Jason Gaboury's Blog, page 5

When God Seems Far Away... Spiritual Growth in Times of Restlessness

As a deer longs for flowing streams, 

so my soul longs for you, O God. (Psalm 42:1)

Recently, while singing a popular worship chorus of this psalm, I was distracted by the disconnect. The music was a gentle series of arches. The congregation sang beatifically, as though the psalmist was describing a warm pastoral scene. But an animal “longing or panting for” water is not a graceful pastoral image. Imagine a deer staggering through an arid wasteland and pressing its tongue forward in an effort to moisten its mouth. Water is life in an arid climate. Death stalks the dehydrated. The psalmist’s heart is panting after God, desperate to slake its thirst. The metaphor is stark. Here the desperation of a restless heart is on display. (In an attempt to resolve my inner dissonance between the psalm and song, I inserted a desperate panting noise into the verse. Sophia’s horrified look ended that experiment.)

The next section of the psalm intensifies the loneliness and restlessness.

My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and behold

the face of God?

My tears have been my food

day and night,

while people say to me continually,

“Where is your God?” (vv. 2-3)

The parallel structure of this poem connects the word soul with the word tears. The psalmist cries from the soul night and day without eating. When will God come? Where is he? These are the haunting questions we wrestle with in the sleepless bed restless for companionship. They are the questions of every restless heart. These questions reveal the “quiet desperation” Thoreau said was the smoldering beneath even the “games and amusements of mankind.”

In the Christian tradition these questions can be the start of a deeper life with God.  Our utilitarian and consumer driven culture forms us to look for a life with God that will take the pain of restlessness away.  It doesn’t, at least not for long.  In his book on prayer, Ronald Rolheiser observes that feelings of joy and delight in the presence of God as we come to prayer are common at the beginning of a spiritual life, near a conversion, but that they recede quickly as we’re invited deeper into life with God.  

So, what do we do when we’re overwhelmed by tears, restlessness, doubt, and nagging questions?  Recently, a parent reached out looking for advice to give a middle school child who is restless to know if the stuff her family and community say about God’s love is true and relevant to her.  Here are some things you can try at 11, 21, 31, or 51 when your soul feels restless.  

1.     Reframe Hunger – Just like physical hunger points to the reality of food and our body’s need for it, spiritual hunger points to the reality of a life with God and our need for it.  But, unlike physical hunger, spiritual hunger is itself the result of God’s initiation and invitation.  When you experience soul craving, name it as God’s work in you and notice how that simple action shapes your response. 

2.     Release Expectations – Too often we torpedo spiritual progress by having too specific expectations for what spiritual life will look like.  We expect God to speak in an audible voice, dreams or visions, career success, relationships, or miraculous healing.  When we narrow our expectations, we’re likely to miss the movements of God because it doesn’t fit our expectations.  

3.     Raise Expectancy – If we can release expectations the next step is to increase expectancy.  When we are expectant, we’re looking for indications of God’s movement without determining in advance what those movements will look like.  We recognize our soul’s thirst and we look for any indication of soul nurture as a clue to what God is doing.  

4.     Review the Day – Take 10 minutes to review the day.  Ask for God’s guidance in this process.  Spend 5 minutes reviewing those moments of joy, contentment, hope, and connection.  Thank God for these and consider what God might want you to know.  Now consider the difficult parts of the day, the disappointments, frustrations, fears, jealousies, etc.  Hold them without judgment before deciding what to do with them.  Where appropriate apologize (to God, yourself, or others).  Where needed, ask for help.  Conclude your review with a short prayer to notice God in the day to come.  

What’s your current level of holy longing?  How might these practices help? 

 

 

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Bruised Egos and Blessedness - A Reflection on Humility

“I really appreciated how you chose not to speak during this section,” Melissa said.  We were taking a few minutes at the end of a full day of planning meetings.  Melissa, Susan, and I were in a breakout in the middle of the afternoon, tasked with bringing clarity to a part of our plan that needed work.  “By staying quiet, you made space for Susan and me to lead… and I think we got to a good outcome.”  

 

Melissa’s feedback made me curious about her experience working with men in our community.  She’s a respected leader.  Is it unexpected or noticeable when a male leader differs to her?  I wondered what it’s like for Susan or other women to lead in our organization.  

Simultaneously, my ego was bruised.  What did it mean that my appreciated contribution to the meeting was to stay silent?  Are my observations and insights an asset to our team, or a liability?  Am I valued if I’m not actively adding to the conversation? 

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  This is the opening to Jesus’ most famous sermon in Matthew 5.  It sets a powerful, yet controversial, picture for the priorities of Jesus’ kingdom vision.  Whether we take the phrase, “poor in spirit” to mean awareness of our own spiritual poverty before God, or to mean those who, through marginalization or oppression have what we might call a ‘broken spirit,’ the emphasis is on Jesus’ priority of place and compassion toward those who lack the ability to be boldly self-assertive.  

This runs counter to popular American culture.  We seem to prefer the boldly self-assertive, successful, educated, and entrepreneurial.  We have been shaped by the Horatio Alger myths of the, ‘self-made man,’ (or woman) who, through sheer force of personality, talent, grit, and hard work becomes financially prosperous and culturally influential.  And yet… 

 

Jesus teaches that it is not the self-assured who experience peace with God, but the humble, the poor in spirit.  Later teachings of Jesus tease this implication out.  Even when the self-assured are decidedly more upstanding, it is the poor in spirit who get to know God.  

