U2 Sunday!

As any good CrossWalker can tell you, my favorite band of all time is U2.  The Ireland foursome has been my favorite for over 35 years.  I love that they deal with serious matters of life in their music - not just tales of love gone awry.  Bono (lead singer) has used his voice to speak for all those in humanity who have little or no voice.  This stems from his deep faith which informs a lot of their music.  The following offer the lyrics to the songs we enjoyed Sunday.  Video links are embedded in the title.  If you only want to watch the Conversation with Bono and Eugene Peterson, you can view that here.  Enjoy!

I Will Follow

I was on the outside when you said
You said you needed me
I was looking at myself
I was blind, I could not see

A boy tries hard to be a man
His mother takes him by his hand
If he stops to think he starts to cry
Oh why

If you walk away, walk away
walk away, walk away, I will follow

If you walk away, walk away
walk away, walk away, I will follow, I will follow

I was on the inside
When they pulled the four walls down
I was looking through the window
I was lost, I am found

Your eyes make a circle
I see you when I go in there
Your eyes, your eyes, your eyes, your eyes

Where the Streets Have No Name

I want to run, I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside
I wanna reach out and touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

I want to feel sunlight on my face
I see that dust cloud disappear without a trace
I wanna take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name, oh oh

Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
We're still building then burning down love
Burning down love
And when I go there, I go there with you
It's all I can do

The city's a flood
And our love turns to rust
We're beaten and blown by the wind
Trampled into dust

I'll show you a place
High on the desert plain
Where the streets have no name, oh oh

Grace

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace
It's the name for a girl
It's also a thought that
Changed the world

And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness
In everything

Grace
She's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk

She travels outside
Of karma, karma
She travels outside
Of karma

When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace
She carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips

She carries a pearl
In perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings

Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace finds goodness in everything

Song for Someone

You got a face not spoiled by beauty
I have some scars from where I've been
You've got eyes that can see right through me
You’re not afraid of anything they've seen
I was told that I would feel nothing the first time
I don’t know how these cuts heal
But in you I found a rhyme

If there is a light
You can’t always see
And there is a world
We can’t always be
If there is a dark
Now we shouldn't doubt
And there is a light
Don’t let it go out

And this is a song
A song for someone
This is a song
A song for someone

You let me into a conversation
A conversation only we could make
You break and enter my imagination
Whatever’s in there
It’s yours to take
I was told I’d feel nothing the first time
You were slow to heal
But this could be the night

And I’m a long way
From your hill of Calvary
And I’m a long way
From where I was, where I need to be

If there is a light
You can’t always see
And there is a world
We can’t always be
If there is a kiss
I stole from your mouth
And there is a light
Don’t let it go out

Love Is Bigger than Anything in its Way

The door is open to go through
If I could I would come, too
But the path is made by you
As you're walking start singing and stop talking

Oh, if I could hear myself when I say
(Oh love) love is bigger than anything in its way

So young to be the words of your own song
I know the rage in you is strong
Write a world where we can belong
To each other and sing it like no other

If the moonlight caught you crying on Killiney Bay
Oh, sing your song
Let your song be sung
If you listen you can hear the silence say
"When you think you're done
You've just begun"

Yahweh and "40"

Take these shoes
Click-clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes
And make them fit
Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt
And make it clean, clean

Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing, sing

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still, I'm waiting for the dawn

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist, no
Take this mouth
So quick to criticize
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean

Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break

"40"

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the mire and clay

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

How long to sing this song
How long to sing this song
How long, how long, how long
How long, to sing this song

He set my feet upon a rock
And made my footsteps firm
Many will see
Many will see and fear

Unafraid: The Fear of the Lord?

“Come in, the waters’ fine.”  As a kid I heard this phrase many times in various forms.  Swimming lessons where we had to tread water for 15 minutes or so in the deep end.  The diving board.  The high diving board.  The cliff.  The lake with water skis attached.  In all cases, I had to be coaxed.  I feared the water in these situations.

We have a funny relationship with water.  When in the form of a stream coming from a super soaker, or contained in a water balloon, or directed by a hose nozzle, or perhaps a bucket being thrown in our direction, we fear it enough to run from it.  When the rain comes we shriek as if being eaten by acid showers.  If you’re like me, you are captivated by the power and grandeur of the ocean yet fear it and it’s bigger-than-me contents.

We are born of water, and we are made up of water so much that if it were taken out, we would die.  We can’t live too many days without water.  When we are dehydrated, we struggle to live.  No water, no life.

The idea of fearing God is not uncommon in the Bible and in the faith.  The writer or Proverbs said that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  For some, fearing God seems a contradiction – wasn’t the message of Jesus that we are deeply loved by God?  Why should we then fear God?

As Hamilton points out in his book, Unafraid, there are two ways to understand the word fear.  First, fear can describe being terrified and scared-to-death of God.  This rendering is commonly used in churches that use this type of fear to frighten potential converts into embracing the faith.  Verses supporting this approach exist in the Bible, because fear was used to manipulate people during the time when the Bible was first written and experienced.  Our human nature is always on alert for a threat, too, which predisposes us toward being motivated by fear.  So, even today, terror is effective in getting a reaction, and in some cases a reaction of submission to God.

On the whole, however, this was not Jesus’ approach with people.  He didn’t use fear to gain followers.  Rather, he used love and grace.  Following Jesus was always an invitation.  Jesus did use extremely strong language to admonish religious leaders who were abusing their role resulting in hurting those they were called to care for.  But for everybody else, Jesus was graceful, and represented God as one who was deeply loving and with humanity toward their wellbeing.  He personified God and showcased the power of God through miracles that defied logic.  People were in awe of what God was doing through Jesus.

Experiencing awe and reverence is the other way to understand the intended purpose of the word fear.  This type of fear wins people to reverence instead of demanding it.  We are drawn to such experiences and are left with a “hush”.  Certain experiences seem to draw this from us across the broad spectrum of humanity.  Standing before the ocean.  Or a mountain range.  Or a thunderstorm.  Or a baby’s birth.  Or in the midst of new love.  Or _______.  We are left in a hush. 

In the biblical witness, water was a means of commanding fear of the Lord in terms of awe.  Creation itself was born from the waters of chaos.  The Great Flood wiped out all who didn’t heed God’s message.  The sea was parted, allowing Israel to walk on dry ground.  Water came gushing out of a rock while the Israelites were in the desert.  Water cleansed the enemy leader of leprosy.  Water carried the fish that swallowed Jonah.  Jesus walked on water, buoyed by the Spirit.  Jesus turned water to wine.  Jesus calmed the storm that caused the water to become violent.  Jesus met the Samaritan woman at a well where she came to fetch water at the wrong time of day.  Jesus was baptized – dunked – in water and called his followers to do the same.  And more…  Water was a key component toward the fear of the Lord. 

I wonder if we should be thinking about faith using water as a metaphor.  I think we sometimes fear God in the scared-to-death sort of way.  I think we are more prone to such fear when we’ve done something that we believe offends God deeply enough to warrant retribution.  God is holding a super soaker and water balloons and the nozzle and a bucket of water – all trained on us if we don’t’ shape up.

But I wonder if that’s not particularly healthy in light of Jesus.  Maybe we should think of God in other ways.  In a deeply personal way, I wonder what might happen if we drank of God as intentionally as we drink water.  Maybe our faith is dehydrated because we have not drawn of God in our lives.

I wonder if our experience of God would be different if we could begin seeing God as present as the water all around us.   Because water is all around us and within us all of the time.  In the air we breathe.  In every living thing.  What if we could begin imagining God being present everywhere and in every living thing – how would that change our sense of God’s closeness?  How would it impact the way we see other people?  How would it affect our stewardship of creation?  How would it create a sense of awe in us at the pervasiveness of the presence of God?

This week, I encourage you to think about how little you think about water, how comfortable you are taking it for granted and not recognizing its presence everywhere.  Think about fears you have associated with water.  Think also about when and how you long for water. How are these related to your faith experience?  How is your attitude toward water similar or different to your attitude toward God and faith?

Unafraid: Aging

This teaching within this series is based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.

Age is a funny thing.  When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to be 10.  There was just something cool to me about finally making it into double digits.  When I was 12 I couldn’t wait to be 13 – finally a teenager like most of the older kids I looked up to.  Becoming 14 meant I was in high school; 16 meant driving; 18 meant I was a legal adult; 21 meant I could buy alcohol at reputable stores; 25 meant I could rent a car.  For me, my late 20’s was the beginning of my career.  I was looking forward to the day when I wasn’t a “rookie.”

Even though I looked forward to getting older in some respects, I was still aware of some milestone birthdays that I was conditioned to dread: 30, 40, 50 (just a couple of years away).  When these bigger birthdays approach, you realize that while they are simply a number, they represent the slipping away of youth.  I am not a Young Adult.  I am not a 30-something.  I am aware that in terms of my career years, I have crossed the halfway mark.  My body isn’t as forgiving as it used to be – pushing my limits means weeks or recovery whereas is used to be measured in days.  My increasingly platinum hair – all natural! – reminds me that the clock continues to move forward.  My parents’ aging is more evident and important to me as well now that they are both in their 80’s.  I cherish my moments with them now more than ever because I know, statistically speaking, they are running on borrowed time.

Some questions…  How have you navigated the emotional labyrinth that is aging?  How have you lived with the weird tension we hold in our culture where youthfulness is the measure of good looks even while we also celebrate wealth and success that require more years than less under our belts?  What age milestones have been difficult for you?  What fears do you have revolving around aging?

Hamilton provides some interesting data on aging that I found helpful and hopeful.  First and foremost, the research indicates that people experience more happiness in life as they age, not less.  He does note that there is a shift somewhere in our 40’s where our happiness finds it’s lowest ebb, and then climbs for the following decades.  That’s hopeful.  His research offered similar data in terms of marriage – once marriages reach the empty nest stage, the happiness level increases.  Conclusion?  Kids bring a lot of pain and suffering…  Well, not exactly, but parents are deeply concerned about their children, and when children are beginning to feel out their identity through their teenage years, there is more to be concerned about!  Fears of Alzheimer’s and Dementia also weigh heavily given that together they are the cause of death for a third of seniors currently.  This also means seniors have a 66% chance of not acquiring the disease, which gives some hope.

If I may, I’d like to offer some pastoral encouragement on this subject. First, to those in your 20’s and 30’s.  For the most part, it gets better, not worse, as the stats indicate.  You will go through tremendous stress, but it will not always be so.  Be wise in your pursuits.  Trust the ethic of Jesus which loves God and others prodigiously and much good will come online for you.  For you who are married, learn to love each other through every stage.  You are not who you were when you fell in love.  Grow together, learn what it means to love deeply and be loved deeply.  If you find yourself in a rough patch, you’re not alone – every marriage goes through rough patches.  Seek counsel if necessary, yet realize that an ounce of prevention really is worth more than a pound of cure.  For those of you with kids, the data suggests that life and marital happiness keeps decreasing until the kids are out of the house.  That’s because it is really hard to raise kids, stay in love, and remain sane!  Take comfort that you are not alone!  Hard is normal!  Lynne and I worked hard over the years to grow a companionship marriage – we are each other’s favorite person to be with at the end of the day.  That’s still the way we are because we made “us” a priority throughout our lives.  Do the same.  You can love your kids and be all about them and grow your relationship, too.  Like Lynne and I, you want your kids to grow up healthy in every respect.  I believe the greatest variable which you can influence is you.  Your kids will, for better or worse, base their lives on what they see in you.  If you’re healthy and growing, you are modeling health and growth, which they are more likely to follow.  By the way, we don’t choose our parents.  Some have been born to absolutely lousy parents by anyone’s definition.  Some of their kids catch a clue early on and make a note to never be like their parents.  If you grew up with lousy parents, you’re not stuck – for your sake and the sake of those you influence, choose health and growth.  For Lynne and I, doing our best to follow as fully as we know in Jesus’ footsteps – which results in being made more and more well/whole – has given us a great life and has rubbed off on our kids.  If you want the best for your life and your kids’ life, follow in the footsteps of Jesus.  Jesus was all about love, which is where we know true, abiding happiness resides.  Follow him to love.  The good news: we deeply love our kids and they deeply love us, and we are happy empty nesters looking ahead to a really great future.  It gets better.

 Now for you old people over 50…  As Hamilton noted, the reason happiness tends to grow is because we’ve lived enough to know what actually matters.  We’ve seen fads come and go.  We’ve watched people lose their lives in the pursuit of wealth, and we’ve been to a lot of funerals.  We know increasingly that love is the true source of happiness.  Being loved and loving others – an inseparable combination.  Yes, we’re generally more stable than previous decades, but that stability affords us perspective to not get sucked into perilous pursuits.  Some of you may be wondering how to increase your happiness.  The answer is simple: love.  Give yourself to something or someone who needs your help.  Many of you are already doing this.  Love someone through your time and attention, and you will find yourself less lonely and more loved than if you don’t.

Tying into our younger folks given their stage… There used to be a pervasive attitude in the church that when it came to any kind of children’s ministry, you would hear someone say, “I did my time – let the next generation do theirs!”  I am so glad that so many of you have not adopted that line of thinking!  We have a number of people helping in the nursery that are beyond their own child-rearing years.  I want to challenge more of you, however, in the name of Jesus, to step up and be helpful and present to support our younger families who are living through an increasingly hard stage of life.  Be a blessing to them.  Help shoulder their load.  That can happen by volunteering in our ministry here, or on an individual level.  This was done for Lynne and I through Gary and Karen Mills.  Their offer to watch our kids every Friday night meant Lynne and I could keep dating.  The byproduct was that we each found “family” in each other – lifelong bonds that have extended way beyond what started.  It was a win-win-win.  I am encouraging you to be Gary and Karen to someone’s kids.  You have no idea how such an act of love will influence you, the kids, and their parents.  And not just those with kids – why not do lunch or coffee with a younger adult or young couple simply to offer support?  They probably would love to have someone with some wisdom and perspective in their corner.

Finally, as Hamilton pointed out, remember that some of the greatest contributors in our faith story began their work when they were older, not younger.  Noah, Abraham, and Moses were all old when they were just getting started.  May it be the same for you, too.

Unafraid: Death and Dying

As part of our ongoing series based in part on Adam Hamilton's book, Unafraid, CrossWalker and Chaplain Steve Lewis teaches on the subject of living with the fear of death and dying.  Enjoy!?

