Coming Down

I was listening to a podcast the other day. It was an interview with Quaker educator, Parker Palmer. He began by talking about the economic crisis we're in as a country. The explanation he had for it was that the markets have been "artificially inflated" over the last number of years.

The problem comes where there has been such sustained growth over a long period of time. Stockholders were used to seeing 18, 19, 20 percent yearly growth in their accounts. The problem is that kind of growth isn't sustainable. When a company gets to a point, their fund becomes a mature fund and rapid, wild growth is just not realistic anymore. (Stick with me here, there's a spiritual point in this). The leaders of these companies had a great deal of pressure on them to make their company perform at the same levels they had for the last 20 years. So they resorted to a number of different "smoke and mirrors" tricks to make it appear their growth was greater that it actually was. Whenever a company propogates that kind of illusion, something will eventually give.

Palmer then referenced a recent time in his life where he fell into a depression and saw a parallel in his life and the markets. As he journeyed through his depression, he began to see that he was living his life at an artificially high and unsustainable level. What exactly that means for him, I don't know. In any case, he said eventually, he came to see his depression as a gift from God to take him down from the artificial levels at which he had lived for quite some time.

I wonder how many of us are in for that as well. There are many ways we can live our lives at unsustainable high levels. We can make ourselves busy. We can try to live at a level that's beyond our means financially. We can often try to give the illusion that our walk with God is more than what it really is. Whatever the case, the illusion can only exist for so long before we crash. Sometimes the little tragedies that happen in our lives are simply a result of years of trying to be something we were never intended to be. When we see it that way, the "tragedies" are actually gifts to us, telling us to slow down, live simply, or be honest about who we are and where we are in our faith.

Trying to continue to live at inflated levels will always result in false growth. We'll look back to the old days when our growth was real; when we didn't have to pretend. But be honest now. Seek our real growth in your life, deepen your friendships with some transparency, simplify your life. Maybe what you're going through right now, is not a tragedy, but a gift giving you the opportunity to reevaluate and change directions.

Sometimes, there are tragedies that are not caused by us. They may be the result of someone else. But the same thing holds true. Though God may not have intended for things to be the way they are, there is almost never a time when there can't be a blessing in the wound.

Some Thoughts on Forgiveness

This Sunday's message by Pastor Randy was another one that I suspect made a lot of people think--not just reflecting on an interesting topic, but the kind of reflection that asks the question, "Do I really want to go there?" The message was on forgiveness.

We don't much like to forgive. Holding something against someone makes us feel like we're the one in power. In Seinfeld language, we feel like we have "hand." (the upper hand) When we refuse to forgive, we feel like the righteous victim. All self-righteous people feel like they're righteous. But Jesus was not about having the upper-hand in relationships, He was more about having right relationships, which always takes a great deal of humility.

The strange thing about refusing to forgive is that while we think having that upper-hand is freeing, in reality, we hold ourselves in bondage. We want to think that the person who hurt us is the one with the problem, but it is in fact, us who has the problem. The hard thing is that in order to forgive, we have to let go of the upper-hand, we have to let go of the self-righteousness.

Dallas Willard writes about this self-righteousness and the anger associated with it.

"Anger embraced is, accordingly, inherently disintegrative of human personality and life. it does not have to be specifically "acted out" to poison the world. Because of what it is, and the way it seizes upon the body and its environment just by being there, it cannot be hidden. All our mental and emotional resources are marshaled to nurture and tend the anger, and our body throbs with it. Energy is dedicated to keeping the anger alive: we constantly remind ourselves of how wrongly we have been treated."

What Willard is saying is that tt takes energy to stay angry.

When we grow tired of expending the energy on being angry, the anger turns into contempt. Often times, this is the stage where people land. Dallas Willard defines contempt this way:

In anger I want to hurt you. In contempt, I don't care whether you are hurt or not. Or at least so I say. you are not worth consideration one way or the other. We can be angry at someone without denying their worth. But contempt makes it easier for us to hurt them or see them further degraded.

Holding contempt for someone says you've written them off. They are irredeemable.

But as we read the words of Jesus, that's not our judgment to make. "Don't judge or you will be judged," were Jesus' words. He says it another way as well, "If you forgive others, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your heavenly Father will not forgive you." Judging from the amount of broken relationships in the church, I suspect we don't really believe those words. Instead of living in fear of God's unforgiveness, we instead settle for self-righteousness.

