Thunder and Smoke

First of all, thank you to those who responded last week to my contemplation about continuing this particular vehicle week by week.  What I especially appreciated were the many comments - on and offline - from those saying that I need to do what is best for me.  That kind of care and support is rare, even in the church where often it is more about making sure I get what I need than what might be best for the community or for others even when it conflicts with what I would prefer.  

This week is an off week for me anyway.  My associate, Chris is preaching this World Communion Sunday, so my inclination is to not be too wordy so as to have time to do other things this lovely, but chilly and quite windy, weekend. But thought a few words of reflection might be useful here.  

First of all, this is a new day.  We are launching a new path and pattern for worship at Aldersgate, reaching back for ancient tradition even while forging new experiences in our Heartbeat service at nine am.  If you are a part of the Aldersgate community and wanting to worship at nine, you are in for a treat.  Trust me on this.  Chris is designing a subtly different experience that you will enjoy.

Secondly, there are still questions about modes of communication that we are trying to address.  What will have the most impact, what will be the most helpful, what will touch the most people?  All these considerations and many others are being examined.  So, I ask for both your input and your patience as we seek to be the community we are longing to be.  I’m hoping very soon to have a means by which you can help shape the future of the Aldersgate Community.  October is long range planning month for us here.  The staff will be on retreat at Epworth Forest on October 20 and 21, then I’m hoping to meet with some interested parties in the remainder of that week to ask some pointed questions and hear some hopes and concerns.  And then from October 26 through the 31st, I will be on my annual planning retreat.  I hope to come back with an outline for 2015.

But why, some might wonder?  Why all the planning, all the questions?  Can’t we just take it as it goes?  Just go with the flow?  Week by week figure it out along the way?  Well, we could, and in some ways, we have, the church has for many years.  And it isn’t working any more.  Plus, it seems to me something more is needed for in the very nature of who we are, or who we are called to be.

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20  Then God spoke all these words:  2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;  3 you shall have no other gods before me.  4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ... You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.  8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.  9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ...  Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.  13 You shall not murder.  14 You shall not commit adultery.  15 You shall not steal.  16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.  18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance,  19 and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die."  20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin." 

That’s the text for this World Communion Sunday.  I can’t wait to hear what Chris will do with it.  But I can’t read these verses without hearing my Hebrew professor from seminary tell us that we have mistranslated this text all along the way.  OK, she admitted, the words work, but it doesn’t really fit the flow.  It doesn’t really fit the spirit of the Exodus event, she argued.

Looking at our confused faces, she sighed in a bit of exasperation.  Look at the first verses she told us.  We looked at the scratchings that the Hebrew language made on our page and puzzled out the words.  God spoke these words, it said, I’m the one who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery.  The “commandments” begin with an act of redemption.  The law begins with grace.  So why, she asked us, would we assume these are heavy burdens laid on us with wagging fingers and furrowed brows?  God isn’t commanding obedience, God is inviting us into a new way of being with these verses.  We shouldn’t read them as commandments as much as descriptions.

God says I brought you out of slavery, out of bondage so that you can be the people with no other God.  Not the gods of the people around you, not the gods of your own making.  The one who rescued you is the one you can worship.  The one who loved you into freedom is the one you can love.  

So that you can be the people who celebrate that name, who know that name won’t ever let them down.  Because the name is the Presence and the Presence will never leave you.  And because I know that you will need help with these concepts, you can have a rhythm, you can have a pattern and worship and rest will be woven into that pattern.  The pattern will be there to help you be who you were created to be.  The pattern will keep you close to the Presence who is with you always.

And because you live in this Presence and follow this pattern, you honor those who give you life and who lead you.  And you treasure all of life, knowing that it isn’t to be thrown away for any reason.  You honor the covenants that you make between you, covenants of love, covenants of property, covenants of honesty, covenants of communion and community.  Because of the Presence and the pattern you live in peace with your neighbor, you give respect and honor.  That is just who you are.  That is who you were created to be.

This isn’t a law handed down to be slavishly obeyed under threat of punishment or exile.  This is a description of how to fulfill the longings of our hearts.  This is the freedom to be what is within us to be.  This is a gift given to us by the one who loves us more than we can even imagine.  This is us, these ten words.  This defines us, this shapes us, this claims us, this Presence and this pattern.

This is who we are always becoming.  That’s they reason for the vision, the reason for the planning.  How can we better grow to fit the picture that God draws for us here in the book of Exodus?  That’s why we continually ask, how are we doing embracing the Presence and living into the pattern?  And because we struggled and we struggle with both, God send the Son, God put on flesh and dwelt among us, the be the Presence in our midst and the pattern of living.  

How can we embrace the Presence and follow the pattern for our own lives and in our own community.  But also, how can we be the Presence for those who don’t know whose they are yet?  How can we live outwardly the pattern so that others are caught up in the hope of being made new?  Those are the questions we ask on this World Communion Sunday.  There is a world out there, and world that God so loved that he sent ... us.  We need the trumpets and the smoke.  Or do we?  Maybe we just need the Presence and the pattern.  Maybe we just need to live into the picture God draws in Exodus chapter twenty.  Maybe we need to be more like Jesus.  Maybe.

Too wordy?  Yeah, that happens to me all the time.  Sorry.  Trumpets and smoke.  But behind it is a sincere desire to be the church of the Presence in a lonely world, to live the pattern in a lost world.  God spoke all these words.  Let’s live them.