 

‘God be merciful to me, a sinner,’ is a much better prayer, even accompanied by an immoral and impious life, than ‘thank you, thank you, thank you,’ or ‘help,’ uttered by the pious and proud.

 

Christian discipleship then pulls in two directions simultaneously. It sets our minds to acquire wisdom while steeping our hearts in humility. Only then will we be able to “do what is right, rightly” that is, to exercise wisdom without pride, to serve without need for recognition, to love others for their sake rather than our own. 

 

Melissa’s words revealed an ego still needing to be steeped in humility.  The perspective that my most important contributions are conveyed in the words I share and not in the space I hold for others is out of alignment with Jesus’ message.  I need to pray, “Lord teach me how to be poor in spirit.”

How does Jesus’ vision (or the Horatio Alger myth) shape how you see yourself and others?    

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Eavesdropping on a Saint - Learning to Pray

My earliest memories include the cool feeling and lemon scent of a freshly polished wooden pew on my cheek.  Mom married a pastor and then became one herself.  It’s hard to imagine being more steeped in church than I was.  Imagine my surprise then, when I met Martin.  I don’t remember what Martin said, we didn’t meet at a church event.  I do remember that he talked for only about 3 minutes and I remember thinking, “that guy knows God.”  

 

This simple recognition changed my life.  As I learned more of Martin’s story, I became deeply curious about the ways he, despite significant personal difficulties and tragedies, had become a person of such incredible presence.  I remember thinking, “I’ve been around Christian people my whole life… many of them good, generous, even godly, people, but Martin is the first person who, when I look at him, I also see Jesus.”  

 

It wasn’t his eloquence, charisma, or theological sophistication that caused me to see God living in him. It was his sense of delight over a cup of coffee, or the way he visited inmates at the local prison, naming their gifts and talents.  He’d say, “Alejandro can sing beautifully… Robert is an artist… Dave is always thinking about his kids.”  It was the way he’d laugh, as though he and Jesus were sharing an inside joke, when he misplaced his keys.  

 

Praying with Martin was like standing on the edge of a waterfall.  You were aware, because Martin seemed to be aware, that you were in the presence of this immense and powerful current that, if you let it, could easily draw you over into the vast unknown, and yet the impact of standing so near this torrent was peaceful not terrifying.  Donald Miller wrote, “Sometimes you just have to watch someone love something before you can love it yourself.  It’s as if they are showing you the way.”  

 

As I think about Paul’s prayer from Ephesians 3:14-21, I imagine that Paul is inviting us to watch him love God and love the people of God in the hopes that we’ll learn to love them too. 

 

Today I want to invite us to eavesdrop on a saint.  His prayer pushes beyond our ordinary thought categories as he describes, for example, knowing a love beyond knowledge, or being filled with fullness.  But, if we’re willing to attend to this prayer, we just might find our hearts strangely warmed.  So, forgive me for not trying to explain this prayer, let me instead show you around it. 

 

The first thing that’s worth noticing is the posture of the prayer.  Paul says, “For this reason I kneel before the father…”. You probably know that in the ancient world kneeling was not a typical posture of prayer.  People usually stood when they prayed, which means the posture of kneeling matters.  For a point of reference, let’s think for a minute about the prayer life of Jesus.  Jesus spent all night in prayer before he chose his core community of twelve disciples.  He probably stood.  Jesus wept and prayed at the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus.  He was standing.  Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, praying a prophetic lament.  He was sitting.  The only time Jesus is ever said to kneel in prayer, is the night before his death, in the garden of Gethsemane in a moment of such emotional distress that he was sweating blood.  So, when Paul tells us he’s kneeling in prayer we have to do some cross-cultural translation.  

A couple of months ago my mother-in-law, who is Filipino, came to our home with ten pounds of breakfast cereal.  Now, for some of you, I don’t need to say another word.  Your heart is moved.  You may even feel your tear ducts swelling.  For the rest of us, let me translate.  Food is the language of love in the Philippines, (as it is in other Asian cultures).  In the home where I grew up my mother told us she loved us with words and showed us she loved us with hugs.  My mother-in-law communicates love by asking, “did you eat?”  And then, no matter what your answer to that question, she’ll say, “Kain na,” or “come eat with us.”  

 

Now, the other thing you need to know, is that no one in my household eats breakfast cereal, except for me. So, what did it mean, when my mother-in-law showed up at our door with ten pounds of breakfast cereal?  It was her way of saying, my dear son, I see you… I love you… you matter to me… and even though your taste in food is totally incomprehensible to me, I’ll go out of my way to care for you and show you that I love you.  

 

By kneeling before God, Paul is holding nothing back emotionally.  That’s what his posture means.  A modern equivalent in some circles might be to say something like say, “he was on his face.”  This prayer is worth his full emotional commitment.  This request, this purpose, this longing is worth everything. 

 

What is getting your full emotional commitment?  What is the thing for which you would hold nothing back, the desire that is worth everything?  Is it possible that life with God is worth that kind of commitment?

 

Now, from posture let’s move on to petition, or the content of the prayer.  We can get a little lost in the language and miss both the point and the poetry.  A quick word about each… the prayer is composed of one kernel idea, but it’s expressed in a parallel poetic structure which takes each clause of the kernel sentence and rephrases it, reframing it, so that we’re drawn more deeply into the content.  For example, It’s one thing to say I’m committed to my two daughters.  It’s another to quote to them from the great children’s music composer Eminem, as I used to when they were little, “we all we got in this world, when it spins, when it whirls, when it twirls, two little beautiful girls.”  

