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

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Praying for All - 1 Timothy 2: 1-7

When I have an issue needing prayer – be it something where I need prayer for strength or wisdom or to bless this congregation, I know who I can go to. It’s a small but faithful group who have been praying for me since I traveled to Russia. And I pray for each of them. Daily. While other people might give lip service to pray for me (often because they do not know what else to say) but are quick to forget requests and slow to pray at all – I know that this group really does pray when they say they will. Over the years the group has increased in size, as I’ve found others in my life who were blessed with a life and heart for prayer.

But even out of all of my wonderful prayer warriors, I only know of two of them that pray for those who don’t like them. Those people that some would call their enemies. Can you see the huge gaps forming here? The gap between those who say they pray and those who actually do and then the gap between those who pray for those whom they love and those whom pray for those who don’t love them.

It’s that last category that I want to spend some time reflecting upon today. What marks us out as radical people of faith – those whom only love those whom love us or those who reach out and pray for the people who harm us. Let’s think about 1 Timothy in context. Christians are causing an uproar. No one really understands them – the Jews think they are trying to break off, the Roman government things (at least for the time being) that they cause just as many problems as the Jews, and the Gentiles – well half think they are trying to be converted to Judaism and the others just don’t know what to make of this radical group. We are a few mere years away from the Government swooping down and persecuting Christians in a way that makes what Saul was doing to them earlier look kind.

Hence the radicalness of Paul’s advice to Timothy – pray for those in the government. Pray that they let you lead a quiet life, following the God you love dearly, but pray for them to understand and have compassion. Pray that they have discernment and wisdom and act on the behalf of the people they serve. In essence, pray for the same people who come down on you hard and just don’t get you.

In a way, we as Christians living in the United States today can’t really understand why Paul is telling Timothy and the people he serves to pray. We’ve become co-opted into the belief that this nation is Christian so of course our leader will always act in a Christian way, pray before major decisions, and lead a life of integrity. Further, the history of our country has our president in connection with people like Billy Graham who can pray much more eloquently then we can. Honestly, as Christians we don’t fully understand persecution, but in other areas of our lives I’m sure that we have people who we feel are beating us down to the point where we wonder where God is in a given situation and why God isn’t answering our requests for ourselves.

And for far too many of us, when our prayers aren’t answered we turn to the next best recourse – name-calling, back biting, and rumor spreading. Honestly, we do the same thing with our political leaders when we don’t agree with a decision they made. But what do we do about it? At best – we write to our congress representative. At worst – we do nothing. What would it look like for each of us to take the higher ground – asking God to bless our leaders and redeem poor decisions. That we pray for a leader of strong faith who is not afraid to live it out – no matter what the cost?

Adam Hamilton, Christian author, wrote in this month’s Alive devotional that he cannot tell the difference between Christians and non-Christians when it comes to praying for our leadership, because both just complain.

Paul tells us that praying for our leaders (even when they are cruel to us and those we love) is right in the site of God. Perhaps by our example and willingness to pray for them, despite everything, that they will come to know the God of love and compassion in a different way. If not may we cry out like Jesus saying, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

One of my favorite Christian authors and activists is Shane Claiborne. He has written several books about the radical nature of Christian faith and love. He is realistic when he talks about it – stating that it is hard and we are going to run into opposition, but we still walk the radical path. We are one community – not just this church or our neighborhood this town this state or this nation. We are now a worldwide community and everything we do is political. We each have a vote, every moment of every day as to what we pledge allegiance to. You don’t like the president’s policies concerning war? Pray for him – and then figure out a way that you can act differently. You don’t like the nationalism and manipulation that manifested after September 11th – you pray and you figure out how to preach a different message, like the fact that

“That the lives of thirty thousand children who die of starvation each day is like six September 11ths every single day, a silent tsunami that happens every week.”

But why do we even bother praying for our leaders, those who do things that we don’t like, and our enemies? Because the more passionately we love our enemies the more evil will diminish. Prayer is truly the foundation of a radical life. We approach God, the one whom we should both love and fear, and have the audacity to pray for a child whom he loves dearly even when we struggle to keep our emotions in check. We put their needs above our own in our intercessions, because they are precious to God.

I have a confession to make. I do not love ALL my neighbors, especially those neighbors in places of power. Yes, I am passionate about most people but there are still some people who really get underneath my skin. Some I have justifiable reasons for disliking but others I don't even know...But by disliking that person am I just perpetuating the cycle of evil in the world? If a place in my heart burns against someone, isn't that a place that is blocking out God? And when I block out God and dislike this person it's really like I am shouting at God "Hey, you screwed up on THIS one". How untrue! God cannot screw up and does not botch up. God has created us each as individual masterpieces. I need to look for God's workmanship inside each person I see. When I find that piece of God I need to claim and affirm it. For when I see God I can no longer hate or even dislike.