Shalom, 

Derek

Length of Days

Not enough hours in the day.  Ever said that?  Sure you have.  And maybe you were faced with an impossible task that you weren’t sure how you were going to get done.  There just aren’t, you argued with yourself or your boss or your co-workers or the elements of the universe, enough hours in the day!  And you were right.  There weren’t enough.  You didn’t get done, or you got it done and weren’t satisfied with it, or you got an extension, or you just bailed.  There aren’t enough hours in the day.  Frustratingly true.

Or maybe you were in a moment of sheer bliss, of joy unknown, maybe you were enjoying yourself to such an extent that you almost forgot that there was a deadline, there was an end point, a gotta run other places to be and other people to see kind of moment and you didn’t want it to interrupt the beautiful moment you were enjoying.  There aren’t enough hours in the day, you sigh, as you head off in different directions.

That’s just kind of our lot, isn’t it?  Not enough hours, not enough days, not enough life.  That is just the way it is, and we make do as best we can.  Right?  La Donna went off for family weekend with Maddie at Wittenberg today.  I wanted to go too, but I’ve got a wedding.  So we do a divide and conquer kind of thing.  She goes with Maddie this year and I get to go to DePauw next weekend for Rhys’ family weekend.  Except I can’t stay because I’ve got to come back for some big shindig here at Aldersgate on Sunday the 28th (can’t think of what it is at the moment).  (Just kidding Marlane!)  Plus, Maddie texted La Donna to say that she shouldn’t come before 11am since she has stuff to do and then she will have to leave by noon tomorrow because the sorority recruitment days are starting and Maddie is on the team or something. Whew.  Not enough hours in the day.

So, do we have a remedy for this?  Does our text for the week fix all our time problems and allow us to just relax into the lives we’d really like to be able to live?  Are we handing our Harry Potter “Time Turners” in church on Sunday that will allow us to fiddle with the time and space continuum?  Uh.  No.  Sorry.  But maybe there is something here we should pay attention to.  Take a look.

Proverbs 3:1-6   My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments;  2 for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you.  3 Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  4 So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and of people.  5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.  6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

“For length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you.”  That’s that one that caught me.  For length of days.  Is this a promise of longevity?  That if we ... what?  Not forget the teaching?  Keep the commandments then we will have longer days?  That would be great.  Wouldn’t it?  Longer days and many years.  Now, this is a message that would sell really well out there in the world.

Except we know it isn’t true.  Or isn’t true in the way we might first think it is true.  I’ve performed too many funerals for keepers of God’s commandments to state that it is a prescription for longer lives.  I’ve sat with families as days slipped away in the care of their loved one and known that their days aren’t any longer than mine or anybody else’s for that matter; including those who wouldn’t know a commandment if it wore kilt and played the pipes in front of them.  (Yeah, that was my nod to the failed attempt at independence for my beloved Scotland - course I don’t know which way I would have voted anyway.  There weren’t enough hours in the day to debate it.)

So, what does it mean, then?  If it isn’t about giving you more hours in a day or more years in your life, then what is it promising?  Most of the commentaries say it is promising eternity.  It’s about heaven, they argue.  It’s about the Kingdom of God and the invitation to dwell there forever.

And who can argue with that?  Or better yet, who wants to?  That is a promise that has sustained God’s followers for centuries.  The idea that eternity in heaven, however we want to depict that realm, is on offer to those who keep the commandments has invited folks to live godly lives throughout history.

Proverbs is about wisdom, divine or holy wisdom that shift the focus from the dog eat dog, just getting by, only in it for myself kind of wisdom to something higher, something broader, something deeper than what we sometimes settle for in this world.  The ability to surrender to a higher presence, to set self aside and seek the good of all or at least some more, is indeed keeping the commandments of God.  And the motivation of heaven is and has been a powerful one.

Yet, I’m not sure that Proverbs chapter three is talking about heaven.  It seems much more about this life, this world, this walk than it does about some someday yet to come.  The result of following this wisdom, of keeping these commandments is that we will become people of good repute.  That’s not a heavenly quality.  That’s a now kind of thing.  We want to find favor with God and people.  We want to be known by God and people We do.

The other promise is that we will find straight paths.  God will make straight our paths.  Which doesn’t, I don’t think, mean that God will run interference for us, keeping the bad things out of our way, smoothing out the potential bumps in the road, keeping the corners, the intersections to a minimum.  No, that isn’t the promise.  Rather that when we choose to walk in the wisdom of God instead of our own wisdom, we will find contentment.  We will find joy, even on the bumpy parts, even as we stand at the intersections agonizing over which direction would honor God more.  The joy is in the attempt to honor.  The joy is in the desire to be where God is, to walk in God’s way, to be filled up with the fullness of God.

Which, not to make a circular argument, is how it all starts anyway.  By filling ourselves up with the fullness of God.  Proverbs tells us to wrap ourselves in loyalty and faithfulness.  To mark ourselves as those who love like God loves.  Loyalty is the translation of hesed which is sometimes translated as steadfast love.  It is an attribute of God.  Faithfulness is also a God quality.  So, we wrap them around our necks like a woolen scarf on a frigid day.  We write them on the tablets of our hearts - whether android or apple.  Windows tablets anyone?  Windows might be better because through these attributes we see God, and we see God in what we do or say, how we life each day, each hour of the day.

There aren’t enough hours.  Unless each one is filled with the Presence of God, the awareness of God.  Unless each one is an opportunity to acknowledge God and God’s claim on our lives, God’s praise on our lips, God’s joy in our hearts.  So maybe the promise is not for more hours in the day to fill, but more fullness for the hours we have, for the days we have.  Maybe the promise isn’t an endless number of years in this life, but a life full of years of endless presence and joy.  The abundant welfare promised in Proverbs 3:2 isn’t about safety or security or ease or comfort, but about the sustaining presence of God in all our doing, all our living, all our being.  Our souls are cared for because we live in love, we live in presence.  We live in joy.