 

It’s the same idea… it’s just that poetry gives the idea wings. 

 

The kernel sentence, or the plea that this prayer is making is this: That God strengthen the community of faith with power to know the unknowable depth of God’s love and to become a meeting place between God and people.    

 

There are some assumptions here that are worth paying attention to.  First, there is an assumption that the reason God isn’t already more palpably present is not because God lacks interest, but because we lack strength.  The main petition of the prayer is that we would be strengthened in our inner being.  

 

This petition might not be intuitive to us at first, so maybe an image will help.  Imagine a box strong enough to contain the sun.  It would not only have to be enormous, but it would also have to be indestructible.  A nuclear power plant in the US is typically encased in concrete walls 3ft – 5ft thick.  And that’s just the containment for nuclear fission reactors, whereas the sun is mostly powered by the far more potent energy of nuclear fusion.  So, imagine the kind of strength, or internal fortitude, necessary to hold the sun.  

 

Here, Paul is praying for nothing less than for the community of faith to have the inner fortitude necessary to hold the creator of galaxies. 

 

Sometimes I wonder if our religious imagination has become a little domesticated.  Christians sometimes speak of, “having Jesus in their hearts” as though it were a small thing to be occupied by the mysterium tremendum.  We who struggle with the basic tasks of global citizenship, easily enticed by half-truths, who have to fight a constant battle of self-discipline in order to hold onto our jobs and relationships, might need to re-discover what it means to quake in the presence of holiness.  

 

The second assumption in this petition is that it’s possible to know a love that’s unknowable.  (I told you before, I’m just showing you around… I can’t explain it.). Every bit as important as the strength to hold and understand the divine presence, is the longing to participate in a love that surpasses knowledge.  

 

The closest thing I can approximate to knowing a love that’s unknowable is what happened to me when my daughters were born.  As I cradled these tiny humans in my arms, I suddenly knew a love for them so overwhelming and so total that it felt hard to breathe.  A moment before I was being a dutiful husband, trying my best to comfort Sophia and attend to the need at hand, now I’d have given anything, at any cost, for the love of these girls.  Now some of that experience is pheromonal, and that’s ok, because the point is that there is something about our capacity to love that can expand rapidly beyond our ability to rationally process it.  

 

Paul prays that the community of faith would experience in their relationship with God what I experienced when I held my daughters for the first time, a life altering experience of love that changes everything.  

I wonder, do we want that?  Do we have the internal fortitude for it?  What would happen in our lives and communities if God were to answer this prayer?

 

The third assumption in this prayer is that it is possible for the invisible God to become visible in a community. I love and have preached many times the words of Tom Skinner’s 1970 message, “Racism and World Evangelism.”  In this message Tom said, “It has always been the will of God, to saturate the common clay of a man’s humanity, and then send that man in open display in the midst of a hostile world to bear witness to the fact that it is possible for the invisible God to make himself visible in a man.”  While I still think Tom’s words are true, I think they are incomplete, because Paul isn’t praying for individuals.  He’s praying for the community.   

 

Imagine praying with selfless abandon that the church would be a place where heaven and earth overlap and interlock, where the invisible God became visible.  Well, perhaps we don’t need to imagine.  The need is clearly before us as scandals, schisms, and social issues undermine the church’s credibility.  There is a major reckoning happening, across all Christian denominations in North America, as many people have left the church (or are leaving).  

 

If you asked Paul what the church needed in this moment; he wouldn’t suggest a really good marketing campaign, a suite of programming, or social platform.  Paul would get down on his knees and cry out to God to strengthen the community of faith with power to know the unknowable depth of God’s love and to become a meeting place between God and people.    

The final section of this prayer is devoted to praise.  Paul’s request, from a human standpoint, is impossible.  This is why he anchors his hope in God who is able to do far more than we can ask or even imagine.  Ultimately, this prayer leads us to rest in the goodness, love, and power of God.  

 

How might we integrate some of our eavesdropping into our prayer practices this week?  

If you have a prayer practice, you might consider finding a new, physical posture in which to pray.  What physical posture signifies whole, unreserved, commitment to you?  One friend I know used to look up and turn his arms out.  I’ve prayed lying on the floor with my arms outstretched.  Sophia is taking on the practice of getting out of bed and getting onto her knees before she does anything else.  Find a posture this week that signals to you, full, unreserved, engagement, and pray in that posture.  It doesn’t have to be long… but come back to it… and notice how your posture changes your prayer. 

 

If you don’t have a prayer practice, consider taking 2 minutes a day to reflect on this image of being strengthened in your inner being by God… for God.  Pay attention to what emerges for you.  

 

As I eavesdrop on this saint in prayer, I keep thinking of my friend Martin.  What did Martin have that set him apart?  In a word… God.  Martin had a life with God you could sense from across the room.  Martin expressed that life with God in simple, non-flashy, but joyful, acts of love and compassion toward others.  It was Martin’s life with God that made me want to know him, and ultimately want to know God.  “Sometimes you just have to watch someone love something before you can love it yourself.”   

Why Pray - A Reflection on Ephesians 1

 

I remember a feeling of dread churn in my stomach as I looked up at the climbing rope hanging from the gymnasium ceiling.  Today was the day our class was going to compete for the presidential fitness awards.  I watched classmate after classmate unable to ascend more than a few feet, while kids’ cheers and jeers echoed around the room.  By the time it was my turn, the rope was slick from all the sweaty palms that had gripped and grappled.  