Unafraid: Anxiety, Worry, and Physical Illness

CrossWalker and Chaplain Stephen Lewis (Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital) offers this teaching to help us deal with the common fears surrounding anxiety, worry, and physical illness.  Enjoy!

Unafraid: FOMO, Finances, and the Flag

This is part of an ongoing series based on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid, where I work from the book’s content toward a fuller teaching.

This week I’m looking at two chapters that I think are related – the fear of missing out (FOMO), and the fear of financial peril.  Coincidently, I see a connection between these two fears and our American Culture.  As we celebrate Independence Day for the 242nd time, we take pause to celebrate our country with parades and fireworks.  But I wonder if there is a higher calling for us to consider as we struggle with fears that might just be directed related to the time in which we live and the zip code we enjoy.

“Pete, you live a charmed life.”  My friend has mentioned that several times to me.  In so many ways, I cannot disagree.  My wife and I have a great relationship that has grown with us now for 26 years.  My kids doing well in college and their future appears bright.  I am fortunate to call CrossWalk Community Church my home, where I am really lucky to serv as pastor.  My friend doesn’t live near enough to me to see me daily, so how did he come to his conclusion?  Facebook.  Most of the personal stuff I post on FB is family related stuff – trips here and there, being together doing really fun stuff.  Hamilton notes that this has taken people’s fear of missing out on something better to a whole new level.  We see everybody else having a good time while we sit at home binging Netflix (which somebody posted about somewhere, making it look really cool and exciting – not like your loser experience!).  Because social media plays such an influential role in our culture, Hamilton makes sure to mention something pretty obvious: FB does not tell the whole story.  It tells only the side of the story that the person wants to share.  Like me, I choose to post memorable moments that are usually fun.  I do this as a means to share my life with a broad network of friends from all periods of my life, and because FB will automatically remind me of the memories every year on the same date, which warms my heart.  But I don’t post, generally, about boring days, or stressful days, or days that are not memorable.  If you struggle with FOMO, just know we’re all on the same journey of plan days with moments of fun.

In a separate, related chapter, Hamilton addressed the fear of financial peril.  Financial stress consistently ranks in the top tier of fears we struggle with.  The Great Recession lingers in our memories, when we watched our financial stability get rocked in one way or another.  Hamilton offers wise advice for this fear which is akin to weight loss – we already know about both strategies yet struggle to implement them.  We need to budget our money well, live within our means, save for the future and generously give to those in need.  Not new.  Still good.  Another, really important tip he offered which applies to FOMO as well is to practice gratitude.  Take time during your day to be grateful.  Pause at every meal to truly give thanks.  Begin and end each day with a review of what we have, giving thanks for it all.  This alone will radically reduce FOMO, and will also curb our spending.

These two fears are surely related to human nature.  Envy and greed are among the Seven Deadly Sins along with gluttony, wrath, pride, lust, and sloth, which simply affirms the fact that these have been with us a very long time.  The United States relies on Capitalism and Consumerism to keep everything moving forward.  Together, these two ideologies insure that FOMO and financial fear will play a significant role in our lives.  To be a good, contributing citizen in the United States in terms of the bottom line is to be a good consumer.  Remember when the US government literally gave every taxpayer money under President Georage W. Bush?  Do you remember his counsel as to what to do with the free cash?  “Buy something.”  Why?  Because that’s what our economy is built on.  Consumerism funds everything else.  So, how do we, as Jesus followers, live with integrity given this cultural mindset?

For help, let’s look at one of the Jewish tradition’s more storied prophets, Daniel.  His book in the Bible is twelve chapters long.  The first half is remembered historical narrative.  The second half is classic apocalyptic prophet writing, complete with seriously weird images which are foreign to our ears but made sense to theirs.  The first half of the book is where I think we find help for out time now.  After the Babylonian Empire overtook Israel, the best and brightest Jews were taken to Babylon to be trained for service in the Babylonian administration.  Daniel and three other young men (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – their more familiar Babylonian names) were among those taken, and their stories are recorded in Daniel’s book.  Let me offer some lift outs from the major stories from those first six chapters.

Diet.  Shortly after their arrival in Babylon, the culturally diverse class of students were fed from the King’s menu – fine food and wine – no doubt to foster good will and future allegiance.  Daniel recognized that it was not very nutritious, and refused it, brokering a deal to feed the Jewish guys only vegetables and water for ten days and see which students looked better.  After the ten days, the Jewish guys were in better shape all the way around.  To not eat the food provided was an incredibly risky proposition that could have led to his death.  Yet he chose to take in what was healthy instead of what was popular.  How about you?  Do you take in what the consumer machine places before you, or do you choose to take in what is healthy (which is often not the same thing!)?  How about beyond food?  Knowing that Consumerism rules the day in every sector – including politics and the media – how are you taking in what the culture is trying to feed you?  I hope you are keeping your “diet” balanced in that regard, too.

Secret dream.  Babylon’s King, Nebuchadnezzar, had a bad dream that wouldn’t go away.  He wanted to know what it meant, but he didn’t trust his religious leaders much.  To prove their merit, he demanded that they first tell him his dream (without knowing it) before interpreting it.  They all balked, which made the king mad, leading him to call for their execution. Daniel heard that he had been sentenced and asked for time to pray and discern.  God gave Daniel the dream and its interpretation that very night.  How about you?  When faced with difficult decisions, do you take time to pray and discern, to be quiet in order to hear God speak?

Idol worship.  King Nebuchadnezzar built a massive gold statue – 90 feet high! – and commanded that everyone kneel before it in worship.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused as doing so would violate their Jewish faith in worship God alone.  The King was furious, and ordered them to be burn alive in a crematorium.  He even had the fire stoked well beyond it’s normal range.  The three were bound and thrown inside as the King watched.  Mysteriously, the three were joined inside the furnace by a fourth person, and none of them died.  The three walked out of the furnace entirely unscathed.  God had somehow spared them.  How about you?  In the face of the demands of consumerism, how do you deal with the pressure to buy, buy, buy when what you have is fine, fine, fine?  How do you deal with our political culture that demands binary allegiance when granting it surely results in contradicting the Way of Jesus?

Chopped-Down Tree Dream.  The King had another weird dream involving a beautiful tree being chopped down, leaving only a stump behind.  Daniel was the only one in the Kingdom who could interpret, and very carefully let the King know it was about the king’s future.  He would basically lose his mind for seven years, living wild with the animals.  Daniel offered the King an out – if he would turn from his selfish ways and look after others (especially the down-and-out), he may be spared.  The King didn’t take the option, and instead spent the next seven years struggling with some sort of mental illness that kept him living in the wild. How about you?  When faced with news that if you stay on your current course it will mean a very difficult future, do you stay on it (even if supported by the surrounding culture)?  For example, our culture encourages takin on great debt instead of saving.  Do you pull the trigger on living beyond your means in order to be a “good consumer”? 

The Writing on the Wall.  King Nebuchadnezzar died and succeeded by his son, Belshazzar.  King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for his top 1,000 friends.  Deciding to show off a bit, he opened his treasury and brought out gold and silver chalices that were stolen from Jerusalem’s Temple.  These chalices were dedicated solely for sacred use.  As the king and others drank from the chalices, a disembodied hand appeared and began writing on the wall: MENE, TEQEL, and PERES.  Nobody knew what it meant.  Everybody was freaked out.  Someone told the king that Daniel was famous for handling this kind of stuff and was brought in.  Daniel, again, was the only one who could interpret.  The writing on the wall meant that Belshazzar’s days were numbered, that he would be found severely wanting, and that his kingdom would fall.  That very night the words came true.  How about you?  How do you treat what is sacred and holy?  Where does the divine fit into your life?  How do you honor it and keep it set apart?

The Lion’s Den.  Darius the Mede succeeded Belshazzar as king.  He reorganized his government, placing key leaders in charge of other leaders under them.  Daniel was one of those, and he far exceeded the rest.  King Darius put him in charge of the entire kingdom.  This made the other leaders jealous and angry.  Daniel’s character was so good that they couldn’t find any dirt on him.  The only thing they had to work with was his strong faith.  So, they convinced Darius to send out an edict commanding all people in the kingdom to pray only to him for 30 days.  Daniel refused.  Darius didn’t want to harm Daniel, but his hands were tied.  Daniel was thrown into a lion’s den to die.  The next day, however, Daniel emerged unscathed.  How about you?  Is your allegiance so strong for God that you would rather die than bow the knee for an imposter?  How might this play out in your world?

Video Link: https://youtu.be/msm2DEyYCoE

Unafraid: Fear of Change

We had just come home from a long trip.  It was late evening, maybe 9:00 or so.  I was 9  or 10 years old.  After we got all of our stuff into the house, I walked into the kitchen looking for some food, which was a long shot since we’d been gone for a couple of weeks.  Lo and behold, there was a perfect banana on the counter!  We must have packed it along and it was still good!  I grabbed it and started enjoying it.  As I was finishing it, I ran into my dad who had come to the kitchen in search of food, too.  He quickly realized that there was nothing to be found and that I was consuming the only thing edible in the house.  He took a look at me and said with a harsh tone, “Do you really think you need that?”  In all likelihood I had been snacking the entire trip for two weeks straight at every opportunity.  But at that moment I couldn’t appreciate that.  All I heard was my father scolding me, and in my ears, with an insult about my weight (I was “husky” in those days). I was crushed, and had no idea what was set in motion that night.  Like every son, I looked up to my dad, wanting his approval and praise, assuming that he was the model of what I was to shoot for.  Like many boys, he was larger than life, even god-like.

On the inside of the United States Capital’s dome is a painting called The Apotheosis of Washington.  It depicts our country’s first president ascending into the heavens, becoming deity, surrounded by angels.  I’m not much of an artist, but I painted that picture with my dad in it a thousand ways.  I think a lot of kids do that.  We can’t think poorly of our dad-heroes.  On the other side of the continuum, however, is debasement.  Some kids have been so deeply wounded by their fathers (and mothers, too) that they can’t think anything good of them.  They are dirt-bags as far as they are concerned.  The desire in these kids is to write off the influence of their father completely.  The interesting thing is that both extremes – apotheosis and debasement – are onto a reality that is true for us all.  A beautiful lift out from the most primitive of the two creation stories in Genesis portrays God creating humanity out of dirt.  But the human doesn’t come to life until God breathes into his nostrils.  The Jewish tradition was stating that we are a combination of dust and divinity.  Divinely dusty.  Dusty yet divine. When we only see our dads as divine – apotheosis – we miss the truth of the dust.  When we only see dirt – debasement – we miss the power of divinity.

My apotheosis held up pretty good until Bananagate (as it’s known the world over) came into my consciousness ten years later.  Due to a range of circumstances in my life, I became acutely aware that my father wasn’t a god after all!  I became very aware of the way some dust had made itself known.  No longer did I see myself as a little kid who deserved judgment for eating a banana that I should have intuited belonged to my hungry father.  Nope.  Now I saw my dad’s reaction to me as hurtful.  I interpreted it as an act of unlove, which caused me to look at lots of other moments of dusty humanity on his part.  I was crushed, feeling unloved and duped at the same time.  And yet, seeing reality began a process that, though painful at times, would prove to be incredibly important.  As Richard Rohr recently noted in his daily meditation, “As any good therapist will tell you, you cannot heal what you do not acknowledge. What you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control from within, festering and destroying you and those around you. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus teaches, ‘If you bring forth that which is within you, it will save you. If you do not bring it forth, it will destroy you’ (logion 70).”  There is great truth in those words.  To leave the dust unacknowledged would invite future suffering.  Same goes for divinity. 

There is an epic story about the beginnings of the Jewish people in the book of Genesis. It involves the two sons of Isaac: Jacob and Esau (Genesis 27 ff).  Long story short, Isaac had some serious “Daddy issues” (try getting over your father trying to kill you as a way to honor God), had twins with his wife, Rebekah, and clearly favored Esau (the manly man) over Jacob (the CPA).  With the family fortune on the line, Rebecca helped Jacob to secure the President and CEO slot right out from under Esau who was heir apparent.  Esau was livid, and was surely ready and willing to kill Jacob for his deceit.  Jacob ran away to his trickster Uncle Laban’s homestead where he married his distant cousins (this is where Arkansas got the idea), had a bunch of kids and made a fortune.  But he couldn’t stand Laban, and he longed to go home even though Esau would be there waiting for him.  So, after 20 years and with dramatic flair, Jacob gathered his family and flock and took off.  Assuming Esau would still want to kill him, he did everything he could to butter him up and show that he wanted peace with his brother.  The night before they were to finally meet, he wrestled through the night with an angel – a test of his resolve – who did he really want to become?  He survived the nght still wanting to reconcile his past.  God gave him a new name – Israel – which means struggles with God, which, of course, would be the proper name of the entire nation to come.  He awoke and made his way to the meeting only to find that Esau was ready to make peace as well.  Could be a Hallmark movie except for the weird marrying your cousins and weird animal husbandry tactics and an off-color trick capitalizing on menstruation cycles.  Their reconciliation reminds me of another quote from Richard Rohr:

“Only mutual apology, healing, and forgiveness offer a sustainable future for humanity. Otherwise, we are controlled by the past, individually and corporately. We all need to apologize, and we all need to forgive or this human project will surely self-destruct. No wonder that almost two-thirds of Jesus’ teaching is directly or indirectly about forgiveness. Otherwise, history devolves into taking sides, bitterness, holding grudges, and the violence that inevitably follows. As others have said, ‘Forgiveness is to let go of our hope for a different past.’ Reality is what it is, and such acceptance leads to great freedom, as long as there is also both accountability and healing forgiveness.”

Note the wisdom of our Jewish ancestors in sharing this story from generation to generation.  We are a people who struggle, who find ourselves in messes we in part helped create, and we are then faced with a choice to continue in our misery or risk changing course.  In this case, both boys-become-men had to face the change offered them related to their father issues.  Time alone doesn’t guarantee healing, even though it often softens us as we mature into a wider perspective on life that experience can bring.  Both men likely came to a point when the pain of their reality was worse than the future they imagined.  They couldn’t live with the pain any longer, and chose to risk change.  We usually don’t do important interior work unless we must, simply because we like to be comfortable.  We don’t like change, really.  We enjoy the comfort of the status quo even if it kills us.  Change is a threat.  We know little about Esau’s life while Jacob was away.  We know plenty about Jacob’s.  He was successful and miserable all at the same time.  The pressure mounted and Jacob couldn’t take it anymore – the pain of his present reality was worse than his projected future (facing his vengeful brother). Going home meant facing the past honestly and openly, taking a serious look at what was and how it served to create what is.

