Awaiting Our King

The sermon I heard at the Christmas Service we attended with extended family over the weekend was interesting. It was 95% the best sermon I've heard in years -- all about us awaiting, with great anticipation, the coming of Christ (just as they did in the first century). It was really an honest discussion of the fact that life sooner or later will break your heart, and when it does, those are the moments when you will either seek Him (await, with great anticipation, His coming) or you will detach from everything spiritual and everyone around you. It was great reflection on the real spiritual journey and the realities that we all must face.

I hesitate to even mention the other 5%, because I try so hard not to be critical and negative. But I must write about that part too, because it also taught me something. For some unexplained reason, the speaker inserted a brief section about hating political correctness and about us being right and everyone else being wrong, blah, blah, blah. (at least it tied in the preceding drama which had been all about how evil everyone is in trying to take away the phrase "Merry Christmas").

Instead of getting angry about this, I took up some advice I heard back in the early 90's while I was in seminary: when the sermon is bad, I heard, then use the time as an opportunity to reflect on what the real truth is instead of being preoccupied by the lack of quality you are hearing.

I had a realization: many people of this preacher's generation (he was probably in his late 50s or early 60s) remember a world where USAmerican life somewhat reflected the Kingdom of God. So, they are still so motivated by this idea of us versus them, of we have to save America, of America is God's chosen people, and I'll dare they take away Christian principles from the public square, etc., etc., etc. I began reflecting on why I am so nauseated by all of that kind of rhetoric. Why do I just assume that the Kingdom of God is not America, and our mission is not to make it so, while others (many of a previous generation) will make that battle so important that they almost lose sight of love?

I sat there and wished that he would just be Christ's follower -- just do it for the world to see -- instead of lowering himself to debate the world. Why not just live truth in the midst of culture instead of trying so damn hard to yell back at the culture? I just don't get it.

I think I figured out why I feel differently. I didn't grow up in a "Kingdom of God" version of USAmerica. Not saying that I grew up in a bad place -- it was actually quite nice. But rarely did I grow up really experiencing Kingdom reality. I did occasionally at home because I had a good family. I rarely experienced it at church (which is just as much my fault as everyone else's). I never experienced it going to school or interacting with the other functions of my culture. In fact, it was a few close friends along the way, and of course family, that provided glimpses of Kingdom reality.

So I guess I don't believe USAmerica is God's country and that my mission in life is to preserve it, or fight to get it back, or whatever. I like living here -- but that is mainly because I'm a selfish consumer.

I believe my mission is to live out Kingdom reality (the best broken little me can) in the midst of whatever is happening around me in culture.

I guess that's why I won't raise a banner to say "Merry Christmas" instead of whatever, and why I won't vote for the most conservative candidate, and why I don't buy into a lot of what I hear.

But back to the 95% of the sermon. It was great. We all start to find the King in the place where our hearts are most broken. As we grow more mature we learn to go through problems instead of around them -- or maybe we just learn to trust instead of manipulate -- at least sometimes.

Here's to awaiting our King this Christmas.

The Powers, and My Newfound (Temporary?) Freedom

Been re-reading "Christ & the Powers" by Hendrik Berkhof. It is a simple book on some of the most complex theology in the Bible. It refers to several places where the word "powers" is used in the New Testament, and what it really refers to. Most of them are verses we skip over quickly because we're not sure what they mean. For example:

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor present nor future, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God . . ." Romans 8:28.

We usually just paraphrase "nothing can separate us from the love of God" instead of diving into exactly what each of those phrases really means.

I won't spoil the book, but Berkhof lists some of the powers: the State, politics, class, social struggle, national interest, public opinion, accepted morality, ideas of decency, humanity, and democracy.

It's basically the stuff that organizes life and keeps it from being chaotic. It can even encompass religion (such as legalistic systems). The powers were created as good things, but have often come under evil control, at least temporarily.

To me, I see so much of modern suburban life as in control of the powers: the structured work week, the dual income family, the soccer mom phenomena (every person in the house must be incredibly busy with involvements that keep everyone running from morning to night), etc. Even church membership in the recently booming mega churches becomes part of it. Again, none of it is bad in and of itself. It just is. It is reality.

Berkof goes on to say that "precisely by giving unity and direction they (the powers) separate us from the true God; they let us believe that we have found the meaning of existence, whereas they really estrange us from true meaning."

So true!

I know my fortunate circumstances are likely temporary. But I'm enjoying getting up on a weekend morning, in a new surrounding, without many involvements. I'm sure they will come. But for now I'm very happy that my kids are not on any sports teams, that we don't belong to a "church," that I have no civic organization memberships, etc. I go to work Monday through Friday and do whatever it takes to get a job done. Then I'm free nights and weekends (for the most part). I'm odd in my neighborhood -- everyone else is overwhelmed with involvements. I'm sure my day is soon coming. But for now I'm really enjoying my strange counter-cultural existence. And it is helping me understand Berkof's stuff about the powers.

The Truth About My Journey

I've experienced God deeply in a room full of people passionately worshipping to music -- it usually happens many minutes into the experience. I've experienced God deeply through liturgy as well, but (sadly) usually only in a room by myself, and usually only many minutes into the experience. And both only occasionally. It can't be planned.

But . . . I don't have that experience every Sunday just because that's when the band starts singing. I don't have that experience every Sunday just because that's when the leader begins the liturgy.

I've connected with God mysteriously (maybe had a spiritual experience?) only a few times in my life:

• once in the back of a pickup truck in Honduras, reflecting on a week of service there
• at a CIY worship gathering at a small college in northern Indiana (where I was there supposedly to be the leader of a group of high schoolers)
• once lying on my back, staring upwards, circled with close friends, in a sanctuary in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico
• several times in the midst of a long worship set, or an intense prayer time, at a gathering or at a retreat, or a national meeting of simple church leaders

Each time was unplanned, accidental, and most important to my spiritual journey.