 If you ever had to climb a rope like this, especially if you weren’t prepared for it, I imagine you looked up thinking, “I don’t want to climb this rope… I’m not strong enough to climb this rope… I don’t know how to climb this rope.”  I notice that this is how a lot of people feel about prayer.  “I don’t know how… I’m not spiritual enough… I’m not sure I even want to…”. 

 

For others of us the image of the rope may conjure the intensive focus and grit of the cross-fit gym.  We grab onto this sweaty rope with white-knuckled determination to force our bodies into the shape our culture has determined is most desirable.  This also reminds me of a way we can approach prayer, as an obligation, something we have to gut through by force of will if we want a spiritual life.  

 The image of a climbing a rope can also evoke a sense of suspension, that vulnerable perch between where we want to be and where we are.  Many of us live lives, not of quiet desperation as Thoreau hinted, but of restless, grappling, to find the job, influence, finances, spouse, or lifestyle that will prove that we really do deserve to be here.  

 

And, when we feel like we’re hanging in the balance, suspended somewhere between our future hopes and our past disappointments, we pray.  

 

Today I want to reflect on prayer using this passage from Ephesians 1 to show how this simple Christian prayer transforms why we pray, what we pray, and how we pray.

 

Why Pray?  

 

We might not think of it this way, but prayer is an essentially human practice.  Religious people pray.  Non-religious people pray.  Atheist apologist Sam Harris invites his readers to practice a Tibetan form of contemplation, or prayer, called Dzogchen.  Disney invites us to wish on a star and believe in our dreams, this is a secular way of describing prayer.  We pray when a cancer diagnosis disrupts our family, when the career opportunity we’ve been chasing comes into view, or when we watch a tragedy unfold. 

 

With prayer so ubiquitous, it’s worth asking why we do it.  About 15 years ago, when my daughter Malaya was 3 years old, I overheard her praying.  I was working from home, juggling attention between work calls and emails on one side, and diapers, snacks, and play time on the other.  As I crossed the room where Malaya and her younger sister were playing, I heard Malaya pray, “God, please help papa…”.  I thought, “my daughter is a spiritual genius.”  So, the next time I crossed the room I listened a little more closely.  Again, Malaya prayed, “God, please help papa…”. I was touched.  Here is my little girl praying earnestly for me.  So, I stopped just outside where they were playing and continued to listen.  Malaya continued, “God, please help papa… listen to Malaya!”  

As far as I can tell, most of us pray in order to get something.  We pray to get physical things; a job, restored health, a good placement, an apartment in the right neighborhood.  We pray to get relational things papa’s attention, friendship, love, reconciliation.  We pray to fill the spiritual hunger inside; a hunger for freedom, a hunger for justice, a hunger for mercy, a hunger for forgiveness, a hunger for beauty.  

 

Whether our needs are physical, relational, or spiritual, we put our hands to prayer like we put our hands to the climbing rope, to get something, a presidential award, a desirable body, a preferred future, peace.  

 

Now notice this prayer from Ephesians 1.  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing… just as he chose us in Christ …to be holy and blameless… He destined us for adoption as his children … In him we have redemption…. the forgiveness of our trespasses…he has made known to us the mystery of his will… In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance… so that we….might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you … were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;  

 

Did you notice there isn’t a single request in this prayer?  There are only two elements; 1. Elaborate praise and celebration of God, 2. Reflection on why God has been so generous. 

 

This leads me to observe that this is not the prayer of someone who is trying to get something.  This is the prayer of someone who already has something.  In fact, they don’t just have something, they have everything:relationship, blessing, perspective, inheritance, forgiveness, and identity.  The language in this prayer spills over itself in elaborate praise and celebration of God.  In the original language this is one complex sentence, just one thought expressed in symphonic ecstasy.  

 

Remember the author of this prayer describes himself later in this letter as, “an ambassador in chains.”  Paul is under house arrest at least, in prison at worst.  Paul isn’t praying like this because he’s having a good day.  He’s praying like this because he’s discovered a different answer to the question, “why pray”.  If you asked Paul, “why we should pray?” He wouldn’t say, “to get what we need from God.” He’d say, “because of the outlandish generosity we’ve already received from God, in Jesus, by the Spirit, we can’t help but pray.”    

 

What to Pray?  

If we can absorb the shift from praying to get something to praying because we already have something it will change WHAT we pray.  

 

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you feel more anxious after you pray than before?  If you read my prayer journals from a number of years ago, you’d see a litany of challenges, unresolved relationship difficulties, and professional angst.  I wanted peace but prayed my fears.  I wanted hope but prayed despair.  I wanted security but prayed anxiety.  I don’t think I’m alone.  In fact, I think many of us, if we’re honest, come to prayer hoping to get something out of it, and so, what is at the forefront of our hearts and minds is our need, our fear, our grief, and our disappointment. 

Here’s what can happen.  We pray for something: healing, relief, a relationship, peace, and we don’t feel any different.  So, we pray harder, with more earnestness, with greater intensity, and we don’t see any change.  We don’t feel any different.  And then, we give up… allowing our differed hopes to make our hearts sick.  We give up on prayer, on God, on ourselves.  

 

This prayer from Ephesians 1 invites us to pray differently.  It invites us to come to prayer as chosen, blessed, graced, forgiven, filled, celebrating the God who has made us these things, in Jesus and by the Spirit.

