About Me

My photo
My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Relationship Building Blocks

As I was praying last night a whole revelation came to my mind about relationships. We go about them all wrong....at least we do most of the time. The question we need to ask ourselves is what do we want the foundation, the thing all else is built upon, to be in our relationships - be it friendship or more-than-friendship. Most times we start with the physical - in friendships this mean those interests we hold in common, in romantic relationships it translates into physical touch and attraction. We've all seen the epitome of this building block in romantic relationship - it's when people have sex more then they talk because well, sex is the only thing they really have going for them. And in friendships this building block is just as unsteady. What happens if your interests drift apart? Is the relationship finished? The analogy that came to mind for having the physical as the foundation is building a really heavy statue upon, not a solid block but rather a little point. The point cannot hold the weight of all that is built upon it and it will ultimately crumble and crash.

Building relationships upon emotion, also a sketchy road to go down, because our emotions are sometimes shallow and sometimes change. There is really little stability. Plus it tends to create dependance that is sufficating for both people instead of liberating.

But when you build upon the foundation of the spiritual, a deep shared love for God that is expressed and explored together, I don't think there is anywhere to go but up. It's like having a solid block foundation that will support any weight that is put upon it. But so few friendships every reach this level of expression, let alone make it a basis. Why? Well, we think spirituality is something private not to be shared or we don't know where we stand with God enough to express it, we are void of an opinion. What are we missing out on? Why do we degrade ourselves to be caught in perpetual shallowness of relationships?

Thinking back, my friendships built on the physical and emotional have discenegrated, either quickly or over time. But the relationships that last have the spiritual as the base. When I think of one of my oldest and dearest friends of 11 years I see that everything we have is built upon the spiritual. When I think of my friends that I am close to now, the six people who mean the most to me, we all have deep and ever expanding spiritual connections and entaglements. We are growing together and growing in God at the same time! What a beautiful thing!

May we be more intentional about what we are building our relationships upon.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Ministry 101

"He welcomed them, and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured." Luke 9:11b

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Intimacy with God - Based off Psalm 36: 5-10, John 5: 19-30

