, saying he was delusional from all the pain. Yet God in his grace--gave us what we don't deserve. God extended his kindness and love and salvation and the eternal and incomprhensible treasure of relationship with us to us. He initiated.

There are people who hate and despise us. They take advantage of us. They could be within the church. So-called brothers and sisters acting as enemies. It could be people within the church acting in spite towards us, gossiping about us, acting in hate not love toward us. It could be an unbelieving coworker. It could be a family member that uses us. Being loving and kind to them when they have done nothing to deserve it, when they don't even acknowledge or appreciate our love and kindness, is grace. Doing unto them what we would have lovingly done to us is grace.

I am not speaking of allowing ourselves to be physically, emotionally, or sexually abused. That is a different matter all together.

But I am saying that we are to extend the same grace to others that God continually extends to us. And it can only be consistently done with the help of the Holy  Spirit. Left to our sinful selves, we hate and despise God and our neighbors.

Born Again. Again.

Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?" Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. John 14:19-24


God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has made his home with me. I would say that my awakening dates back to June 24th 1988. I was 10 years old. It was then that I told Jesus that I'd follow him. Now I am 32 years old.

 Last night I was thinking about my life as a teenager. Back then I fervently followed Jesus. But there was a time where I fell into sin and was a slave to it. I had to be born again yet again. I don't mean that I somehow fell out of God's favor or that I lost my salvation. But that sin, that which I was a slave to, had to die. Only when it died, was I set free and given new life in that area. What I do mean is that not all parts of me are new. But I am being made new.

Slowly and surely, if we are in Christ, we are being made new. Things in us, habits, dispositions, temperments, sins--they have to die. If God were to excise all the death in us at once it'd be too much, too much for us. We couldn't take the pain. We couldn't learn all those lessons at once. So he does it little by little. One good thing about the wilderness is that in it we discover who we really are. That includes discovering things in us that we never saw previously. Things in us that have to die. We need to be born again, again. Wilderness suffering and difficulties are the fires that force our soul's dross, our soul's impurities, to the surface.

Impurities have been bubbling up in my life recently. Years ago, I wouldn't have had eyes to see them. Back then, I was blind to those impurities that are now surfacing. And to think that back then I thought myself a saint. Ha! God laughs a loving fatherly laugh. How immature and proud I was, and still am. I have to be born again in certain areas today.

Last night God gave me a glimpse of myself, of how much I am not like Jesus. I am painful to look at. And I realize I can do nothing, really nothing to change myself. I have to admit who I am. I have to call it all what it is--sin. That is confession.  I have to repent and trust God to cleanse me from all of my sin (I John 1:9). I need the support from my brothers and sisters in the community to encourage me in my pursuit of Jesus. I have to abide in Jesus (John 15:5). It is God who cleanses me, the home he has come to dwell in.

As I am born again, yet again today, God is making a home for  himself. I pray he can feel more at home in you and in his body the Church, too.

Not A Prosperity Gospel ~ No!

Yes God seeks to bless us and yes we will suffer. Here are Dallas Willard's words from his book Hearing God:

Any voice that promises total exemption from suffering and failure is most certainly not God's voice. In recent years, innumerable spokspeople for God have offered ways we can use God and his Bible as guarantees of health, success and wealth. The Bible is treated as a how-to book, a manual for the successful life in the way of the Western world, which if followed will ensure that you will prosper financially, that you will not get cancer or even a cold and that your church will never split or lack a successful minister and program. To the question from the old hymn

Shall I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through the bloody seas?

these people shout, "Yes, most certainly!"
But if we consider those who stand throughout history as the best practitioners of the Way, we will find that they went through great difficulties, often living their entire lives and dying amidst these great trials. The word of God does not just come to lead us out of trouble--though it sometimes does this--or to make sure that we have it easy and that everything goes our way.

Dallas Willard p. 180 in Hearing God.

Disappointment with God - Dealing With It

"Though he slay me I will trust him." Job 13:15

There's a wide range of disappointment in our lives. Disappointment ranges from minor daily irritations and let downs to deep griefs that never really heal due to the death of loved ones or friends. What happens when wave upon wave batters our souls or families or churches or friends? How do we go on?

It's hard. It's hard not to throw in the towel, especially if we've been as faithful and obedient to God as we know how to be. It doesn't seem fair that we should endure long seasons of unanswered prayers, of grief and depression, when we've sought God with all of our hearts--yet it happens. It has happened to all the saints throughout history. We become disappointed in God's silences, in God's inaction. Disillusionment sets in. We find ourselves posing the question that the serpent in the Garden posed, "Did God really say?" and find that our trust in God is starting to slowly crumble.

