The Place We (Re)Start

Dear Faith Family,  

Last week, like those in the garden, on the road, or in the room running into Jesus alive, we were invited to  "not disbelieve, but believe." Believe that all the adversaries of our souls (within and without) have been destroyed by the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Believe that we are not alone, not meant just to figure it out, not left to wander through our days, but shown, taught, and guided into God’s good design and destiny by Jesus alive again and forever. 

What could life be, if we believed? We asked that question, hoping to spark our imagination for life after Easter. It is the question that will set the course for our Gathered times during this next season. But where do we start? Well, as Psalm 92 reminds us, we begin where God has finished, ceased, sabbathed. 

A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath
It is good to give thanks to LORD...For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work...My eyes have seen the down fall of my enemies,
my ears have heard the doom of my assailants.
(Psalm 92:1,4,11) 

Life after Easter starts where all life started and restarts, resting with God in His finished work. As it was in Genesis, so it is again in Jesus. After God works, we rest with Him before we work with Him. It's (re)entering this incredibly profound God design, this whole and holy rhythm of Sabbathing to work, working into Sabbath, that allows us to live wisely, courageously, competently, and with peace. Imagine that! 

Seriously, imagine if you could discern what was temporal versus what was eternal in your daily duties, dialogues, and disagreements. Imagine being free from the bondage of fear in your relationships and responsibilities. Imagine if you were crafted and commissioned to handle your circumstances and career. Imagine if you were perfectly planted in God's Kingdom come and will being done on earth as in heaven. 

Psalm 92, as we shared on Sunday, invites us to see life whole and holy from the only place we can, from a place of rest in God's finished work. I invite you, faith family, to let the Spirit lead you (again) into praying from a Sabbath place this week. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Life After Easter

Dear Faith Family,  

The marvelous wonder of living after Easter is the struggle for life is over. No longer do we have to strive to attain life nor keep life, though we will, as Psalm 143 revealed on Sunday, continue to face struggles within life. Yes, even after Easter, there will be days and seasons where we feel the enemies crushing closeness and the fatigue of a life pursued for ill purposes. Yet, Jesus alive means all those enemies of living, those adversaries of the soul that still, kill, and destroy that which they strive after, have themselves met their better. 

Each morning after Easter, including this morning, we awake to the sound of steadfast love showing us the way we should go, teaching us how to live well, and leading us into open space. All because Jesus died for our sin, rose from the grave that first Easter morning, and lives this morning speaking the same words He spoke then: "Peace be with you." (Jn. 20:19, 21, 26) 

What if we believed that? I mean, really believed that peace was with us?

What if you believed that your conflicts in life would not be your end? Nor will the ones you are in conflict with.

What if you believed that you are not alone, not left to wonder, not left to figure it out? But instead, what if you woke with ears expecting to hear steadfast love show, teach, and lead you into life whole and holy?

What all could an after-Easter life be if we believed?! 

We'll begin to answer that question together on Sunday. But in the meantime, I invite you, my friends, to believe, trusting the good news that God is for you and with you. And, to imagine a life after Easter, a life where you "have seen the downfall of your enemies" in the forever life of Jesus. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Putting Prayer Into Practice

Dear Faith Family,  

Unless you grew up in a tradition that kept the prayers and celebrations of “holy week,” the days leading up to Easter may not have included a time of reflecting on Jesus’ last supper with His friends before His crucifixion. Well, that is what tomorrow, Maundy Thursday, marks.

The label comes from the shortened Latin word “mandatum,” which means “command” and is the root of our word “mandate.” On the night before Jesus died, He gathered his apprentices together, giving them a mandate,

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you….”
(John 13:34)

At this gathered meal, Jesus gave the disciples our regular manner of remembering His love for us in the earthy elements of broken bread and poured out wine (Lk. 22:19-20). It was also here that Jesus gave his friends the often overshadowed example of His love in action by washing the disciples’ feet (Jn. 13:2-17). An “example,” Jesus says, “that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

At this final pre-Easter meal, Jesus offered himself and his service not just to friends but to friends who would either betray him or abandon him or both. Jesus' love was not only selfless and sacrificial but was simple and lacked all conditions. Jesus mandates a love like His and shows us how to keep that command. 

The prayed poems of Lent, Lord willing, have cultivated in us a prophetic empathy with our fellow sinners and saints. Now reflecting on Jesus' final meal encourages us to move those prayers into practice. 

So today, take a moment to read and remember Jesus' final mandatum and ask the Spirit to lead you into the humble service of your fellow saints and sinners tomorrow. Pray believing Jesus' love for you empowers you to fulfill His command in even the simplest of actions toward those around you. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Willing To Be Pushy

Dear Faith Family,

When something feels different, often our initial question is: What’s wrong? Think about the last time your spouse or friend mentioned, perhaps offhandedly, that they didn’t feel right. Did you not, like the excellent spouse and friend you are, press in asking, “What’s wrong?” or “What’s the problem?” Of course, you did!

Instinctually, or at least culturally, when we or those near us experience something different, something other than the status quo, we assume the origin of the unsettlement is a disorienting crisis: some pain point of faith, within self, or among relationships. Perhaps that is because the experiences of disorientation are jolting. Whether microbial stings or cataclysmic shifts, pain forces us, pushes us, does violence against our state of stability. So naturally, those memories stick in and stick out in our minds, hearts, and prayers. And it is amid these pain points that we have been learning to pray via our Psalms of Lent.

