cajolery

Some recent thoughts on prayer have had some affirmation in Richard Rohr's reflections. He says that all that is needed is surrender and gratitude. So much of our prayer is asking. "What is wrong with asking? Didn't Jesus teach us to ask?"

There is nothing wrong with asking. It is appropriate that we ask God to help when we need help. Dallas Willard saus that it is the nature of the kingdom to ask. It is a real part of real relationships to ask, and it is important to remain in the awareness that we are fundamentally dependent upon God for our existence.

Yet I need to reflect on how much of my asking is an exercise in cajolery. Is my asking merely a way that I try to get my way? There is not much surrender in that, though there may be some gratitude if things work out the way I want them to. We know that prayer doesn't work like a slot machine: put in your coin and wait for the jackpot. I think that is an easy posture to slouch into, though. Even if the asking is not necessarily self-centered, if praying is only about asking, it does not leave much space for listening so that we might surrender to the Voice.

I am always struck by the strangeness of prayers that seem to suggest God does not yet have the information, or prayers that seem to suggest that God won't care unless we let God know how urgent the situation is. I think our prayers should start with "God you know what is going on, and you care about this person infinitely more than we do...help us know what to do." Or end with "...empower us to do what we are unable and afraid to do." I don't think it is inappropriate to ask God to heal or to help in some way, but we need to ask in light of an awareness that God is already more present, concerned, and active than we can imagine.

Our inability to listen—prayer as silent, contemplative attentiveness—results in an inability to do anything other than talk. I wonder what might happen if churches really taught people that prayer is at least 50% listening. We were taught that prayer fit the formula: Adulation, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication (ACTS). There was no teaching that praying was about listening. It was all talking. We don't know how to be in quiet. We don't know how to listen in silence.

I have been practicing gratitude by contemplating people for whom I am thankful. I consider the beauty of creation and I am overwhelmed by gratitude. In this, I do not speak or even "speak in my head silently". I simply try to be overwhelmed or immersed in gratitude as a kind of prayer. This, I see, can be a path to listening prayer (we do have a hard time thinking of prayer as something other than talking—I have to attach "listening" to prayer to qualify it!).

Gratitude, I find, leads me to find surrender an easy thing to do. What remains is to listen... Only when we listen first can we keep prayer from devolving into cajolery.

with

I believe that, most of the time, we are not with each other and with other things in this world in the way God intended.

It is easy to identify this in others. Some see homosexual people and say that is not how God intended people to be with each other. Yet these people usually fail to see that the way they themselves are with others is not as God intended it either. Even the way these people are with homosexual people is not as God intended, because they are with them in an adversarial, (and actively or passively) malicious way.

Many of us are not with things (money, possessions) in the way God intended us to be. We incorporate things into our identity as if they make us more important or more desirable or more valuable. We want to possess, to own, to master, and to take things. We contemplate and meditate on things and how we can get things and how our lives will be made better with things. This way of being with things is surely not how God intended.

We have lost our way when people are "them" and "theirs" and things are "me" and "mine". We are in danger when we are with people as objects for our use and with things as subjects for our affection.

Jesus said that we are to love our neighbors and our enemies. I always loved the story of the "enemy" who was a neighbor because it removes every qualification we can imagine for not being with another person in a loving way. We need to be with others in ways that will and work for their good; even if they think of themselves as our enemy, and even at our own expense. It is only when we show love to our enemies as our neighbors that our enemies might become our friends—or at the very least that we might be able to see our enemies as our neighbors.

For contemplation: How am I with those who are close to me? How am I with people who are not like me? How am I with people I do not know (i.e., people I interact with in stores, at work, etc.)? How does God intend for me to be with them?

the year of shutting up

This year began for me as "The Year of Shutting Up."

In reality, it has been "The Year of Not Much Worth Saying Anyway."

That's not to say that nothing has happened, but that I feel less and less like I have much to contribute in the way of wisdom. I have had some markers along the way—things I have learned and intentions that are marinating. Here are a few:

I am considering becoming a vegetarian.

I am definitely becoming a father.

I am relying entirely too much on old information.