I always wonder if I would've lasted as long as Job. Would I have given into despair and cursed God? Job suffered tremendously--physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But God gave him the grace to persevere even when everyone, including his wife and his friends were accusing him, saying he must of sinned and telling him to give up.

I suppose that by nature, I am easily discouraged or maybe just impatient. At my worst, I am impatient with myself, impatient with God, impatient with the sins of others and impatient with the Church. So when I think about it, I can see how God is teaching me patience and perserverance as I wait on him, as I am frequently disappointed that my answer to a particular prayer hasn't come. And when I think of it, my prayer is nothing. I am experiencing nothing compared to the millions who are suffering right now. If I capitulate to self-pity, I can see how selfish and self-absorbed I've become. Yet another reason God might have me waiting--purification.

But for those who are suffering and enduring God's silences, for those of us experiencing comparably minor disappointments and delays from God, for all of us, it is important that we continue to lean on the body of Christ--the Church. It is important that we continue to receive the means of grace that come through prayer, God's word, communion, and the spiritual disciplines. But if we find we cannot do any of these, we must confide in trusted people within Christ's body, so they can bear our burdens with us--so they can lower us through the roof as I posted a few days ago.

It is amazing to me that I've met people who have suffered far more than I have and they can still say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." God gives us the grace to say that and mean that. So, I say it today with many of you, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

May God's grace be poured into you today. And feel free to let me know if you need prayer brothers and sisters. I always welcome prayer on my behalf. That is the best gift I can receive from another and give to another. Amen.

The Faith of Friends...

So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Mark 2:2-5

Who were these four men? Were they family members? The paralytic's friends? Or compassionate passersbys, good Samaritans? Scripture doesn't tell us. But this is one of my favorite mental images for praying on behalf of others or for seeking prayer on my own behalf. Whenever someone else is in desperate need of prayer, in desperate need of God's action or God's calming stillness in their lives, I picture myself as one of the people lowering them through the roof into the presence of Jesus.

I even tell the Lord, "I am lowering so-and-so through the roof right into the midst of your presence." And when people pray for me, when they cry out on my behalf, I think, "I am being lowered through the roof." It's like Hebrews 4 talks about...going boldly to the throne of grace.  What is interesting about this passage are the words, "When Jesus saw their faith." Whose faith? The faith of the four men, or the faith of the five (including the paralytic's)? 

Whatever the reference, the faith of the four is included. Isn't it true that sometimes, we are so weary, so full of despair, and so disoriented that we can barely utter a prayer? We are paralyzed by the enemy's posionous and fiery darts, even though we've tried to stand our ground with the full armor of  God on. Maybe we've missed something, overlooked a sin. Or maybe we're just being attacked--suffering because of the problem of evil. Like Job, we suffer not because of our own sins.

It is in moments like these that we need to summon our friends or acquaintences. We need to summon the prayers of the Church so that we may be lowered through the roof. There is something about the faith of friends, or the faith of the compassionate passerby or acquaintence that  God notices. This passage tells us so.

So if you feel battered and hopeless, if you feel like the darkness is consuming you, or if you feel battle weary, let some people know. Let them pray for you, let them lower you through the roof. God notices.

Many times the prayer of friends and family, and even the prayers of those I am not aware of have saved my life.  I am not overstating the case.

God's Shalom to you brothers and sisters. Pass the peace.

Marlena

A Little Bit More on Loving Our Neighbors

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I Cor. 13:4-7

Are there forms of unlove in our souls? Sadly, I think I've discovered a form of unlove in mine. If we do not think the best of others, if we pigeon-hole them, not allowing them to climb out of those holes we've dug and placed them in, that is not love. I must confess that I do not always give the benefit of the doubt to, or think the highest of, some of those in the body or some groups of Christians who are rabidly unloving in their language and legalistic. But (until Jesus seperates the sheeps from the goats) for all intense and purposes, as far as I am concerned, these are my brothers and sisters however much I am tempted to disown them. This is my family. They're just like me, a mixed bag of virtue and vice (sin). I must love them, especially when I perceive them to be acting like the enemy, working against the kingdom they profess to be a part of. Jesus showed great love for the church of his time, praying "Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing" even as they nailed him to the cross. It was the religious people that killed Jesus on a Roman cross mind you. 