Two decades after Bananagate, after a lot of time for my brain to slowly process stuff, I came to a new way of seeing that moment.  I had interpreted the event as personal attack on my character and a jab at my physical appearance.  The face-value reality, however, was much simpler than that, and did not require me to vilify my own father: Dad was hangry.  He was simply pissed that I beat him to the punch.  We all act a little grumpy when we’re hungry, and even though I wish he would have censored himself, I got the raw reaction.  I don’t think I could have come to that realization until I was a father myself, tired and hungry and grumpy and faced with normal everyday stress that parenting brings.  I likely reacted similarly to my own kids as my father acted toward me!  All of a sudden, I realized that there was a new way of seeing things that simply allowed some room for the dusty-divinity reality some expression in my father.  This new insight lead me to a fork in the road.  It served as an invitation to come home, in a sense, to leave behind an incomplete paradigm in favor of one that was more humane, more embracing and graceful toward my dad as a person dancing with the tension between our dustiness and divinity.  No more perfectionism allowed.  He was a real human being (and still is).  But that choice to see him that way was a significant change that was years in the making.  It was hard even though it was good.  Even though it was a step toward healing, it was still difficult. And still a choice.

This reminds me of a healing story involving Jesus and a man who was paralyzed (John 5:1-15). Apparently, there was a pool in Jerusalem that, on occasion, provided miraculous healing (signaled by the water stirring presumably by the Holy Spirit).  This man had been sitting there for 38 years, and somehow never got to the pool in time to get healed (which seems fishy).  Jesus straight up asked him, “Would you like to get well?” I wonder if God is always asking us this question while we sit in misery for 38 years, always available to help us move forward in our healing.  Always nudging us toward becoming more whole, which is change, which is uncomfortable and sometimes terrifying.  Always circling us back to moments in our own story to take us deeper than we were before, to help us see in new ways, to give us legs to walk where before we were paralyzed, helping us realize that even the ugliest parts of stories are deeply important, and provide fodder for more healing throughout our lives.  In this sense, Richard Rohr is right when we says that everything belongs.  To avoid our ugly chapters is to deny the opportunity for healing and growth.  When we accept reality as it is, that it’s a part of us and needs to be mined for the gems it holds, we find healing and help from God.

Or we could do what one man did and does.  He told his wife to stop thinking about her awful past because it was behind her.  He just lived in “today” and was fine.  Except he was the only one who thought he was fine.  His short temper and anger issues had damaged his relationships and employment for years.  Anger that stemmed from unresolved issues that represented the challenge of change, the choice to become well.

On a trip down to Fresno last week I listened to a best-selling book entitled The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson. Something in his book triggered a recent memory that reminded me that I still have work to do.  I still have some stuff to uncover.  But it’s no longer a thing to keep bringing up to my dad.  It’s my internal work.  And Bananagate (what it represents) will likely be fodder for personal growth for the rest of my life.  And that’s actually a good thing because the invitation of God which was the invitation Jesus gave the lame guy and the invitation heard by both Jacob and Esau was to become more whole.  Change for the good for me and for everyone around me.  So, while I may be initially annoyed by the invitation, it represents something beautiful if I’ll choose it.  My responsibility.  I have my Bananagate, and you have yours.  Healing.  Change worth pursuing even though terrifying.  The invitation is before us everyday:  Do you wish to be well?

Process…

1.       What makes the list of the Top Five Changes you’ve experienced in your life?  What role did fear play in each?  How were they similar and different from each other?  How many of the changes were proactive, intentional, and planned, and how many were thrust upon you?  How did that affect the process?

2.       What changes do you think Jacob went through in his 20’ish years between leaving and returning to home?  How were the challenges and changes similar or different from one another?  What do you suppose compelled him to return home?

3.       Physical changes are challenging enough (moving, job change, etc.), and loss is also a very difficult change to manage (death, divorce, etc.).  Sometimes paradigms are so emotionally charged that they are nearly impossible to change – the way we see the world, the way we view others (especially those who have significantly affected us in some way).  What paradigms have you changed?  How was that process similar or different than other types of change?

4.       What changes are you facing now or will face soon?  What steps can you take to manage the change well?

Unafraid: A Dystopian Future (Apocalypse)

This teaching is part of an ongoing series on approaching our fears with faith based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.

Fear that the world is going to end soon has been great fodder for the movie industry, late-late night radio hosts, and comedians who make fun of religious leaders who call out a specific date for the world’s demise (shout out for the Bay Area’s own, Harold Camping!).  The latest fear is that Planet X (Nibiru) will come out of nowhere and smash our earth. 

Many conservative churches look forward to the day of Rapture, when God will take all the good sheep up to heaven and leave behind the rest for an awful period of hell on earth, ending in some surviving and most swimming in a lake of fire, after which all the dead in Christ will rise and find themselves living on a new earth that’s all pleasant and nice.  This may sound like a bad screenplay, but it is actually derived from a particularly narrow, literalistic view of the Bible without regard to it’s original context and with little question as to how to apply it today.  And, this Second Coming of Christ also happens to be the orthodox view – that’s how a lot of Christians think the end is going to come.  Many people watched scary movies like A Thief in the Night that sacred the hell right out of them, directing them into the arms of God where they would find salvation.

Of course, we don’t need religion to be afraid of the end of the world.  We’ve got nationalistic, ego driven world leaders to give us plenty of cause for alarm, with fingers on buttons that could trigger the end of the world as we know it.  Potentially, hundreds of millions of lives could be lost if everything went south.  But the world and humanity would not end.  Still, we live on the West Coast, on the North Bay of San Francisco, a lovely target for an evil empire to dial some missiles toward. 

Recall our acronym for FEAR: False Expectations Appearing Real.  And let’s remember Adam Hamilton’s reworking of that acronym: Face your fears with faith. Examine your assumptions in light of the facts. Attack your anxieties with action. Release your cares to God.  Let’s work this puppy over.

First, as Christians understanding God through a Jesus lens, we believe God is loving and good, and that since God’s fingerprints are on everything created, the flow of everything – even creation – is essentially good.  We have a theological reason to be basically optimistic that the odds are good that our worst fears will not come to pass, as has been the case for most fears we struggle with.  We catastrophize, wasting untold energy for nothing but an upset stomach.

As far as facts go, the nuclear arsenal of the United States and Russia has been significantly reduced over the last 30 years.  While we still have a lot, we don’t have enough, according to some sources, to completely eliminate life on earth.  We don’t have anywhere near enough to blow the earth up – luckily the Death Star was taken out a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away by cool people with British accents.  The worst case scenario is that up to 500 million people would die, mostly in specific, strategic urban areas.  The remaining seven billion people would carry humanity forward.  Specifically for us in Napa, CA, being approximately 50 miles from San Francisco and 86 miles from San Jose, and being that we are North of both, meaning winds are in our favor, we would definitely see the mushroom cloud, but not likely suffer direct loss.  More likely, we would be called upon to help provide support for recovery.  It is unlikely that Napa Valley would be the target for an attack, unless we’re talking about very, very conservative Baptists from Topeka, KS.  But they don’t have much more than picket signs in terms of weaponry.  So, the facts should alleviate our fear of nuclear threat.  Earthquakes and fires?  Well, who knows.  But those are surely more likely.

How do we attack our fears with action, then?  Let me suggest some specific, practical things, and then one major, sweeping, ideological thing.

First, the practical.  Most of us were here for the major earthquake that hit Napa in August 2014.  We can’t forget the fires of October 2017.  Both could have been much, much worse, of course, but I think both served to wake us up to a range of things we should be ready to face.  Because of our location, I seriously doubt we would go very long without being given aid from the government.  But for the short run, we should be ready for the next disaster.  So, have you done your homework and put together an emergency preparedness kit?  Get on it!  Have you secured stuff that could tip over?  Get on it!  You should have supplies to get you through the short term if you lose power, water, a cooking source, etc.  What about a trust?  Have you put that together yet so as to clarify to your loved ones where you want your property to go in the event of your death?  I don’t want to be morbid, but I can tell you from experience that I sleep better at night knowing that I’m fairly well prepared in the event of a natural disaster, and that my trust will make it easier for my kids to manage our estate if, God forbid, the 15 foot marble statue of Bono in our living room were to somehow take Lynne and I out in one fell swoop!  Getting your literal and figurative house in order is simply wise, and is an action you can take that will alleviate some of your anxiety of a dystopian future.

The sweeping thing I want to talk to you about has to do with our stance toward life as Jesus followers.  In Matthew’s Gospel, he remembers Jesus giving the disciples a charge to “go, make disciples of all nations.”  He didn’t give any qualifiers to his commission, as far as I know. He didn’t say, “except if you think the end is near” or “if you think you’re the only chosen ones”.  The charge he gave his disciples is the life he chose to live.  People who carried Good News (the meaning of Evangelism).  That’s who we’re supposed to be, and doing it like Jesus did is that way we’re supposed to do it.  Unfortunately, study of the end times has led many to abandon the way of Jesus for something that only pretends to resemble him.

I have two problems with orthodox Christianity’s view of the end times.  First, I think there has been a lack of appreciation of the first century context from which the related texts came, which was a time when apocalyptic fever ran especially high.  Why wouldn’t it?  Rome was in charge, and the only hope the Jews had was that God would swoop in and kick some serious butt!  Added to that the bias toward a literalistic view of the scriptures which assumes inerrancy and infallibility, and we’ve got ourselves a lousy hermeneutic.  I think Revelation reflects a reality that has largely already taken place, which is not hard to understand when the imagery used is understood in context.  So, I don’t think it points toward a sci-fi future.  The second issue I have with the position is how it has been used to generate fear to coax non-Christians toward God, and yet perpetuates fear among believers.  I have never seen a person deeply devoted to “End Times study” who becomes more compassionate toward especially non-Christians.  I have seen these folks get ugly, judgmental, and manipulative in order to win converts.  Or, I have seen people huddle down in the security of Christian community awaiting Christ’s return while the world outside suffers on.  Neither of these reflect Christ, in my opinion.

Jesus did not use fear to manipulate people into following him.  The only fear that may have been at work was the fear that a person had been basing their life on a lesser “good news” than the one Jesus offered.  He instead offered his presence, his teaching, his hands, and his healing to those he encountered.  Gracious beyond anyone’s expectation, willing to go where religious people wouldn’t be caught dead, welcoming of those who were deemed “unclean”, Jesus was Good News as much as he proclaimed Good News.  The Good News Jesus proclaimed was in contrast to Rome’s, which did offer some good news, but always with a looming threat.  Jesus’ Good News, however, was delivered with an undercurrent of love and grace.

As Hamilton noted, I would much rather been found dead in rubble trying to help people than huddled in some bomb shelter somewhere looking out only for myself.  I would rather die for compassion than self preservation.

Unafraid: Alone and Unloved

The Psalmist, no doubt writing from experience, notes "how precious are your thoughts about me, oh Lord."  It's true.  Like a wholly loving parent sees their child with eyes of unconditional love, so God sees us similarly.  Truly owning this foundation makes an enormous difference in our lives because it means that our value and worth are secure - untouchable - regardless of what others might have to say about it.  I hope you are growing in your owning of this truth.

It is really, really important to love and be loved in return (queue Nature Boy by Nat King Cole or Natalie).  This morning, I had the congregation do an exercise toward this end.  We gathered around tables to share and listen.  I encourage you to do this with those you love, to make sure you are staying closely connected.  Make it fodder for dinner conversation or coffee.  Love the one sharing enough o give them your full attention.  Love the ones listening to you enough to share who you really are.

Enjoy!

Ten Excellent Questions

1.What are you passionate about?

2.If I really knew you, what would I know about you?

3.What makes you feel the most fulfilled?

4.Who is your personal hero?

5.What is your dream job?

6.What is your biggest accomplishment?

7.What’s on your bucket list this year?

8.How would you want to be remembered?

9.If you could master one new skill, what would it be?

10.What would your perfect day look like?

Unafraid: Meaninglessness

This teaching is part of an ongoing series on approaching our fears with faith based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.

Recently, I was having a conversation with my son, Noah, and one of his friends, Paul, who just graduated from college and is about to begin his career in accounting.  It was pretty late, and the conversation turned to deeper concerns.  “I have a friend who is working in her field and she doesn’t really like it.  It’s not at all what she thought the work was going to be like.  What if I find out that I hate this work but am stuck for the next 40 years doing something I can’t stand?  It seems meaningless!  What do we do if that happens?”

Paul certainly isn’t alone.  In fact, I would hunch that he speaks for his generation that has been encouraged to pursue a vocation that fits with one’s passion so as to avoid that meaningless existence of mundane drudgery.  I remember the youth pastor in my first church clued me in to the difference between our generations.  My generation was still pretty focused on a “living to work” paradigm where we were driven to identify ourselves with our work, and success in life was closely tied to success at work.  Not him.  He worked to live.  He wanted to do well, but his identity or sense of success was not tied to his work.  I’ve spoken to parents who wonder why their adult kids don’t get a job.  The answer they get is that they are waiting for a job that fits their passion, even if it means living really stretched financially in the meantime.  They don’t want to fritter away their lives in meaningless hours working at something they don’t have any passion for.

My generation and before do struggle with this hopeless meaninglessness fear, but too often the lightbulb doesn’t come on until late in life, sometimes well into retirement.  In their later years they recognize that the pursuits of work and wealth as vehicles for meaning in life are overrated and likely won’t deliver.  I’ve officiated a number of funerals where the beloved deceased put all their eggs into their retirement basket, only to have their life cut short well before their dreams were even attempted, let alone realized.  It is easy to feel like life is pointless during those seasons.