 

This simple change in perspective frees us from restlessness.  In a world that says you’re not really living unless you have lots of wealth, lots of power, lots of esteem, and lots of sex,  this Christian prayer says, you have all the life you need and more.   You are already loved…valued… cherished… provided for… forgiven… blessed… 

The reason you have all this is not because you’re so great, but because the God who made you, stretched his own flesh between heaven and earth to reconcile earth and heaven.  That same God is present by the Spirit as we come to know, love, and follow Jesus.  

 

How to Pray?

 

Now, I want to be careful here as we move towards how we might incorporate this prayer’s insight into our own practice.  First, I’m not suggesting that we can’t bring our needs, fears, or longings to prayer.   Of course, can bring these feelings to prayer.  Ephesians 1 shows us how.   

 

When my daughter Malaya was a toddler, we took to the playground almost every day.  I remember teaching her to climb the rope ladder.  It would shake with her weight and she’d freeze in fear.  Every time she’d freeze I’d put my hand on her back and say, “It’s ok, papa’s got you.”  Over time I took a step back, but whenever she’d freeze in fear I’d say, “It’s ok, papa’s got you.”  Months later when she was climbing a much bigger ladder, much more daring, much bolder, but I noticed her lips moving.  

 

So, unobtrusively, I moved closer and I saw her… suspended on that rope.  Every time she froze in fear she’d say, “It’s ok, papa’s got you…” And she’d reach for the next rung.  “It’s ok, papa’s got you.”  

 

Now, did I have her?  In one sense, no.  If she’d have fallen, she could have gotten hurt.  But, in another sense, I absolutely had her!  Because, even if she’d fallen and gotten hurt, I’d have been there to care for her, to pick her up, to help her overcome the bruises and breaks that are an inevitable part of growing up.  

 

Does God have you when you’re afraid, disappointed, or hurt?   

 

In an uncertain, unjust, and scary world, we are going to face heartbreak.   We are going to grieve, rage, and worry.  But, just like Malaya on that rope, Ephesians 1 invites us to confront those moments in prayer by reminding ourselves, it’s ok… Papa’s got you.   Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… 

 

The wisdom of Ephesians 1 is that it anchors our prayer in the story of God, so that even when we wrestle, cry, or rage, we find ourselves held in generous arms that have blessed, chosen, and bled on our behalf.  

 

The other reason to be careful is that the words of this prayer and the perspective behind this exhortation is unapologetically Christian.  You may not share a Christian worldview, in which case you may think that the wisdom of this prayer is of limited value, but I’m going to encourage you to reconsider.  

 

First, it’s worse than you think.  Almost every word in this prayer is layered with theological meaning.  For example, “Blessed be God, the father, who has blessed us… even as he chose us…”.  Blessing and choosing are themes that go all the way back to Genesis 12 where God chooses Abraham saying, ‘I’m choosing you, to bless you, so that you can be a blessing to the nations.’  Here these ancient multi-layered ideas focused on us because of our connection to Jesus.   

But this is better than you think too.   Because these ancient ideas are the existential dilemma that is the spiritual life.  Like the rope hanging from the ceiling in physical education the invitation to spiritual life is not easy.  We may feel like we don’t want to, or can’t, climb the spiritual heights. This prayer suggests the spiritual heights have already come to you, that there is life, love, hope, and blessedness already available to anyone who wants it.  Perhaps, even if you doubt the Christian story, this image of hope is attractive enough to be worth considering.  

Here’s a challenge for your spiritual practice this week.   Include Ephesians 1:3-14 in your prayer periods every day this week.  Memorize parts of it (if not the whole thing).  Let the richness of the images soak into your imagination.”  

 

If you don’t already have a prayer practice, try praying this prayer once in the morning and once before bed.  See if praying this way causes you to be any more aware of the love of God, more inclined to gratitude, or more joyful.  

For those of you who are up for a little bigger challenge I invite you to take one of the words in this prayer, a word like: blessing, adoption, chosen, redemption, forgiveness, etc.  And with an open Bible spend some time contemplating how this theme emerges in the story of God and Israel, how this prayer focuses it, and what it means for the community of faith.    

 

This prayer changed my life.  Because it anchored my heart and mind in the generosity of God, it enabled me walk through a season of profound vulnerability.  When ministry at church, challenges at work, and a loss in my family all happened at the same time, rather than become bitter or filled with self-pity, I would remember the generosity of God and know, in my bones, that I could stay calm, stay connected, and stay the course.  

 

This week you’re going to have a moment where it feels like you’re being invited to climb a sweaty rope.  Perhaps you’re in a situation where you already feel suspended somewhere between your future aspirations and present limitations.  As we respond in the very human practice of prayer, perhaps Ephesians can help us to remind ourselves… “It’s ok, papa’s got you.”  

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Sin and Self Acceptance - How Reflecting on our Faults can Help us Love.

Been contemplating sin for the last few weeks. In recovery circles we’d say I’ve been doing a fearless moral inventory.  In practice, this means setting aside regular intervals to review my motivations, thoughts, words, and actions in order to honestly name those aspects of habitual thought and action that work against desire to love God others. 

 

Doing this is a bit like keeping a food diary, the discoveries are not always pleasant.  (Did I really eat a half cup of French fries while cooking dinner?).  That said, the result has been the opposite of what you might think. 

 

The Christian moral vision is unintelligible without some understanding of the doctrine of sin.  Not all Christians agree about what this doctrine means, but there are basically four components:

 

1.     Sin as sickness – The idea here is that all of us, however good and upstanding we appear to ourselves and others, have an inclination to cheat, to cut corners, to advantage ourselves at the expense of others.  In the Christian moral vision, it is insufficient to simply do right.  We are called to do right, rightly, that is out of right motivation.  If we help our neighbors because we want them to think well of us, vote for us, or watch our back, we are really serving ourselves.  This tendency, left unchecked, unchallenged, and unchanged actually produces problems for us and our neighbors.  