If we really believed those words of Jesus, I think more people would be making a greater effort to reconcile relationships and work through anger. Not receiving God's forgiveness is one result of unforgiveness, but there's also a practical result-we're held in bondage by that (oftentimes unknowing) person. We avoid them in the foyer after church, limit the number of places we can sit at the church picnic and decrease the number of people we can truly befriend (since you can't be friends with your friend's enemy). Unforgiveness is crippling to our spiritual life, our social life, and emotional health. With that kind of on-going pain associated with unforgiveness, shouln't we go through the relatively short-lived pain of making things right and live our lives in freedom?

A Practical Tip for Growth

There are two real dangers in the spiritual life; laziness and legalism. On the one hand, grace tells us we are free. We see this in the teachings of Paul in Romans 6. He knew the "gospel of grace" he preached could be abused, but he preached it anyway because it's truth. But then argues against the idea that because of grace, people can do anything they want.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?

Paul understood our capacity to take advantage of freedom. We don't HAVE to do anything to earn God's approval, yet His desire for us is that we grow. Spiritual laziness says, "I don't have to do anything for God, so I won't." That's not God's desire.

On the other hand, there's legalism, which I believe is an even greater sin. (I believe Jesus' teachings bear this out-- see Matthew 23 and John 8:1-11) Legalism judges others. Legalism makes us blind to our own shortcomings and seeks to be good enough by our own power. Legalism demands that others obey the rules we set up. We set up external markers of spirituality and if others don't live up to them, we look down on them.

So the trick for growth is to "be specific without being legalistic." So if I read something or hear something in a sermon that convicts me, I should determine a specific course of action--some kind of change I can make in my actions that will allow me to be more conformed to the image of Christ. But when I do, I shouldn't make that action a universal rule that everyone should follow or think I'll have to practice that discipline for the rest of my life. I may have to come back to it from time to time, but I can't make my practice of a particular discipline to be the measuring stick for my relationship with Christ.

Well, it was on my mind this morning while I was snowblowing my driveway (don't ask me why), so I just thought I'd share that quick tip.

Loving with Abandon

In service, Randy has been doing a sermon series called "30 Days to Live." The essence of the series is the question of how we would live our lives differently if we knew we only had a short time to live. I think it's really been meaningful for many people. Of course, everything in the sermon is something we should be doing all the time, but I think it's true, people live differently when there is some incentive for them to do so.

Last week, the topic was "Love with Abandon." As I though about what it means to love with abandon, it got me thinking about what love really is. Is an act really a loving act if it's done without abandon? Bruxy Cavey says that this is where Jesus' teaching is different than other religious teachers.

Every religion has some teaching similar to the golden rule. Whether it's Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or whatever, there's something there. But Jesus' teaching is unique in this: Every other teach states it in a negative way--"Do not do unto others what you would not have them do to you," implying a sort of, "don't hurt other people" ethic.

But Jesus' teaching goes beyond that "[actively] Do unto others what you would want them to do for you." In other words, it's not good enough, just to leave people alone. Nor is it enough to do just good to people when it's convenient ("I was going to the coffeeshop anyway..."). But loving with abandon means to live your life looking for people to bless. Our eyes should be focused with the vision of Christ for people, seeing them not as obstacles or inconveniences or competition, but valuable people made in God's image (even if they don't always act that way).

I think I'm getting better at this over the years, but I can still be pretty self-absorbed sometimes. Or oftentimes, I see the opportunity, but because of fear of embarrassment or how the other person will react, don't follow through. Loving is active--it's not really the thought that counts; it's the action. Loving with abandon is abandoning myself, my desires and comfort for the sake of others. Only then am I living up to Jesus' high standard for love.

Maturing

I've said before that spiritual growth is all about love and relationships. The more we love, the more we're like Jesus. In good measure, that growth happens when we become more aware--specifically self-aware. In fact, that's what any kind of maturity is.

Mature adults (I'm sure you've noticed that not every adult is mature) can step back and evaluate how they're feeling. Children rarely have that ability. Immature people are driven by feelings and we know that feelings can be very deceptive. Feelings follow our wants. Wants are generally selfish. I want something and I don't get it, so I get mad and fight with my wife. James 4:1 says as much.

But mature people ask the question, "Why do I feel this way?" "Why am I so irritable today?" "Is it appropriate for me to feel this way?" When we can ask these questions and answer them honestly, we can love better.

The reason I'm thinking about this is because I've been reading about the discipline of solitude. As I think about it, I think this may be one of the most important disciplines for people in our society.