I am desperately in need of new routines.

I am increasingly admiring good people.

I am becoming less interested in having all the answers.

I am finding ways to stay distracted and I'm not sure it's a good thing.

Working out and learning things are good and important activities. But what happens when you stop doing those things because the motivation in the past was vanity/insecurity (those two, it seems to me, are two sides of the same condition)? I had a friend who stopped playing soccer because he got too competitive and could not remain generous and kind while he played. But I'm not sure just stopping cures the problem. My year of shutting up did not really succeed too well. I ended up talking quite a bit as if I knew more than I actually did or as if my opinion mattered more than it actually did.

Jesus was smart. The stuff he said about finding your life only when you let go of it is so right on. It's hard to let go of, though. Just because something is true doesn't mean it's easy.

So I still intend talk less and learn more...but I want to learn more about people, not just more information. I want to learn wisdom...which involves living out wisdom.

If we are not what we offer, we do not have much to offer anyway. This is especially true for teachers in any category. It is most urgent, however, for teachers among the people of Jesus. This statement, while I believe is true, is more projection, because I feel it is urgent for me to hear it. So I'm writing it down here to myself.

I'm not sure what the next year will be "the year of." Maybe it is hubris to declare such things at the start. You only know it was "The Year of..." when you reflect on what has actually happened.

silence

A long silence.

A good deal of listening.

Perspective.

holiness

Holiness is a church word, which is to say that it has baggage–popular usage that has diminished its helpfulness for contemporary discourse. If someone seeks holiness, they are seen as aloof and odd. But what does holiness mean? Is it about moral superiority, escapism, and self-righteous finger-pointing? No. Holiness is about the elimination of things that destroy.

It is important to note the connection between the word 'holiness' and wholeness and healing. David Bosch brought this out briefly in discussing the mission of the church. I wonder if many people who are put off by the current connotations that come along with the word 'holiness' would be more willing to seek it if they understood it in terms of wholeness and healing. Would it not be good for us to find that in our lives, the relationships around us, and society in general?

Holiness is about breathing life, and not death, into our actions and relationships. We often see people who eliminate certain actions which are, no doubt, destructive, but still hold close other actions and attitudes which, though more socially acceptable, are equally as dangerous and destructive. Arrogance about one's abstinence from certain destructive behaviors is itself a sure sign of sickness. The holy person is not the one who shakes his finger at 'sinners,' but rather the one who helps her fellow brothers and sisters to see the way toward healing.

I hear our call to holiness as a call to consider everything that destroys and to refuse to embrace those things–embracing, instead, things that breathe life, love, justice, healing, and beauty into the world around us. No wonder these acts come from God and require our dependence and cooperation. We need to reclaim holiness as a word, as an idea, and most urgently as a practice.

we believe in the resurrection

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. We don't just believe that the resurrection happened. We don't just believe things about the resurrection of Jesus. We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.

In a world where it appears that death wins, where violence, murder, disease, and terrorists might cause us to fear and lose heart, we say that we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. We say that there is a power beyond our understanding that is able to give life back to those who've lost it. And not metaphorical life, but real, actual, fish-eating, hand-touching, word-speaking, bread-breaking, sitting down at the table life.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. In a world that teaches and trains us to protect and secure ourselves, we say there is a power at work now in this world that exposes the fragility and short-sightedness of such so-called securities, and offers, no, promises and has proven the ability to deliver us through, not merely from, danger and death.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. And so we refuse to accommodate ourselves to the fear, despair, and cynicism all around us. We choose, instead, to give words and expression to the groaning of the creation. We say that a new day has begun, and the darkness all around us will find no more safe quarter, for the light of life has dawned. Death's teeth have been pulled; it holds no threat any longer.