Oh, look at the time.  I’ve got to run. ... But at least I don’t run alone.

Shalom,
Derek

New Every Morning

Bertha is no more.  She is an ex-Bertha.  She’s joined the choir ethereal.  She pushing up the daisies. Bertha has ceased to be.  Sorry, had to channel Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch for a moment there.  But it was in a good cause.  We are celebrating the demise of Bertha the boot.  La Donna had her appointment with our orthopedic doctor (thanks Dr. Almdale) and he managed to follow the script and say she can get rid of the boot.  So, Bertha is no more.  (Actually, we’ve just put her away since the record of this family and injuries is not all that good, might as well save her for a resurrection day when we’ll need her support again.)

Whew, glad that’s over.  Of course I’m not nearly as glad as La Donna is.  She is the one who had to wear the boot.  She is the one who had the broken foot in the first place.  She is the one who suffered, so release is all that much more sweet for her, I am quite sure.

But then we all suffered, had to pick up extra jobs, had to pitch in and help out (not that we hadn’t before, just had to do more), the crazy dogs were deprived of their beloved mom’s company on their early morning walks (early, early morning walks - just sayin’), we all occasionally got stepped on or kicked.  Yeah, we all suffered.  And now we’re good.  

Except, she still limps a bit.  I’m still walking the crazy dogs.  There is some swelling.  And we are still puzzling over Dr Almdale’s quote “there is a difference between clinical healing and radiographic healing.”  Um, what?  Well, the x-ray still shows a break.  A break that might or might not be there.  It doesn’t hurt, clinical healing - but it still looks broken radiographic healing.  “If I was just going by the x-ray, you’d be back in that boot.”  What?

There’s healing and there’s healing, apparently.  Just like there is suffering and there is suffering.  Some suffering never really ends, and some healing isn’t as complete or definitive as we would like it to be.  Sometimes when we are healed we still limp.  Sometimes when we suffer we can still sing praise.

Lamentations 3:21-26  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;  23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  24 "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."  25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.  26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. 

Lamentations.  Not big on anyone’s bible hit parade, I suspect.  In fact I kinda cheated here and dug around and found just about the only positive verses in the whole book to focus on for this Sunday.  Not really fair of me, I admit.  And, frankly, it kinda dulls the meaning of the verses when you take them out of the context they are in.  Don’t get me wrong, these are great verses and we love them.  Even get to sing them.  I quoted the chorus to “Great is Thy Faithfulness” in last week’s late night bible study.  The steadfast love of the lord never ceases.  I mean, who could argue with that?  Who would want to?  God’s mercies never come to an end.  They are new every morning.  And then Jeremiah, or whoever it was that wrote the book of Lamentations (I know, those biblical scholars have to question everything, fo heaven’s sake) says I’m sticking with God!  No matter what!!  OK, he said it better: The Lord is my portion (my inheritance, my choice, my will, my choosing, my peeps, my homie - never mind), therefore I will hope in him.  I’ve cast my lot in with God, I’m not bailing now, he says.

Good stuff, right?  Of course it is good stuff.  But out of context it is just good stuff.  Just nice to know, thanks for that word, gotta run and get back to my life stuff.  Out of context it is comforting, assuring, nice ... yeah nice.  But since when have you ever known a prophet to be going for nice?

Back up a few verses.  Verse 1: I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath.  Verse 4: He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones.  Verse 11:  he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate.  Verse 17: my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is.

All right, all right, we get the point!  Most of us reading this today don’t know suffering.  Lamentations was written to express the deep despair and pain from the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the first Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE (Before Common Era), which was then followed by the fifty year Babylonian captivity.  The brokenness of the people is hard for us to fathom.  The suffering endured seems almost incomprehensible for us.  

And yet not really.  Not if we open our eyes.  Not if we look deep within our own soul.  We have felt abandoned by God.  We have felt punished, cast out, broken by choices or circumstance.  And we have walked alongside those who’s suffering makes us weep in empathy and despair.  The young widow who’s husband went on a mission of rescue and never returned.  The family whose child was killed by a drunk driver.  The widow whose husband succumbed to an agonizing bout with a cancer that ate him away to nothing.  The marriages wrapped in abuse.  The children who never measure up to a parental ideal.  The young mother who can’t seem to get over the strain of giving birth.  The lonely widower who is afraid of an empty house.  The family stressed to breaking points by caring for a parent who has become someone unrecognizable to themselves let alone anyone else.  Need we go on?  Have we touched on your story?  Your pain?  And don’t demur saying mine is nothing compared to all these.  Pain is pain, suffering is suffering.  Your wounds are unique to you, even as we are all wounded.  The question is do those wounds define you?

But this I call to mind.  Jeremiah, who had wounds aplenty, reminds us that to get beyond our lament requires an effort of mind and will.  It takes a step of faith, first and foremost.  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.  Is this the same Lord that shoots all the arrows of the divine quiver into your vitals (v.13)?  And is it really God who is directing all this pain, breaking all these bones, tearing us to pieces, walling us in?  Or is that just our experience, someone to blame, kind of thing.  Or is it that if God isn’t causing all this bad to happen to us then who is in charge anyway?  Are we alone in the universe?  Are we on our own?  Is there no one on our side after all; it’s us against the elements and the elements have the upper hand most of the time?