There is a book in the Bible dedicated to this human struggle for meaningful life: Ecclesiastes.  Written by King David’s son from his ill-gotten wife, Bathsheba,  Solomon was known for two things: wisdom and wealth.  At the dawn of his reign, he had a pivotal spiritual experience:

God appeared to Solomon and said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”
     Solomon replied to God, “You showed faithful love to David, my father, and now you have made me king in his place. O Lord God, please continue to keep your promise to David my father, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth! Give me the wisdom and knowledge to lead them properly, for who could possibly govern this great people of yours?”
     God said to Solomon, “Because your greatest desire is to help your people, and you did not ask for wealth, riches, fame, or even the death of your enemies or a long life, but rather you asked for wisdom and knowledge to properly govern my people— I will certainly give you the wisdom and knowledge you requested. But I will also give you wealth, riches, and fame such as no other king has had before you or will ever have in the future!” – 2 Chronicles 1:7-12 (NLT)

God was faithful to deliver.  No king of Israel before or after commanded anywhere near the same level of power and wealth as Solomon.  And for wisdom?  Rulers from other parts of the world came to sit and learn from him.  One source estimates that he was the 5th richest human being of all time.  His estimated net worth was $2.2 Trillion, which is roughly 1.5 times the net worth of Bill Gates, John Astor, Henry Ford, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Norman Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie combined.  Pretty successful guy.  And yet, deep into his life, he lamented in his reflections:

“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”
     What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.
     History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now. – Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 (NLT)

For twelve chapters Solomon considers human existence and determines that it is all meaningless.  Wealth.  Work. Meaningless.  He surprises (especially) Baptist teetotalers with his words of advice which he states a number of times throughout his little book: in light of our meaninglessness, you might as well eat, drink, and be merry.  Cheers!

In his book, Unafraid, Adam Hamilton tackles the commonly held fear of meaninglessness head on.  He cites Victor Frankl a number of times, who survived the torment of being held in a holocaust prison camp.  Frankl noticed that some prisoners despaired while others seemed to prevail through the same experience.  He came to believe that “life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose” (Unafraid, 99).  Especially when things are not good – even evil – there is an opportunity for us to find and create meaning from them.

Meaning is something we have the capacity to find and create, apparently regardless of the circumstance.  This is an important insight to consider for all people of every age who find themselves in this existential struggle. It means that there is hope even if we’re stuck in a job that might not be as awesome as we’d hoped, or a situation we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy.  Apparently, according to Frankl, to stay stuck in the despair of meaninglessness is a choice, as is the freedom to live with meaning no matter what.  I find that very hopeful.

So, how do we pull it off?  How do we find meaning and even happiness in every situation?  Frankl noted in the preface to the 1992 edition of his book, Man’s Search for Meaning: “for success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the byproduct of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen by not caring about it.  I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”  Meaning, satisfaction, and happiness ultimately stem from serving a cause greater than ourselves. 

Jesus taught this (Matthew 16:24-28).  He noted that the surest way to lose your life was to serve yourself, and the greatest way to insure that you keep it is to lose it in the Way Jesus taught.  That Way was what living in deep relationship with God looked like, which invariably included loving and serving those around us, standing up for those who are being robbed of true shalom (oppression).  Hamilton notes (103), “According to Jesus, our daily lives are meant to be lived in the rhythm of accepting and reciprocating God’s love, loving our neighbors, and pursuing God’s will in tangible ways.  Loving our neighbors does not mean having warm, fuzzy feelings for them. It means… ‘to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God’ (Micah 6:8).”

Hamilton incorporates a daily ritual into his life to remind him of this critical secret to experience meaning and lasting joy in life.  He begins his day with a prayer: “Thank you, God, for today. Thank you for your love and grace. I offer myself once more to you today. Please help me to be mindful of those around me. Use me to bless, encourage, and show kindness to all that I meet today. Send me on your mission today” (104). He does this so that he doesn’t miss out on what is before him all the time.  “Meaningful and significant lives are lived moment by moment – as we pay attention to the world around us, as we give thanks to God from whom all of life is a gift, as we look for the simple and selfless ways that we can love and serve others while positively impacting our world. It is both an attitude of the heart and a rhythm of daily actions that affect us as much as we affect others” (Hamilton, 105).

Paul and Noah had this figured out already.  Now it’s up to them to put it into practice and realize the power of this secret.  What about Solomon,  though?  Did the wisest man that ever lived miss the memo that his Jewish tradition conveyed?  What’s with the eat, drink, and be merry bit that he commended to his readers so many times in his brief tome?

Perhaps the conclusion to his writing was an editorial addition long after he died.  Or, perhaps there is a connection between the Way of Jesus, “eat, drink, and be merry”, and “fearing God, obeying God’s commands”.  I think there is.  To fear is to revere, to respect, to follow much more than cower.  It means to deeply value with your life, as if it is the most important thing to give your attention.  In that sense, to savor every moment is deeply honoring to God.  Given the broader context of Solomon’s writing in Ecclesiastes, and the even broader context of his Proverbs, we must assume that this is no selfish pursuit, but communal. One where there can be no merriment if someone is left outside while we eat and drink.  Just as there is no justice for any unless there is justice for all, perhaps the same is true for merriment.

Feeling like your life is meaningless?  Love someone.  Serve a cause bigger than you.  Help someone’s shalom come to fruition.  Break bread.  Raise a glass.  Pursue merriment with all.  You’ll find yourself surrounded by meaning that connects you deeply to the One Who connects us all.

Questions to think about…

1.       When do you first remember wondering if life was pointless? How did you resolve it?

2.       When has life felt most meaningful to you? When has life felt most meaningless to you?

3.       Have you ever experienced meaningfulness during awful seasons of life?

4.       How has Jesus’ approach to saving your life worked for you?  How have you experienced losing your life by trying to save it?  How have you experienced keeping your life by losing yourself in the Way of Jesus?

5.       What practices do you use to keep your perspective, which promotes meaningfulness?

Unafraid: Desperate to Please (Disappointing Others)

This teaching is part of an ongoing series on approaching our fears with faith based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.

Most people struggle with the fear of disappointing others.  We are born to parents who we look to for love and comfort.  We naturally want to please them – we can’t help it.  Sometimes, however, this natural desire gets off track in one way or another.  For some, disappointing others is of no concern whatsoever, to the point that they believe, say, and do whatever they want, however they want.  In some cases this leads to a lot of carnage in the wake of social media rants, poor conversations, and blatant hurtful acts.  For others, the fear of disappointing others pushes them in the other direction, and they become people pleasers.  Take two minutes and enjoy this video by Riley Armstrong and see if it reminds you of someone you know (hint: that someone may be you!).  A recent post from Psychology Today offers ten signs that identify people pleasers:  

1.       You pretend to agree with everyone.

2.       You feel responsible for how other people feel.

3.       You apologize often.

4.       You feel burdened by the things you have to do.

5.       You can’t say no.

6.       You feel uncomfortable if someone is angry at you.

7.       You act like the people around you.

8.       You need praise to feel good.

9.       You go to great lengths to avoid conflict.

10.   You don’t admit when your feelings are hurt.

So, where do you and in all of this?  Are you more on the sociopath end of the spectrum or the people-pleasing doormat side?  Sometimes our behavior is rooted in childhood experiences, as Adam Hamilton notes (Unafraid, 94):

When the disappointment is not false…  In a bit, we’ll get to some helpful stuff to help alleviate your fear of disappointing others.  Right now, though, let’s be completely honest.  There are times we’ve disappointed others because we have messed up.  We have been perfectly imperfectly human and have disturbed the peace.  We do this.  We blow it.  Sometimes with intent, often unwittingly.  When we are guilty of disturbing shalom, this is what the Bible refers to as sin.  Sometimes we sin against others.  When we do, we need to address it.  We need to own our behavior, sincerely apologize as quickly as possible, ask forgiveness, and do our best to move forward with that relationship restored to its appropriate place.  Note: this applies to most relationships we find ourselves in.  In some really awful situations, seek counsel before entering this process, because engaging the person and seeking peace in the way described might actually be unhealthy and unsafe.  Most of the time, however, we need to humble ourselves as seek restoration.  This is the Jesus Way to go (see Matthew 5:21-26).

Sometimes, the greatest person we have disappointed is ourselves.  Most of the time, the perfect ideal we hold ourselves to (which we can never meet) results in us being disappointed with ourselves.  Sometimes, however, we do things we can’t believe ourselves capable of doing.  We may be able to get our brain around all of the contributing factors that led to our behavior, but we still did what we did, and we struggle to get over it.  We need to forgive ourselves.  God is an immediate forgiver – granting grace before we ask for forgiveness (see John 8:1-11).  If God forgives you, don’t you think it’s time you forgive yourself?  Grace is what you need.  Perhaps you need to read philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich’s words slowly and meditate on them for a while (Unafraid, 97):

You are accepted.  You may feel awful about your behavior.  Grace means it need not define you.  It is part of your story – no call for living in denial here – but let it teach you and propel you forward rather than simply act as weight to sink you to the depths of despair.  Build your identity on these words offered by the Apostle Paul (Ephesians 2:4-5): “God is rich in mercy.  He brought us to life with Christ while we were dead as a result of those things we did wrong.  He did this because of the great love he has for us. You are saved by God’s grace!” Saved literally means to be healed, to be made well and whole.  By the way, this is a process that takes time and repetition.

Okay, so, what can we do to disturb shalom less?  What can we learn from Jesus about disappointing others?

First, realize that Jesus seriously disappointed people.  Yep.  By the droves.  If he was the anointed one so full of the Spirit of God and he disappointed others, just take a reality pill and realize that we will, too.  It is unavoidable.  But you can embrace the way of Jesus which will help you feel more okay about it.

Especially in our present context that is so heavily impacted by social media usage, we are able to offend faster than ever!  Sometimes anonymously, which is even more dangerous than not.  Yelp reviews, product reviews, Tweets and Facebook posts give us a platform to vomit our opinion effortlessly.  As we consider how we are engaging others, however, we may need to seriously consider Hamilton’s question that he posits to seminary students learning to preach (Unafraid, 92): is our goal merely to irritate people, or is it to influence people?  If we want the latter, there is some intentionality required.  Hamilton offers some key texts that offer insight and advice as to how to proceed (Unafraid, 92):

Taken together, these scriptures provide some great, golden goals for how to live with the comfort of knowing we’ve been true to the Way of Jesus, which is also being true to our True Selves – who we are really created to be as individuals and in community.  It’s our best hope. Adopting these behaviors and integrating them into practice might be challenging.  If we’re on the sociopathic end of the spectrum, speaking truth with love will feel like a real burden: “I have to be nice?” (see Ephesians 4:14-16).  If we are on the doormat end, this way may require serious courage: “I can say ‘no’ or disagree?”

Life is challenging.  Not paying any attention to the Way of Jesus will result in challenges.  Following the Way of Jesus will bring you face to face with challenges as well.  One is tied to the source of Life itself, while the other – as it perpetuates isolation from others, our True Self, and God – will lead to greater despair.  This challenging Way of Jesus is worth it, even if it does – and it does – require courage.  Criticism will come, as it surely did for Jesus.  As Hamilton notes, “Courage… is not the elimination of fear. Courage is doing what we know we should do in the face of rejection – choosing not to give up in the face of criticism.  And grace is the truth that when others are disappointed, even when [we’ve] truly blown it, there is One whose love and acceptance remains steadfast (Unafraid, 98).”

Building on grace as our foundation – that we are inherently and unconditionally loved by God – we can live and grow as real human beings.  This means we can let go of our need to be perfect, because we never will be.  This does mean we strive toward Christ-likeness, where we find the greatest expression of life.  It means we really, deeply own our dust-divine dance, our experience of being fully human yet infused by the Spirit of God.  With this, we have the humble freedom to truly, increasingly live, sleeping well at night even as we don’t please everyone all the time, disappointing as that might be to some.  That’s reality.  We learn.  We grow.  We become. We live in grace and promote it.  Real life.

Unafraid: What if I fail?

This teaching is part of an ongoing series on approaching our fears with faith based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.

FEAR: False Expectations Appearing Real

Changing the position of one character can make all the difference.  Hold onto that for later.

In this chapter, Adam Hamilton tackles the fear of failure.  Some people are so afraid to fail that it limits their lives in ways they may not appreciate.  He notes that “if you always choose the risk-free, completely safe, and convenient path in life, you find the failure you experience is the failure to truly live” (84).  J.K. Rowling agrees with him: “It is impossible to live without failing something” (84).  Hamilton cites Moses as an example of one who lived decades playing it safe, and when called upon to change, gave God a long list of reasons why he shouldn’t go – send my brother Aaron instead! 

To help calm our fears of failing, Hamilton offered three words of advice that may provide some comfort as we face into this fear.  First, he notes that most things are never as hard as you fear they will be.  Even if we fail, the pain almost never ends of being as painful as we imagine is might be.  The second word is from a leadership course he took: successful people are willing to do the things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.  This undoubtedly means facing down fears and just doing what needs to be done.  Finally, the third word encourages us to consider “discernment by nausea” – the decision that we likely should take is the one that may be causing us the most angst. 

I can speak from experience that his words bring some wisdom to the table.  When the recession hit in 2008 and our home’s property value tanked, we were a bit worked up about the future.  What if we lose our house?  What will we do?  As we processed this out, however, we realized that we were being extremely creative in our exaggerated worst-case-scenario imagination.  We catastrophized.  We gained a lot of peace realizing that the worst thing that would potentially happen to us would be entirely survivable.  Not pleasant, but not a horror film in the making, either.  When I was in college (and again in seminary), I found myself at a crossroads where I needed to face my fears and do some work I really didn’t want to do.  Doing the work, however, was the only thing that would alleviate my fear of being absolutely broke!  Finally, some of the best decisions of my life were riddled with anxiety.  Big decisions with big consequences bring up a lot of anxiety, even if we know it’s a good decision.  I knew I was in love with my fiancé, and that we were a great match with a strong likelihood of success.  The day before and the day of the wedding, I was nervous.  Did that mean I was making the wrong decision?  No!  It means I was making a decision that would affect everyday for the rest of my life.  There should be butterflies even if intellectually we are confident.  The first car we bought, the first house we bought, the first (and second) baby we learned would be joining us, the moves we’ve made – all brought butterflies.  I think there is this false idea that if it’s a really good decision we will be “at peace.”  Sometimes.  But our lives reflect the experiences of life seen in the Bible, where big invitations to follow God were met with vomit.  For sure.  Feeling at peace or comfortable is not necessarily the measure of a good or right decision.

Hamilton’s counsel is helpful, practical advice for managing inevitable fears that come with life.  As I reflected on this chapter and its relevance to my life, I found a deeper current that needed to be addressed and expressed. Of all the chapters in the book, this is the one that messes with me most.  I don’t want to fail on a number of different measures.  As I think about how often I face the fear of failure along one facet or another, I can honestly say that this is a daily struggle.  The failure I fear most bothers me a lot because it is not the most important thing I value.  It is at best a distant fifth behind my relationships with God, my wife, my children, and my extended family and close friends.  Way distant.  This fifth concern is related to my work.