So we live our lives with abandon. We stand up for and alongside those who are most at risk, and we say in word and in action that we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. God has begun His good revolution, and change is on the way. Oppression, violence, deception, rejection, selfishness, apathy, brutality, manipulation, malice, murder, hatred and all their kind are living on borrowed time.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. So we refuse to be seduced or coerced into sharing in the behavior of that which will be removed and replaced. Instead, we love rather than hate, we share rather than steal, we give rather than take, we show kindness rather than brutality, we tell the truth rather than deceive, we hope rather than despair, we believe rather than doubt, we help rather than oppress, we heal rather than destroy, we embrace rather than strike, we lose rather than win at any cost. Because we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.

pretending

Somtimes we pretend that things are different than they actually are in order to protect ourselves from being thrust into a place of insecurity and confusion. This is tempting because the safe and familiar is manageable and navigable—even if it is illusory. Yet, I am convinced that pretending is the more dangerous path.

We create false realities we think we can cope with, yet even such coping is false. We are better off with the truth, no matter how troubling or fearsome it may be. In dealing with the truth, we are dealing with things as they are. We can trust it to be as it appears (usually), and even if we do not know how to 'manage it' or how to respond in light of it, to be dis-illusioned is the first step onto solid ground—a step out of chaos.

What does pretense protect? Does it not thrust us into duplicity and self-deception? Does it not lead us into managing a facade? It is not in any way beneficial, as we think it to be. So let's not pretend any longer. Let's speak truthfully without fear of what the truth will expose, change, initiate, or destroy. The truth will only destroy that which destroys us—beginning with pretense itself.

fighting

Not every fight is a fight for our freedom. Sometimes it's just a fight.

clarity

In my time away from paid ministry (Is it better to say "pastoral ministry with financial compensation"?), I've come to see why it remains necessary for the church to pay salaries to certain people among them. It is because the people who are working do not have the time and space in their lives to think deeply and find clarity about life. That is a gift and a big part of what I think is needed from 'pastors'—to help people see clearly what is going on around them and to help them learn how to think as students of Jesus.

This, sadly, is not the thing many churches expect most from 'pastors'. When this gift is not permitted (and most often it is not permitted because it is suffocated by many other demands placed on 'pastors'), it is the church that suffers. The church is in great need of wisdom—not people who know all the answers, but people who have clarity and wholeness or purity of thought. The fact is that our culture assaults people with astounding amounts of information, appeals, announcements, assertions, and calls to action. The church needs people who will step out of the stream (raging whitewater?) and be still and listen, to reflect on what is happening, and to understand what the Spirit is calling the church to be, do and say in the world. And while this is something every member of the church ought to be engaged in, there remains a need for a few who devote more time and attention. This gift is not to function as dictates and obligations placed on others, but as a servant-guide, or docent.

The church needs 'pastors' to understand the pace of life at which many of their people find themselves going. I realize that I never really understood what unfair expectations I made on people (when I was in "pastoral ministry with financial compensation"). I was reading Darrel Guder's "Continuing Conversion of the Church" again recently, and he suggests that we should expect to see more mature members of our churches less and less as they engage in ministry (in the world, not in the church building), and more time ought to be spent preparing less mature members for their ministry. He wrote that our churches need to develop structures of sending.

This seems to me to be a very different job description for pastors than what most churches that I know expect to see. I hope to see the day when the work of a 'pastor' is determined by the gifting and call of that woman or man, rather than some all-encompasing organizational director, C.E.O. + Bible Answer MAN, do everything job description. I hope to see the day when the church honors the giftings and callings of everyone, rather than a select few.

We do need 'pastors'. We do need people who can take the time to reflect on what is happening and what it means and what is needed. We do need people to help bring clarity (even if it includes complexity). We do need people who have the time to teach people how to think and live a students of Jesus. We do need people who are free from prepackaged, preconceived notions of "what a pastor is supposed to do," and who are allowed, and even encouraged, to function according to their giftings and callings because they themselves trust and encourage the function of other people's giftings and callings to make up the difference.

good words

Words have power. They do things. They change relationships. They create possibilities. They destroy futures. What we say is important.

Of course some words fall very flat when they aren't matched by action, but words alone are still quite powerful. That is why I think what we say to others must be creative and life-giving, rather than destructive, hurtful, or offensive. I sometimes find myself using the cheap 'humor' of sarcasm. I think sarcasm is a back door into mean-speak. It's a stab in joke's clothing.