2.     Sin as falling short – None of us keep our own standards 100% of the time, so the idea that we’ll keep a higher moral standard with perfect consistency is unattainable.  And yet, actually, this is the very thing we need for actual human thriving.  If all of us could be relied upon 100% of the time to do right, to not take advantage of others, to work for the good of others, we would not need laws, locks, or litigation.  We fall short. 

3.     Sin as corrosion – The idea here is that even our good actions can be tainted by a destructive self-interest.  No one starts a church, enters a marriage, or starts a family with the goal of spiritual abuse, divorce, or estrangement.  And yet, there is something at work within individuals and systems that seems, pardon the expression, hell bent on distorting, corroding, and destroying the people and systems themselves.     

4.     Sin as lifestyle – There is a tipping point at which enjoying combative infotainment gives way to becoming entrapped in conspiratorial thinking, when the bottle of wine we use to unwind becomes functional alcoholism.  This is the point where the habits of thought and action are designed and aligned to keep us stuck in addictive and destructive patterns.  

 

In contrast, our popular stories about reflection on sin, say that it will damage our sense of self, forcing us to live fearful, inauthentic, guilt ridden lives.  Our culture says, “you don’t need to be, ‘saved’ from sin, simply discovered and accepted.”  

 

Here’s what I’ve learned. After 3 weeks of contemplating the envy, wrath, pride, deception, lust, and gluttony in my own life, from seeds in early memory to current fruit that poisons joy and undermines relationships, I’ve never felt more loved and lovable.  Why?  Because if I can receive the love and grace of God even as I stare unflinching into the depths of my own depravity, then I can give and receive love anywhere. 

 

It seems to me, that self-acceptance is a sham without contemplation of sin, self-deception, and selfishness. We don’t have to be discovered in all our exquisite individuality in order to be whole. We can be human and holy in the grace of God. 

 

Have you ever done a fearless moral inventory?  What was that experience like?  

Strength Training - Practicing Listening Prayer

Some years ago, my daughter meekly approached the table where I was sitting.  She stood quietly peering over my shoulder to see if it was ok for her to join me at the table.  

 

“You know what,” I said. 

“What?” 

 

“Your sensitivity is a great gift.”  

 

My daughter smiled. “Thank you,” she said.  Her eyes were warm but tinged with a little middle-school suspicion.  Perhaps she was hoping to avoid a lecture about being more assertive.  

 

I smiled back. “It means you will have insight into what others are thinking and feeling.  Though you will need to check because sometimes your intuitions can be wrong.” 

 

“Hmmm,” she said. 

 

“But” I continued, “if you hold yourself back, you're only giving half of the gift.” 

 

“What do mean,” she said.  

 

Our conversation continued.  “There is a difference between being sensitive to the needs of others and being insensitive to your own.  Your need for a place to have breakfast is just as important as my need for a quiet space to think and pray.  I want you to learn not to hold yourself back so that you can bring your full self to relationships.  That way when people see you and experience your sensitivity, they get the whole gift not just half of it.  Does that make sense?”  

 

She paused, “It does.”  

 

It seems to me that one of the best reasons to practice listening prayer is that it’s a practice that allows us to develop the inner strength to be present to others.  Like my daughter, I can easily approach interactions with others through my strengths.  I can attempt to impress with words, or project an image of confidence, intelligence, or attentiveness.  It’s only as I reflect on the interaction later that I realize how distracted I’d been by the desire to please, impress, manage, or win someone over, I’d been.  The interaction goes well, but I’m exhausted.  

The connection to listing prayer might not be an intuitive solution to the problem I’ve been describing, but the more I reflect, the more I see that the best gift any of us has to offer another person is our full and unguarded attention.  It is this ability to be both present and unguarded that makes interactions with young children so precious.  If we value time with people who are, “at home in their own skin,” as the saying goes, why do we struggle to offer the same?  I propose that it takes tremendous inner strength to be present and open to others, and most of us could use some more strength.  

 

In listening prayer, we practice simple, unguarded, attentive, presence to God.  As we simply sit, or stand, or walk, in listening prayer, we come face to face with our fears, (what if nothing happens?) distractions, (I need to… what about… did I forget?) and disappointments.  Over time we get stronger, discovering we can sit still for two, ten, or ever twenty whole minutes with minimal distraction.  We discover that God isn’t someone we need to impress, manage, or win over.  Learning to be present to God helps us to be present to ourselves and to others.  We stop hiding behind our gifts and begin to offering others our whole gift.  

Here’s a simple way to practice listening prayer.  

(Read Psalm 16:1-2)

Sit in a chair and see if you can focus all of your attention on allowing God to love you.

Do this for thirty seconds, then one minute, then two minutes. Practice until you can do this for ten minutes or more.

Keep a record of what you notice during these times.

 

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When the Wine Runs Out - Reflecting on the Character of God

 If you were God and you’d come to earth to show people what God was like, what would you do first?

 

As a campus minister I used to spend hours every week initiating conversations about life with God with college students.  This question was one of my favorites.  It created a safe space for students to exercise their theological imagination without pressure to be sophisticated or nuanced.  I also appreciated the surprise when I told them that, according to the Gospel of John, this scenario played out, but that Jesus’ first move was to make 168 gallons of wine for a party.   