Yet, pain is not the only unsettling experience in life. Goodness and mercy, too, are violent. Goodness and mercy, too, have the force to knock us out of death and into life. Goodness and mercy are enough to push us out of the narrow confines of life lived in the dark of sin (our own and another’s) into the wide open spaces of something new. New things, like painful things, can be unsettling too. At least, that is what we learned from Psalm 102 on Sunday.

We can all recall those times when goodness and mercy caught us in a way that made everything feel different. Whether you were caught off guard by a kind word, a just-at-the-right-moment encounter, or the arrival of daily bread. Or you were raptured in tears by a fellow human’s courage, a form of beauty, or the end of some evil. Each of us experience moments when we sense in body and soul that the world is not as dim as it seems, that there is more to life than we can see, and that we are not merely tossed around by random forces but caught up in something magnificently more.

May days are like an everlasting shadow; I wither away like grass. But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever…set free those who were doomed to die…. (Psalm 102:11-12, 20)

Amongst the many amazing graces of goodness and mercy knocking us out of the darkness of pain and reviving an atrophied heart is the push often comes from a person. Certainly, the Spirit’s presence and providence are evident, at least in hindsight, in the expanding light of reflection. But the initial contact that shifted our status quo arrived through another human not too dissimilar from you or me.

So, what if you and I, having been recipients of the force of goodness and mercy from another’s words or actions toward us, assumed we, too, might be the instruments of reviving violence?  What if we entered into our ordinary roles and relationships, assuming we may get to be the means of a push out of darkness and dismay into light and life? What if we believed today, whether in our home, workplace, neighborhood, school, or friendships, it had been planned that we’d be the evidence of goodness and mercy chasing after our fellow humans?

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

What if you lived ready to give a push of goodness and mercy to your children, your spouse, your friend, your employee, your employer, and even your enemy? What if, more than any other force you could muster or design or will, such a God-attuned heart could actually change a life, unsettle it into something new and more? What if you believed it, desired it, and woke up ready to be a part of another’s resurrection?

May you (we) be willing to push others around with words and actions of goodness and mercy and so practice and participate in resurrection.

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Praying The Impossible

Dear Faith Family,  

Did you know that the early church used the days leading to Easter Sunday (what we now call Lent) as a time for reconciliation between one another? Our faith lineage used these days we are in right now, not only to turn and believe the good news of God with us and for us but also as an ideal time to restore relationships broken by everyday and extraordinary offenses. In fact, this vision for a whole with God and with others held the center of the pre-Easter practices. That may be why Psalm 51 is at the center of our Psalms of Lent. 

Psalm 51 is a prayer of the offender. It is a prayer of one who, intentionally or not, knowingly or not, out of immaturity, ignorance, or evil, is the origin of another's disorientation. Truth be told, we have all been (perhaps even today, are) this person. And so we need this psalm to help us see our offense in light of God's heart for wholeness and, at the same time, recognize God's pursuit of our heart.

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
(Psalm 51:6)

Only then will our efforts at restoration actually be acceptable and fruitful. 

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
(Psalm 51:17) 

Yet, as we discussed on Sunday, Psalm 51 is not just a prayer of the offender; it is also a prayer for the offender. 

While it is undeniable that we have been (are) offenders, it is also undeniably true that we have been (are) painfully disoriented by the offensive actions and attitudes of others. We have, every one of us, suffered at the hands of those to whom our life has some relation--whether we be to them an intimate connection, a cog in the machine, or something in between. Yet it is those who maliciously or mindlessly seem opposed to our life, whose actions and attitudes seem to fight against our good, that Jesus implores us to do the seemingly impossible:  

I say to you, Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you...
(Matthew 5:44)

Psalm 51 is our prayer for those who offend us. The truth is, as the psalm trains us to see, only a heart that God is after, that is caught, cleansed, and refashioned by him, can participate in making whole what has been broken. And isn't that what we are after? The offender's acknowledgment of wrong and participation in making things right. Isn't that what we feel we need from those who make life difficult for us? Well then, we should join in God's pursuit of those who are the source of our disorientation. Praying in step with Psalm 51 that they, like us when we are the offenders, would be overwhelmed by their offense and by God's pursuit of their heart...

Be gracious to me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions...you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
(Psalm 51:1, 6) 

...and by God in you, the offended. 

Against you, you [in those I've wronged],
have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.
(Psalm 51:4a) 

So who are you this week? Are you an offender who needs to see your offense in light of God's heart for you and for those you've disoriented? Or are you one who is disoriented by another's offense, who needs to join God's pursuit of wholeness through His pursuit of the offender's heart? Wherever you are, join me in praying Psalm 51 as we give in to being caught by the goodness and mercy that chase after us.  

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Why Don't You Just Complain About It Some More!

Dear Faith Family,  

One of my biggest pet peeves is complaining, probably because I do so much of it myself! No matter the number of positive affirmations or the consistency of daily graces, my heart is prone to hone in on the difficulties of a day, a relationship, or task. Whether the discomfort is slight or stiffening, a self-inflicted obstacle or an external impediment, I sometimes feel the psalm from Sunday is true, "my life is a vomit of groans" (Psalm 38:8). And frankly, I hate living that way. 