I want to be more than nice and polite. I want to be the kind of person (purity of heart) who speaks only what is beneficial (purity of speech) to the people and the world around me.

Good words require a good heart. Good words are possible when our hearts are rightly oriented toward other people, and toward God. We speak what is beneficial to others when we really want what is good and right and best for them. We gladly set aside any would-be 'freedom-to-say-whatever-I-want' for the sake of someone else's well being.

I want my words to bring hope. I want my words to help people see that they have value and are loved. I want my words to be agents of truth and reconciliation. I want my words to invite people into goodness and mercy. I want my words to help people see the possibility they refuse to see in themselves. I want my words to offend for the right reasons. I want my words to be good.

bad words

I can say anything I want to say. Language that is labeled as explicit is merely that set of words that society has identified as taboo—off limits, or at least outside the limits of pious or polite conversation. They are just words. What we identify as ‘swearing’ is not what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Do not swear….” What we identify as cursing is not what the Paul was referring to when he wrote, “…do not curse….” They are simply words to which our social group has given special status. They are not what is prohibited in the Bible.

What is prohibited in the Bible has to do with dishonesty and malice invoking the identity and power of God (or gods). When Jesus says, “Do not swear,” the rest of what he said was, “do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” He was saying that we ought to be the kind of people who don’t need to invoke God’s identity and power to convince people. We ought to be the kind of people who speak without manipulating people by invoking some other authority.

When Paul says, “Do not curse,” he was referring to malice toward others. He was referring to bad words like, “I wish you were dead.” Paul wrote, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” For me to curse someone is to intend injury or death on them, which is often an open door to inflict injury or death on them if sufficient opportunity arises.

For me, language used to be a marker of godliness. Godly people did not speak words that were off limits. In recent years, some of my closest allies in the Church have found a kind of freedom in their use of words that are taboo. I think bad words are words that are spoken with an intent to destroy someone or to be dishonest to someone. So I am not too offended when someone uses a word that our society has given ‘off limits’ status. They are just words.

The thing is that these words usually suffer from guilt by association. They are usually found hanging around attitudes of meanness, malice, and violence. They are usually skulking around hatred, anger, and ill will. Often they are standing out in front of these attitudes, hiding something more horrible behind them.

What concerns me is what is in our hearts. What concerns me is what makes bad words bad when I say them or hear them. Avoiding the use of certain words does not protect your heart from evil. A person might never utter a ‘taboo’ word and still be full of malice, anger, rage, and hatred. A person is able to ‘curse’ and ‘swear’ without using what we call ‘foul language.’

I can say anything I want to say. That said, I do also need to take into consideration what effect my words have on the people I am addressing. Will what I say help or hurt someone else? If I use words that are deemed ‘off limits’ by that person’s culture (which may also be my culture), and it injures them, I have misused language—I have made those words bad. I am for purity of speech, but I am more for purity of heart—which makes all speech pure.

convenience

It is very inconvenient to continually submit to the will of another-especially when you have been shaped into a person who thinks that life (at least your life) is basically about yourself. But the great irony is that you only find fulfillment, staisfaction, happiness, or meaning when you bend to the will of the other (ultimately, that means to the direction of God).

When God is convenient, you have likely wandered into dangerous territory. That is not to say that God wants to make our lives difficult, but rather to say that a convenient god is one that has been molded in your own image. The convenient God never challenges your decisions, never calls you to do the difficult thing, and always endorses your actions.

Convenience leads to an ongoing string of momentary delights that, at the end of the day, leave you feeling more empty and lost than before. Convenience seems like an easier path, a path of lesser resistance. Yet, it becomes a very hard and lonely road. It is what fits nicely into your own agenda, which often comes at the cost of friendships. Following convenience, over time, strips you of the resources to endure difficulty and conflict.

Convenience leaves you alone at the end because friendship puts you into difficult situations and conflicts. Following convenience prevents you from both receiving and demonstrating love because you never stick around long enough to show love to someone, and you fail to appreciate the sacrifices made when another shows love to you.