 

There is something wonderfully non-intuitive about the first of the seven “signs” of Jesus in John’s Gospel.  In this first sign Jesus transforms water into wine at a wedding, covering the bridegroom’s (and his family’s) shame.  John ends this story by saying that this sign caused his disciples to believe in him, revealing his glory. 

It is a story rich with symbolism and allusion we may not see at first.

- An abundance of wine evokes the messianic banquet of Isaiah 25:6. 

- Allusions to time or hour look forward to Jesus’ crucifixion, where this first sign is inverted. Here Jesus receives water and makes wine. There Jesus receives sour wine, and water, along with blood, flow from his side. 

- The language of glory evokes the promise of Isaiah 40:5, but with a strange twist. Those who "see his glory" are those who ‘do whatever he tells them’ and those who 'believe in his name'. 

 

What do all these symbols and allusions mean?  College students uninstructed theological imaginations are closer than you’d think.  After asking the question above, “If you were God…” hundreds of times, the most common response was, “I’d cure cancer, disease, poverty, AIDS, or some other disastrous condition plaguing humanity.”  The second most common response was, “I’d get rid of all the bad people.” 

 

John’s gospel actually affirms this impulse although with a little more precision.  John’s symbolic language for a time when diseases are healed, wars ceased, nations and families reconciled, and social harmony is the messianic banquet.  By creating an abundance of wine, Jesus is not only solving a social dilemma he’s invoking a vision of healing, harmony, and hope imprinted on the human soul.  

 

Getting rid of bad people is a bit more complicated.  As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, 

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”  

The direct references to Jesus’ crucifixion, where this sign will be inverted, is John’s solution to Solzhenitsyn’s dilemma.  In the mystery of the crucifixion human evil is exposed, condemned, and overcome through Jesus’ submitting to torture and death on behalf of those he loves.  This is an ultimate act of restoring, rather than simply removing, the bad apples.  

 

This sign is designed to show us God’s glory in the generous, self-giving, compassionate, and yet sill partially hidden life of Jesus.  Though this sign we are invited to shake our heads in appreciative wonder at the generosity of God revealed in Jesus.  And we are invited to trust in Jesus’ way.  

 

Where do you feel like you’ve run out of wine?  

 

What one simple way you could practice the way of Jesus this week?  

 

 

 

 

 

Sin as Subplot - Belonging in the Biblical Story

As far as I can tell, most articulations of the Christian Story orient around an assumption that human beings are fundamentally flawed. The articulations jump right from a creation story to humanity's "fall from grace," as though the big problem that the Bible is concerned about is human willfulness, human disobedience, or human collusion with evil. 

 

It seems to me this reading fundamentally reads past the first real tension in the biblical narrative, the problem of human disconnection. "It is not good that the man (human) should be alone." (Genesis 2:18). 

 

In Genesis 2:18, God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” The weight of this statement is even stronger when we remember the poetry of Genesis 1, which contains the refrain “God saw that it was good” seven times.

 

The repetition of the phrase alone is striking, but there are two additional amplifiers that we may not be aware of. First is the number of repetitions. In Hebrew the number seven is significant. Seven is the sum of three (a biblical number suggesting glory, weightiness, or perfection) and four (a biblical number suggesting creation).  In Isaiah 6, the cherubim sing “holy, holy, holy” to signify God’s perfection in holiness, while the four corners of the earth and the four rivers flowing out of Eden signify the created order. The sum of three and four is thus meant to summon our attention. God saw that it was good seven times. The repetition and connotation emphasize and underline creation’s goodness in the eyes of God. It’s almost impossible to get a more emphatic statement, but we do.

 

Just in case we didn’t catch the poem’s refrain as it sang “it was good” seven times, we have a second amplifier, what in English is translated “very good.” The English term very is a weak translation of the Hebrew term meʼōd. Meʼōd is defined first as “force, might” and second “to express the idea of exceedingly, greatly, very . . . Gn 1:31 . . . good exceedingly.” Creation is not just good. It is exceedingly, abundantly, greatly, forcefully good. This phrase gathers up all the earlier refrains from each “day” creation that has come before. The Creator God beholds creation and describes it as exceedingly good.

 

Now consider again “It is not good that the man should be alone” in Genesis 2:18. The contrast is like a verbal slap. The action breaks. The first point of tension in the whole narrative of Scripture is that even an exceedingly, abundantly, greatly, forcefully good creation, human creatures can be alone...can be lonely… and that loneliness is not good.  

 

What if the story the Bible wants to tell is not primarily about human willfulness, sinfulness, and disobedience, but a story about connection and relationship? The climactic vision in John's apocalypse has the image of a wedding feast and human community as its goal, not just victory over evil. 

 

I'm not suggesting that the story of creation, fall, redemption isn't important. I am wondering, whether that that story might be a dominant subplot in a larger story about connection and belonging. 

 

What does this mean? For starters, it suggests that the starting place for Christian faith isn't, "there's something wrong with you," but with the longing for belonging stamped into our most basic human desire. 

 

How do you experience belonging?  

 

What difference would it make if we read the story of existence through the lens of belonging?  

 

Chastity - An Confusing Virtue in a Sexually Chaotic World

We live in a hyper-sexualized culture.  