But this I call to mind.  It takes an act of will to turn from the kind of thinking that breaks us down.  It takes a coming to worship and letting the faith of the community wash over us.  It is surrendering of solutions, and simply choosing to put one foot in front of another.  It is saying, I don’t have all the answers, heck, I don’t think I have any of the answers.  But I choose to live in faithfulness anyway.  It is the admission that crawling into a hole and pulling it in after us sounds like a real option many days.  But instead we go on.  Baby steps, perhaps.  Limping perhaps. But we go on.  And we go on believing that God’s mercy never ends.  And that we have made our choice and so we will live that choice even when it doesn’t seem to make any sense or get us anywhere.  We will make that choice, again and again.

How often?  Every morning.  Every morning, we renew our faith.  Every morning we grab hold of God’s mercy.  Every morning we climb up into God’s lap and we weep and laugh and catch our breath to go on.  Every morning we go on, because we believe that one day we find our way home.  God isn’t new every morning, we are.  Our faith is.  God’s mercies are newly caught, newly felt, newly embraced.  Every morning.

I’m glad she’s better.  Glad she’s boot free and walking - limping.  But will also continue to serve and love and help and heal.  And walk the dang dogs as long as I need to.  For her.  Faithfully.  With joy.  Sort of.  Not really.  But definitely faithfully.  Count on it.  Every morning.

Shalom, 

Derek 

Once More With Feeling

La Donna is feeling well enough to notice the mess I’ve left the house in.  So, we know that is a good thing.  Right?  Of course it is a good thing.  It means she feels better and has gotten to work tackling the cleaning jobs that she and Bertha can handle together, without too much trouble.  Bertha?  Yeah, that’s the name she gave her boot.  

In case you missed it, my wife La Donna fell and broke her foot a few weeks ago on her way down the hill to walk the dogs one dewy morning and has been reluctantly obedient to her orthopedic surgeon on how best to heal from this mishap.  But she hasn’t been happy.  Obedient, but frustrated.  Following instructions but counting the days.  Taking it easy but - now anyway - noticing all that she ought to be doing.  And the envelop is being pushed.  Just sayin’.

No, I give her credit she has been very good. Much better than the kids and I expected.  Both of whom, I should mention, kids I mean, abandoned her in her hour of need.  Though they did step up and help out while they were here.  But Maddie was heard to mutter the night before I drove her back to school something to the effect of “I’m glad to go back to college, this housewife stuff is hard!”

There were a couple of moment where we all longed for how it used to be.  When there was a mom to take care of us.  When we didn’t have to worry about whether anyone was going to find the lost sock or prepare a table to fill hungry bellies or have the solution to any of a number of those pesky domestic disputes and conundrums.  We just wanted it to go back to the way it was before the fall.

Psalm 85:1-13  LORD, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.  2 You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin. Selah  3 You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger.  4 Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us.  5 Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?  6 Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?  7 Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.  8 Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.  9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.  10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.  11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.  12 The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.  13 Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps. 

The superscription to this Psalm is interesting.  It is one of those that doesn’t say “Of David.”  Most scholars don’t believe that David wrote all the Psalms that say “of David” on them anyway.  And that it really came to mean in the style of David, or kinda like the ones David used to write, or they were done by the King David Tribute band or something.  But Psalm 85 says something different.  It has three different statements: To the leader. Of the Korahites. A Psalm.  You’d think that “A Psalm” would be a bit unnecessary, but then I guess some folks need to be reminded.  To the leader might mean that this Psalm was a commissioned work, that it was dedicated to a leader, who had served well.  Or who exemplified the kind of faithfulness that Psalm 85 calls for.  Truth is we don’t know.

But it is the middle one that is the most interesting: Of the Korahites.  We could spend a lot of time tracing the biblical history of this family, but it wouldn’t really serve the purpose of helping us wrap our arms around Psalm 85.  Suffice it to say that the Korahites have a checkered history in the Old Testament.  Korah was from the line of Levites, servants of the priests and of the holy, but who was among those who decided they could do better.  He was a part of those who rebelled against Moses and his leadership.  

Yet, somehow his children survived, escaping the punishment that came to Korah.  And they became known as warriors, fighting alongside David when he was swept to power as Israel’s greatest king.  These Korahites or Sons of Korah as they became known were not remembered because of their skill with sword or bow, however.  They were like David in another way, not just able fighting men.  They were also musicians of the highest caliber.  David appointed them as leaders of worship for the people of God.  They were singers and instrumentalists and truth tellers.  A Psalm, you see.  Not just music, not just words, but a Psalm, an act of praise but also a declaration of faith.  A claim to the traditions of the people.  But also a pointer into the future, a word of hope in dark times. 

Which maybe means that the first superscription - To the leader - might not mean that it was a dedication to the leader, but that it is an instruction to the singers, to the congregation.  Maybe it means “look to the leaders!”  Look to those who go before, look to those who’s history might not be perfect, who had to climb out of some difficult times.  Look to those who might have known the anger of the Lord they served.  Who might have known what it was like to feel abandoned.  Look to those who know what it is to be revived.  Look to those who lead the singing.

That’s our story, isn’t it?  That’s the song we sine.  Of being restored and then losing it, of being revived and full of life and then being drained and dead on our feet.  That’s our pattern too, not just the people of the Old Testament, but us, right here, right now.  Don’t we cry out for restoration again and again?  Don’t we bump up against the walls of our own making, the walls of our own doubting, our own wandering, don’t we get lost in the maze of trying to walk each day and satisfy all the hungers within us? 

So, how do we climb out of those pits?  How do we turn around from the wrong paths?  From the desperation of the everyday?  By remembering.  That’s why we follow the leader, that’s why we sing the songs of faith.  Morning by morning new mercies I see, all I have needed thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.  We sing those songs because they were true.  And because they were true, and because they will be true.  And the great joy of Psalm 85 is that because they were true and because they will be true, they are true.