I start getting nervous when I notice that I am increasingly interested in what happens to be convenient.

hope

hope is seeing farther than you believe is possible.

hope is seeing today in light of the tomorrow that must come so that today can be recollected and recapitulated.

hope is refusing to submit to the present disaster.

hope is embodying the possible alternative in impossible times and places.

hope is fragile and threatened on all sides.

hope is activity in the temptation to passivity.

hope is passivity in the temptation to activity.

hope is trying to make itself unnecessary.

tending

Some of us feel guilty about not doing enough. In rethinking what we are supposed to be and to do, we have been reacting to a life-long emphasis on just getting one’s ideas straight. What has mattered is just that you have your list of ideas about God and right behavior straightened out. Now, we are sensing that there needs to be expression of those stated beliefs in the form of action. Practical issues of justice, fairness, and concern for social issues are coming to the forefront of our minds. “What are we going to do?” is the question instead of simply, “What do we believe?”

A people who have the sense that they have not ‘done’ much are suddenly confronted with a world full of real concern (injustice, racism, poverty, etc.) and are left feeling overwhelmed with guilt for not doing enough. The decision may seem to be between carrying around a self-deprecating load of guilt (for not doing enough) or going back to simply being concerned with getting the facts straight.

I don’t think that ignoring the real hurts in the world and crawling back into the cave of private cognitive exercise and personal sin management is the answer. But I don’t think it is helpful to keep flailing ourselves with all the things we aren’t doing. And I’m beginning to wonder if the two aren’t really all that different after all.

The impulse to participate with God in the healing of the hurting world around us must be disciplined with discernment as to what particular parts of God’s work we are invited to share. Without such clarity as to what our particular part is, we unnecessarily burden ourselves and others with responsibilities that belong to others. It is not an issue of minding one’s own business while ignoring the rest of the world. It is an issue of tending well to one’s own row in the garden.

People in positions of influence must be careful with the burdens they place on others. What may be a responsibility for one person is not the responsibility of all. Jesus criticized religious leaders for placing burdens on people that were crushing and life-suffocating. What we do in alerting people to the need for missional engagement in the world must be something that empowers people to identify their God-given responsibility in the places they are.

What we sometimes do (with good intentions, no doubt) is to send people looking for other places that appear to be in more obvious need than their present situation. That is an insidious form of pride: to assume that we and our ‘place’ are not the ones in need of God’s healing. This is not an excuse to ignore other places. It is simply a call not to ignore the one we’re in. It is not an invitation to avoid the burdens of living as a servant of Jesus. It is an invitation to only carry the ones handed to you.

There is much pain and suffering in the world. What can one person do? Asking that question leads to delusion or despair. We must begin by asking, “What has God entrusted to me/us as our part in the work of bringing heaven to earth?” Discerning the answer to that question, we must then do our part well.
We are not then faced with the option of “Do nothing or do everything.” We are faced with the option of “Do your part or not.” It is an issue of being appropriately small and being faithful. This is not an easy thing for many of us to accept, but I think it is right, and once we’re humble and courageous enough to accept our own responsibility, it is liberating and life-giving.

posture

Truth is how you hold it. The usual problem with people who are right is that they don’t know how to hold it right. The usual problem with people who are wrong is that they think they’re right. The problem with both is how they treat each other.

We’ve learned that how you hold your beliefs is as important as the beliefs themselves—sometimes it is more important. If I am convinced that I am right, that does not give me license to disrespect the convictions or person of someone who has different convictions. Suppose I believe that the universe was created; I have all the more reason to respect the atheist because she is still human. I do not need to agree with someone to respect and honor them. Suppose I believe that the universe was created over trillions of years; I still need to demonstrate love and respect (eliminating condescension as an option) to someone who believes it was made in six days only six thousand years ago. I can think they are wrong; I can have a debate, but I cannot regard them as less than human.

Many Christians mistakenly believe that their conviction of rightness entitles them to arrogance, condescension, and/or unabashed meanness toward those who have different convictions. They may have right convictions, but in holding it wrong, they undermine the very things they say they believe.