This does not mean that I am to be everyone's best friend, or that I need to support foolish decisions, but I at least need to respect who God has made them to be. When we start looking for and finding God's fingerprints on the soul of others, seeing them as children of God, evil MUST diminish.

Today is Christian Education Sunday – which isn’t just about the programs and initiatives of this conference or this church. It’s about teaching each of us to live out the basic values of a Christian life – because we all struggle with them. We let our own lives dictate our prayer instead of the deep groaning of the world that cause the heart of God to ache. We need to pray that God’s Kin(g)dom comes now. And shines through each of our lives so we are a bright light revealing poor decisions in a way that declares peace and love. Paul is not telling us to conform to the decisions of our world leaders, but to pray for their transformation. Because maybe praying for their transformation will transform each of us along the way – into bold people of a faith that is rooted in love. You will know that we are Christians by our love and by our prayers. What do your prayers say about you today?

Sunday, September 12, 2010

To Be Found! - Luke 15: 1-10

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine….. Nine. Where was camper number 10? My eyes darted around as I counted again, still only arriving at the number nine. I whispered as quietly into one my family group counselor’s ears, “We’re missing one of the boys.” His eyes shot up as he started to do the group count as well. Ending with the number nine. For the next twenty minutes my three family group counselors took the rest of the kids to another area as I tried to find the missing boy. I looked everywhere, and the twenty minutes of searching seemed to last forever. The only thoughts running through my mind where “Where can he be?” and “I hope he’s okay.” It’s not as if there are many places that a fourth grader could wander to after exiting the dining hall. The camp itself was relatively small, but I was concerned that he wondered into one of the many acres of forest surrounding the camp that comprised Bald Eagle State Park. Just the week before at camp, a whole family group had gotten lost while hiking in the woods with very experienced counselors. How easily could one little boy get lost in a large and sprawling forest? Thankfully, my search ended at the basketball court where the camper was attempting to shoot the ball into the hoop by himself. When I asked him how he got lost, he replied that he wasn’t lost, he knew exactly where he was the entire time.

This is one of many people’s favorite passages in the Bible. Artists have depicted it as Jesus, the Good shepherd, tenderly carrying a small lamb around the nape of his neck and shoulders, presumably back to the flock. We love this passage when we can identify with being the lost lamb, the one who has strayed from the flock. I’d venture a guess that I am not the only person to have experience with a group member separating from the rest of the fold, as my camper did. He wasn’t even my biological child, but for the week I had been one of the four adults entrusted with his care twenty-four hours a day. When I noticed that he wasn’t with the rest of my campers, I panicked. I can only imagine what a small child feels like when they become separated from their parent in a store. Or what a parent feels like when they notice that their child, whom they love so dearly, is not with them. Of course we want Jesus to seek is out with the same fervent love and passionate hunt.

Where we struggle more is when we, like my little camper, don’t realize that we are lost. We want Jesus to seek us out when we wander off of the path, and we, like the woman in the next parable, are great about single mindedly searching for a lost object that it is precious to us, but what about when we lose something that is precious to God, but doesn’t matter as much to us?

This past week I have not been able to get the response of some people, including Christians, to the building of an Islamic Center in Manhattan out of my mind. Threats of pastors burning the Koran, taxicab drivers getting stabbed for simply affirming that they were Muslim by faith. Protests around the country, hate groups cropping up on the Internet, video clips that show some vicious misrepresentations that cause my heart to break. And I found myself thinking over and over again about what our nation has lost – compassion, tenderness, love for our neighbor.

I was pondering more on the distress in my heart for my Muslim brothers and sisters being persecuted for the actions of a few as I was driving home on Wednesday from school. I hit many bouts of construction, but I found myself situated behind a large tracker trailer for one of the prolonged periods of traffic-stopping construction. Right in front of me was a large sticker on one of his back doors that read “We don’t do business or bring any comfort to the enemy.” Ironically right above this large sticker was a smaller one that said, “Jesus loves you.” What a profound statement about something being lost – the heart of the entire gospel message. Love your neighbors, including your enemies, and love the Lord your God. This truck was claiming two different realities that couldn’t fit together – one was the message of Love, the heart of Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection. And the crux of today’s teaching in Luke. In the first two verses we are told, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Jesus was associating on a level marked by friendship and intimacy with people that others labeled the enemy. And Jesus’ response – of course I eat with them and talk to them, I was sent to love them the most.

