Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 8

Chasing Results

Rich Dixon is looking for the heart.

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I love baseball – one of my fondest teenage memories was a trip to see Mickey Mantle and my beloved Yankees in old Yankee Stadium.

Recently I listened as a manager analyzed a struggling player. “He’s too focused on results.”

Wait. He’s a big-league ballplayer, paid handsomely to perform. How can focusing on results be a bad thing?

Turns out, results-focused athletes take shortcuts and develop bad habits. They stop doing the things that m...

little flock.

“Do not be afraid.”

The words before this, though they are not part of our reading today, are worth reading. “Seek God’s kingdom and all these things will be added to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”

What delightful and amazing and amusing words.

The people following Jesus are to pursue the kingdom. Peter and Judas. John and Thomas. Mary and Mary and Mary.

In the face of earthly kingdoms. In the face of opposition and ...

God’s presence arrives quietly

I knock on the door before I walk into hospital rooms. Often when I knock, the people in the room look up with anticipation. Family members stand up. Sometimes they say, “Doctor.”

They have been waiting for news, sometimes for hours. As soon as they see someone older, not in a uniform, they assume that they are getting their news.

When someone says, “Doctor”, I say, “Not the kind you are looking for, I’m the chaplain.” When the looks of anticipation are so great that they seem close to ...

A prayer for the nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

God-

We know that this life we see is not all there is.

We read that in the Bible. We hear that from our friends. We believe it most of the time.

We want to have confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

There is what we see and what we cannot.
There is who we see and You we can’t.
There is where we are and where we will be.

But we confess, we forget that the life we see is not all there is.

In our distraction, we forget. Through our own inattentio...

What if it isn’t my stuff?

It’s not that the farmer was being judged with death for thinking about keeping everything and retiring. Not at all.

It’s that his death was going to show the folly of his choices.

Here’s the heart of the story:

God doesn’t say, “You are dying because of stuff.” He’s saying that more stuff doesn’t keep you from dying. So, what do you want to invest in?

The man thought that the point of life was accumulating stuff. The more stuff, the better life.

Let’s go back to the question. ...

Cruising Along?

Rich Dixon and Jesus go on rides together.

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Jesus and I had another handcycling conversation this week.

The explanation requires a bit of bike geek talk. My spiffy new handcycle uses a unique e-assist system. On most e-bikes you just pedal, and the motor does the work. My bike is “torque sensitive,” which means the motor helps only in proportion to how hard I work. Pedal easy – not much assist. Pedal harder in a harder gear – more assist.

I chose this bike specifically because ...

What to do with more stuff.

Then Jesus tells a story.

A farmer has a great year. So much so that he is out of storage. He has no place to put it all. He has to decide: “what do I do with all this grain?”

It’s a valid question, one that many of us face. We get a bonus, we get a raise. We get zucchini, we get tomatoes. We get a promotion, we get a bill paid off. We get more likes on Facebook, more ___ and we say, “What should I do with my stuff?”

The man makes what seems like a wise business decision. He can tear...

More.

One place I worked had a copy machine that made copies. It didn’t sort. It didn’t duplex. It made copies. And we made a lot of copies. We put together books for people taking classes. We spent a lot of time making copies and putting the books together.

One day we got a new copier.

It would duplex, letting us put pages front and back. It would collate, putting the books together. It would save us a lot of time. I watched it work and I said, almost right away, “If only it would drill the ...

A prayer for the eighteenth Sunday of ordinary time.

God-

I think that we don’t know where you are working. And how.
Because you don’t do what we would like how we would like it done,

We think that you aren’t working at all. That you are ignoring us. And even that you don’t care.

You talk to the people of the tribe of Ephraim with such compassion,

“It was I who taught you to walk. It was I who healed you.”

But we don’t see you guiding us. Drawing people together, calling people toward you.

We don’t see that you have given us mi...

Let love be genuine

Paul (not me) said, “Let love be genuine” in Romans 12:9.

That’s in the ESV translation. It’s close to what I first heard as a young person.

My favorite Bible translation* is the New Living Translation (NLT). Here is how the people who worked on that translation translated that same verse: “Don’t pretend to love others. Really love them.”

How do we really love people?

The answer lies in reading the rest of verse 9 and all of verse ten…

“Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what...