So we pursue the truth. It is important to understand the way things really are. We debate with those who disagree, but we do it in search of truth, not in search of winning the argument. We even try to persuade, but not in a way that fails to respect the dignity of the other. We learn, knowing that it is not compromise to mature and exchange partial ideas for less partial ones.

risk

How we live is more than an issue of following the rules or not. The actions we take can start or contribute to the cycles of destruction (hatred, anger, malice, violence, theft, murder), or they can forge new paths of hope--creating new possibilites for ourselves and others.

Acting in ways that open paths of hope and change is risky. One risks being taken advantage of by those content with selfishness. One risks being rejected by those trapped in fear. One risks being persecuted by the protectors of the status quo. We are called to this risky path of turning the other cheek, giving up our shirts and coats, and of carrying the burdens of those who persecute us--not to mention that of giving to those who ask without any expectation of repayment. This is the risky way of changing the world.

Someone said that if nothing changes, then nothing changes. Someone else said that we must become the change we want to see in the world. I want to risk absolute failure. I want to risk being taken advantage of. I want to risk being rejected. I want to risk being stepped on by the powerful because of my proximity to the powerless. I want this because I believe that change is coming - because I believe that what will be is what should be and could be now. I want this because I believe that I am not the only one who wants this.

four

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the day I married my wife. Marriage has been a learning experience for me--but not in the typical, "What do you mean I can't do whatever I want" kind of learning. It has been a learning of how to forgive, how to ask forgiveness, how to be generous, how to receive generosity, how to negotiate so everyone wins, how to lose so the other can win, how to laugh, how to translate, how to interpret, and how to be silent.

Marking anniversaries leaves me in wonder at how it can seem like you've been with a person your whole life, and yet you still think, "Man, it all goes by so fast." Some days you are just lucky to survive. Other days, the really great days, you find some space to savor it, to lock it in memory.

The next four years, if they are given to us, I hope will bring not only a new awareness of what the reign of God is, but a new depth into which we have entered it together.

small

Being appropriately small was the wisdom passed on to me from John Ortberg (and likely to him from Dallas Willard). I have been thinking about the idea of being appropriately small for a few years. It has always been for me just 'good advice'--what i 'ought' to do. But recently I realized that being appropriately small is hard for insecure people like me. We compensate by trying to be inappropriately big. For some people that looks like fame and flash. For me that has only been a fantasy--thank God! I don't know if I have what it takes to handle that (who does?). Inappropriate bigness for me has usually looked more like a small fish in a smaller pond (or puddle). Some safety, some taste of respect, but still that nagging insecurity (all lies, of course) telling me that I'm a fake--not as smart as everybody thinks, not as kind as everybody assumes, not as selfless as some may consider me to be.

What I've been learning is that being appropriately small has to do with more than humility and not pretending to be more than you are. It also has to do with responsibility to do what you are asked/called to do with what you are--whether it is seemingly insignificant or flashy. Stop worrying about what you aren't, and invest your energies into what you are. Stop pumping energy into living up to imagined expectations and delusions of grandeur, accept what you have been given and live responsibly with that.

in the parable of the talents, the guy with five talents didn't sit there pretending he had ten, dreaming about what he'd do with ten talents. He got to work with what he was given. In the end, his responsibility was rewarded with greater responsibility.

pace

I've become convinced that the pace of life for most of us is damaging to our ability to reflect on and respond responsibly to the world around us. For me, May was a month of great transition--a churning of the waters. I've left my part-time staff position at Jenison Christian and have taken on a new venture in the world of graphic design. This is a very different pace of life for me, and I now find that I must apologize to everyone I expected to show up to every single event I organized as a pastor.

What churches should be doing is helping people learn how to find a healthy pace to their lives. Instead, most of our churches are just adding to the problem--providing one more set of dis-tracting events (albeit with the best of intentions) without training a larger set of skills in life integration, discernment, and how to say 'no' to things that are good. I am not sure we have too many among us who can teach us these skills. How will we learn? We will learn them by figuring it out together; stumbling forward and inviting each other to do and be less of what the busyness culture demands, so that we can become more of what the kingdom invites us to become.

storms

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Matthew 7:24-27

A little artwork I whipped up today to go with this passage. Really. I'm doing a series for Jenison's VBS. Fun stuff.