No one likes being around a complainer, not even the complainer themselves, yet Psalm 38 is known as a "Complaint Psalm." It is a poetic prayer that lets God in on all the difficulties of the day/life/world manifesting in our hearts. And while you'd be right to think God doesn't need to be "let in" to know of such realities, our faith heritage for thousands and thousands of years has taught us that God desires to be let into our heart (disoriented or otherwise):

My child, give me your heart, and let your eyes delight in my ways.
(Proverbs 23:26)

I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking. 'Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one..."
(Song of Solomon 5:2)

Psalm 38, like the other "Complaint Psalms," teaches us that now, especially in the season of Lent, is the time to complain. And while my inner voice wants to fire back, "Stop complaining!" the Spirit says, "Don't hold back." Because, as we've learned, letting God into our disoriented heart is an act of hope. 

When we complain to God, we are saying that we are finished, that we are done with this life as we experience it. Indeed our complaint declares that we are done with the same old situations, the same old possibilities, the same old false fixes, the same old defenses and pretenses, essentially saying, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" And so our complaint becomes our confession (perhaps for the first time) that we are utterly in need of something new, something that can only be received. 

For in you, God, I hope...my God—you will answer!... Hurry and help me; I want some wide-open space in my life!
(Psalm 38:15,22)

When we complain at people, spilling our vomit of groans into their laps, we usually leave a mess. When we complain to people, our vulnerable confessions of feelings can be an admittance of being done with the old and longing for something different. Still, in the complexity of relationships, our complaints may not be received as a step towards something new, but yet another form of opposition. However, whenever we open our hearts to God, letting Him in on our disorientation, there is an ever-consistent response: I hear...I see...I know...and I, too, want more for you: 

Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you.
(Revelation 3:20)

So go ahead and complain! May your complaining to God lead you to the table prepared for you, even in the presence of those things which compel your complaining. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Time To Make The Turn

Dear Faith Family,  

The first turn in our Lenten journey, as we discovered on Sunday in Psalm 32, is a tough one. We round the corner and find that we are face-to-face with...ourselves. And not the prepared-for-the-day, dolled-up, slicked-out "Insta" self, but the self we'd prefer never garner anyone's attention. 

Whether out of shame or self-righteousness, because we are too distracted to look, or too wounded, too angry, too entitled, or too overwhelmed; when life feels painful or off, our instinct is to wrestle with the people, circumstances, and forces around us before facing ourself. The first of our Psalms of Lent, Psalm 6, assumed that this would be our initial response and, without condemnation of any sort, invited us to open up about our wrestles. 

Perhaps the only way to prepare for the inward turn of Psalm 32 is to know that God is for us, overcoming all that is opposed to our life whole and forever, 

My requests have all been granted, my prayers are answered. Cowards, my enemies disappear. Disgraced, they turn tail and run. (Psalm 6:9-10)

Knowing God's got all the "stuff" around us covered, we can be open and honest with ourselves and our contributions to the fractures we feel. 

Then I let it all out;  I said, 'I’ll come clean about my failures to God.' Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared. (Psalm 32:5)

The journey of Lent leads us straight into the truth, "If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves" (1 John 1:8). And Lent's sure and scheduled end at Good Friday and Easter Sunday remind us that there is no more secure place to be, than being utterly vulnerable before God and with one another,

But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses all our sin. (1 John 1:7)

As you (and me) pray Psalm 32 this week, may the Spirit lead us into honest, open, and transforming fellowship, even with those we wrestle with. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

A Time to Give Up

Dear Faith Family,  

We are now officially on our way in this Lenten journey! Perhaps the exclamation mark, like Chaz's "God bless and Happy Lent!" farewell on Sunday (insert winking emoji!), is not quite seasonally appropriate. After all, while we know what awaits us on the other side of the journey, the fall before the rise is sobering. Maybe that's why no "Lent Calendars" are lining the grocery store shelves?! 

The truth is the rhythms of Lent require a different kind of commitment than the preparatory efforts of other seasons. While the Cycle of Light (Advent - Christmas - Epiphany) is, in some way, about receiving, the season of Lent is about giving up. 

Giving up speaking first to listen. Giving up eating to grieve. Giving up distractions to see. 

As Jesus' depicted in our final Kingdom Epiphany, the prerequisite for sharing in God’s life, for a life full and forever (i.e., eternal life), is simply being where He is. And where is Jesus? Well, where He always is, with those in need. Those who have a hunger or thirst in life in need of satisfaction. With those who are lost and in need of being found and welcomed. Those exposed, naked, and in need of covering and protection. Those ill in body and soul and in need of care. Those imprisoned, trapped and isolated, and in need of presence.

And while we don’t always “see Him” in such persons and places, we believe that Jesus' desire is for us to live with eyes wide open to not only our need for Him but his presence in the neediness of others. The Lenten Season provides us with a special time to focus on seeing Jesus where He is by giving up those things that distract our vision of neediness—our own and our neighbors. That is what the new-to-us practice of Abstinence is all about. 

CHOOSING WHAT TO GIVE UP

What are your daily habits—activities, attitudes, and interactions—that keep you from “seeing Him” in needy persons? That’s the question you’ll need to answer to decide what to abstain from during Lent.

