are you the one?

The gospel text for this Sunday strikes me as strange.

Jesus has been healing the blind, deaf, sick, and paralyzed. He has cured leprosy. He has cast out demons. He has been preaching good news to the poor, teaching, and collecting followers. He has raised a girl from death.

Aside from that weirdness, here’s what I find even stranger:

While in prison, John the Baptist hears rumors all of this activity, so he asks his disciples to go to Jesus and conduct a little interview: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

What?!

The Gospel of Matthew featured John in chapter 3, preaching his heart out in the wilderness of Judea. He had been proclaiming with confidence that the kingdom of heaven had drawn near. He was baptizing people in the Jordan and pointing to a more powerful one who would come and baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. He himself had baptized Jesus.

I find it strange that John didn’t know if Jesus was “the one” or not! I’d like to think that the prophet who did all that bold proclaiming, prophesying, and baptizing in the middle of nowhere knew what he was talking about…but apparently not. Apparently, when Jesus appeared on the scene and started doing what he was doing, John was just as surprised as everybody else.

In other words, he had been paving the way for one he didn’t recognize.

I find it strange….and exciting. 

Each Advent, we prepare for one whom we do not know. We prepare for one who is peace, might, justice, and love, but when that one comes, we find ourselves surprised by the majesty and magnitude of God’s grace. We discover love more compassionate than we thought, peace more profound, might gentler, and justice less violent.

Each Advent, we prepare to receive one bigger than our imagination, more merciful than our wildest dream, more benevolent than our hope. We prepare to receive one who draws near yet remains shrouded in mystery. We attempt the impossible: to prepare for awe.

If John the Baptist wasn’t prepared, how will we ever be? Want more? Click here to read Matthew 11:2-11. 

what comes in and what goes out

Even after years of coaching, training, scripture reading, teaching, leading, parenting, partnering, and practice, I’m still betrayed by my mouth.

I still drop little slip-ups, slurs, and an occasional foul word from time to time. I often stay silent, neglecting to say the right thing, even when I know it will make a difference. Sometimes I find myself babbling on and on. I’ll listen to myself and think, “What are you talking about?!”

I say I’m for peace, then I yell at my kids. I declare myself to be a gossip-free zone, then find myself talking about the latest thing that didn’t go my way, careful to assess blame in the “proper place.” And let’s just say I don’t always speak well of the people with whom I share the road.

I’m ashamed; I should know better. Sometimes I apologize, but mostly I hope no one notices. But I notice.

And I notice that I’m betrayed not only but what comes out of my mouth, but also by what goes in.

My taste buds seem to operate with a force and desire completely uncontrollable. I know what to eat and what not to eat; what promotes good health and what doesn’t. And I start off each day with determination to eat and drink the “right things.” But usually by 3 or 4 in the afternoon, my determination is worn down and my taste buds win. I find myself eating something unhealthy as if my hands and mouth belong to an alien that’s taken over.

I don’t think I’m alone.

James writes that the tongue (I’ll say the mouth) is the most powerful force in the human body. With it we can build up or tear down. We can promote health, or hasten disease. We can strengthen community or destroy it.

But the mouth is not really the problem. Strength and weakness are attributes of the heart, mind, and soul; the mouth is just a portal to what lies within.

If there is a fresh spring welling up inside of me, my mouth will be a fount of life.

If I am depressed, my mouth will reveal it in its speaking and eating.

In other words, healthy speaking, eating, and living are symptoms of a personal will aligned with the will of God.

That’s why James also says, “The prayers of one right with God are a powerful thing to be reckoned with.”  Those prayers heal, give life, and build up because they spring from God’s own desire. And for the one right with God, the body itself is a hollow temple housing God’s very spirit. For the one right with God, the mouth is no problem.

I think my speech and my eating habits are indicators of the relative strength/weakness of my interior life. They point me back to relationship with God and neighbor, like warning signals alerting me that something needs attention.

And I find that a heart right with God is far more powerful than any diet.  Want more? Click here to read James 3.  

this empty place

This week, I had a long talk with my neighbor Alan. Four years ago, he fell off a ladder at work. Three knee surgeries later, he’s laid off and looking for work.  It doesn’t look hopeful, because he’s a locksmith, and he doesn’t want to settle.

The more he spoke, the more I felt the weight of his longing and disappointment, until I finally asked him, “How do you keep from being depressed?”

“Oh,” he answered, “anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication.”

I know the feeling. Whatever reason people cite for giving the call and the work to someone else, one thing is clear: They don’t want me.  And I want drugs, too, because this empty place, where my longing and my training meet…nothing,  is hard to take.

And well-meaning people are so full of platitudes and scriptural band-aids. For the record, I don’t believe:  “God has a plan;” “Everything happens for a reason;” or “God only gives me what I can handle.”

I do think that, despite all its opportunity and progress, our world is still filled with far too much injustice, ignorance, prejudice, and greed. Somehow we muddle through, gaining perspective and experience along the way, hopefully working to change the things that don’t work.