Our society is busy. In fact, the most common response when you as someone how they're doing use to be "fine" but now it's "busy." And people wear it like a badge of honor--if they're busy, they're valuable, because if they're busy they must be doing something important.

Busyness only compounds the lack of self-awareness. When we don't have the time to evaluate our feelings, we can't ask the question if they're appropriate. We just go with whatever we're feeling. Not only this, but busyness tends to get us agitated anyway. When we're in a hurry, we'll tend to think the guy driving in front of us is an idiot. Rather than seeing him as a valuable human, we see him as an obstacle to be overcome.

Lately I've been thinking that I need to carve our more time for quiet and solitude-I dont' get enough of it and I'm not very good at it when I do have the time. I have a feeling that as I do, I'll become a more loving (mature?) person. I'll let you know.

So much to learn

I've been a Christian all my life. I've gone through college and seminary and been a pastor for almost 12 years and I can't say that I've ever seen this before. There's a parable in Matthew 21 that in all of my studies (and I believe I know Matthew better than any other gospel) I NEVER saw this before. It's the parable of the two sons. It goes like this:

"What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'

"'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

"Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.

"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"

"The first," they answered.

Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

How could I have missed it? I think it would have been a good parable for me to have seen a long time ago. I have a serious problem with saying "yes" and then not following through. It may be the biggest character flaw I have. I think it stems from wanting to be liked. I don't want to tell people "no" because then I can't be their hero. Somehow, I think saying "no" reflects badly on me. What I often forget is that now following through is even worse.

The parable also reminds me that faith is an "action word." I think evangelicals (and Catholics throughout history and Protestants after the Reformation) have spent too much time focusing on faith as something that happens only in our head. As long as we believe the right things about Jesus, we'll make it into heaven.

The parable in Matthew 21 shows the flaws in this type of thinking. We think that by believing these particular doctrines, we're saying "yes" to Jesus. But, too often we then go out and do things completely contrary to what Jesus says or we do nothing at all as if we're "saved" only so we can go to heaven.

Faith is obedience. Love is obedience. I'm not sure how we ever got away from this. The "religious people" think they're OK, because they have the rules mastered. The "prostitutes and tax collectors" come humbly to Jesus and seek to reorder their lives for the sake of Christ.

How many of us religious people are willing to reorder our lives in accordance with Christ? Am I willing to humble myself and not think I have it all figured out? Am I willing to say "yes" to Jesus AND follow it up with action?

Sunday Drive Faith

When I was growing up, occassionally my family would go on Sunday drives. It wasn't a common occurrence, but I do remember the few times we would do it. Sometimes we were looking for cans in the ditches (this was before the days of "bottle bills" so looking for cans was a lucrative pasttime), but most of the time, we were just driving. I thought it was a time of torture, but for my parents and grandparents it was the equivalent of me spending an afternoon in the coffeeshop--relaxing and serenely enjoyable.

Today, most people drive to get places. I think our society in general is much more busy than it was back then so we always have somewhere to go. But back then, when gas was $.69 a gallon, you could drive around with nowhere to go. Going nowhere...

I think going nowhere is one of our greatest temptations in life. We like to coast, to be on an eternal "Sunday drive." This works fine for a while. It IS relaxing. We CAN unload some stress. but after a while, it makes life boring. In fact, it's a very unsatisfying way to live.

I believe our lives are intended to go somewhere. We have a beginning point and an end point. Genesis says we were created a certain way--in the image of God. In the fall, we lost (at least partially) that image. Our purpose, our destination, then is to regain that image. Jesus gave us the ability through His work on the cross. He also gave us the example through His life and teaching.

Sunday drives are great, provided we don't have something important to do. On the other hand, if you DO have somewhere to go, but are just out wandering around the countryside, we call it irresponsible. How many times have people driven around thinking, "I should really do X," but never really get around to it.

The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." I do not run like a man running aimlessly...

I'm afraid I spend too much of my life on a Sunday drive, running aimlessly. I think, "I should really stop being selfish and treat my wife better," or "I should really be more intentional about reaching out to hurting people," or "I should..." What if I would just stop living in the future that never seems to come about and be right now, what I know I should? What if, instead of spending all my time thinking about what I should do, I made a plan and did it? How much weight would I lose? How much better would my marriage be? How much more like Christ would I be right now if I lived my life that way?

Now that it's out there, I guess I should really do it--there I go again.