Our answers will be as varied and unique as our souls, though there may be some similarities to what distracts our vision. Here are a few examples as you prayerfully consider what to abstain from (ideally) beginning today through Easter:

• Phone Distractions | Whether an app or game, browsing your favorite internet sites, or scrolling through social media, do you “instinctually” grab your phone when you feel bored, sad, anxious, or empty? If so, consider giving up one or all those things that distract you from your emotions and what the Spirit might be trying to show you.

• Rhythm Distractions | Do you stay up late watching shows or reading books and find it hard to wake up into a new day with a sharpness of mind or heart? Do you wake up sharp but jump directly into action without much thought? Do you fill your weeknights with activities that entertain but little that uplift or help out? Could giving up to sleep an hour earlier, giving up a morning activity for twenty minutes of prayerful thought, or giving up a weeknight for something more substantial help you be more ready to see Jesus each day?

• Sinful Distractions | Sometimes, the plain truth is that we are not accidentally blind but willfully so. As Jesus said, we “love the darkness rather than the light because our works are evil.” There is no more excellent time and safer season to give up living in the darkness to walk in Light (1 John 1:5-10).

WHAT TO DO WHILE ABSTAINING

Similar to fasting, a season of abstinence is filled with prayer. When you find yourself longing for what you’ve given up, let that feeling draw you into the reason for your choice: to see Jesus in your neediness and the neediness of others. Rather than merely confessing your longing and the difficulties of your fidelity, ask the Spirit for eyes to see the brokenness within and without and for how you can meet and serve Jesus there.

May we find ourselves more with Jesus, and Jesus with us, in and among those whom He loves this Lenten Season.

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Starting The Journey Together

Dear Faith Family,  

For much of the global Church, today marks the beginning of the season of Lent. A season in which we fall with Jesus into death and rise with Jesus into life again and new. 

The first day of this journey of bright sadness is marked as Ash Wednesday. On this day, the Church gathers to consecrate themselves for the days ahead and the Lenten Rhythms that begin through the imposing of ashes. The ashes are a reminder that from dust we have our origin, and from dust, we will return, but by an absurd and gracious gift of Jesus' life, we are given life full and forever. Ashes may be our end, but they are not the end. 

Whether you are able to join with friends of our faith family in an Ash Wednesday service or not, I invite you to join with the saints around the world, praying the "Litany of Penitence," sharing our need for God's grace and receiving grace upon grace in Jesus. 

Pray with and as the Church:

Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another, 
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth, 
that we have sinned by our own fault 
in thought, word, and deed; 
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. 

We have not loved you with our whole heart, nor mind, nor strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven. 
Have mercy on us, gracious Father. 

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Jesus served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit. 
Have mercy on us, compassionate Father. 

We confess to you, Father, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives. 
We confess to you, humble Father. 

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, 
We confess to you, self-giving Father. 

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves, 
We confess to you, generous Father. 

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work, 
We confess to you, just Father. 

Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us, 
We confess to you, patient Father. 

We turn to you, Father, and away from the wrongs we have done: acknowledging our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, 
We hold fast to you, always-present Father. 

Acknowledging false judgments, uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and prejudice and contempt toward those who are different from us, 
We turn to you, ever-chasing Father. 

Acknowledging our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, 
We hold fast to you, never-changing Father.

Restore us, good Father, and let your anger depart from us; 
Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great. 

Bring to maturity the fruit of your salvation, 
That we may show forth your glory in the world. 

By the cross and passion of your Son our King and Friend, 
Bring us with all your saints into the complete joy of his resurrection. 

Amen. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Believing In The End

Dear Faith Family,  

What does it look like to be ready when the One we serve shows up at the end? When history’s party finally reaches its destination? Jesus depicts the answer in our final Kingdom Epiphany, revealing our Father's heart for us to live off faith in His life given to us. 

While I'd like to think my faith is like the first two servants who abandoned themselves wholly to the word and wealth of the Master, the truth is, my faith often has a twinge of the third servant's calculating fear. 

Too often, my faith is hidden under the guise of figuring out "God's will." Instead of trusting that what He has given me is uniquely gifted for me to do well with, I miss the "investment" opportunities for abundant life right in front of me. Too often, my faith is buried in the hesitation that I'll lose what I've been given if I don't use it correctly. Instead of trusting that He always has more to give, I miss out on entering into the abundance of His joy. 

Good thing, for those like me, that Jesus told these stories of the end, between the ends, so that we don't miss out on the fullness of the life He has given us to live. That's what makes Jesus' revelation that "Time is up! God's Kingdom is here" such Good News, if we'd just let His life grab hold of us and believe! 

So, let us end this season of Epiphany where we started, asking ourselves and one another:

How would life look if I believed Jesus' stories
are true stories, of what life with God is really like? 

Why don't we think and talk about that, as we follow Jesus together. Love you, faith family! God bless. 

Don't Skip the Setting!

Dear Faith Family,  

I don't know about you, but when it comes to Jesus' stories of intent, I fixate rather quickly on the part of the story that appears to unveil the intent. Somewhat absent-mindedly, I move past the introductory setting and settle in on the "win" and "loss" of the narrative. That is especially true for our parable from Sunday, "The Ten Virgins," found in Matthew 25.

Almost without thinking, I focus on the implications of those who are in and those left out in the story. And the same pattern holds for the parable of the Talents that follows. Quickly I glance through the scene-setting details and square in on the assessment of the servants--for good and evil. How about you? 