Cognitively, I can tell you that who I am is not what I do for a living.  I can swear to you that I know that I do not control all the variables that result in whether or not I am successful.  I have used a good amount of energy encouraging colleagues in pastoral ministry to recognize that the way success is defined in our culture cannot be the sole measure for how we define success in ministry.  And yet I am plagued with it just the same.  And so are most men in our country.  Perhaps the underlying fear is being incompetent – a failure – which we might evaluate as inadequate work performance, weak financial position, a smaller home than someone else’s, a lesser car than someone else is driving.  For me, I am constantly reminded from our culture that bigger is better in every respect, that growth is everything, regardless of how it happens.  For churches, that means growing attendance and financial contributions.  Every time I hear about a mega church – our cultural model of complete success – I am reminded that by such standards, I suck.  In fact, I have managed to be so controversial at times that it has resulted in a reduction of attendance – I don’t just suck, I lead the pack in suckiness!  Think of it: I have all the gifts, the look, the skillset to be the picture of all that mega church leadership requires, and yet I have found myself doing the opposite of the mega church playbook.  Don’t let the doctorate fool you – maybe I’m actually really, really stupid!  I’m the guy that when things are looking good, I do a teaching questioning the doctrine of hell, or declare equality for the LGBTQ community, which most Christians don’t agree with.  Instead of growing the church, I have used my wonderful skills to do the opposite!  By so many cultural measures, I am a failure.  I am acutely aware of this reality, and it kills me.  The unfortunate thing is that this expectation and connection between identity and career success is a culturally-derived phenomenon.  And it is false.  It is easy for men to feel like a failure when the culture itself has rigged the game so that feeling like a failure is inevitable.

Women have suffered similarly but along different lines the culture has created.  In the United States, 70% of men, when they see themselves naked, feel pretty good about what they see.  For women, the number drops to 40%.  I think that’s high.  How the culture has shaped how women are “supposed” to look has created untold levels of stress and shame without any recognition that the standard changes from generation to generation.  According to Brene Brown, an additional and equally severe fear revolves around the issue of motherhood.  There is cultural pressure on women to have kids that men do not share.  There is shaming women face regarding fertility that men simply do not. Once a woman has a kid, a no-win double bind scenario unfolds.  If the woman chooses to stay home to be more present with their children, they are looked down upon for not being better examples for girls of the world who are trying to be equals in the marketplace and science labs around the world – they are letting their gender down.  If they choose to work after their kids are born, what kind of mother are they, then?  Heartless?  Why did you have kids in the first place?  You’re a monster!  It is easy for women to fear failure when the culture itself has rigged it so that feeling like a failure is inevitable.

Hamilton’s advice helps us manage along to some degree, but I think there is also a deeper issue that, once resolved and continually supported leads to an alleviation of fear at a core level, which leads to greater peace and less fear.

Scared or sacred?  I caught a typo too late last week that my spellcheck could not catch.  The question was supposed to read, “Are you scared?”  Instead, it said, “are you sacred?”  I think how we answer the latter question makes a massive difference on the former.  When we identify ourselves by our God-createdness – as sacred, truly special, one-of-a-kind,  magnificent, one-measure-does-not-fit-all orientation, things change.  When God’s voice is bigger and more frequently listened to than the culture’s, we increasingly hear affirmation, not judgment.  Instead of an ever-shifting foundation which insures failure worth fearing, we find our feet planted on rock, secure enough to build a life upon.

It is this identification with “sacred” that I believe led Paul to be able to say with such experience-born confidence: I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength (Philippians 4:11-13, NLT).  This decision to center our lives on who we are in Christ is embracing the sacred and defying the scared.  It is challenging, however, as Jesus noted: Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matthew 7:13-14, NRSV).  It’s hard simply because it is not common, not comfy.  Listening to the voice of God requires great intentionality (at least initially) and focus, especially since there are so many voices shouting in our ear encouraging allegiance to the cultural paradigm. 

Are you scared or sacred?  When we choose to focus on our sacred identity, we also find an abiding hope that even our most difficult challenges can be transformed into something good, as Paul notes: We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28, NRSV).  As we seek to live fully, found in the Way Jesus lived and believed, we grow in faith that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, something beautiful worth pursuing.  It is a choice to see differently, trust differently, living with an abiding faith that sees us through.  May you discover this as you choose to build your life from a sacred identity.

Unafraid: the Sky if Falling (Politics)

This teaching is part of an ongoing series on approaching our fears with faith based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.

FEAR: False Expectations Appearing Real

Henny Penny Politics.  The Chicken Little story about how fear has been told in various forms in cultures all over the world since people started telling stories!  The basic (false) idea that we need to be very afraid of impending doom is one that our political system has capitalized on increasingly for especially the last 25-30 years.  The strategic decision to focus on why we should be afraid of voting for the other candidate instead of proclaiming all the good reasons to consider the one paying for the ad is simple.  As Rick Wilson, Republican political strategist and media consultant points out, “Fear is the simplest emotion to tweak in a campaign ad.  You associate your opponent with terror, with fear, with crime, with causing pain and uncertainty” (Unafraid, 75).  When deciding how to get the most bang you’re your campaign bucks, fear is the most cost-effective – and the most effective, period – approach.

A very odd thing happens when we are directed toward fear.  I would have thought that when faced with a startling statement that sounds “off” in some way yet triggers our fears, we would be inclined to dig into the issue to discover what is really happening beneath the surface.  Not the case. “When people are anxious, they tend to seek out information from sources that actually reinforce their anxiety. We can see footage from the latest terrorist act over and over and over again on twenty-four-hour news. We don’t tend to look for the sources that say ‘they chances of this happening in your community are one in 3.6 billion’” (Adam Hamilton referencing Dr. Shana Gadarian, Anxious Politics: Democaratic Citizenship in a Threatening World).  Note to self: realize that this is, apparently, our built-in system.  When triggered, we will need to force ourselves into another mode that takes us toward greater understanding.

Additionally, knowing that we are inclined to pay most attention to sources that affirm our beliefs, we need to become fully aware of the biases our sources themselves hold.  Take a moment to look at this chart which seeks to identify where various news sources come down in terms of their leanings:

What is your reaction to the chart?  Hogwash?  Insightful?  A mixture of both?  At minimum, I hope it reminds you that wherever your favorite source is, there are other voices speaking into issues.  Hearing multiple perspectives leads to greater understanding.  I hope you will adopt Adam Hamitlon’s goal of listening to a wide range of voices so that you do not find yourself in an echo chamber ringing out your own opinion with no regard or knoweldge of those held by others.

I have mentioned many times before that we live in a time when our rhetoric leads us toward binary thinking where everything is either/or, black/white, true/false, liberal/conservative regardless of the complexity of the issue being addressed.  In the church world, I am generally referred to as “liberal” because of my stance on issues related to equality regardless of gender, race, legal status, and sexual orientation.  I’m used to it.  It came as a great surprise when my wife and I were with good friends who are not part of the church world at all and they referred to us as conservative (even though they know and appreciate our stance on social issues).  What?!  Nobody’s ever called me that!  This served as a reminder to me that where we place ourselves on whatever spectrum is heavily impacted by the context in which we are viewed.  Adam Hamilton offers a helpful insight regarding how limiting binary thinking is related to the use of the liberal/conservative label: “To be liberal means, in the best sense, to be open to new ideas, open to reform, respectful of individual rights, and generous. To be conservative, in the best sense, means to hold to traditional values and ideas, exercising appropriate caution when faced with change.  If we are liberal without any conserving impulse, we become unmoored, jettisoning important truths and values simply because they are old.  (I’m reminded of something a professor once said to me: ‘All that is old may not be gold, but all that is new may not be true.’) If we are conservative without a liberal impulse, we become intransigent, unwilling to reform or embrace change” (Adam Hamilton, Unafraid, 76).

We need to be constantly aware that we are hardwired to differentiate ourselves from others – it’s baked into our cake.  What we do with it is our responsibility.  Our faith tradition offers many stories of what some people did with this reality – some blew it while others moved salvation/peace/health-for-all forward.  There are also many passages of scripture from both the Christian and Jewish tradition from whence it came that offer counsel regarding how we speak to others.  Let’s take a look…

In the second chapter of Acts we find the story of a particular Feast of Pentecost that went beyond what Jesus’ followers could have anticipated.  This was the most-attended Jewish Feast in Jerusalem at that time in history, when throngs of the Jewish faithful would converge on their beloved city to recount the giving of the Law which informed their faith and ethic.  God had more to give, apparently, as the Holy Spirit came onto the scene and into many people with grand sci-fi fanfare.  This was unprecedented and entirely unexpected.  The popular belief was that the Holy Spirit was reserved for a very select few, not broadcast to many.  Jews and converts to Judaism were there from all over the known world, and the Spirit enabled the disciples to speak in other languages (or at least heard in other languages).  This dawning of a new age of understanding was predicted by Jesus.  When it happened, it further validated Jesus and his message, which empowered the disciples to move forward with tremendous, surprising courage.  Peter preached mightily to the gathered audience and thousands came to believe in Jesus and his message.  A new day dawned, indeed!  At the end of the chapter, we get a picture of a healthy community of faith:

They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.

43-45 Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met.

46-47 They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

The way the disciples handled strange new unfamiliar things did not lead toward divisiveness – even though some were provoking it.  Instead, the end result at this point of their journey was inclusivity in seemingly every way, and respect by the surrounding community.  We need more of that.

Reflecting on this chapter of early church history and others, I can confidently say that most of the big breakthroughs that happened in the development of the early church did not come as a result of proactive, thoughtful decision-making (to include Samaritans and all other races and eventually let go of nearly all Jewish legalism in favor of the Way of Jesus which served to embody them all).  Nope.  These issues were thrust upon them.  Once they realized that had to deal with these issues, the early church leaders passionately deliberated and fervently prayed even as they vehemently disagreed with each other.  This has been the pattern ever since the end of the first century where the biblical text ends.  God continues to breathe into us, stretching us, inviting us to passionately deliberate and fervently pray through issues around which we vehemently disagree.  The invitation is not to bury our heads in the sand and hope all the issues go away.  The invitation is to be part of what God is doing to bring healing and hope to the world.  To pull this off requires a different approach to issues than the prevailing cultural system around us  (especially regarding politics).  We are invited into a higher standard which impacts how we choose to behave even as we may be struggling with fear and anxiety about a number of issues.  Civility is unfortunately rare in public discourse.  We are invited to bring it back.  As Brene Brown notes in her book, Braving the Wilderness:

What Brown is encouraging is uncomfortable.  We may be much more comfy sitting on the sidelines and just let bullies rant until they run out of steam.  We will silently pray for them – what’s the harm in that?  As Elie Weisel, survivor of a Nazi prison camp notes, “We must always take sides.  Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”  Especially for those of us who are privileged (even if we don’t believe it), we are invited and compelled and commanded to act for those who do not enjoy our privilege.  I am a highly educated, tall, blue-eyed, white man of Dutch/German descent.  In our culture, I am nearly at the top of the food chain.  The only things that would put me even higher would be lots more money and more Twitter followers…  Coming to grips with what God is trying to do in the world –  which is what Jesus did do in the world – begs the question: what am I invited to do as a Jesus follower?  How can I speak into this world with love and grace all with the hopes of bringing healing and hope for all?

I end this teaching with Adam Hamilton, again, who ended his chapter with the following:

“We must speak up, stand up, and work for what is right and just.  But when we’ve done all we can in pursuit of what is right, we have to release our concerns to God.  I don’t believe God dictates the outcome of elections, or is pushing buttons and pulling strings in our national politics.  God allows individuals and nations to do foolish and sometimes evil things that are the opposite of his will.  But God has a way of working through the evil around us and those who participate in it or advocate for it. God specializes in forcing good from evil, of bending the foolishness of humans to accomplish a higher purpose. Trusting this helps me to feel hopeful about the future of our nation” (Unafraid, 80).

Check out these helpful resources…

Bible verses that speak into how we speak…

What the Bible says about communicating with each other. Here a just a few:

Romans 12:18-21 The Message (MSG)

17-19 Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

20-21 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

Proverbs 31:8-9 The Message (MSG)

8-9 “Speak up for the people who have no voice,
    for the rights of all the down-and-outers.
Speak out for justice!
    Stand up for the poor and destitute!”

Philippians 4:5 The Message (MSG)

4-5 Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them.

Ephesians 4:29 The Message (MSG)

29 Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.

Colossians 3:8-11 The Message (MSG)

But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.

9-11 Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

Politically Speaking…

In general, we stink at listening.  Just admit it.  All too often we are formulating what we are going to say while they are talking, which means we miss much of what they are saying.  Active listening is really, really needed for healthy relationships, and desperately needed in our culture that seems to settle for binary, simplistic responses to complex issues.  If we could learn to really understand another’s perspective and even choose to go in with the hope to learn something, we might enjoy actual dialogue instead of a Tweet-off.  Ask someone you know who might think differently than you and ask some of these questions.  Choose to listen so carefully that you could accurately express their opinion back to them if asked.  Listening with respectful engagement is perhaps our first and biggest step toward progress on this front.

Questions:

•       "What do you think of the building the wall and why?"

•       "What do you think about immigration and why?"

•       "What do you think about Russian involvement in our election and why?"

•       "What do you think about our justice system and why?"

•       "What is you opinion on on racism in the USA and why?"

•       "What do you think about gun control and why?"

•       "What do you think about the women’s march after the election? Why?"

•       "What do you think about the young people marching on Washington?"

Process the following questions on your own, paying attention to how you feel when others have opinions that differ from yours.  

•       Are you able to stay in a loving space?

•       Are you able to be open to possible influence?

•       Are you sacred?

•       Do you want to argue?  Leave?  Judge the other as stupid or naive or…?

Becoming aware of your feelings in these situations helps us come to grips with underlying bias and fear that we hold which may get in the way.

Unafraid: Weaponizing Fear (Terrorism)

This teaching is part of an ongoing series on approaching our fears with faith based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.

This week we are going to tackle a fear that contemporary Americans have been forced to reckon with since September 11, 2001: terrorism. While we have seen plenty of violence before that day and since, terrorism became up close and personal that day, and also provided a new face to add to our list of suspicious persons: anyone who looked vaguely Middle Eastern.  While we will look squarely at terrorism, there is significant carryover from last week’s look at racism, because they both involve fear of the other: xenophobia acts as an undercurrent we may not recognize.

