Learning to Love

One of the most valuable assets that a Christian can posses is the ability to resolve conflicts. Evidence for this can be found in just a cursory reading of the New Testament. The teachings of Christ on loving one's neighbor; the Apostle Paul's admonitions toward unity within the churches he established, all show a consistent preoccupation with the subjects of love and unity within the New Testament. Jesus prayed that we would all be one (John 17:11-13); Paul told the Philippians to have the same mind as Christ who gave up his life for the good of others (Phil 2:1-8) To exist together in love and unity, giving of ourselves for the benefit of others, is a clear, consistent, and resounding biblical priority.

The problem lies in the practical aspects of this: the divide between what we know is right and how we choose to behave. I mean, none of us would argue against the ideal. Surely, most of us can see the beauty and value in this way of life and would hardly argue against. However, it is something that is not natural for most of us. And, outside of the church and the Kingdom of God, in the real dog eat dog world where we spend allot our time, it's just not something we witness or experience on a consistent basis. The world simply walks to the beat of a different drum.

The ethos of Kingdom of God, however, is to embody and possess (to slightly modify and borrow a phrase from liberation theology) a preferential option for others. But, even in the church, and in our intimate relationships with friends and family, we tend to fall short of this ideal because it's not natural for us. Most of us operate with an innate fight or flight response; we have a built in mechanism that causes us to fight to protect ourselves. And, it's not always a given that in any particular situation we'll just automatically prefer others above ourselves, sacrifice our desires, dreams, and aspirations, for the good of someone else. Especially when we feel justified in not doing so.

With this said, for the Kingdom within to be what it's supposed to be, for us to emulate Christ in his lifestyle of sacrifice and concern for others, we have to be transformed. I think this is what Paul was saying when he admonished us to put on Christ (Ro 13:14), not being conformed to the world and its standards, but to be transformed by the regenerating of our minds through the power of the Holy Spirit (Ro 12:1-2). It's hardwired into our DNA to protect our own self-interest. But, the Spirit of Christ can re-write this code, reprogram our natural propensity toward self-preservation. This will allow us to truly love our brother as ourselves, emulating Christ who laid down his very life for his friends (John 15:13). 

Recent events in my life have reminded me of these truths and how important it is to live with other's in mind. It is so easy to forget these things and live our lives with little to no perception of what our actions and words are doing to others. And, I tend to appraise people's perception of me based solely upon how I feel about it. I mean, if my wife has a problem with something I'm doing but I don't see the harm in it, I am more likely than not, going to continue the behavior. But, that's not really how Christ would lead me to behave, is it?

It should be enough that our actions hurt someone else, without having to make them defend their position and argue it in such a way that convinces us that we should change. Obviously, this can be taken to an extreme, and we should all live reasonably. But, Paul was essentially talking about the same thing in Ro. 14 when he was addressing the idea of eating meat sacrificed to idols. I may be able to pull up to the table and enjoy that piece of perfectly cooked Prime Rib, and there may not be a single thing inherently wrong with doing so. But if my brother is offended...

This is the heart of the gospel. Everything Jesus did, he did for others. He was led to the cross, not because of his own offenses, but for ours. He stepped into our domain, clothed himself with the frailty of our human flesh, suffered the full range of human emotion and indignity, and he did it all for us. He did it to show us how were are live; how we are live our lives in love and sacrifice, esteeming the needs of others above our own. 

The Sacred Heart of Jesus*

By this will all men know that you are my disciples, because of your love one for another (Jn 13:35). That's so much more than just saying, “I love you.” It's the giving of ourselves, wholly and completely, for the good and benefit of others. Such love is visible to those outside our communities of faith. It's a tangible and concrete expression of love. It's love that compels others to desire to partake of what we've got. It's this kind of love and sacrifice that is the very heartbeat of Christian community!

It is this kind of love that behooves us to resolve conflict, to lay aside division and embrace one another, even when we disagree and have valid reasons to dislike one another. This love enables us to bury the hatchet, lay aside our entitlements, and fully clothe ourselves with the disposition of Christ.

May God helps us to this end! 