I suppose it is only natural for us to fixate on the climax of a story; that is how stories are written, after all. Plus, we humans have that odd draw to tension, to the offensive, and apocalyptic. Crisis, conflict, even fear, sell; at least our publishing and entertainment industries operate under that impression. 

But what if, just for fun, we took a moment longer to let the setting sink in, or better yet, let ourselves sink into the setting of Jesus' revelatory tales? 

Do me a favor; take a second to quiet your heart and mind. Take in a deep breath and hold it for four seconds. Now exhale. Do it again, but this time, as you're breathing in, imagine you are in God's presence, and as you exhale, let your whole body sink into the image of God being with you. Take one more deep imaginative breath, hold it for four seconds, and sink into the images Jesus gives us for what life in God is truly like: 

• Life with God, Jesus says, is like being a young woman invited to a grand party, and who is expected will join in the fun. (Matthew 25:1) 

• Life with God is like being a servant entrusted to live on the master's absurdly abundant wealth and presumed to be capable of doing so. (Matthew 25:14-15) 

Life with God is like being invited to a party! Not trying to find a way to ensure an invitation or hoping it doesn't prove to be a fake, but actually invited with the only expectation that you show up ready to join in the festivities when it's time! 

Life with God is like living on house money, and having more of it than you could ever need! Not trying to demonstrate your worthiness nor earn the abundance, but actually entrusted with the expectation that you'll find you have all you need and more! 

Imagine that! No, really, take a few moments and imagine what Jesus says life with God is truly like. Ask the Spirit to show you if your vision of life with God matches up with Jesus', and if it doesn't, what you might be missing and missing out on. 

There is so much to see in the heart of Jesus' parables, but let's not pass too quickly over the life-framing beauty of his introductory images. May our life with God be everything Jesus supposes that it is. 

 Love you, faith family! God bless. 

Wanna Hear A Joke?

Dear Faith Family,  

How much effort do you put into living? Making a living? Living well? I'd wager that most of us spend most of our time and resources on staying alive--and striving to more than survive, but thrive in our living. As living creatures, we instinctively do whatever is necessary to stay living. Our drive is only natural. 

Our instincts don't disappear when it comes to our life with God. Even when Jesus bursts onto the scene declaring, "Times up!" (i.e., life is over), "God's kingdom is at hand" (i.e., life with God is here), "repent and believe the good news"; our instinct to make every effort to stay alive with God continues to drive us. We are willing to do whatever it takes to get in, and, once in, everything it takes to stay living there. So it's no wonder when Jesus says in Luke 14:25-33 that what it takes is to "hate living," "accept death," and "renounce all efforts at staying alive," we think he must be joking. And so we give our best efforts to finish building the life started and keep the peace of the life we have. The sad irony is, as we discussed Sunday, Jesus was indeed joking, but we tend to miss the joke. 

It's been said that before the gospel is good news, it is news both tragic and comedic. Tragic in the sense that it is news that every one of us is dead in our sin; whatever life we are living, good, bad, or otherwise, ends. But it is also comedic in the sense of "a kind of terrible funniness and of a happy end to all that is terrible." For, it is news that we living-dead are loved anyway, cherished anyway, forgiven anyway. As one author put it, the hilarity is that we are "bleeding to be sure, but also bled for." As life leaves us, it seems, life is given to us. 

If I am honest, I hear the tragic news more reticently than the comedic. I feel the weight of life bleeding out, the struggle to stop the bleeding in any and every way possible, and the helplessness of not being able to do so, at least not entirely. I am, admittedly, ever so slowly discovering the levity (a.k.a., joy) that all I need to do to stay alive is to stop trying to! 

Truth be told, the only thing I am sure not to fail at in life is dying. I'll certainly fail to complete many an aspiration, and inevitably pick the wrong battle or be in a place where no negotiation can get me out. And even when I feel like I've figured it all out, something will come along and prove me wrong. That's the tragedy. But, the hilariously good news is that one thing I am sure to do that, like you, I am not able to keep from doing is all that is required to truly live--and to live forever. 

"We are not raised, reconciled, and restored because we are thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent," says Robert Capon, "but because we are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God--because, that is, Jesus has this absolute thing about raising the dead. In the Gospels, he never meets a corpse that doesn't sit up right on the spot," nor tells a story where the dead don't come back to life, and the lost aren't found. 

The thing, says Jesus, required to live in him, just happens to be the one thing--despite all my efforts to the contrary--I am able to do: stop living. Inevitably, my life ends, but the good news is that is precisely when life actually begins. I still have a ways to go to exist consistently in the "zip and zing" of the Good News as "a divine comedy," but I think I'm starting to get the joke! How about you?

 Love you, faith family! 

Nothing To Fear

Dear Faith Family,  

One of the few things more dreadful than being lost--directionless and disconnected--is being found wanting--unable to measure up. 

The fear of not living up to expectations, especially God's, is the energizing force for many of the activities we undertake and much of what we avoid. Whether we are honest enough to admit it or not, what often fuels our desire to please God is a fear that we don't or won't. 

But what if the thing we feared, that indeed our life won't measure up when God comes looking, is ironically the truth of our salvation? What if, rather than trying to avoid or achieve God's expectations for our lives, we abide in them? 

I think that is a question Jesus hopes we would ask after listening to his Kingdom-illuminating story about a fruitless fruit tree. So take a minute and read an amplified version of this super short story that fills in some of the cultural and linguistic features we discussed Sunday, and see what you think.