And I must remind myself that these brothers and sisters who turn me off by certain words and behaviors, may be turned off by my way of being. Surely, my sins are evident to mostly all but myself. I have logs galore protruding from my eyes. How is it that I can even see the speck of dust in the eye of another? Remembering these things will guard against spiritual pride. It will guard us against thinking more highly of ourselves then we ought to. I also must remember that sometimes the most loving thing to do is lovingly confront a brother or sister...like Paul confronted Peter. There is a whole lot of unloving confrontation going on though. Or impersonal confrontation.

At the same time, let me say there are sins in the church that are clearly wrong. Racism, spoiling our environment, superficiality, idolatry, immorality, arrogance, and pride. We can speak out lovingly against these things. There is more, Christians have even murdered other Christians (most recently in Rwanda). So perhaps we can take a stand when the body is acting as the anti-Christ.

Maybe what I am saying applies between individuals. Perhaps a reader has clarification or some more insight. Feel free to share. All I know is that scripture tells us to love each other, our brothers and sisters, from our hearts. If we do not even love our brothers and sisters, how can we love God whom we have not seen? We have to think seriously about what it means to love one another. Then the world will know we are Christians.

We Are Workers Not Master Builders - Bishop Oscar Romero

"It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction

of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying

that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen."

Jesus or Mammon?

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself,"[a] you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. James 2:1-9


Last night, when I couldn't sleep a wink, I began thinking about a recent conversation. While I can't divulge the specifics, I can share what thoughts the conversation sparked within me. Let me explain. I don't come from a rich family nor do I have connections. On the contrary, I grew up poor and somewhat isolated--in a rural area. While I wasn't naive concerning the sins of the flesh and spirit, I was naive concerning Christian churches and institutions--the ways of the world within the Church and American Christian culture. Let me get to the point.

While Jesus through Scripture teaches us that the love of money is the root of all evil, that we can't serve God and Mammon (money), and that our hearts will be where our treasures are, I've been implicitly taught by the American branch of the Church that money matters (there are exceptions of course, I am just talking about widespread Christian practice).

Who gets the important positions on church councils, organizations, and school boards? The rich and influential (influence is tied to money believe it or not). They are courted because of their donations. Now, many of these rich people are godly. Because of his wealth, Joseph of Arimethea was able to provide a tomb for Jesus's body prior to the resurrection. But isn't it interesting that studies show that the poor give a bigger percentage of their money away than do the rich?

But let us not be deceived into thinking that those who court the favor of the wealthy and influential aren't looking for some money for their church or institution--money in exchange for power. The rich  and influential often call the shots.

At one point in my life, someone said to me, "Marlena, I'd love for you to be a trustee at this institution." When I asked what qualified someone to be a trustee at that particular institution they said, "Money and influence." "Well" I said, "I have neither money, nor great enough influence." He laughed knowingly. So while someone might have widsom and integrity, they are disqualified because of lack influence and money.

The same thing is true with Christian publishing. It is a business, they are looking to sell their books. What books? Those whose authors have a big enough platform or influence. Those who are famous. Christian celebrities. The best writers? Not necessarily.

The bottom line in many of these Christian churches, insitutions, and Christan media is money. And believe me, I know we need money to function. And I do not in any way discount the godly who are rich and influential. However, we are showing preference for the rich. We are playing favorites. We do court those who can put up the money for our organizations--the givers. We court the influential even if they lack substance. That is natural I guess, but when they get to call the shots because they give more than others, or because they're recognizable--that's favoritism. How many poor, wise, godly people full of integrity are on the boards of churches and institutions?

I am sad about the disparity between what Jesus teaches and what the Church teaches in practice. I used to be naive about these things but I am not any longer. It's the way of the world within the Church. It seems that in this case, it the Christianized Mammon that we are worshiping.

Isolation, Sickness, & Spiritual Health

"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Hebrews 10:24-25

What happens when we are isolated from the body of Christ (even other denominations), or from people in general? Malperceptions. In the absence of healthy others, ill-informed emotions and opinions emerge. We disintegrate into neurosis, perhaps without even knowing it. It is impossible to be spiritually, emotionally, or physically healthy when we spend our days alone because there's no one to tell us we're wrong, in left-field, no one to encourage us when we need it most.

Life-giving nourishment comes from being immsersed in the body of Christ. Probably the only reason that we would withdraw from the body is if we're homebound for one reason or another. Otherwise, let us not merely attend church, but immerse ourselves in the body. Our health depends on it.