(Of course, this journey isn't just about experiencing God -- whatever that means anyway -- but it partially about that.)

I could go to a church that worships to great music, or prays intensely, every Sunday hoping to get these deep connections. Right now I don't.

I could go to a church that shares the liturgy together in a meaningful way every Sunday hoping to get these deep connections. Right now I don't.

I long for a small community of people who want to meet often to seek God in these ways. I don't have those people right now. Even if I did, and even if we met regularly seeking it, we would (probably) not find it most of the times we met. At least that's what I suspect.

So I feel free to worship on any Sunday at (almost) any evangelical, charismatic, Roman Catholic, or mainline church.

But I also feel free to gather with Rebekah, Tori, & Lucas in my home to do the same. We often do that, and we pray God will send others if/when/how He wishes.

I also feel free to hide away in solitude and seek Him as well, knowing that mysteriously I'm still united with the church universal as I do so. And in some ways, since I'm (we're) so broken and incomplete, that those times are sometimes more meaningful than the forced spiritual meetings held each week in buildings all around me.

We are the church. We must struggle to flesh out what that means and quit pretending that the church is a time and a place and a program. Though sometimes the time and place and program become every bit the church. But the journey causes us to stumble upon the real thing because it is the journey, not because of the time and place and program.

Deep Thoughts on Real Love versus Falling in Love

This week Jeff Flick was here visiting from Vegas. We had dinner together one night. We stumbled into a deep, though short, conversation about what real love means. He pulled from the deep recesses of my brain some insights from M. Scott Peck. These thoughts had been dormant in my mind for years. Here are some quotes I pulled out later to re-examine what I had remembered. These thoughts may seem dark and pessimistic as to marriage and love and first -- but I think a more careful consideration of them shows that once the love feeling is not as strong, the chance to really love someone begins -- and that's the good stuff!

The quotes:

Of all the misconceptions about love the most powerful and pervasive is the belief that “falling in love” is love or at least one of the manifestations of love. It is a potent misconception, because falling in love is subjectively experienced in a very powerful fashion as an experience of love. When a person falls in love what he or she certainly feels is “I love him” or “I love her.” But two problems are immediately apparent. The first is that the experience of falling in love is specifically a sex-linked erotic experience. We do not fall n love with our children even though we may love them very deeply… We fall in love only when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated. The second problem is that the experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter whom we have fallen love with, we sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough. This is not to say that we invariably cease loving the person with whom we fell in love. But it is to say the feeling of ecstatic lovingness that characterizes the experience of falling in love always passes. The honeymoon always ends. The bloom of romance always fade.

The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual’s ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity wit that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! Loneliness is no more! . . .

Or to put it in another, rather crass way, falling in love is a trick that our genes pull on our otherwise perceptive mind to hoodwink or trap us into marriage… On the other hand, without this trick, this illusory and inevitably temporary (it would not be practical were it not temporary) regression to infantile merging and omnipotence, many of us who are happily or unhappily married today would have retreated in whole-hearted terror from the realism of the marriage vows…

In summary, then the temporary loss of ego boundaries involved in falling in love and in sexual intercourse not only leads us to make commitments to other people form which real love may begin but also gives us a foretaste of (and therefore an incentive for) the more lasting mystical ecstasy that can be ours after a lifetime of love. As such, therefore, while falling in love is not itself love, it is a part of the great and mysterious scheme of love.

--taken from The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck, pp. 84-97


Agree? Disagree? Reactions?

Committing Our Work to God

"Show me what blessing it is
that I have work to do.
And sometimes,
and most of all
when the day is overcast
and my courage faints,
let me hear Your voice, saying,
'You are my beloved one
in whom I am well pleased.'"

--"Prayers for committing our work to God," Oswald of Northumbria (from the 600's AD)

Thoughts on My Current Transition

I originally went into vocational ministry, at least in part, out of a desire to do something meaningful with my life. I wanted to be sure I didn't waste my existence on this planet.

My move out of vocational ministry is the logical "next step" in my journey. (That's a short summary of volumes of thought over months of time.)

Yet I do have a bit of fear that my new life routine, which will include quite a full schedule between work, and kids, and extended family, etc., will be so set in stone that I won't be free enough to question whether it is a meaningful use of life or not. That is both good and bad.

But still, I've come to understand that one's perspective on the little things in life as what really matters. Everyday conversations can start ripple effects that change the world every bit as much (if not more so) than grand orations under bright spotlights.

My identify has really not changed in the past 15 years. I'm a missionary to the postmodern world (or however I would word that at this point in my life). My primary community is my wife and two kids. I have several evolving layers of extended community (both my & Rebekah's families; my neighborhood full of neighbors I already know better than my last several neighborhoods; my soon-to-be professional circles; my old friends who I still bump into from time to time, etc.).

It should be interesting to see how all this goes over the next few years. I aimed toward this on purpose. Being here seems surreal, though.

Doing Something That Really Matters

Today I received an e-mail from an old Vegas friend, Allan Delaurell. Attached was a photo of Allan in the middle of a puddle of mud, without having shaved in weeks, just having completed the dig for a new well in Bolivia (alas, I couldn't get the photo to copy and paste into this blog entry, but if you know Allan, I think you can create your own mental image of this!). He's there training to do be able to dig wells for people in places without adquate access to clean water.

He may be one of the few people I know who is doing something that really matters with his life. I admire that greatly and hope to learn from it.