Compare English translations of Psalm 85.  You’ll find that while my favorite translation says “will”  – He will speak peace ... Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet ... righteousness and peace will kiss each other ... Faithfulness will spring up from the ground ...  righteousness will look down from the sky ... The LORD will give  ... our land will yield ... Righteousness will go before ... and will make a path.  It is a hope, a promise, a not yet in a world of striving and often failing, a world of conflict and brokenness, a world of division and hatred.  Kissing seems out of the question.  Singing seems out of the question.

And yet, I’ve been kissed before.  I have sung the songs of faith.  You have too.  There is connection already.  Other translations make it present tense.  Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.  11 Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. From the NIV.  Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed.  From the New King James.  Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed!  From the New Living Translation.  

Why the confusion?  Because we can’t always tell. Because even while it seems absent, this righteousness and faithfulness of God, it also seems really present.  It is in the air around us, coming up from the ground beneath us.  If we look.  If we pay attention.  If we live in hope and confidence.  If we attempt to be as faithful as the one who shows us faithfulness every single day, every morning., then we will be restored, then we will be alive.  Even as we walk in darkness.  Even when we feel like we have failed the one who loves us more than we can imagine.  The very essence of God - steadfast love and faithfulness, righteousness and peace - will seep into our bones and become the aspects of love that can define us.  Will become a song on our lips and in our heart.  Look to the leaders, the singers of songs and be revived, be restored.

And we who are broken can get up and walk along the path of righteousness.  And maybe, soon, walk the crazy dogs too!  We live for the day.  Sing it again.  Once more with feeling.

Shalom, 

Derek 

As Long as We Have Days

“So, do you want a hug?”  I froze at the doorway on my way out to head back home.  I turned back to her and said “Do you want to give me a hug?”  “Well,” she replied, “you’re always saying that it is hard to leave without a hug.”  “Yeah,” I said, “it is.”  So, she stepped around the mounds of stuff on the floor of her too small dorm room and looked at me.  “You’re all sweaty,” she sniffed.  I almost said, well, duh.  It is 90 degrees out there and I just unloaded enough stuff to occupy a family of four and crammed it into a room you are trying to share with another person (who could also equip a small family, I noticed).  Instead I said, “so are you.”  She sniffed and stepped a little closer.  Standing off to the side she put her stick thin arms around me for a moment and then stepped away.

Half a hug is better than nothing.  That’s a bit of wisdom I couldn’t argue with.  Still I was vaguely dissatisfied as I drove the three hours back home from dropping my daughter Maddie off for her sophomore year at Wittenberg University.  Not so much with the lack of demonstrable signs of affection, she has become a wave across the room kind of person anyway.  No, what made me uneasy was driving away from my little girl - who is growing up way too fast but still vulnerable to too many enemies.

OK, perhaps a bit melodramatic.  After all, even she would say she is too cute to have enemies.  I don’t want to be one of those who sees threats hidden in every shadow, who lives in fear of a world gone awry.  And yet... she is my little girl.  And when I claimed her all those years ago, I took on the responsibility of keeping her safe.  And I feel like I’m falling down on the job.  After all, I’ve shepherded her for 19 years, how can I just give it up now?  It’s not like there is someone else to step into the role.  I mean the institution makes promises, but too many bad things can happen.  I’ve got friends and acquaintances in Ohio who all promise to keep an eye on her, but that’s asking too much isn’t it?  A bit unreasonable to expect anyone to be with her every moment of every day.  Isn’t it?

Psalm 23:1-6  The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.  2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;  3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.  4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me.  5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.  

Ah, well, a different kettle of fish completely.  Right?  I mean sure, God is everywhere.  But not really the kind of armor plating I’m looking for.  God takes too many risks for my liking.  God allows way too much messiness for me.  Too, I don’t know, laissez faire?  Too wait and see?  Too ...

The six verses of the twenty-third Psalm are probably among, if not the most familiar in the whole bible.  Even people who don’t claim faith seem to know these words.  Even more, we all seem to take comfort in them somehow.  You think you know them, and maybe you do.  But it just might be time to take another look.  Just in case there are surprises in store.

Verse one: The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.  Some translators render this as “I lack nothing” or “I shall not be in want.”  Wanting is not a bad think in and of itself.  This isn’t a prohibition to aspire to higher things, or to desire something new and different.  This is an acknowledgment that claiming God as shepherd, letting God lean, letting God provide, changes your desires.  To lack nothing is to have basic needs met and to be satisfied with that.  Verse one is about contentment.  About finding the source of fulfillment not in the stuff of the world, but from God, from that fundamental faith relationship which tells you that you are whole, you are complete, you are loved just as you are.  What else could we want?

Verse two: He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters.  Frankly lying down anywhere sounds pretty good to me most days.  We get so tired running here and there and then staying up late worried about tasks left undone.  Or responsibilities on the horizon that daunt you and wear you out even before you get to them.  Lying down sounds nice.  But in fact this verse is about more than rest.  It is about sustenance.  Green pastures mean plenty to eat, still waters mean safe water to drink.  God provides.  But what is the “he makes me lie down” mean?  Well, I’m not sure.  But it sounds like God provides but invites us to discover.  He doesn’t bring it to our lips, he makes us lie down and get it ourselves.  He leads us to the water but the choice to drink is still ours.  God provides an abundance, we fear a scarcity, so we hoard and fence out and over price.  There is another way, it could work, but God makes us lie down.  God leads us there.