But the teachings about the lost sheep, coin, and brother weren’t just supposed to be affirmations to those around him that others labeled sinners, that Jesus was here to love them and run after them, leading them to a new road of life. It was a blatant message to the religious leaders and people that disapproved that they had lost something; something that they didn’t even realize was gone. Their ability to love, show compassion, deal tender heartedly with those around them. The ability to walk beside without judging, lead to the path of life without condemning. The eyes to see each life as Beloved to God. These basic tenants that make us humans that can live together in love while loving God had been replaced by judgment, hate, hurtful accusations, name calling, brutality, cut throat politics, and a religious life that was empty of the communication and reality of God’s divine and profound love.

Jesus was saying, yes, I seek out the lost who are frightened and don’t know where to turn. But you who think that you have it all together, examine yourselves because you’re missing a lot more then this sinner. You are missing that which God has given you to tell others that they are the Beloved. Seek hard for that bit of compassion you are missing because that is what makes you special, agents of God’s will in humanity. You’ve become so comfortable with who you are, even with everything that you are missing, that you don’t realize how much you are lost too.

Christian Singer and Song Writer explains what happens when we lose something so profound as compassion as, “Walking into minefields undetected…. Where anger replaces all common sense” and “holding all the keys to our own undoing.”

Sometimes we can trick ourselves into thinking that we are good and perfect people, all loving towards God and our neighbors. But then something happens, a request to build a place of teaching, and fellowship, and worship, that is blown out or proportion. Or another person getting a promotion at work. Another family member being praised. And we are left seeing who we really are. People caught between the gospel of love and the ability to hate. People cracked open, showing our own prejudices and insecurities that point to an absence of something in our lives. Something we didn’t even notice was gone.

“oh run for you life


all tenderness is gone


in the blink of an eye


all good will has withdrawn


and we mark out our paces and


stare out from our faces

and we, we are gone.”

What is gone without us even noticing is God’s love in our hearts manifested in different ways. What are you missing today, brothers and sisters? And are you willing to run to God and seek it out, as fervently as the shepherd sought the lost lamb and the woman fixed her mind to only seek what was precious to her? Amen.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

God, The Potter - Jer. 18: 1-11

One Christmas I received a child’s version of a pottery wheel. I don’t remember if I asked for it or if my parents thought it would be a good place to transfer my artistic energy, but no matter what the intentions behind the gift the results were the same. A mess. Out of all the different things I tried to make, only one is still in my house today – my attempt at a coil bowl. This was the only item I ever completed to my childlike expectations. Usually, I would just get frustrated at the glob of wet clay in front of me and its inability to conform to what I wanted it to be. Or my mother would get frustrated by the clay that was being tossed from the wheel onto the floor of our basement. Whether it be a dirty floor or my expectations not magically transforming the clay into what I wanted it to be, both my mother and I thought the same thing – this is a mess. The pottery wheel was put away after only a few months of use and was later sold at a garage sale, where some other un-expecting parent picked it up for their child’s artistic expression.

And oh that coil bowl – the one piece that I saw through to fruition. It is nothing special to look at – in fact some may even call it ugly. The coils don’t quite fit together right and by no stretch of the imagination are they evenly spaced, but to me it was perfect. I painted each coil a different color before it was glazed. Even in all of its imperfections, I thought it was beautiful, simply because I made it. More over, it was functional, as it collected spare change in my bedroom for years, before finding itself into one of my mother’s display cabinets alongside antiques, collectible, and crystal.

While my foray into the visual arts ended with my coil bowl, I did have numerous friends in college who were art majors. Some of my fondest memories of them come from being up in the art building, late into the night, watching them paint, or draw, or work with clay. Sometimes they did not like the direction their piece was going, so they would attempt to fix it. More times then I’m sure they wished, there were times when a piece could not be salvaged to their standards so they would throw the paper streaked with paint away or smash down the mound of clay to start over again. But as painful as it was for them to start over on something they had labored so long and hard on, the artists’ deeper pain came when they had to be critiqued. A handful of my friends quit their art major each semester, after receiving a poor critique on something they saw as beautiful. The professors were looking for flaws in technique and their execution, while the student artist were looking at the piece from the deep place in their heart that it came from and the countless hours they had spent birthing it.