In his book Soul Cravings, author and pastor Erwin McManus puts forth the idea that all human beings have three basic cravings. We yearn for intimacy, destiny, and meaning. We have these deep desires in us for these cravings because God has designed us to have them, to lead us into a deeper relationship with him from which we derive our identity. However, after Genesis 3, with the Fall of Creation through the sin of Adam and Eve, things have become a little messed up. We no longer look to God to fulfill our cravings, but rather turn to other things and people to define who we are.
Tonight, I want to focus on the first craving. The craving of intimacy. We want to belong. To be loved and accepted for who we are. But we’ve ran into several roadblocks that make us fearful of intimacy as well. We become bitter because other people have hurt us.
And all of this leads back to the ultimate problem, we’ve looked to others to fulfill this deep longing for intimacy. But because they are fallen, just like you and me, we will never be loved by others as perfectly as we desire to be. And then we turn around and instead of thinking, okay, no human can love me perfectly, because only God, my Father, my Abba, my Daddy, can love me perfectly, we use human failures to define God. We shy away from going deeper into a relationship with God because we think he’ll hurt us, because well, everyone else has. What a tragedy! We cut ourselves off in fear from the perfection of love, the only true acceptance we will ever have! It’s like we have forgotten all about 1 John 4:16 which says, “We know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love.” We don’t trust God. We don’t trust his love. But God calls us to remember, remember all of the times that he held us close and told us that he loves us, and has this beautiful, amazing, relationship with us. Do not let bitterness from the pain inflicted by other imperfect people block you from this relationship.
For about a year now, I’ve been signing almost all of my emails with “You are LOVED.” I hope that this is a small reminder to those I correspond with that they are first and foremost loved as a child of Christ. They are loved by God no matter how they see themselves or how others see them. They are loved by God no matter what they can or cannot do, because God doesn’t alter his love for us. He loves us just as we are, broken pieces and all. I equate this to something that I have told a friend of mine. I love him for who he was, who he is, and who he is going to be. I love him, because I love him and I see beauty in him even on his bad days. My care for him isn’t based off of a feeling, it goes deeper then that. And that is just a small glimpse of how God loves us, with this unshakeable love. 1 John 3:10 reminds us just how deeply God loves us when he says “The Father has loved us so much that we are called children of God. And we really are his children.” Just incase you missed the fact that you are a child of God, John emphasizes it twice in one sentence. In other words, this is a big deal. We have this intimate connection with God, that all too often, once again, has been marred in its beauty because of our tarnished human families. God loves you the way a perfect father would. For those of you who didn’t have the ideal father, God is the one who created you. He rejoices over you. He cheers you on. He scolds you out of love in order to make you develop into a more complete person. He sacrificed everything for you. God would be the dad who would be home early every night to ask you how your day was and mean it,, and tuck you in at night.
If I could think of one person who had an intimate relationship with God from the scriptures I would say David. David was a little Shepard boy who God choose to be the King of Israel. He is known for being called a man after God’s own heart and promised that one of his decedents will be the Messiah. David and God were close. If you need proof just look at the psalms. David was close enough to God to tell him when he was having a horrible day. He was intimate enough with God to share his highest joys and deepest pains. He had no doubt that God had made him and loved him, even when he screwed up, which he of course did. And the relationship that David boasts of in today’s scripture passage, that dear brothers and sisters is what we crave! Steadfast, faithful love. Love that envelops us and lets us rest in the knowledge that we are loved, perfectly, forever. And that steadfast love, the love that God showed to David, he is trying to show to all of us, if our bitterness would stop blocking him.
The beauty of our relationship with God, the intimacy we crave from God, flows from the intimacy he has with himself. Follow me now into the deep waters of theology – the study of God. As Christians we believe that that God is three in one. We believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. All three have separate functions, but they are all equal. And they cannot be complete without one another. They are always present with one another and their love is perfect and complete. They need each other so that they can give love, because love requires an object.
I know that all sounds confusing. And honestly, it is. But I want to share with you a passage that describes this reciprocal, perfect love from William Young’s The Shack. “Jesus reached across the table and took Papa [God’s] hand in his, scars now clearly visible on his writs. Mack sat transfixed as Jesus took his Father’s hand and kissed it and looked deep into his Father’s eyes and finally said, “Papa, I loved watching you today as you made yourself fully available to Mack to take Mack’s pain into yourself, and than giving him space to choose his own timing. You honored him, and You honored me. To listen to you whisper love and calm his heart was truly incredible. What a joy to watch! I love being your son!”
This intimacy, dependence, passion for one another, and authentic love is what Christ was describing in John chapter 5 when he says “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does the son does likewise. The Father loves the sons and shows him all that he himself is doing and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.” The Godhead was revealed at different places for different purposes in history. At Mount Sinai where God gave Moses the 10 Commandments and covered the mountain as a cloud, but Christ and the Holy Spirit were present also, because they each can do nothing of their own. At Bethlehem, Christ was born as a baby, after the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, but God and the Spirit were present also, because they each can do nothing of their own. And at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit distributed spiritual gifts and languages to the believers, but God and Christ were present also, because they each can do nothing of their own. Do you see how God’s intimacy, his love is linked to his dependency? Can you see that this relationship is ultimately one of community, acceptance, belonging, and identity?
May we strive to have this type of intimacy in our relationship with God. May we become utterly dependent upon God and place all of our trust in him. And may we stop defining our relationship with the Most High off of our fallen relationships with others. God yearns to show you true intimacy, let him. Amen.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Young Clergy

So for all of those outside the world of ordination - young clergy in every denomination is becoming a hot button issue. Why? Because the number of people under the age of 35 (defined as young clergy) is low, too low to balance out the wave of ministers retiring over the next couple of years. And sometimes it seems like all efforts to get people under 35 into ministry (if this is their call) are in vain.

In the UMC we've talked about streamlining or simplifying the process to become ordained. General run down now. At least a year moving through the canidacy process to become a certified canidate. At least 3 years studying for an MDiv at which you can become a comissioned (or prohabation member) of an annual conference. Roughly 5 years and much paper work later, you can become an ordained elder. Gist - it takes at least 9 years before you can be ordained, allowing you to perform the sacraments in any church and not just the one you are assigned.

But today, as I watched the ordination ceremony, I know that I would never be content with streamlining as I saw tear well up and spill over from eyes, shouts of "Amen" and "Praise Jesus" and one lady even did a heel kick and a dance! There was so much uncontainable joy, because they had each arrived at the end of the process. This beautiful, difficult process where they were challenged and affirmed time after time that this is their calling from God! No doubt can be left!