A grape grower had a fig tree planted in his vineyard out of delight and the expectation of enjoyment rather than income. After years of caring for the tree, the master came seeking what the nutrients of his soil and his labor should have enabled the fig tree to become what it was meant to be: a tree with figs! But he found none. 

Distraught over missing out on the expected enjoyment of a healthy life in the clearly truncated existence of his precious tree, the lord of the land said to his vinedresser--the one entrusted to ensure the health and wealth of his primary crop--'Behold! These past three seasons, I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I've found none. Dig it out! Why should it continue to be a heartbreak if the environment meant to enable its life leads to no life to be found?

Knowing the desire of the vineyard owner, the vinedresser replies in kind, 'Lord! Forgive it this year again. Let me try some rather unconventional gardening methods, digging around it and spreading manure. I'll be responsible for the tree, and if it bears fruit in the future, well and good; but if it remains living but not fully so, you can dig it out.

(Luke 13:6-9)

If, as Jesus implies, the expectation for our lives is to fully live into what we established to be in delight, through the delighted provision of good soil and constant care of another. If, however, as sometimes happens, our lives do not live up to their full expectations, and if in those less-than moments, we feel the heartbreak of life as it should be but isn't, and receive continued, patient, preserving labor for what it still can be. What would we call that? Wouldn't we call that love? 

John the Beloved, one of Jesus' closest friends and followers, learned to call his life in God's Kingdom (i.e., "vineyard") just that. 

So we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 

By this is love perfected in us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [when it's time to measure up to expectations], because as he is so also are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected by love.

(1 John 4:16-19)

May you be perfected by God's love this week. Confident in whatever He finds, or doesn't, because "he first loved you...and sent his Son to be the Savior," doing everything possible to ensure that we live up to His expectations. 

 Love you, faith family! 

Something To Believe In

Dear Faith Family,  

There are few things more anxiety-heightening than being lost. Whether we find ourselves separated from our company because of inattentive self-absorption, directionally discombobulated because of miscalculation, or, perhaps worst of all, our orientation slowly suffocated as we are buried under the grim of daily living. No wonder humans have invented seemingly endless manners and contraptions to help us avoid even the potential of being lost--whether physically or in life purpose or even spiritually. 

Ironically, Jesus implies that the place we fear finding ourselves is actually the place where we are found by Him. And perhaps in an even more ironic twist, Jesus says that His finding of us, is our repentance. 

So Jesus told them this parable: 'What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'

Just so, I tell you, there will e more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 

Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.'

Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.'

(Luke 15:3-10)

What if we believed Jesus' double-parable vision of life in God is actually how our life in God plays out? That, indeed, our life story tells the same story of the Kingdom of God coming looking for us.

What if we believed that in order to find ourselves "at home" with Him, in His purposes and pleasures, all we need is to be in need of being found? Would we see ourselves and our days any differently? Would we see our neighbors and enemies differently? If we believed Jesus, would we see the Kingdom already coming, not just to the ones already home, but even now to the ones far away or buried? 

What if you believed the good news, that life on your own is over and life with God has found you? 

Think about that, and, as Jesus encourages, "Do not fear, only believe." (Mark 5:36)

 Love you, faith family! 

An Energetic Start!

Dear Faith Family,  

After nearly six weeks of repeating preparatory backstories and rejoicing in praiseworthy origins, we sped things up on Sunday. Taking our cue from Mark's gospel account, we jumped right into Jesus' revelatory light: "The good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begins here."

The urgent energy of Mark's opening lines quickened by the brevity of his unavailing of Jesus' identity and purpose. The way prepared, the preparer silenced, the Son affirmed and amplified. What took Matthew some eighty verses and Luke closer to a hundred eighty verses to get to, Mark gets to in just thirteen. And what exactly is Mark in such a hurry to get to? Well, the "good news," of course!

Matching Mark's urgent energy (or perhaps its source) is Jesus' inaugural utterances, the first words of the Word become flesh and dwelling among us:

"Times up!
God's kingdom is here.
Repent and believe the good news." 

Three urgent, energy-packed sentences that re-created the world as we know it. Words that not only launched a life of ministry that led to a death and resurrection that forever changed history's course, but words that are continuing in their creative power to change us. Urgent, energy-packed words that might launch us with similar energy into a new year if we take the time to let them. 

So I invite you to ask the Spirit to reveal to you what Jesus saw as He spoke and continues to speak these world-remaking words. What did Jesus see that He wanted us to see in the true light of His words and life that followed? Ask. Listen. And let His light guide you into our days ahead. 

But, perhaps the words are too familiar to hit our ears with the same energy that Mark scribed them. If that's so, and you're not alone if it is, then let me encourage you first to listen to Sunday's message (whether for the first time or a second!). Then: Ask, Listen, and let His light enlighten. 

Praying for ears to hear and eyes to see so that we might be ones this year who are, as Jesus said, "blessed...for they see...for they hear [what] many prophets and righteous people longed to see...and to hear..." (Matt. 13:16-17)

 Love you, faith family! 

Welcome to Epiphany!

Dear Faith Family,  

Today officially begins the season of Epiphany. Once again, as we enter a new year together, Epiphanytide provides our faith family an opportunity to shine a fresh light on the grace and truth of God with us and God for us, God in us and His light shining through us to neighbor, co-worker, friend, and family.