Recall the acronym we’ve been using for FEAR: False Expectations Appearing Real.  What do we expect regarding terrorism on our soil?  How has terrorism messed with us?  Recall also Hamilton’s sort-of-acronym’ish process for addressing our fears: Face your fears with faith. Examine your assumptions in light of the facts. Attack your anxieties with action. Release your cares to God.  We’ll work through this stuff and move in an important direction as well.

Faith in what/who we call God means that we live with an abiding belief that the nature of the created world is essentially good since it reflects a good, creative God/Spirit/Presence/Force.  This means that when we face terror, we enter into the process believing that humanity is overwhelmingly very good as God declares in Genesis’ first creation story.  With very few exceptions, people from all tribes and walks of life want to live a full, meaningful life.  Sure, twisted thinking and mental health issues can steer us in awful directions on an individual, communal, national and global level, but that should not detract us from the current of reality as being good and naturally flowing toward renewal.  This is the Perennial Tradition in action – believing that even death itself is not the end but the necessary step before renewal/resurrection.  That’s facing fears with faith.

With faith as our foundation, let’s look at some facts.  In short, statistically speaking, we have little reason to live in fear of terrorist activity given where we live.  As you can see for yourself on this statistical storymap  highlighting terrorist activity from known groups, nothing is happening in  the United States that qualifies as terrorist activity this year.  There has been plenty of activity globally, but mostly in areas where we know there are ongoing conflicts – Colombia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, especially.  ISIS has our attention perhaps more than any other terrorist group in the United States.  In 2017, they claimed responsibility for the deaths of 1,670.  Only 29 of those were European or American (1.7%), and 95% of the victims were Muslims living in Islamic countries (Unafraid, 65). 

Hamilton notes that since 9/11, there have been 10 terrorist attacks on American soil claiming the lives of 94 people (49 of those in one attack), which is awful and tragic.  During that same time period, however, 9,600 people in the United States died by lightning strike.  You are 120 times more likely to get struck by lightning than to be killed by an Islamic terrorist, 2,000 times more likely to be murdered by an American who is not an Islamic terrorist, and 7,000 times more likely to die in a car accident (Unafraid, 67).  While it is good, wise, and our duty as citizens to be aware and report behavior that seems suspicious, in all likelihood our fears about this happening to us in the United States – let alone Napa Valley – are extremely remote.

A greater thing to fear may be where our skewed perspective might take us.  It is an all-to-easy short step for people to associate Islamic terrorism with Islam and all Muslims who practice that faith.  Because the terrorists refer to select verses in the Quran to make the case for their violent behavior toward those who do not share their faith, many people assume that the religion itself is bent on violence.  Add to that fact that most Muslim people are not white, speak different languages than us, dress differently and eat different food than we do and we have all kinds of reasons to be suspicious.  The truth is that there are verses in the Quran that could be used to justify violence if taken literally and without regard to context.  The same is true of the Bible.  Poor scholarship, and an unchecked hermeneutic (how we understand and apply the Bible) can lead to awful outcomes, regardless of religion.  But to paint all Muslims with a terrorist brush would be the same as painting all Christians with a Ku Klux Klan brush, who I view as Christian terrorists.  Furthermore, it is possible for someone to make a case that the Christian religion has been used to justify far more killing than any other faith tradition.  Yet I believe Christianity is about peace, grace, and love.  I bet there are folks in the world that wouldn’t believe me no matter how hard I plead my case, simply because I’m a Christian.  I am suspect because of the hateful actions of more than a few throughout history.  So is the United States given our fuzzy identity as a Christian nation.  As Hamilton discovered, many in the Middle East believe the United States created ISIS to cause infighting and division within the Muslim world (Unafraid, 65).

We need to be aware of our propensity to easily vilify others who don’t look like us and thereafter cannot be trusted.  A great supporting example of this reality in the United States comes from WWII.  There were a handful of POW camps that housed German soldiers during the war.  After Pearl Harbor, based entirely out of fear, the United States forced thousands of US citizens of Japanese descent into internment camps.  Which of these two groups of imprisoned people do you think received better treatment?  The legal citizens who did not look like the majority of Americans (white), or the enemies of State who looked like most Americans?  We don’t fear those who look like us even if they are our sworn enemies.  We do fear those who are not like us even if they pledge allegiance to our flag.  The German POWS thrived with great funding and freedom.  The Japanese Americans suffered in deplorable conditions.  This is what False Expectations Appearing Real can do even in a country that prides itself on freedom and due process.  I bet if Jesus came in the flesh just as he did before – but with contemporary clothes and stuff – we would kill him faster than Rome because of the color of his skin.  This silly video puts it in from of us.

The musical South Pacific stands as a classic show not only because it has great music, a romance, and a lot of comedy.  It has endured because it speaks deeply into the human experience, especially as it relates to how we think about race.  Two storylines emerge where romance and race intersect.  Two faces of racial prejudice emerge as well – a soldier who would never consider marrying the young Islander he’s been sleeping with, and a military nurse who falls for a Frenchman but considers ending things when she discovers that he has two mixed-race kids from his deceased wife.  A brilliant song,  “You Got to be Carefully Taught”, was crafted to express the reality:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

Indeed.  We are born with implicit bias that has protected our species from real threat.  Racism, however, is a learned behavior. The question isn’t whether or not you’ve learned it.  The question is how much have you acquired that you need to intentionally unlearn?

How does our faith inform our actions to “others” who are not like us?   Last week, we looked at Jesus and the church as it emerged. While it struggled to embrace equality across the board, it did so nonetheless, born in response to what it meant to live in the Way of Jesus.  There is no justification for hate, prejudice, or racism in Jesus.  Is that it, then?  Are we as Jesus followers called to passively manage our implicit bias to make sure it doesn’t get out of control and become a xenophobic wildfire?

The story of Philip and the Ethiopian would suggest that we are not called to be passive bystanders, but actually proactive agents of restorative change in the world.  After doing ministry in Samaria (itself a testament to the imperative of grace), Philip sensed from God that he was to take the ministry beyond Palestine, and he took off (Acts 8:26-40).  He came across an Ethiopian eunuch – likely castrated at a young age to make him a more faithful administrator around the Queen’s court.  He was the Kingdom’s treasurer and had been to Jerusalem to worship and was headed back home.  He was reading a scroll from Isaiah chapter 53 when Philip approached him.  They had a long conversation which led to the official deciding to follow Christ and getting baptized.  Philip then left, and the Ethiopian made his way home with his new faith.  It is believed that this was the first convert beyond Palestine, and consequently introduced Northern Africa to Christianity (Candace’s Kingdom rivaled Rome’s Empire in size, strength and power at that time, encompassing most of Northern Africa extending into present day Ethiopia).  The point is that from the beginning there has been an imperative to go into the world with the Good News, not just watch the world from the sidelines.  We are active agents of grace, sent into the world to bring hope and change.  And, by extension, when the world comes to us, we are called to welcome the stranger, not rebuff them.  This is a Jewish principle as well, stated many times in different ways as it shows up here: This is what the Lord says: Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right! Help those who have been robbed; rescue them from their oppressors. Quit your evil deeds! Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows. Stop murdering the innocent! – Jeremiah 22:3 (NLT)

Anne Waggoner, CrossWalk’s Moderator, served as a missionary in Vietnam.  As a teacher there, she was definitely in the minority.  Yet she prevailed over whatever fears her implicit bias may have encouraged (and that of her family and friends).  Catch her story on the video and podcast of this teaching.

As Jesus followers, it’s time to intentionally work toward the healing of our eyes and the calming of our fears.  Further, it’s time to pray for courage that we might be the agents we are called to be in our world, sticking our neck out for the oppressed wherever they hail from, and welcoming “others” because that is how we have been treated by God.  We love because we have been loved.  So, love.  Love from the comfort of your couch watching bad news that could further divide us. More importantly, love in every interaction everywhere you go as an agent of Jesus who loved you first.

Unafraid: Race

Note: This teaching is part of an ongoing series based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.

Fear of difference creates a very constricted, exclusive, and small religion and life—the very opposite of the abundance into which God invites us. – Richard Rohr

Adam Hamilton and I grew up in the same neck of the woods – suburban Kansas City.  Being six years older than me, our life experience from our earliest years was very similar.  He grew up in Prairie Village, the suburb where my dad was pastor of Prairie Baptist Church, which enjoyed the vibrancy of being a church in the “new” part of town where all the professionals lived.  Our family lived further out in Overland Park, which is now a sprawling, massive suburb that extends way south of where it used to end.  Like Hamilton, while I grew up in a household that would never tolerate hate speech, I also did not experience much exposure to non-white people.  We had an Asian family at church who became good friends.  Some refugees from Laos.  Down our street lived my brother’s best friend, Billy, who was Filipino.  I can’t remember knowing anyone black my first eight years of life.

To give a concrete expression to the undercurrent of prejudice that existed in the state proud of its Underground Railroad heritage,  Hamilton offered a covenant from one of J.C. Nichols’ housing developments: “None of the said lots shall be conveyed to, used, owned nor occupied by Negroes as owner and tenants.”  Later, the covenant was extended to Jewish people, which meant, of course, that Jesus would not be allowed to live next door…  Racism lived in the community that raised me, written right into the neighborhood HOA.

Let’s get some definitions under our belt about this subject.  Racism is defined as “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.”  Prejudice is defined as “dislike, hostility, or unjust behavior deriving from unfounded opinions.”  And finally, xenophobia is defined as “intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.”  Do any of these descriptions describe you?  Lucky for you, there is a very quick, simple test to find out whether or not you are on some level racist, live with prejudice, and struggle to some degree with xenophobia.  Using your middle finger from one hand, place it on the wrist of the opposite hand (or on your jugular vein on your neck) and check for a pulse.  If you have a pulse, you struggle with all three of these things.  How dare I say such a thing about a good person like you?  Because it is human nature.  We are biased toward our own kind.  Interestingly, we are also biased toward the dominant kind of the culture we grew up in.  In the United States, this means there is an implicit bias toward Caucasians.  Move to a part of the world where whites are not dominant, and you will discover that the bias shifts toward the majority.  Calling BS on me?  Take a test from Harvard University that will open your eyes to what you see.

Hamilton suggests that the longest running fear in the Bible revolves around being afraid of “others” who are not like us.  While the story of Cain and Abel certainly is about much more than that, he makes the case that it may point to a division between herdsman who roamed the land feeding their livestock and farmers who tilled the land.  The disdain toward Gentiles (non-Jews) in the Old Testament is easy to find and extends into the New Testament as well.

Jesus’ first sermon poked the racist bear, so to speak, when he clearly spoke about how God’s favor is not exclusive to Jewish people, but extended to non-Jews as well via Israel’s most beloved prophets of old – Elijah and Elisha!  It nearly got him killed.  The sermon provided an allusion to what was ahead for Jesus’ life and teaching.  Above all others, Samaritans were the most loathed by Jewish people.  So, naturally, Jesus went on to befriend a Samaritan woman at a well, and probably his best known parable positioned a “Good Samaritan” as it’s hero while portraying Jewish religious leaders as severely lacking.  Very bold moves toward inclusion.

Peter, one of Jesus’ original disciples and key leader of the early Christian movement struggled with his racism even though he walked with Jesus where he never thought he would.  The account of Peter and Cornelius is a remarkable picture of two people who overcome their prejudice which led to inclusion soon thereafter.  Paul, who had plenty of implicit bias to work out, became a champion of inclusion as he started up church after church all around the Mediterranean from Israel to Rome.  His entire letter to the Roman church was in response to racist-based division between exclusive Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians who wanted a place at the communion table.  His letter to the churches in the region of Galatia  was in response to well-meaning but narrow-minded “Judaizers” who were trying to impose inappropriate laws on inferior Gentiles.  This is where Paul wrote the famous words:

“For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.” – Galatians 3:26-29 (NLT)

These biblical examples serve to illustrate the fact that this human issue of fearing those who are not like us is clearly not new.  What we may not appreciate, however, is that it is still a serious issue here in the United States where we proclaim liberty for all.  It’s still an issue for me and you, even if we can’t admit it.  This is not to say that I believe you’re all a bunch of cross-burning KKK members looking to lynch anybody who isn’t lilly-white and blue-eyed.  What I am saying is that the issue remains – and will remain – but can be managed down in us and in those we influence if we know what to recognize as racist and learn how to live with different sensibilities.

Brene Brown, in her excellent book, Braving the Wilderness, identifies a method that humanity has used to enable racism to grow to its ugliest and most horrific expressions.  Dehumanizing is a primary way we step toward legitimizing mistreatment of “other” people.  She writes:

Dehumanizing and holding people accountable are mutually exclusive.  Humiliation and dehumanizing are not accountability or social justice tools, they’re emotional off-loading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst.  And if our faith asks us to find the face of God in everyone we meet, that should include the politicians, media, and strangers on Twitter with whom we most violently disagree.  When we desecrate their divinity, we desecrate our own, and we betray our faith (58).

In her book she illustrates how dehumanizing is what enabled Nazi Germany to kill millions of Jews: they were systematically dehumanized.  Killing a Jew wasn’t killing another human being in their rhetoric – may as well have been a rat.  When we use derogatory, sweeping terms for entire people groups, we are engaging in dehumanization.  When we denigrate others by speaking of all Hispanic people as Mexicans or illegals, we dehumanize.  When we call the LGBTQ community “the Gays”, we dehumanize.  When we slur our way around using pejorative terms about women, liberals, conservatives, Muslims, Jews, the poor – fill in the blank here – we dehumanize, which allows us to treat them inhumanely.

To bring this up close and personal (and current), Brown bring up the Black Lives Matter Movement and the controversy around supporting police and all people everywhere.  She writes:

Shouldn’t the rallying cry just be All Lives Matter?  No.  Because the humanity wasn’t stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lives of black citizens. In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves.  And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us.  We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations.  I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens.  All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion.  Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery (59).

So many times I have heard people who look like me say, “I just don’t understand why they…” protest, commit crimes, riot, etc.  Exactly.  We whiter folk just don’t understand.  We don’t get it because we’re not black, LGBTQ, female, Hispanic, Muslim, an immigrant, or any other form of other.  The best way for us to move forward, if possible, is to discover ways to meet people who are different than us so that we increasingly grow toward the conclusion that there is no “them”, only us.  Much of our fear is based in ignorance.  The sooner we can discover just how false our expectations have been, the sooner we can be free from the fear of people not like us.  We can do this by befriending someone different than ourselves, and we can do this by learning from their perspective (books, articles, movies, TedTalks, etc.)