Today’s passage can be troubling because it challenges our notions of an all good, all the time God. In this passage we meet God the Potter. God leads the prophets Jeremiah down to the work area of the Potter. Mud caked on the floor and the relentless heat of the kiln doesn’t distract the worker. Completed jars, bowls, and vases of various shapes and sizes line the shelves and tables, waiting for someone to come and take them home to be put to use. But his finished pieces don’t catch his attention either. He is solely focused on the vessel in front of him. It just doesn’t look quite right. He moves his thumb around the cusp of the opening, hoping to correct the clay’s new direction, but he cannot reign in the clay spinning around the wheel with its own mind about the direction of its creation. So the potter firmly pushes the clay back into a mound onto the wheel and starts again. The potter has learned an important lesson throughout his career – sometimes you need to start over when the vessel tries to take over or the wheel gets away from you. Even with the amount of time spent on the previous vessel, it is still simpler to start over and be satisfied with the results instead of giving into the notion of creating the second-best. And this time the clay conforms to his hands, cracked from years of work. The potter guides the clay into a water jug, with a cusp just big enough to put water in but not so large that it will spill out as the women make their trip back from the well. When the vessel is finished, the potter sets it aside to dry before putting it into the oven. He smiles. This one, this created vessel seems good to him.

God the potter image can be seen through Christian artwork today. We sing songs about wanting God to shape and mold us, but the images are lacking of the times when God needs to start over again, or to rework a piece of a vessel that is being stubborn against the guide of the Potter’s hand, refusing to conform. We like the idea of God making us, as long as that process is done and over. For if it is a continual process then we need to relinquish our will and power to the Creator. Therefore, we avoid the second half of today’s passage that speaks about God deciding when to destroy and start over and when to preserve. That’s just a bit too much for us to handle.

Really the Potter in today’s passage has it a lot easier then God. His creation cannot talk back. Could you imagine creating something – be it apiece of art, a cake, building a house – and have it stop in its construction part way and say ‘Well that’s good enough. I don’t need to be formed any more.’ The vessel being created would never reach its full potential. Would never be as good as you know it could be because of impatience.

Or a vessel has been completed and complains about what it looks like or how it is being used. It keeps comparing itself to the vessels to its right and left, telling the Potter in a not so kind voice about how they want to be something different, something more, while the Potter is just crying because the vessel is so beautiful in his eyes.

Do you see where I’m going here? We want God to be our creator, our maker, our potter, as long as we can be in control. We want to look a certain way, have a certain job, be equal to (if not better) then our neighbors to the right and to the left in terms of wealth and prestige, and be used a certain way. We want God to form us, but not if we have to go about the hard tasks of giving up the things we do that displease God or if it takes more then the hour or two or five a week that we are willing to give. And we most certainly don’t want God to be our potter if it means destroying what we hold dear, our health, our wealth, our ideals about who God is, how our neighbor sees us, getting by on the standards of the world around us, even if in God’s reshaping of us we will be a better disciple and more fully live into God’s plan for our lives. We want a God who does what is good for us on our own terms and in our own timing, and as a result we jump off of God’s pottery wheel before we are truly finished, leaving us as only a fraction of the disciple that we could be.

I don’t know about you, but the times I’ve been transformed the most in my life and have felt the closest to God, were during tough times. Times when nothing seemed to be going my way, but through it all I learned an important lesson, drew closer to God, or radically became a different type of disciple. We cannot cry out for God to make and form and shape us if we aren’t willing to live up to the potential cost of God reshaping us from the mold we are currently in, even if that means starting all over again.

So the question I have for each of us is are we willing to cry out to God to make and form and shape us, no matter what the cost? Are we willing to relinquish our control so God can create us to our fullest potential? Can we hand over our vision of who we think we should be so God can make us who we are supposed to be? And will we stop comparing ourselves to the other vessels around us, trying to tell God in the process what would make us better when God says that we are beautiful as we are? Will we be willing to sit through the hard and uncomfortable times on the Potter’s wheel until God, and God alone, says that we are finished? And the question I have for us as a congregation is are we willing to let God shape and form and create Albright-Bethune? Or will we concentrate on how we did things in the past, even if God is calling us to a new thing? Will we do ministry on our terms or God’s terms? Will we be willing to stop comparing ourselves to other churches and instead ally with them for God’s creative movement through this place? And will we let God and God alone guide us through the hard task of becoming a different type of disciple so we can live out being disciple-ing congregations?

Take us, mold us, use us, fill us, Lord. For we give our lives, both as individuals and as this church, to the Potter’s hands. Call us, guide us, lead us, walk beside us, for we give our lives into the Potter’s hands. May we live into your perfectly crafted plan. Amen.