I’m miserable because at this moment and for whatever the reason, I have no vocational future. I look out and see no possibility and no opportunity.  And I notice that no one, except those very close to me, seems to care too much. Sometimes, even those close to me don’t care.

So? So I want drugs, just like Alan.

Instead, I’m choosing to feel what this feels like.  I’m choosing to experience grief, hopelessness, and rejection…this empty place where it seems like I’m nothing to anyone and where I don’t make any difference.  I’m not the first person to live here, and assuredly not the last.

And at least for the moment, it’s interesting to experience the ability to cry at the drop of a hat, be overly sensitive to criticism, and notice how much people complain….about everything.

In the end, we all just want what we want when we want it. 

And we call getting it fulfillment.

For me, other questions are arising:

Can I want what I’ve got while I’ve got it? Can I be fulfilled in this empty place? 

Want more? Click here to read Ecclesiastes 3.

reverse rapture

I preached recently on a now infamous passage from First Thessalonians.  It’s about the dead rising at a trumpet blast and the living being caught up into the air and joining with them to meet Jesus in the clouds.

Rapture stuff.

I usually avoid it, mostly because there’s a lot of hype about it and not all that much reliable help. In fact, there’s no help at all in the Hebrew scriptures and the gospel writers never mention it. 

There’s not much help to be found among the famous theologians in history, either. Luther never said a thing about the rapture.

That’s because none of those people knew about it.  The rapture, it turns out, wasn’t invented until 1830.  That’s when Scottish teenager Margaret MacDonald had a vision of Jesus returning to earth in two stages. An English evangelist named John Nelson Darby picked up on her vision and expanded it.

In 1909, Cyrus Scofield’s Bible notes and headings related to Darby’s theology were published alongside and embedded in scripture, and the Scottish teenager’s vision gained the same authority as scripture itself.  The Scofield Bible sold millions and become the lens through which Americans began to view “the end.”

Subsequently, Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute began radio broadcasts based on the Scofield Bible and in 1924, the Dallas Theological Seminary was founded. 

“Viola!” we have the rapture taught by clergy and held as truth by millions.

My personal problem is, the rapture doesn’t point us to the God who spun the planets, partners with us in ministry and redemption, and cares about everything and everyone in creation. It just doesn’t convey God’s grace and it's inconsistent with scripture.

First Thessalonians isn’t about “the rapture” at all. Well then, if Paul isn’t talking about that, what is he talking about?

Back when St. Paul wrote, the world was a rather dangerous place.  People didn’t leave the protection of the city area all that often, because travel was physically challenging and the roads were the notorious stomping grounds of thieves and brigands.  Some reasons people left the city?  To procure supplies, fight battles, or deliver messages. Chances were slim that they would ever return.

People in the city also kept watch over the roads, mostly to warn inhabitants of impending attack, or to announce the arrival of messengers, merchants, and travelers.  When the lookout saw a traveler returning home, the whole city would begin to celebrate. They would run out of the city, meet the traveler on the road, and party the person all the way home, grateful for the traveler's safe return.

Jesus’ disciples saw him ascend.  How were they going to meet him on the road when he returned?  The only way is for the lookout to alert everyone (trumpet blast) and for everyone who loves Jesus (living and dead) to somehow gain the ability to travel out on that road (the sky) and party him home.

First Thessalonians is not about God snatching people from the earth so it can destroyed without harm to the faithful, but about Jesus’ return to earth.  According to Paul, we’re all gonna party here. God really does love this place. And all of us.

Paul also gives us the assurance that we haven’t seen the last of those who’ve died, or of Jesus either.  What's a party without those we love? Want more? Click here to read 1 Thessalonians 4. Or click here for a link to Dr. Barbara Rossing’s The Rapture Exposed.  Also, a special shout-out to Audrey West, who helped me make sense of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians.

members of one body

I have been reflecting recently on the first female candidate for the US Presidency. The year was 1872, the party: The National Radical Reformers, and the candidate: Victoria Claflin Woodhull.  Her name never actually made it to the ballot because technically she wasn’t a citizen. To be a citizen, one had to vote, and she didn’t have the right....Although Victoria had neither the vote nor citizenship, she did have the backing of a group of citizens (The Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage) who wrote her name in at voting time.

It’s hard to imagine what life must have been like for women at the time Woodhull bid for the Presidency, but Charles Mansell-Moullin gives us a glimpse forty years later, in the London Daily Mirror, November 22, 1910.  After  witnessing the treatment of suffragettes, he writes:

“The women were treated with the greatest brutality. They were pushed about in all directions and thrown down by the police. Their arms were twisted until they were almost broken. Their thumbs were bent back, and they were tortured in other nameless ways that made one sick at the sight….These things were done by the police. There were in addition organised bands of well-dressed roughs who charged backwards and forwards through the deputation like a football team without any attempt being made to stop them by the police, but they contented themselves with throwing the women down and trampling upon them.”