*The Sacred heart of Jesus represents the unmitigated love, compassion, and long-suffering of the heart of Christ towards humanity. 

Lent Reflection 5: God is our Solution!

Psalms 130:1-8; Eze 37:1-14; John 11:1-45

I am trying to get caught up on my Lent Reflections. The past several weeks have been chaotic to say the least and I've not taken the time to sit down and write. But, it certainly isn't because I've not read the weekly scriptures or taken the time to contemplate them. I've sort of been walking around with my cheeks packed full from them. Like a cow chewing its cud, I've had the time and opportunity to meditate on these scriptures and they have deeply impacted me. 

I doubt there are few Old Testament scriptures more familiar to pentecostal preachers than Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones. Being a former pentecostal preacher myself, I have taken up this text many times over the years, preaching it from a variety of charismatic viewpoints. But, I must admit that when I read this again, nestled between Psalms 130 and the story of Lazarus' resurrection, I was tremendously moved. 

Sometimes I think we get complacent about scripture, especially those we've read over and over again. It's easy to feel as if we've mined a text for all its relevant value; we've learned all that a particular scripture has to teach us. It amazes me, however, how God can breathe new life into a passage and help us see things from it or through it that we've never seen before. In this sense, the idea that our scriptures constitute a living document is extremely true. Over and over again they prove to have a lively and engaging message.

So, as I read these passages, one distinct theme emerges: each situation is desperate and in each circumstance, God is the only solution. This theme weaves each of these passages together. Each predicament is dire, hopeless, and in need of divine intervention. The Psalmist has reached the tipping point and cries out in his desperation for God, knowing that only God can save him and his people. Ezekiel is taken to a valley and shown a horrific sight of death and carnage: the valley floor is littered with the bones of an entire army of men. Only God can make the bones live. Lazarus is dead, been dead for several days, his body already prepared and placed in a tomb. If he is to live again, Jesus is his only hope. Only Jesus can speak life into his lifeless body. 

I Don't Understand Mercy

Over the past several years there have been some tragedies involving kids that I either know or were acquainted with through my kids or the kids of my friends. Several years ago, there was a girl in my son's senior class. She was an honors student, straight A's and she already had a scholarship to UNC Greensboro. She got involved with a boy that was a few years older and her parents didn't approve. They tried to keep her away from him to no avail. They finally asked her not to have the boy at their house when they were not home. She didn't listen. The mother came home one day to find the boy in the house with her daughter and an argument ensued. In the end, the daughter stabbed her mother to death. It will be 43 years before she's eligible for parole. There's not a week that goes by that I don't wake up thinking about that girl...
 
Six months or so ago, a kid (I think he was around 24) who was a friend of my best friend's children spent a day binging on alcohol and benzos. His father found him hanging in a tree in front of his house the next morning. He was a talented musician with everything in the world to live for, but he didn't think so. I don't understand that.
 
Yesterday, we found out that a 22 year old kid that my wife taught in children's church for years, a youth pastor's son, was involved in a an accident. He rear ended a guy so hard that he killed him instantly. The truck the man was driving went over the railing of the bridge they were on and it took crews 7 hours to recover the truck and the body. He sits in a local jail under a 1 million dollar secured bond, charged with vehicular homicide, fleeing the scene of an accident causing serious bodily harm, possession of narcotics and a host of other charges. The DA is considering second degree murder charges against this kid.
 
In church, we talk about mercy, but to be honest, I've never understood it. I started preaching when I was 11. Between that age and the age of 17 I had the privilege of preaching with some of the greatest preachers I've ever known. I gave it all up, though, and at the tender age of 18 I was sitting in a dingy bathroom in Ft. Wayne Indiana with a needle hanging out of my arm.. laughing as I watched a man who couldn't of been much older than 40 (although he looked 100) stick himself a hundred times between both legs because he didn’t have any usable veins... he'd destroyed his body with heroin and cocaine.
 