Verse three:  he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.  An odd shepherd don’t you think?  Sure making the sheep lie down and eat, leading them to water to drink, that sounds shepherdy.  But restoring souls?  Leading in right paths, ok, but for his name’s sake?  Do sheep bleat out a salute to God when they walk the right paths?  Do we for that matter?  Let’s come back to that later.  Let’s restore a soul for now.  What’s interesting here is that soul could also be translated as life.  He gives me my life back.  Or even translated as passion.  He makes life worth living.  He makes me alive.  Not just living, but alive - if you know what I mean.  Another book full of shepherd images is the Gospel of John.  We can’t help but hear Jesus as the Good Shepherd when we Christians read Psalm 23.  “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.”  That’s the Good Shepherd talking, in John chapter ten.  Wow, it’s like Jesus read the Psalms or something.  

Verse four:  Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me.  We are used to reading the Valley of the shadow of death.  But the original just says the darkest valley.  Or a valley of deep darkness.  It represents the worst fears.  For most that is death, or course.  But maybe your worst fear is something else.  Abandonment.  Shame.  Rejection.  Our fears are almost too numerous to mention.  Now here is the sobering part, the good shepherd doesn’t keep us out of the valleys.  I know that is our preference.  But it isn’t the promise.  God doesn’t say follow me and there will be no valleys.  Almost makes you wonder what the point is.  I mean if God isn’t going to keep us out of the valleys what good is following God?  Why bother?  Psalm 23, and almost all of the rest of scripture for that matter, says valleys are inevitable.  Unavoidable.  It is the result of living in the world. It is the consequence of being human.  The question then is not how to avoid valleys, but do you want to walk them alone?  The promise is that you will never walk that valley alone.  The shepherd is there, with power.  The rod and the staff are the tools the shepherd used to keep with beasts at bay.  Tools like love and grace and acceptance keep the beasts of self-doubt and rejection at bay.  Tools like life eternal keep the beast called death at bay.  You are with me.  Evil cannot win.

Verse five: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  The scene shifts, we leave the sheep field and now move to the big house, the banquet hall.  Where we are the honored guest.  I don’t know what the phrase “in the presence of my enemies” means to you.  But I used to imagine it was a taunt.  That a table was set up in the battle field and we would thumb our noses at the bad guys while we dined on fancy food.  But I don’t think that’s what it really means.  I think it is simply an acknowledgment that we don’t have to wait until everything is fixed before we can celebrate being God’s family.  We don’t have to have everything in proper order, we don’t have to have everything figured out and all the answers and all the doubts erased.  In the presence of these struggles, God invites us to the table.  And then blesses us.  We are the anointed ones, we are the ones who’s cups are never empty because God stands ready to fill us up again.  So drink deeply, live powerfully, God will fill us up again.

Verse six: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.  At last we come to the reason why I picked this one for this series on Goodness.  But first, dwelling in God’s house always sounded like a vacation home kind of image.  But what it really means is that we will be belong to God.  We will be a part of the family.  We will bear God’s name.  How long?  The original Hebrew says “for a length of days.”  Most translate that as forever.  And that’s not a bad translation.  I came up with a clumsy one: “As long as I have days.”  As long as there is life to live, I will belong to God.  And what does that mean, that belonging to God thing?  Well, it means goodness and mercy shall follow me all those days.  Really?  Sometimes the opposite of mercy seems to follow us.  Sometimes the absence of goodness seems to follow us.  What I love in this psalm is that the word follow is a bad translation.  Elsewhere in the Old Testament it is translated as pursue.  Chase after.  Hunt down.  It is, frankly, usually a negative image.  Bad things are coming after you.  But here it is the most positive idea ever.  God is relentless in bringing us goodness.  God is tireless in offering us mercy.  Even when we run away, run in the opposite direction, goodness will hunt us down.  Just ask Jonah.  Even when we give up in despair, mercy will find us at last.  Just ask Peter. Goodness and mercy pursue us, even when our lives seem to be a denial of those very ideas.  Just ask Paul, who came to write “In everything, God works for good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.  He might have said, God pursues with good those who dwell in his house, those who are part of his family.  How long?  For a length of days.  The long days that never end.  The short days that are gone too soon.  As long as we have days - and the promise is there is no end to the days we have.  

I don’t need to shepherd Maddie, I can leave her in the hands of the One who loves her even more.  And I will let goodness pursue her.

Shalom, 

Derek

Rescue Me

A relatively calm day today.  Especially compared to last week.  Whew!  Just a wedding later on this afternoon to break up the quiet Saturday.  A quiet and beautiful Saturday.  My goodness, have we been blessed with an amazing summer, or what?  Cooler temperatures for the most part.  Today was actually chilly.  I had to dress in layers as I got up to walk the crazy dogs this morning.  Isn’t it August in Indiana?  How can this be?  Still, I’m not complaining. Even early this morning the sun was shining, the dew was thick on the grass, the bunnies were hopping (OK, say the crazy dogs, could have done with less of that!) And the pond was still as glass, a mirror reflecting the cerulean sky, accented by white cotton ball clouds.  Kind of a “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world” feel to the day.  What could possibly go wrong?

I know, it feels like a set up to you, doesn’t it.  I’m going to pull the rug out, I’m going to hit you between the eyes, I’m going to knock you back a step or two for daring to think that everything is all right.  Yeah, well, no.  Not this time.  I’m in a good place.  I’m happy.  Content. Got the world on a string.  On the road to perfection.  And constantly at war with myself.  Same old, same old.

Wait, what was that?  Something about war?  Not a word you expect to see on such a list, in such a moment.  The wars start when we are down, or angry or attacked, or hurting or... right?  Well, right, they do.  The struggle arises at our low points, no question.  But Paul seems our problem is more than just a “having a bad day” kind of thing. In face he sees it as something much more fundamental than that.  And much more ubiquitous than that. Much more... human than that.