Being a pastor/teacher, this is a season I get really excited about! For me, some of the most enlightening scriptures have been the stories Jesus tells about life with God, more commonly known as parables of the kingdom. Starting this Sunday, we'll spend the first month or so of 2023 immersing ourselves in the Kingdom Epiphanies found in some of Jesus' most profound stories told with intent! Each week, expecting to be enlightened, to see with greater clarity and amazement and conviction and application the nature of the King, His kingdom, and our place within, on earth, in Dallas, as it is in heaven! 

As enthused and expectant as I am for our time together in Jesus' parables, the glory of Jesus' person and work is that, in dozens of ways, each new day on life's road offers us little epiphanies, glimpses of the revelation of the grace and truth of God with us. Yet these epiphanies often rush by like images from a train window. 

For a brief time, I worked for an organization in England, and my only modes of transportation were feet and trains. While I enjoyed walking, I loved taking the train!

Observing the world through the window of a train is a paradoxical wonder. On the one hand, you are moving so quickly that life seems to be passing like a blur but at the same time, freed from the responsibility of movement, you have these extended and detailed glimpses of life in the world that you'd otherwise miss.

In many ways, this is how you and I traverse our days. Going here and there at such speed that any vision of the landscape we inhabit feels obscured and short-lived. And yet, like passengers on the train, we have both the leisure and the window from which to be enlightened to the wonder all around.

In her poem "Rocky Moutain Railroad, Epiphany," Luci Shaw aptly captures the experience of our daily travel through life in a way I think is most helpful. See if you agree, as we picture ourselves together looking out on the world from the train with...

The steel rails paralleling the river as we penetrate
ranges of pleated slopes and crests -- all too complicated
for capture in a net of words. In this showing, the train window

is a lens for an alternate reality -- the sky lifts and the light forms
shadows of unstudied intricacy. The multiple colors of snow
in the dimpled fresh fall. Boulders like white breasts. Edges

blunted with snow. My open-window mind is too little for
this landscape. I long for each sweep of view to toss off
a sliver, imbed it in my brain so that it will flash

and flash again its unrepeatable views. Inches. Angles.
Niches. Two eagles. A black crow. Skeletal twigs' notched
chalices for snow. Reaches of peak above peak beyond peak

Next to the track the low sun burns the silver birches into
brass candles. And always the flow of the companion river's cord of silk links the valleys together with the probability

of continuing revelation. I mind-freeze for the future this day's worth of disclosure. Through the glass the epiphanies reel me in, absorbed, enlightened.

As we travel through life with Jesus, the question is not if we will experience "continuing revelation...too complicated to capture in a net of words" but how our "too little...open-window" minds can retain even "a sliver" of the "unrepeatable views." The real question is, "how can we live from" such revelations in the ordinary, "draw from them, return to them," letting these little epiphanies shape and (re)shape our lives?

Our faith history has an answer for that: The Prayer of Examen. We spent a good portion of the end of 2022 immersing ourselves in the prayer and its foundational psalm (Psalm 139). Let's take what we started before, and keep it going in the year ahead. No need for something new, maybe just something more often! 

May the few moments a day of opening yourself to God with us reel us into the little epiphanies that fill our lives and allow us to become epiphanies to others.

Praying that 2023 will be a year of clear sight and faithful following. Love you, faith family! God bless.

A New Year's Tradition!

Dear Faith Family,  

Today is the first day of the new year. And so it is time to turn the calendar for 2023 is officially here!

And yet, as is often the case, the calendar's turning is no guarantee that change is coming or for good. Indeed, many wondrous and beautiful things in the year behind us were worth celebrating and praising. Still, we cannot deny that there has also been loss, sickness, strife, and all the ills plaguing our human condition. I suspect the same can be said for many past years and will be repeated in years ahead.

So what are we to do? As our brother Peter reminded us in his second letter, rather than judge the past and predict the future by the tally of wins and losses, we are to be caught up in "a living hope."  We are to live as ones who "count the patience of our Father as salvation," living "at peace" amind the mixture of praises and laments—knowing that at the turn of each year, of each day truly, we awake afresh into the certainty of sin and death's final days. So, with confident hope, we can ring out the old that is passing away and ring in the new that will be forever. 

And so, that is what we will do, ring out the old and ring in the new! And will do so through what has become a tradition for our faith family, praying together this poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. A poem that can be prayed over and over until the new that is Christ in us, through us, and for us and neighbor is all that is left. 

Love you, faith family! Happy New Year and God bless. 

In Memoriam CVI | Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night; 
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow: 
The year is going, let him go; 
Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 
Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring out a slowly dying cause, 
And ancient forms of party strife; 
Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes 
But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
The civic slander and the spite; 
Ring in the love of truth and right, 
Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease; 
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; 
Ring out the thousand wars of old; 
Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 
Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

Keeping The Party Going!

Dear Faith Family,  

yesterday officially began the "Twelve Days of Christmas." That's right, the twelve days start on Christmas, not lead up to it! 

The process of connecting the feast of Christmas (December 25th) to the feast of Epiphany (January 6th) began in the fourth century and eventually, all the days between the two special days on the church calendar were "proclaimed sacred and festive." That means the celebration doesn't stop after the presents are opened! 

While culturally, in the words of Gabe Huck, "We take our Christmas with lots of sugar. And we take it in a day," the Church over the last fifteen-hundred-plus years has kept the party going well into the New Year!

