Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 18

A prayer for the fourth Sunday of Lent

God,

We are here.
You are there.

We are not sure where here is, if we are honest. We watch the seasons change, we watch our parents change, our children change. We lose jobs and friends, we change houses and towns, we find callings and cancer. And we feel lost.

And we are not sure where there is. We point up when we talk about heaven, pointing to the man upstairs, pointing to the sky. But we know that Jesus said he would be with us always.

So we are here.
You are here.
But we’re not ...

On helping people get better, not resemble me.

I’m teaching a homiletics (preaching) course right now. I’m still trying to figure out how to be most helpful. In this version of the course, in addition to other course work, learners choose a Bible text (from a list) and prepare two talks. In the first one, they spend time with the text, reading, reflecting, studying. And then they talk for about 10 minutes. Some of us watch the recording and give them feedback. Then, a week later, they record a more structured, more organized talk, again ...

The moment Nehemiah became more than lists.

I thought of this story the other day and decided to share it again.

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Q: What captivated you about the book of Nehemiah?

The more I slowed down and looked at the text to see what was going on, the more excited I got about everything I had missed by skimming. Probably the first really exciting moment, the one that showed me that other people could get excited about Nehemiah, was in teaching about chapter 3 for a Bible study.

It’s a list of names. Like many other lists of names ...

Risky Business

Rich Dixon has thought a bit about risk.

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Road cycling is risky.

Public highways, distracted drivers. Descending steep mountain passes. If you seek absolute safety, a bike tour probably isn’t for you.

Our FREEDOM TOUR 2017 team examined the intersection of risk and faith.

To prepare for the discussion, we read Ecclesiastes 10: 8-9, Matthew 22:37-40, Luke 9:24.

Our conversation focused – initially – onphysical risk. We talked about embracing uncertainty or even danger for...

In front of us.

It was a typically unpredictable couple of days at the hospital.

“Read Jeremiah 29-33.” That’s what a guy who identified himself as a prophet told me in the hospital today. I probably will. I don’t know about his prophetic calling, but I do know those are good chapters.The emergency contact for another person is a pastor I know. And haven’t talked with for four years. It was good to hear his voice. I needed to call a rabbi. We’ve talked before. He helped me figure out a prayer fo...

Morning.

A prayer for the third Sunday of Lent.

God.

We think of you often as angry, and we want to think of you as loving.
We think of you as loving, and we want to think of you as non-judgmental.
We think of you as non-judgmental, and we want to think of you as, well, as shallowly nice.

We read texts that talk about your boundless graciousness and that talk about people falling into the ground and being killed by snakes.

And we aren’t sure what to think.

About you.

We confess that we want you to be like us more than we wan...

Think carefully.

“What do I do for 300 for Friday?” I asked Nancy.

She walked into my office from her desk in the family room.

“Spring,” she said. “Green grass. The verse I shared on Facebook today.”

Nancy has put Bible verses in emails to a small group of friends or to family. As she’s reading every morning, she sometimes notices something and shares that.

For this season, she’s sometimes putting a sentence or two on Facebook.

Today it was “The Lord of Hosts says this: ‘Think carefully about y...

Longing.

We worry. We worry all the time about messing up, about what might happen.

I was in a conversation the other day talking about not giving people false hope, because I know how stories turn out. I know that the odds of death in this illness are great. And I don’t want people to get their hopes up and then be devastated.

But I realized the other day that sometimes I give people false fear. I distract, I lower expectations. And that’s not helpful either.

Because both false hope and fals...

Sacrifice and a New Bike

Rich Dixon brings us an update.

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Last time our team discussed my odd aversion to accepting assistance.

Our discussion began with a teammate’s uncomfortable assertion that service, in our culture, is often tied to convenience. I don’t remember if anyone said it out loud, but as we talked around this issue, I suspect we were all thinking the same thing.

We’re too comfortable with being comfortable.

I’ll speak for myself – I’m good at talking about sacrifice. Mostly, I’m not a...