Romans 7:15-25   I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.  17 But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.  18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.  21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.  22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,  23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin. 

Good old Paul.  You can always count on him to spoil a perfect Saturday.  Paul seems to be having a bad day to end all bad days.  Or maybe even a bad life.  Wretched man that I am!  He seems to shout to the heavens.  Nothing good dwells within me.  Yeah, I’ve been there.  I’ve had those moments when it seemed like all my choices were bad ones.  When all my mistakes were big ones.  When all my thoughts were broken ones.  Yeah, I’ve been there with ya, Paul.  So, buck up.  Hang in there and it will get better.  You just gotta hold on until the storm passes.

No, he replies, you aren’t listening.  This isn’t a momentary weakness in your impenetrable armored will.  This isn’t a didn’t get enough sleep last night, my biorhythms are out of wack, or the moon isn’t in the right phase for me right now kind of thing.  This is you.  This is the real you.  This is the consequence of living in the world as it is right now instead of as it was originally designed.  This is the result of sin running loose in the world.

Yeah, you say, I get that.  I do bad stuff from time to time.  I mess up, my bad.  I make a goof, a boo boo, an open mouth insert foot moment in the conversation.  I know that.  I’ll do better, I really will.  I can hoist myself up by my bootstraps, and try a little harder.  Thanks for the reminder there Paul, woo, close call there.  Thanks for the boost, thanks for the lift.  Just, thanks.

No, says Paul, you still aren’t listening.  I’m not talking about an exercise program.  This isn’t about trying harder, digging deeper, climbing higher in your attempt to do good things, to embrace the good, to be good.  This is about admitting that there is nothing good in you.

Whoa there, Paul.  There might have been a time when that sort of approach would work.  When you wanted to scare folks into the faith, when you wanted to shame them into responding to the altar call on your sawdust revival trail.  But we’ve gotten a bit more sophisticated these days.  We need goal setting and strategic plans.  We need behavior modification and checks and balances.  We need self-esteem raising and awareness training.  We need the rules explained and defined, the boundaries clearly marked and the punishment delineated.  We need self-help books: 5 days to be a better you, 6 minutes to tighter abs, 7 ways to total transformation.  

What you need, says Paul, what you’ve always needed and will always need is a savior.  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  We need rescuing, he says.  We can’t save ourselves.  And while we know that intellectually, it is hard for us to claim this truth.  It is hard for us to live into it every day.  OK, we might accept the need one time for a rescue, or a hand up.  But then we tend to live the rest of our lives with an “I got this Jesus, thanks anyway” attitude.  We live in a world that tells us we can be anything we want to be.  Which is both true and false at the same time.  It is true that opportunities abound for many of us, maybe not all of us - that is the tragic inequality of the world in which we live. 

Even so, even without that imbalance, the war within us means we can not consistently choose the good.  We cannot will the right, live in the light.  Sin, Paul says, is not an act or even a pattern of behavior that we choose or to which we succumb.  It is instead a power and a presence that dwells within us.  And as long as it is there, our efforts might be successful for a time, but they cannot last, will not last.  One commentator likens Paul’s view of sin to the disease called shingles.  It is a viral infection that continues to live in our bodies and every now and then it breaks out in the rash that causes so much pain.  Even when the rash goes away, the virus is still there.  Even when we don’t engage in sinful acts, Paul says, sin still dwells within us. And the war goes on.  And no one is strong enough to win that battle on their own.  They may hold out for a while, we may hold out for a while.  We may want the good, and not want the evil, but, says Paul, but ...

Who will rescue me?  That’s the real key to the passage.  That question.  It is a cry of faith.  It follows the cry of despair, wretched man that I am.  Wretched woman.  Wretched creature.  In a world without hope, that is the final cry.  But praise be to God there is another cry to follow.  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  The Lord of life, that’s who.

The promise here is that this disease, this cancer that dwells within us can be replaced by the Christ who dwells within.  We can be transformed from the inside out.  It is sometimes instantaneous.  But more often it is a lifetime of inviting the indwelling Christ to come and take up residence within us.  Which I guess means that there is a struggle either way.  Either we struggle against the sin that threatens our very existence in the world, that makes us ill equipped to live in community, to maintain relationships, to be content within our own hearts and we live that constant battle knowing that we will ultimately lose.  Or we struggle against out own will that doesn’t want to be given over to a loving God who can remake us into what we really want to become.  That struggle was described by the late songwriter Rich Mullins in the song Hold Me Jesus: Surrender don't come natural to me / I'd rather fight You for something / I don't really want / Than to take what You give that I need / And I've beat my head against so many walls / Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees.

When we finally fall to our knees, when we finally surrender, we find a new strength, we find a new support network, we find a new possibility.  We find the sun still shining even though the clouds have rolled in.  We find hope instead of despair.  We find joy instead of shame.  We find goodness within as well as all around us.  Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Shalom, 

Derek

The Fruit of the Light

It’s late, I know that.  This has been a day.  A good day, though.  Or maybe a bad day, depends, I guess.  What was that comedy routine?  Someone telling their friend about how their day went and after every statement the friend said “That’s good” and the response would be, “no, that’s bad.”  Or vice versa.  Um, maybe you had to be there.  The point is we don’t always know what is good and what is bad in a given situation.

I started my day with a funeral.  Well, that’s bad.  No, that’s good.  Or maybe it’s both.  There is sadness and grief certainly.  There is loss and an uncertain future.  All things that we see as bad.  But at the same time there is relief that suffering is ended.  There is joy that a life well lived is now sealed with a promise of eternity.  There is the confidence in those promises and a hope of seeing our loved one again.  That’s good.