It's not in simplifying, its in seeing moments like these. It's seeing the holy in that which is hard. And it's experiencing the church as a body at places like ministerium, cluster, and annual conference. It's becoming family with other clergy and being guided by them. Maybe it's more about giving youth and young adults the opportunity to attend and expereince the beauty of minsitry first hand instead of having the same delegets come year after year. Maybe its about taking risks instead of simplifying!

Friday, June 6, 2008

Social Rules

Yesterday, as part of CPCUMC AC (Central Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church's Annual Conference) we signed cards committing ourselves to follow the three social rules of John Wesley:
Do no harm. Do good always. Stay in with Love God.

Not a few hours after this huge committing service for the clergey, lay members, and members at large we had the Committee of Church and Society present resolutions, some of which were shot down but clearly exemplify this whole committment we had just made. It's like when we make promises it means nothing if they interfer with our own personal beliefs. What a tragedy! If you can't even strive to honor this amazing code, which when coupled with sharing the good news of Christ, pretty much sum up being a Christian, then don't even bother signing it.

This code most struck me when I was preparing for the resolution about the death penality (and holding a moratorum for it) last evening. I normally take the stance that we cannot seperate our beliefs on abortion from the death penality- because of the whole "Thou shall not kill thing"

But how much more beautifully does the social rules express it. There is no way to support the killing of another human being, no matter what they've done, if you are striving to follow the social rules. The two that stick out to me the most are. Do no harm. I'm really curious how you don't harm someone when you sanction their death. And Love God - because when we Love God we are to love his children, which we ALL are.

So may you:
Do no harm. Do good. Love God.

And try to continually honor your commitment.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Romans 1:16-17, 3:21-31