So why not join in?! Why not keep your tree and decorations up a bit longer, until the end of the twelve days, January 6th? Why not plan a couple more special activities with friends, family, and kids? Why not keep the Christmas carols ringing and Christmas prayers praying for a few more days? 

That last one, keeping the Christmas prayers praying, I can help you with! 

Starting with the sonnet below, I'll share a poem to pray each of the Twelve Days of Christmas via our Collective Prayers.  I won't send a push notification every day, but just a few times to remind you to keep the party going! After all, as Bobby Gross contends, "If Advent is a season of waiting, Christmas is a season of wonder"! 

May our wonder grow exponentially as we take the time to behold the gift of Christmas and are drawn into His marvelous mystery! 

Love you, faith family! God bless! 

O Sapientia | Malcome Guite 

I cannot think unless I have been thought, 
Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken; 
I cannot teach except as I am taught, 
Or break the bread except as I am broken. 
O Mind behind the mind through which I seek, 
O Light within the light by which I see, 
O Word beneath the words with which I speak, 
O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me, 
O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me, 
O Memory of time, reminding me, 
My Ground of Being, always grounding me, 
My Maker's bounding line, defining me: 
You've Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring, 
You've Come to me now, disguised as everything. 

The Wait Is Nearly Over!

Dear Faith Family,  

Well, the wait is nearly over! In just a few hours, the world will awaken to the glory of long-awaited desires. A day that is sure in its arrival no matter the weather or temperature of our hearts, for it is the day in which Heaven has answered earth! 

So, on this eve of Christmas' arrival, I invite us to pray and ponder one more poem together. Letting the words show us something more than just another day on the calendar and another gift under the tree. 

Love you, faith family! Merry Christmas, and God bless!

Christmas Eve | Christina Rossetti

Christmas hath darkness
Brighter than the blazing noon,
Christmas hath a chillness
Warmer than the heat of June, 
Christmas has a beauty
Lovelier than the world can show: 
For Christmas bringeth Jesus, 
Brought for us so low. 

Earth, strike up your music, 
Birds that sing and bells that ring; 
Heaven hath answering music
For all Angels soon to sing:
Earth, put on your whitest
Bridal robe of spotless snow:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.  

Advent's Home Stretch!

Dear Faith Family,  

It's hard to believe that we are on Advent's home stretch! Kids get out of school in just a couple of days, then, before you know it, the morning that has garnered so much of our attention, efforts, and even anxiousness over the last month will finally be here! And then, on that morning of mornings, most will be up early in the middle of a half-groggy haze while a frantic tearing into the treasures built up under our trees ends in the living room covered in paper and ribbon shrapnel. All this before we splurge on sweets and family staples as we move from one gathering to the next. The thought of it all rises in me a mixture of elation and angst!

While much of life seems too swift, it is even more true of the final sprint to Christmas morn. As in every good story and song, the pace quickens, building to the crescendo, which is why I want to invite you to join me in an Advent practice we started a few years ago. A habit meant to help us do what we've been doing all month: slow down and step into the depth of the flow of these last days before Christmas rather than be swept up by them. 

In the first centuries after Christ's resurrection, our faith forerunners developed a custom of praying seven great prayers to call afresh on Jesus to "come." These prayers are prayed without our customary designations for Christ; instead, they address Jesus by titles found in the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah: "O Wisdom!" "O Root of Jesse!" "O Emmanuel!" etc.

They called these prayers the "O Antiphons," for they are sung as much as prayed. Seven brief songs calling us into the quickening anticipation of our salvation needed and provided. Priest and poet, Malcome Guite, explains their design and aid for you and me this way,

"Each antiphone begins with the invocation 'O' and then calls on Christ, although never by name. The mysterious titles and emblems given him from the pages of the Old Testament touch our deepest needs and intuitions; then each antiphon prays the great Advent verb, Veni, 'Come!'

There is, I think, both wisdom and humility in this strange abstention from the name of Christ in a Christian prayer. Of course, these prayers are composed AD...but in a sense, Advent itself is always BC! The whole purpose of Advent is to be for a moment fully and consciously Before Christ...Whoever compiled these prayers was able, imaginatively, to write 'BC,' perhaps saying to themselves: 'If I hadn't heard of Christ, and didn't know the name of Jesus, I would still long for a savior. I would still need someone to come. Who would I need? I would need a gift of Wisdom, I would need a Light, a King, a Root, a Key, a Flame.' And poring over the pages of the Old Testament, they would find all these things promised in the coming of Christ. By calling on Christ using each of these seven several gifts and prophecies, we learn afresh the meaning of a perhaps too familiar name.

It might be a good Advent exercise, and paradoxically an aid to sharing the faith, if for a season we didn't rush in our conversation to refer to the known name, the predigested knowledge, the formulae of our faith, but waited alongside our non-Christian neighbors, who are, of course, living 'BC.'  We should perhaps count ourselves among the people who walk in darkness but look for a marvelous light." 

The O Antiphones officially begin on Saturday (17th) and will carry us through the 23rd. We'll post them in our Collective Prayers and send a push reminder daily via the app. 

But in the few days between, take a moment and consider Guite's exhortation to ponder afresh "Who do you need to come this Christmas?" and "Who is my friend...my family member...my neighbor needing to arrive?" and find in Jesus' arrival your need met. 

Love you, faith family! Merry Christmas and God bless.