One of the last letters written in the New Testament came from John.  Speaking to people who were struggling to discover how to live like Jesus amidst people who were “different”, he offered these words:

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both. – 1 John 4:17-21 (The Message)

The Greek word used for love here is “agape”, which is not simply a loving feeling, but an active love that serves even if personal sacrifice is required.  Hamilton, building from John’s words above, gives us this rule to live with when faced with fear of others.  He encourages us to ask ourselves, “In the situation I find myself in, what is the most loving thing I can do?”  That’s good advice that helps minimize fear and serves to create a better world in which to live.  For everyone.

Unafraid: Crime

This teaching is part of an ongoing series based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid.  For a more formal introduction and to get Adam Hamilton’s voice and style in your head, watch this video.

What African animal best describes you and why? Or, which do you most admire and why? I’ve been to Kenya a number of times, and have visited Nairobi National Park several times on safari.  We have been lucky pretty much every time, seeing the biggest and coolest animals that park has to offer: lions, rhino, water buffalo, hippopotamus, giraffe, etc.  We always see a dazzle of zebras.  And we also always see herds of impalas, but not for very long due to their skittish nature.  They spook easily – more, it seems, than others.  Adam Hamilton learned why: they are the savannah’s fast food.  Impalas are akin to McDonalds – and they know it.  They react all the time for good reason – they will be dining with the Lion family if they don’t.

Do you sometimes feel like the impala?  The general feeling among 79% of Americans is that crime is something to worry about at least a fair amount of time. We are fearful of crime.  Hamilton offered an acronym for FEAR: False Events Appearing Real.  False events (I prefer “expectations”) would include false reports of something ranging from complete fabrication to highly nuanced stories – once they are seen in the light of day, they don’t carry the same kind of weight that they may have before.  Many people struggle with lasting results based on real events in their lives, but their expectations for their future may be skewed.  For instance, I have either personally experienced or been pretty close to people who have experienced a wide range of crime, from car break-ins to serial murder.  It would be possible to live paralyzed by fear, knowing these things have happened – and could happen again.  But is that level of fear reality-based?

Cognitive Therapy: Alleviating Auto Thoughts of Catastrophizing and Binary Thinking.  There is a process from Cognitive Therapy that can be helpful in alleviating fear.  The process begins with holding whatever horrible thought with skepticism, choosing not to be convinced of its legitimacy upon first hearing about it.  This leads to the pursuit of reality: what are the facts of the matter?  Often times, the facts subvert the illusion of the falsehood’s claim to be real, which can give us a lot of peace.  Reminding ourselves frequently about the truth of the matter may help us become less victimized by the fear. 

Example.  Let’s say I live with significant anxiety about my daughter’s safety because a good friend of mine, Holly Tarr, was murdered in SoCal by serial killer Cleophus Prince, Jr., when she was my daughter’s age.  Her victimization was totally random.  She was visiting her brother on Spring Break her senior year in High School, and had no reason to suspect she was in danger.  There are approximately 15,000 murders in the United States each year.  That sounds like a big number (it is, and is tragic), but compared to the population as a whole (c. 327M), the odds are in our favor.  If you were placing a bet or taking a risk, you would feel extremely confident in your odds here, because the likelihood of you being murdered in the United States is .00045%.  You have a 99.9955% chance of not being murdered (1 in 25,000).  If you happen to be white or Asian, the odds are even better.  So, I could stay awake at night worrying about my daughter’s safety (my right as a parent), but the odds are about as good as they can get that she will be safe. As Hamilton notes, there are far more people dying from medical error (251K, or 1 in 14,000), we are twice as likely to die in a car crash than murder, and most of us should be more fearful about heart disease, which kills 1 in 40 Americans (2.5% annually).  Worry less about the killer with a knife or gun, and more about the killer that is deep fried.  If I get worked up about my daughter’s safety, reminding myself of the facts helps alleviate me from paralyzed.  If this persisted, reminding myself daily with mantras and well-placed post-it notes would help, I think.  If it still persisted, surely a therapist would help me over the hump.

It turns out that this struggle with False Events/Expectations Appearing Real is a common human phenomenon.  It shows up in the Jewish account of creation, in fact, with the very first human beings to enter the human drama: Adam and Eve.  After everything had been created, and Adam and Eve were told to enjoy everything in the garden except the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they of course ate from it.  Because that’s what we do as human beings.  This story was originally shared with children and adults to remind them of our propensity toward doing the exact opposite of what we know to do, and for a wide range of reasons.  It was also told to provide a Jewish rendering of God which stood in stark contrast to many commonly held beliefs – maybe our innate, primitive, lizard-brain beliefs.  Post fruit-feast, we catch up with Adam and Eve, who now discovered they were naked, and were of course hiding in the bushes to hide from each other as well as from God:

When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”
“Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?” – Genesis 3:8-11 NLT)

This story would be recounted countless times because it would serve as a constant reminder that when people fail, even though their inclination is to fear the retribution of God, the nature of God is to be restorative.  God’s desire is to help us move forward on our way toward life.  Not to crush us. Restoration is not devoid of accountability, but the end goal is our healing,  not condemnation.

It is interesting how true this story is of humanity.  We have a tendency to react to situations and experiences before we have a chance to get the facts straight.  I wonder how many times we’ve been exposed over the course of our lives, called out from our hiding in the bushes that were protecting us from a false reality, protecting us from no real threat.

Of course, this story gives us great hope about the basis of our relationship with God.  And its repetition offers a tactic for helping us when we face our fears: we need to be reminded to think differently, to not simply react.

As we close this week, recall Hamilton’s process for handling fears below.  As you do, and if you are particularly fearful about crime, why not practice the process and see what might happen.

• Face your fears with faith – because a well-considered faith in God can have a profound, positive impact on our lives.
• Examine your assumptions in light of the facts – because we tend to react before we gain fuller understanding, often to our own detriment.
• Attack your anxieties with action – because when we “do the thing we fear, the death of fear is certain” (Emerson).
• Release your cares to God – because we can’t control everything, but God will be with us through it all to offer strength, guidance, and hope.

Questions to Ponder

1.       Has your impression been that crime is increasing, decreasing, or remaining about the same in our community?

2.       What helps inform your impressions about the level of crime?

3.       If the level of crime were significantly higher or lower than you expect, what might be some reasons?

4.       How has your personal experience of crimes impacted your level of anxiety regarding crime?

5.       Would knowing actual crime rates be helpful in establishing your beliefs about crime?

6.       What news sources do you frequent?  How do you mitigate against the sensationalism that news agencies must employ to gain and keep viewership?

7.       How can facts help us overcome our fears?  How can we mindfully integrate facts into our process to avoid reacting prematurely to what may be erroneous events or expectations?

8.       How does the story of Adam & Eve relate to all of this?  How does a well-considered faith help you?

9.       How will you integrate Hamilton’s FEAR Process this week?

Lorna Barker, aka Butterly Luv Hugz

This woman has something to say!  Hers is a story of transformation, power, and hope, all done with a beautiful spirit.  Enjoy!

Unafraid: April Fools

This is the introduction to a series which will borrow content and structure from Adam Hamilton's latest book, Unafraid.  Buy the book - worth the space in your library.

A high school teacher had a policy in his classroom: if any student had in incoming phone call on their mobile phone (this disrupting the class), they had to take the call on speakerphone.  One day, a student got a call, and the teacher reminder her of the rule.  She answered.  It was the local pregnancy resource center calling to inform and congratulate her that she was pregnant!  They went on to say that they understood that the father was out of the picture and would be happy to talk about all her options going forward.  During this awkward call, the teacher was visibly uncomfortable.  Immediately following the call, he publicly apologized for having her take such a private call.  She told him it was fine, that she already picked out the name: April for the first name.  Fools for the middle…  (Watch the video).

Anybody have a fear of getting pranked on this April Fools Day?

What are people afraid of these days in our culture?  Crime, race-related issues, terrorism, politics, failure, disappointing others, feeling insignificant, loneliness, apocalypse, change, missing out, finances, aging, illness, dying, God – these represent some pretty major areas that strike fear in the hearts of many.  How about you?  Which of these causes you a little anxiety?  Or panic attack?  Perhaps the list makes you aware of things you didn’t even think to be afraid of, but now you are!   Sorry…

Easter is such a happy holiday that we forget the fear that surrounded it.  The culture has made the day we celebrate the resurrected Christ into a general holiday for Spring.  Spring is the marker of new life, of course, so I guess it cold be worse.  But its easy to forget the incredible drama that took place the days before and after the first resurrection Sunday.  Many of the fear-inducing issues listed above would have been claimed by the disciples during those days.  They would be able to relate to us today from their experience.  The fears we face today are not new to humanity.  Others have been through what we’re experiencing.  Jesus’ disciples were so filled with fear after his crucifixion that they hid behind locked doors, fearful that they would be next to be executed.

Fear is a good thing, of course.  When we experience what we perceive as a threat, our reptilian brain kicks into action.  The emotional control portion of our brain called the amygdala triggers the release of epinephrine and cortisol to help us fight or take flight in order to survive.  A bunch of other things happen as well, all to protect us from the threat.  We need fear to protect us from danger.  Our brains remember certain stimuli and associate it with past events, both good and bad.  We have the ability to connect one sensory experience with something desirable or dangerous or frightening and respond in a related way.  This is called classical conditioning (remember Pavlov’s dog?). It’s this very helpful capacity that can also take us to some less helpful places, where fear can become debilitating even when the perceived threat is not as threatening as we imagine.

I once heard fear defined with the following acronym: False Expectations Appearing Real.  Well known and highly respected pastor and author Adam Hamilton, in his book Unafraid, which will provide material and organization for this series, heard it slightly differently: False Events Appearing Real.  False expectations may be directly related to false events or experiences, all combining to blind us to the reality before us – a reality that may not be nearly as fearful as we thought.  One hope for this series is that we would learn to see things more clearly so that we can assess whether or not our current level of fear is appropriate.  That alone can be freeing.

In addition to assessing the facts behind all of the areas we previously listed, we will also be talking about faith’s response, and what it means to live in faith instead of in fear.  I like how Adam Hamilton talks about what faith is not:

“I’m not, for example, talking about a saccharine faith that assures us that if we pray hard enough nothing bad will ever happen to us. As a pastor, I’ve walked with enough people through hell to know that this is not how life works. I am not proposing the theologically inaccurate view that everything that happens is the will of God. And I won’t insult you by suggesting that if only you have enough faith, you’ll never have fears. But I will suggest that a well-considered faith in God and the timeless insights of scripture can have a profound impact on your ability to experience peace, hope, and joy despite your fears.” (Unafraid, 34)

There is great value in the wisdom that our faith tradition offers.  There is nothing new under the sun, after all.  There is much to gain from the thoughtful experience of those who have gone before us.  There are many bruises we can avoid if we learn from them. Faith itself is one of those things they pass on to us – trusting that the overarching flow of God is always heading toward redemption, restoration, healing, harmony, etc.  Even if the circumstances we find ourselves in don’t appear so does not mean that God is not in the game.  Even in the worst of situations.  Perhaps especially as we walk through hell.

The good news about our brain’s capacity to be conditioned is that it can also be unconditioned.  Hamilton’s hope in writing this book, and my hope in riffing on it and talking with you about it each week is that we’ll emerge with less fear, and more faith.  Hamilton uses the word fear to spell out the process we’ll work through with each issue: “Face your fears with faith. Examine your assumptions in light of the facts. Attack your anxieties with action. Release your cares to God.”  Hamilton admits it’s a little cheesy and does not see this as a simple task.  It is a process that requires focus over time.  If the end result is we live more free from fear and all the ways it binds us up, then that is very much worth the effort.  Furthermore, if we can then become agents of hope over fear in a world that is currently riddled and motivated by fear – well, that’s a game changer.

Sometimes, even very good things can be terrifying:

“That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord!” – John 20:19-20 (NLT)

This experience of God breaking into our lives and bringing hope is what happens.  It happened long, long ago and was referenced by a Jewish Prophet named Isaiah: “He gives beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, peace for despair” (Is. 61).  It is what the Apostle Paul referenced when he encouraged his protégé Timothy: God has not given you a spirit of fear, but power, love and self-control (2 Tim. 1:7).  And this reality is what gave Paul hope even as he wondered whether he would live or die: to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21).  Paul, like so many others, saw Christ, which changed everything.  It still changes everything.  The call of faith is, in part, to decide where to look.

Are you familiar with the Peacock Mantis Shrimp?  There are some interesting things to note about this beautiful sea crustacean.  Its jab is as fast as a .22 caliber round.  Its punch is strong enough to break the glass of an aquarium tank.  And, it’s eyes have the most receptors of any creature known on earth.  At least four times as many receptors as human beings.  In other words, when we are looking at a rainbow – or anything else – that shrimp has the potential to see way more than we are capable of seeing.  Yet there is an unfortunate additional fact about our little friend: it has a terribly small brain.  Even though it has the capacity to see more than any creature, it is unknown whether the little dude’s brain does much with it.  Mainly, it spends it brainpower looking to beat to death unsuspecting prey.

We don’t have as many receptors as that shrimp, but millions who have gone before us and millions more who live today remind us that there is a way of seeing that allows us to have vision to see the divine breaking into our lives.  We can see God working all around us and within us.  We can live new and different lives because of that.  Seeing God in this life gives us increased confidence about the next life.  The question is, will we allow ourselves to see?  I wonder if our brains are trained to see in limited color in the face of extraordinary beauty and life? I wonder if we have been conditioned to see only in part.

Easter was the ultimate April Fools joke on death in all its forms.  Roman torture and oppression were punked.  The narrow Jewish theology espoused by the leading Sadducees got pranked as many people witnessed a real afterlife.  Paul, in light of the Good News of Christ, quoted the Jewish prophet Hosea who asked, “Death, where is your victory?  Death, where is your sting?”  So many issues confront us, arousing fear within us, including the fear of death itself.  But the hope of today is this declaration: in the love and embrace of God those fears will not have the final say as they suggest.  We can trust that the end of the story will be good because we know who is going to write the unfolding ending – a very good, loving God.  The joke is on fear itself.

To help you train your vision to see more and more of God breaking into the world, I leave you with this chorus from an old hymn.  May it stay with you as we face our fears together:

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the Light of his Glory and Grace.”