Shame is a funny thing. It causes us to act in ways that are primal in a way, to run and hide. Rob Bell, a noted pastor and author from Michigan, tells the story of his son being so ashamed over being caught in the midst of a lie that he ran and hid under the covers of his parent’s bed. Think back to a time in your life when you were so filled with shame that you hid, maybe you literally hid, or tried to cover up that which shamed you.
I think some of us feel shame about being Christians. Oh yes, we come to Church once a week and sit quietly through the sermon, but we hide the fact that we are Christians when we leave the building on Monday. Or worse we proclaim that we are Christians but don’t live out lives that match.
In Romans 1:16 and 17 Paul proclaims, “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jews first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written., “The one who is righteous will have faith.” Let’s be honest folks, for Paul not being ashamed means living a radical faith that most of us avoid. Paul was thrown out of towns, flogged, verbally persecuted, and put in jail. He would ultimately die for his faith in Christ, and through all of that he lived a life that cried the gospel message to others.
I personally find it somewhat tragic that we aren’t really persecuted for our faith today in America. Persecution is a surefire way to separate those who aren’t ashamed of the gospel message from those who hide because of what it will cost them. Instead we can live under the glossy veneer of Christianity, while not really having any interest in being a disciple of Christ’s. We want to reap the benefits of Salvation without having to give to others. We want everything to be on our terms.
But see that isn’t how Salvation works. We were saved for a purpose, and that’s not to come to church for a few hours a week; we are saved to show the world the righteousness of God. And truly only God can make us righteous. If we are true disciples then we crave to be like the one we follow. It’s really not about you, its about God making you a vessel that can proclaim his glory with your life.
Up to this point, I feel like I’ve already created some enemies in the congregation, but stick with me. I think the number one way that we act like we are ashamed of the gospel message is to forget about grace. Grace, redemption, mercy, and love, these are central to the gospel story. And yet we fall into the trap of not forgiving someone who has wronged us, or becoming hostile to people at work or a million other things that neglect the act of grace. We can even use the Bible to belittle people and tell them why they need God. And yes, people do need Christ, but please show me once in the pages of the gospel where Christ belittled someone in sin in order to save them. He spoke the truth, but he did so in love.
Phillip Yancey, a Christian author, wrote a few very well known books, one of which is called “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” This book was a huge deal after September 11th, 2001 because it was given to the families of victims when the twin towers crashed. It went on to be voted best book of the year. In it Yancey tells story after story of moments where grace was received and moments where people frankly missed the mark, missed an opportunity to show others God’s righteousness through grace. One such story is about Yancey going to a gay march with his friend Mel, who is also an author. 300,000 people gathered to march in Washington and were surrounded by Christians yelling words of hatred such as “Aids, aids it’s coming your way.” “Faggots go home”, and “Shame on you for what you do”. But among the marchers were at least 3,000 people who identified themselves as Christians and they turned to these people who were spewing poisonous words at them and sang “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Yancey is quoted as saying “The abrupt ironies of the scene of confrontation struck me. On one side were the Christians defending pure doctrine and on the other were the “sinners” many of whom openly admit to homosexual practices. Yet the more orthodox group spewed out hate and the other group sang of Jesus love.”
Brothers and sisters, I ask you who reflected God best in Yancey’s story? Who lived out his grace with their lives? Somehow we have gotten stuck on the idea that it is our job as Christians to judge others. That is in fact God’s job. Our job is to lead people to him by love. Please do not understand me, grace does not mean that we excuse the sin that others live in, but it does mean that we see each person we interact with as a child of God and treat them as such. Noticing others sin is not a reason to belittle them. Challenge them in love, but not attack them. And challenging them in love only after God leads the way. His timing is perfect, just as his love is. We need to look to him for guidance if we feel the need to challenge another. We need to have faith in God that he will lead us, instead of assuming that he has just dropped the ball and needs us to judge others for him. The Church does not a monopoly on God’s grace. God has shown us grace and we are called to model his grace for others. Are we hiding God’s good news in shame by making ourselves and our own ideas of justice so big that we diminish God?
Flip forward now to Romans chapter 3 starting in verse 29. “Is God the God of Jews alone? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one: and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through the same faith.” Let’s give this a bit of a modern translation. God is not the God of West Side alone. He is not the God of Pennsylvania alone. He is not the God of America alone. In fact, he is not even the God of Christians alone. God is bigger then all of this. He loves every single person on this earth, even if they don’t love them back. I don’t know how many of you have tried to love someone who just didn’t want you to love them, who even hated you maybe, but God loves every person. His message doesn’t extend to a few, it is available to all. And because he is the God of all, as his disciples we are called to love everyone too. This isn’t going to be easy. We have grown up in a world that tells us to hate those who hate us. Shane Claiborne is the face of the new monastic movement in the United States. In 2003 he traveled to Iraq with a group of international peace makers where he met a bishop at an ecumenical gathering. Shane was told by the bishop that many in the Middle East were concerned for the church in America. Shane continues the story: “The bishop said, “Many Americans are for this war.” Shane nodded. And he asked. “But what are the Christians saying?” Are we living in the truth that we have brothers and sisters around the world? Do we care about the Iraqi civilians dying because of the war? Do we care about the 30,000 children who die each day of starvation? Do we care about the orphans in Africa? Look into their faces and see that God loves them too. And as his disciple our heart should break for them because his does.
I have been blessed to travel around the world. I have been blessed to worship the same God with my brothers and sisters in each country I’ve been in. God is alive and well in those countries, and our brothers and sisters there are praying for us. Are we praying for them? Or are we ashamed to be part of the same family as them?
For our final piece for discussion flip back to verse 22 of the same chapter” For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.” My question for you, are we hiding in shame from God because we have not claimed the reality of what his son’s death on the cross has done for us? Do we think that we are not good enough to be a Christian and do we not extend grace towards ourselves. When you have accepted the salvation of Christ to be the mark of your life and pursue being his disciple, you are a Child of God. But you were God’s child even before you sought him. Notice in the gospel, Christ never primarily identified people by their faults or as a sinner. No, Christ saw past the stains into the piece of God that was in each person he reached out to. Take time to see the piece of God in you and claim the truth and power of his death and resurrection. Yes, you will stumble and yes you will fall, but Christ does not. His death and your yoking with him is eternal. We are FOREVER redeemed! Let us live like it!
How does our faith in God effect us? Does it lead us to be so dependent on God that we speak his words of life to others? Does it lead us overflow grace to everyone we know, not jut the people we sit next to in church on Sunday? Are we reflecting God’s righteousness.? Do we love our brothers and sisters around the world? And Have we claimed the power and truth of Christ’s atonement? Let us not be ashamed of our God and his message. May we live the gospel with our lives. It is not going to be easy because it will be counter-cultural to the society that we live in, but if we seek to be authentic disciples of Christ we want to be like him, care about what and who he cares about. Let us not be complacent. Let us cry with Paul “I am not ashamed!”