These women (and the men who supported them) endured much and left an incredible legacy, as do all people who dare to lead in dangerous and unsavory places, whether we regard their struggles or not.  The rights to vote, preach, worship, study, work, own land, and many other personal freedoms have been won not so much by elected officials, but by small brave bands of individuals who took a stand.

None of us are self-made.  We stand and live upon the legacy of a great cloud of witnesses who have lived before us, standing and speaking for inclusion, justice, and peace. We are who we are, at least in part, because they did what they did.

As we remember them, we would also do well to remember those who will come after us. What we say and do matters.  It matters greatly not only for us, but for those who will follow, who will stand upon our legacy. Silence and inaction never made a difference for the oppressed. Knowing only makes a difference when backed by speaking and acting in bold ways, taking a stand to alter injustice.

 St. Paul writes, “We who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another.” 

We do belong to one another, both throughout time and throughout space. May the legacy we leave promote civility and justice for all people.  Want more? Click here to read Romans 12.

blessed squandering

Smack dab in the middle of Luke’s gospel, we find a disturbing little tale of a dishonest steward who has squandered his master’s riches and is subsequently dismissed.  After all, who can tolerate bad management? In his distress, the steward ponders what to do next. To secure his hopes of being welcomed into the homes of others, he comes up with a scheme: he slashes the debts owed to his master, making friends with the debtors at the last possible moment. 

What happens next? Instead of being reprimanded, imprisoned, sued, or otherwise punished, the master praises the steward for his shrewdness!

What kind of parable is this?!  Jesus couldn’t possibly mean what he’s saying, could he? He couldn’t be saying shrewdness is good, could he?

Well, Jesus has been doing unsavory things in Luke’s gospel.  He has been touching lepers, eating with tax collectors, talking to people in trees, and calling people who smell like fish to follow him.  He’s taken the teaching that belongs in the synagogues out into the countryside. He has broken all the rules of the Sabbath.

And he tells this parable to his disciples immediately after telling the Pharisees three parables about lost things and the God who seeks them. Furthermore, he tells it so that the Pharisees overhear him.

In their eyes, he himself is the dishonest steward who has squandered the master’s possessions.  He is in the process of doing exactly what they scorn; he is taking the things of God and tossing them around willy-nilly, lavishing grace and mercy upon those who have done nothing to deserve it.  It’s like he’s opened the storehouse and let the vagrants take what they need.

And he’s shrew enough to let them hear this parable. It is quite upsetting to those who have been so careful to obey the law.

Why? Jesus tells us about a God who casts a net far and wide. No one is outside of Jesus’ circle of concern and he would do absolutely anything to get to each and every one of us. Cure, confront, touch, listen, chastise, teach, call, risk, break the rules…Jesus comes to us where we are, as we are, and squanders God’s gifts on us.  He’s been doing that forever.

Obey the law or don’t, God’s grace is for you just the same. You’re like a lost sheep; Jesus drops everything and leaves everything behind to find you. He lays you upon his shoulders and carries you home. You’re like a lost coin; Jesus calls everyone into the room to celebrate when you are found.  And you’re like a jealous, tantrum-throwing son; Jesus cares when you’re not at the party and he leaves the celebration to coax you in.

He talks us all down from our trees, lays hands on our sores, doesn’t care how we smell. He eats with us and slashes our debts, even when it makes him look bad.  Want more? Click here to read Luke, chapters 15 & 16.

a constant stream of grace....

I walk every morning on the highway, where Monday-Friday the school buses, parents, and commuters battle their way to their deadlines at 45 mph. Saturday's traffic is busy, too, but in a different way.  Folks on their way to football games, yard sales, shopping, visiting friends, or whatever it is people do keeps the highway pretty busy.

But Sundays are another story.  The world seems asleep then.  Silent and still. I can walk for an entire hour and sometimes see no one at all. No cars, no one in their yards, no one about.

I've been walking in the rhythm of the week's mornings like this for some time, and I've walked through all sorts of conditions.  I've walked when it's sweltering, when it's freezing, in the humidity, in the dark, in the fog.  Usually when the weather is wet (not all that often), it's either a torrential downpour, which keeps me walking around the protected one-mile circuit in my neighborhood, or a stormy, driving rain that stings when it makes contact.  That's just how it rains here.

But this Sunday morning when I walked, I found a new rain.  It was wet, to be sure, but not too wet.  Perfectly windless, a steady, constant, gentle stream of rain.  A steady, constant, gentle stream of rain falling on the sleeping world.

That rain blessed me. And after an hour, I was wet through and through.

I saw God this morning, loving us like the rain. Gently, softly, quietly....a constant stream of grace soaking us while we sleep. It seems to me that whatever we face, we face it graced.  We face it soaked. We are hemmed in, behind and before, and a hand is laid upon us.  If we stop to think about it for too long, that knowledge might just be too wonderful for us.  Want more?  Click here to read Psalm 139.