Thankfully drugs didn't kill me and I made my way back to the church at the age of 21 and immediately went back into the ministry. I preached and served as a pastor for almost 7 more years. Then divorce hit and I left again.... another 5 years of self-destruction ensued. I was driving drunk one night and ran a stop sign and down an embankment I went. When I hit, the front bumper dug into the ground and my truck flipped end over end, landing onto a guide wire that was supporting the electrical pole just several feet away from where I landed. I had dangerous tools in the front cab and acetylene tanks in the back. Just a few days earlier, a mother of three pulled out in front of a car and in what didn't appear to be a very bad accident, lost her life. I don't understand mercy. I walked away with a few scratches, she died... I don't understand mercy...
 
What is it? Did I have a brighter future simply because I could preach? I came from a broken home, none of these kids except one had to deal with that. Was it because I was cute and funny and people liked me? No... these kids were gorgeous and had everything in the world going for them. So why? I don't know. I don't even want to speculate. I just want to go on record as saying, I do not understand mercy. I really don't!

Lent Reflection 3: Coffee and Morning Prayer

This Lent season has truly been a journey for me so far. It has been a time of reflection; a time of taking stock of my life and faith. I must admit, that I have been somewhat troubled by what I see. While I am happy to report that my faith is intact and that I believe in God today in a way I couldn't admit several years ago. I also see that there are so many areas of my life that can use some rearranging. There are some priorities that I am ashamed to admit, have long been neglected and put on the back burner.

Some of this reflection has been stirring for quite some time now. Long before Lent began, I was feeling a certain conviction that I was not used too. A Facebook friend of mine, some time ago, began to post every morning, usually first thing, that he was having coffee and morning prayer. And every time I read this, I thought, "well, I've got the coffee down, but the prayer thing, not so much."

My faith, for years now, has been an intellectual pursuit. I'm not saying that I've not been a Christian, but at best, I've been a reluctant disciple. In some ways, this has been a defense mechanism in me. It's not that I haven't ever experienced God in prayer and devotion; in fact, it is the exact opposite. I have been there. There was a time when my faith was entirely mystical, but it was in that time of my life when I found myself thrust into a crisis of faith that left me empty and wanting for a better understanding of God and what he wanted from me. 

Japan: Discerning the Hand of God in Tragedy

Acts of God by Amy Nelson

The recent events in Japan have been absolutely horrific. Hundreds and thousands of people are suffering, having lost loved ones and homes, their future bleak with uncertainty. Sitting in the comfort and relative security of my own home, it is so hard to connect with such carnage. The pictures come across the computer screen and television, almost like foreign invaders. Foreign to my thinking because I've never suffered such a horrid turn of events. And, it is even more terrifying to think that this all happened, literally, in a matter of seconds, to people just like me.


Given that it's been a whole week now since all this transpired, I was somewhat encouraged by the lack of religious idiocy surrounding this event. It seemed almost immediately after the Haiti quake, that claimed over two hundred thousand lives, that Pat Robertson was basking in free publicity after announcing the ludicrous notion that the quake was God getting back at Haiti because of voodoo and other things that offended Robertson's religious sensibilities. I remember hearing this and hanging my head in shame, being embarrassed that someone who claimed to represent my faith to the world would utter such unconscionable words in the name of Christ.


Unfortunately, this tendency could not be kept at bay forever. I woke this morning to read several articles speaking about the the comments made by the Governor of Tokyo. He stated that the quake and subsequent events were a result of divine retribution, enacted  because of Japanese greed. I was really hoping against hope that we could table the question of theodicy this time around. Maybe, just this one time, we could abstain from trying to put God's stamp of approval upon it, and choose not to discuss divine complicity with yet another  global atrocity. Obviously, this has not happened. And, to my surprise, this ill-considered rhetoric has come from someone within the crisis itself, which is somewhat unique. It's really easy to sit outside the tragedy and pontificate and speculate, but it seems somewhat unusual, to me, that this question has arisen from someone inside the crisis.


The fact is, our Christian faith and how we present God to the world, kind of generates and perpetuates these kinds of discussions. And in so doing, this logic has become so ingrained in our thinking that it is virtually impossible to ignore. I mean, anytime something like an earthquake or bad storm occurs, we automatically call it an "act of God." It is a term with legal standing as well. So, even within a secular context, the assumption that God has something to do with these horrible tragedies is a foregone conclusion.