I went from there to moderate a conversation on church unity in the face of significant disagreements.  The case study being the division caused by opinions and belief about same sex relationships and homosexuality in the church.  Oh, that’s bad.  No that’s good.  There is a fear of the inevitability of schism, that our differences are unreconcilable and the sooner we can figure out how to divide the property the better off we will be.  There was even a member of another denomination who has already gone through a split on these same issues and said that yes it was bad, but now it is better.  Remarkably freeing, was the phrase he used.  Amicable divorce another used.  That’s bad, in my opinion.  No matter how friendly a split might be (and frankly I can’t imagine it being friendly at al) it is still a split.  A break in the covenant, an admission that despite our rhetoric we don’t really believe in reconciliation.  We don’t really believe in healing what is broken.  We just need to learn to go our separate ways.  That’s bad.  And yet the very fact that we decided to talk about it is good.  That we want to talk about how we might learn to live together even when we disagree, and what we can live with in disagreement and what we can’t.  By choosing to talk about it we are standing in the face of the inevitability.  That’s good.  It may still happen, this schism thing.  But it will definitely happen if we don’t talk.  So, that’s good.

After that and some other ad hoc conversations started from that more formal one (which I saw as good), I then participated in a presentation of letters to the church.  A group of us were asked to write a letter, like Paul’s Epistles to the church of today and then we talked about those dreams and visions.  I was honored to be asked and loved being a part of the conversation.  It was good.  But not everyone got to share their dream, and that was bad.  But everyone had a chance to reflect on the dreams that were shared, and that was good.  But none of these dreams may do anything to change the future of the church, and that’s bad.

Then I came home for a quick supper and then back to the Festival for the concert with Amy Cox and then Rend Collective.  Both of whom were great, by the way, and that was good.  But it got to be late and I still hadn’t done my bible study, and that was bad.  Is bad.  Because I’m not done yet.  That’s bad.  But if you are reading this then it was completed at some point and that is good.

But I can’t quite see how, and that’s bad.  Maybe, and this is good, we should actually look at the text and go from there.  Oh, that IS good.

Ephesians 5:1, 8-11   Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,...  For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light--  9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.  10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.  11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 

OK, now first, I can’t remember why I didn’t do the second verse too, so we could have a complete sentence to begin with.  Ephesians 5:1-2  Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,  2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.   That would help.  Live in love, why wouldn’t I want that?  Leaving that out would be bad.  Maybe I assumed it would be implied?  Dunno, am looking for the good here.... Makes it shorter?  Weak.

Secondly, why include verse 11?  It just kind of muddies the waters in my opinion.  Much better to end with “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.”  Now that is a mission statement we could get behind, don’t you think?  Well, no, not exactly.  It wouldn’t make a good mission statement.  It would make half of a good mission statement.  A background for a mission statement, the homework before going on the mission trip.  Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord, could be an academic exercise.  OK, find out what is pleasing to the Lord.  Then find out what is pleasing to Chuck Pagano, coach of the Colts.  Then find out what is pleasing to Kim Kardashian. Then find out, on second thought never mind.  

See, not a mission statement.  Unless you follow Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord and then do it, for heaven’s sake!  It doesn’t become a mission until there is action, until there is movement, until there is service going on.  But why expose works of darkness?  Are we being called to point fingers?  Or worse, to wag fingers?  Or to give the fin... never mind.  Some metaphors get you into trouble.  Maybe verse eleven isn’t an action verse, but is instead a result verse.  Maybe it isn’t so much about pointing fingers as it is bringing light.  What happens to shadows when you turn on the light?  What happens to darkness when the light is brought?  We expose works of darkness by living the opposite.  We expose works of darkness by being light.  Not a negative approach to the world, but a positive one.  Not a shaming, but a glorifying.  Not a pushing down, but a lifting up.  Find out what is pleasing to the Lord and do it, be it, let it shine.

Live as children of light.  Now that’s a mission statement!  But how do we do that?  What does it mean?  Live as children of light, by ....?  Paul defines the function of God’s people as the fruit of the light.  Jesus says by their fruits you shall know them.  So, Paul says, yeah is their fruit the fruit of light?  Paul would have flunked creative writing with all his mixed metaphors.  Fruit of light?

The fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.  Finally, whew, we got there.  The sixth of the nine fruit of the Spirit is goodness.  All that is good.  Last week we learned that God’s goodness is that blessing that empowers us to act, to live and to love.  So, what is this fruit of the light found in all that is good?

Paul loves his dualities.  Light/dark, spirit/flesh, heaven/world; these and many more represent the ordering of existence from Paul’s point of view.  But we need to take care not to go too far with any of them.  They are metaphors.  He never meant to imply that there is nothing good in darkness, that there is nothing good in the flesh, that there is nothing good in the world.  He would be appalled to hear we took that so literally.  He does, however, want us to know there is good and not good all around us.  He does what us to know that there is a choice involved here.  And he is asking us to choose good.  To choose God.  Find out what is pleasing to God.  Find out what is of God in the world.  God created the world and called it good.  But not everything is good.  So we choose.  The fruit of the light is that never-ending process of determining what is of God and what is not, what is pleasing to God and what is not.  What will bring us peace and what will not.  What will make us love like Jesus told us to love and what will not.  

We are invited to harvest the fruit of the light by living and choosing and being God-pleasers every single day, every single moment.  Hard work?  That’s bad.  No, that good, because it is work we were made to do, and we find our joy in it.  That is good.

Shalom, 

Derek