Heart and Home: Being Christian in an Age of Religious Pluralism

Week 11 of 12 | The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg

What do Stephen Curry, Buster Posey, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Joe Pavelski have in common?  They are all leaders of their respective teams, and they are all incredible athletes.  Next question: who among them is the best?  It’s a ludicrous question, of course, that cannot be adequately answered without clarifying what activity we’re talking about.  Basketball? Baseball? Football? Hockey? Sports in general? We can quickly recognize that it may not be fair to compare these players to each other since their respective games are played and scored differently.  They all play to win, but they play according to the rules of the game they play.

What do Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed have in common?  They are all founders of four of the largest, enduring religions in the world. Note: Hinduism dwarfs Judaism, but has no single founder. Rather, it is a synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions.  Who among the four are the best?

The way we are accustomed to think about religion is to declare one the winner, or one as “true”, and the others as false, as “losers”.  Borg refers to this as the absolutist understanding of religion.  Christian Fundamentalism and its child Evangelicalism are built on the absolutist understanding of religion, and therefore take very seriously the work of converting people to Christianity as a means of saving people from what they deem as a false religion and the hell from which it stems and to which it leads.

Casual bystanders witnessing this passionate proselytizing pursuit are rejecting this absolutionist perspective in increasing numbers and accelerating speed.  Like Ricky Gervais, they see the surface argument in similar terms as my sports star analogy and throw up their hands – they walk away from both God and religion because the latter doesn’t seem to connect them to the former. They toss the whole thing as rubbish.  Borg refers to this as the Reductionist understanding of religion. Perhaps, then, using the same logic, they should also throw aside all sports since they all play by different rules.

But that’s not fair to Steph, Buster, Jimmy, and Joe; and certainly not to Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed, either. It’s way too simplistic in its understanding of religions, and far too hasty in its reaction to dismiss them all.

There is another way to understand religions of the world. Borg refers to it as the Sacramental approach.  This perspective recognizes that each of the world’s enduring religions were developed by human beings in response to their experience of the “More” – aka God, the Divine, the Ground of Being.  The purpose of the religions was to connect humanity with the sacred in their time, place, and with their language, stories, worldview and traditions.  Because they were created in their respective contexts, they sound different from each other, and only in the most general respects are they similar. That’s why the Reductionist approach goes too far – or actually not far enough – saying that religions all say the same thing.  They don’t – they are as unique as their origins. Different religions are trying to “win” at mediating the divine within their respective contexts as different sports offer contextualized games with the goal of winning in their particular way. Rather than seeing religions as in competition with each other, Borg sees them helping each other: “Understanding other religions can enrich our understanding of Christianity and what it means to be Christian. Religious pluralism can help us to see our own tradition better.”

In this “Religion as Sacrament” vein, the enduring religions of the world are viewed as such:

1.       Religions are human creations…

2.       … in response to experiences of the sacred

3.       Religions are “cultural-linguistic traditions”

4.       Enduring religions are “wisdom traditions”

5.       Religions are aesthetic traditions

6.       Religions are communities of practice

7.       Religions are communities of transformation

While the enduring religions of the world are different one to the other, they also share these following attributes in common:

1.       They all affirm the more, the real, the sacred

2.       They all affirm a path of transformation

3.       They all provide practices for the journey

4.       They all extol compassion: life’s primary virtue

5.       They all contain collections of belief/teaching

Some use the example of various paths leading up the same mountain.  Christians who have adopted the absolutist view balk at the analogy, saying that the other religions don’t adequately deal with sin, or don’t even refer much to heaven, therefore they are inferior to Christianity. Borg offers a different version of the analogy, however.  Each path originates from its particular place on the base of the mountain, with all of its contextual influences.  Each path makes its way toward the top of the mountain where the clouds cover the peak.  The path doesn’t take you to heaven, it takes you to the Divine, God, the Greater Other, the Higher Power.  Winning isn’t defined by which formula gets you into heaven.  As sacramental vehicles, success is ushering adherents into the Presence of God.

A normal, natural question in response might be, why bother with religion at all?  Why not just be spiritual and call it good?  Borg suggests that religions still play a crucial role in our spiritual pursuit.  “Religion,” he says, “is to spirituality as institutions of learning are to education.”  Can you learn apart from the institutions?  Sure.  But you’ll likely learn more, faster, with the external forms of religion helping you.  The wisdom, rituals, practices and collections of beliefs serve as vessels of spirituality, mediators of the sacred and the way.  Without them, I believe you will get stuck and miss  out on much of what is offered: both in terms of understanding the Divine and the fuller experiences of life.

Another question might be, what about the statements attributed to Jesus that appear to support an exclusive understanding of Christianity as the only legitimate religion?  Borg suggests that we see and hear such words as those communicating truth and devotion.  For Jesus and his early followers, following Jesus was the only way that resonated with them, was the object of their devotion, and was the center of their message of hope.  Borg noted that we may use similar language when referring to our “home” – our dwelling or perhaps the geographical place we live or our country.  We speak with absolute devotion about our “home”, articulating the truths of its splendor to whoever will listen.  But, as Borg notes, loving our home deeply doesn’t make it superior to someone else’s home.  They can love and have their home wherever they are.

There is a beautiful song sung to the tune Finlandia that communicates this reality.  Imagine replacing references to nations, lands, and countries with religion, faith, etc.  Below are the lyrics, and here is the song beautifully sung.

This Is My Song (Finlandia)

This is my song, O God of all the nations
A song of peace, for lands afar & mine
This is my home, the country where my heart is
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine
But other lands have sunlight too, and clover
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine
This is my song, O God of all the nations
A song of peace for their land and for mine

The Dalai Lama was asked by a Christian if she should convert to Buddhism.  He told her, “No. Instead, become a very good Christian.”  Borg recalled a wisdom saying: “If you desire water, you are better off digging one well 60 feet deep than six wells ten feet deep.”  It is good and wise to respect different traditions and religions.  It is also good and wise to go deep with the one that is most “home” – for the overwhelming majority of people in the United States who are already familiar with the Christian tradition, this is a well worth digging into.  You are likely to find a spring that offers living water that will never run dry.

Borg ends his book with this, as part of his answer to why he is a Christian: At the heart of Christianity is the way of the heart – a path that transforms us at the deepest level of our being.  At the heart of Christianity is the heart of God – a passion for our transformation and the transformation of the world. At the heart of Christianity is participating in the passion of God.

I am, and certainly plan to remain, a devoted Christian.  Christianity mediates the sacred well for me and so many others.  With it’s guide I am ushered into the Loving Presence of the Divine, guided to love and be loved, and compelled to be used by God to be an agent of restoration, renewal, and even resurrection in this very good world we call home.

What about you?  Where is your “home”?  How deep is your well?

The Heart of the Matter: Practice

Week 10 of 12 | The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg

Just like riding a bike… When did you learn to ride a bike?  When was the last time you rode a bike?  Why did you ride a bike?  Why do you now, or why don’t you anymore?  My guess is that most of you reading this are very occasional riders, and do so for pleasure, not transportation.  It’s a relaxing thing to do when it’s not too hot or cold, not too windy, and you are in just the right mood.  You and I are not Danny Macaskill, for instance, who recorded one of his more impressive rides on the Isle of Sky, Scotland (get your mind blown here).  Danny Macaskil didn’t tackle that ride the same week he learned to ride a bike.  He was able to achieve that level of mastery over years of hard work and practice, working through mistakes and the injuries that came with them.  Learning new techniques while unlearning ways that no longer work for the rides he takes.

Faith is like that.  We don’t commit ourselves to God in one moment and discover we’re saints the next day or week.  Those with deep, growing, maturing faith have worked hard to develop it over time.  They have worked through mistakes they’ve made and the injuries that came with them.  They learned new ways of being while letting go of ways that no longer work for the faith they’ve grown into.  In the tenth chapter of The Heart of Christianity, Borg gets down to the nitty gritty: he writes about practices that help faith develop.  He notes a lot of things, including making church attendance a regular part of your life rhythm (for a range of good reasons), and especially encourages getting involved in justice issues that surround us.

I want to get practical as well, but instead of using Borg’s metric, I’d prefer to look at CrossWalk’s.  We designed our belief statement to be a behavior statement as well, a picture of what we’re trying to embody individually and as a community of faith.  Not surprisingly, there is plenty of overlap between the substance of what I am writing and what Borg wrote: we are both trying to get at the same thing.  We are trying to paint a picture of what a well-rounded faith looks like so that we have a clue whether or not we’re on the right track or, if we’re just beginning, a clue where to start and where it’s leading.

Be aware of potential tensions that may emerge as you read and as you strive to live your faith.  First, settle the issue in your mind that your favor with God in no way whatsoever is contingent on how well you develop your faith.  You are loved fully, unconditionally, and eternally by God.  It is impossible for God to be God and not love you.  Therefore, you are not trying to earn your way into anything or any status: you already have it.

Second, be aware of the “tyranny of the shoulds,” a phrase that originated with one of the shaping voices of modern psychology, Karen Horney.  We can easily get into a rut where we do a bunch of practices and actually find ourselves more distanced from God, leading to resentment of God for “making you do all this stuff.”  When we find ourselves with a bad attitude about doing things we normally would love to do, we need to carve time to drill down on what’s happening, because something has taken the life out of something that was supposed to give life.  Find out why.  Get insight from someone you trust.  Seek healing for hurts.

I really like what Borg says about the purpose of practices: they are about paying attention to God; our formation as Christians with a new identity; and our nourishment – they feed us.  Keep these three purposes front of mind so that you are less likely to get off track.  Also, please realize that Jesus did not airdrop from heaven at 30 years old.  He was born into a tradition that formed his thinking.  Much of what he said was not new, but rather a restoration of the core of what Judaism was meant to say all along.  In other words, some of the practices – if not all – were taught him.  Sometimes I get binary with this stuff. I like to think that if our hearts are really pure and our relationship with God is super strong, our behavior will naturally reflect it.  Certainly, our core faith fosters such behavior.  But sometimes – maybe all the time? – we need practical instruction.  Sometimes if we live into a mask we choose to wear, we eventually fit the mask.  That’s not so bad if the mask reflects Jesus.  So, as we look at the practices of Jesus, may you see a mask worth wearing, and may you eventually find your face and life forming into it.

We are resurrection people.  That born again into new life thing is where we start, and also informs our mission in the world: to bring about life where death has claimed victory.  Renewed selves, renewed culture, renewed creation.  Pursuing this resurrected living requires a choice to actually embrace it.  Not one choice for all time, but a choice that is made daily or even more frequently to live our lives in the Way of Jesus in contrast to the way of this world.  The Way leads to life, and is a choice we make to follow or not.  The following are practices that we choose to embrace, as Jesus did, so that we might experience the life Jesus lived.

·       We stretch.  To pursue a relationship with God is a choice to be continually stretched to new ways of thinking and being.  When Jesus was with Nicodemus, John the Baptist, and the Samaritan woman at the well, he stretched their thinking with love and respect, even though it required them to let go of the familiar.  Therefore, we choose to stretch as God grows in us, and we lovingly help others stretch toward God as God works through us.  John 3-4

o   How are you choosing to be stretched?  What inputs are you allowing in to stretch you?

o   How are you being a catalyst to stretch others in their thinking?

·       We kneel.  Jesus served humbly without discrimination.  He served enemies of the state, touched untouchables, healed those who were broken, and fed those who were hungry.  Therefore, we choose to share God’s love by kneeling to serve as Jesus modeled, bringing healing to our world.  John 5-7

o   How are you allowing others to serve you?

o   How are you serving others with your time and presence?  How about financially?

·       We grace.  Jesus was famous for lavishly extending grace to everyone, but especially to those who were feeling condemned.  Be it an adulterous woman caught in the act or a blind man convinced that he was beyond grace, Jesus acted with and spoke grace into their lives in order to free them from condemnation in all its forms.  Therefore, we choose to lift up those who experience shame, to love instead of judge.  John 8-9

o   How are you allowing God’s grace to form you?

o   How are you an agent of God’s grace in an unforgiving world?

·       We incarnate.  God’s love was perhaps most profoundly expressed in the incarnation, when God entered the full human experience with us in the person of Jesus.  He loved deeply by being intimately present with people in their grief, joy, shame, pain, filth, denial, and even their betrayal.  Therefore, we choose to welcome God into our darkest corners, and as those who are being indwelled by God’s Spirit, we choose to live deeply with people in the same intimate places Jesus chose to dwell.  John 10-13

o   How are you making time to really be with people in your sphere?

o   How are you allowing people to be with you?

·       We connect.  Jesus’ Way kept him connected to the heartbeat of God.  Jesus fostered an intimate, personal relationship with God by practicing a variety of disciplines (solitude, prayer; gathering for worship, service, and community life) that allowed God’s presence to guide and direct his steps.  Therefore, we choose to be so connected that the image of God is clearly reflected in our thoughts, passion, and mission.  John 14-17

o   How are you providing space in your life to be more deeply connected to God?

o   How are you encouraging others to connect with God more deeply without sounding like a self-righteous jerk?

How is all of this going for you?

Let’s talk about bikes some more.  For most – if not all – of us, while Danny Macaskill’s riding skills are incredibly impressive and inspiring, they are not especially alluring.  I doubt any of you are going to go to Skyline in response and attempt its technical trails at full speed!  Most of you are fine knowing how to ride a bike, yet are also fine if you never ride one again. I think that’s fine with bike riding.  Take it or leave it.

But faith is not bike riding.  We claim to believe that faith so defines our lives that to not live in our faith is to actually not really live.  When we talk about our faith, we’re talking about our lives.  When we talk about settling in our faith, we’re talking about choosing to not live into resurrection, into renewed life. 

Mostly, we don’t willfully settle.  There’s not a day on our calendar where we look back and say, “That’s the day I decided to blow off God and settle for less of a life.”  It’s much more subtle than that, and usually goes hand in hand with our level of comfort.  Many of us came to faith in response to crisis.  What we didn’t realize was that when the crisis was alleviated – often with the help of faith – our sense of urgency to continue developing our faith diminished.  We slide back into comfortable routines and ruts.  Decades pass and we wake up one day realizing we are the same person we were long ago, with few significant changes.  That’s not the Way of Jesus.  That’s the way of the world, the way of self-preservation, the way of apathy.  That’s the way we insure the world continues on the same trajectory it has been on for as long as anyone can remember.

This isn’t a leisurely bike ride we’re talking about.  This is your life.  This is your role as a change agent of hope in the world.  This is the nourishment of your soul.  This is the source of your hope.  What are you doing with it?