“The impact of the sexual revolution on the Christian community is enormous. Even as the culture has deviated from the traditional understanding of sexual ethics and marriage, so have Christians… there is good reason to believe the sexual revolution has more profoundly impacted the behavior of twenty-first-century Christians than has the Bible. George Barna and other social scientists provide abundant evidence concerning the degree to which the sexual revolution has affected the church in terms of sheer quantity of adultery, fornication, and use of pornography by professing Christians. Remarkably little difference can be found between sexual behavior of Christians and that of non-Christians in the United States.” – Dale S. Kuehne, Sex and the iWorld

Consider the following:

* Most kids are exposed to porn by age 11 and see over 14,000 sexualized messages each year.

* Over 1/2 of Christian men and nearly 1/3 of Christian women struggle with compulsive porn use.

* The majority of pastors say that pornography is the most sexually damaging issue in their church.

* The porn industry fuels demand for sex trafficking, which is estimated to affect about 300,000 youths in the U.S.

 

We don’t know how to respond.  On the one hand we fight human trafficking.  On the other music, movies, and media press sexualized images onto our screens in rapid succession.  We celebrate ‘consent’ and fight ‘rape culture’ on the one hand and our colleges sponsor ‘sex weeks’ on the other.  

 

Chastity 

The classical Christian solution to a sexualized culture is the virtue of chastity. Unfortunately, the word chastity is a confusing virtue with a number of unhelpful connotations. As far as I can tell these unhelpful connotations include the ideas that:

1. Chastity is synonymous with celibacy.  

2. Chastity is repressive and anti-human. 

3. Chastity is impossible.  

1. Chastity is the same as celibacy.  

Chastity and celibacy are related, but they are not synonymous. According to Webster’s Dictionary, the first definition of chastity is abstinence from unmarried sexual activity.  The second definition is abstinence from all sexual activity.  The third definition is purity in conduct and intention.  And the fourth definition is restraint in design or intention.  

 

So of the four definitions of chastity available it’s only the second definition that is synonymous with celibacy.  The other definitions are applicable to all people whatever their marital status. This distinction is important because too often the virtue of chastity has been focused on single people, as though it’s primarily a virtue oriented toward the policing of single people and their sexual practices. The wisdom of the Christian tradition in a sexualized context is not that singles in our midst need to adopt a form of sexual repression or “purity culture,” but that the whole Chrisitan community shares and practices a common sexual ethic.

 

2. Chastity is repressive and anti-human. 

Expressive individualism is a powerful story about what it means to be human deeply baked into contemporary culture. This story celebrates the authentic individual who is unencumbered by the expectations, traditions, or constraints of others. This story might be expressed in a syllogism.  (A = B.  B= C, therefore A = C)   

-       Authentic people are fully human.

-       Authenticity is following and acting out one’s individual feelings and desires.

-       Acting out individual feelings and desires makes one fully human.  

In an article, about a chastity club at Harvard University a few years ago, the NY Times magazine interviewed as a counter example a woman named Chen.  Chen’s perspective was stated simply.  Chen said, “For me, being a strong woman means not being ashamed that I like to have sex,” she said. And “to say that I have to care about every person I have sex with is an unreasonable expectation. It feels good! It feels good!”

Notice the logic.  Being a strong woman means acting out your individual feelings and desires.  To suggest otherwise, according to the logic, would be oppressive, anti-human, anti-woman. 

 

But actually, the syllogism above has some significant flaws. Authenticity is a terrible arbiter of morality. In his lecture “Learning the Language of Life: New Creation and Christian Virtue” N. T. Wright joked, “What if your authentic desire is to cheat as many people out of as much money as possible?” Additionally, there is no imperative contained in the syllogism about recognizing and honoring the humanity of others.   What if your authentic desire is to sexually exploit others for profit or for pleasure?  Does acting on this desire make you more human?  (Of course not.)  

 

In the Christian worldview we are made in the image of God for relationship with God.  This creates a separate syllogism.   

-       Relationship with God makes us fully human.

-       Some behaviors and attitudes damage our relationship with God and others. 

-       When we reject behaviors and attitudes that damage our relationship with God and others we become more fully human.  

These ideas about chastity aren’t simply academic to me.

I grew up in church.  My earliest memories are in church.  I can remember the smell of wooden pews and the coolness of the wood on my face as I lie on them.  When I was in 3rd grade my parents initiated what became an incredibly messy divorce.  There were many factors contributing to their decisions.  But inescapably in the midst of these factors was the fact that my mom had found another man and my dad had found other women.  

The violence and chaos that ensued in our home during that period did incredible damage to everyone who lived there. Did their choices make them more fully human?  Did they create the conditions for intimacy and flourishing?  No.  

But here’s the scar.  Both of my parents were leaders in the church.  They knew, or should have known, that life with God makes us fully human.  They knew, or should have known, that some behaviors damage relationship with God and others.  And they should have, by God’s grace, with God’s help, under God’s mercy, chosen to say no to those things so that both they and their children could have experienced life.  

 

3. Chastity is impossible.  

A third objection to chastity is to dismiss it out of hand because it’s difficult.  Freud basically said, a sex drive is going to do what a sex drive is going to do.  Contemporary anthropologists say, we can see evidence of both pair bonding and infidelity in human culture throughout history, therefore infidelity must have an evolutionary advantage and we should just live with it.  Historians look at church history and recognize that even during periods where chastity was emphasized it wasn’t always followed.  

 

In the 12th century St. Dominic de Guzman founded an order of preachers whose mission was to live out their preaching and teaching ministry in the public square.  One of the most commonly articulated objections to his order was that it was implausible for Dominic to be able to expect these young men (mostly students) to be chaste if they’re out there in public and not sequestered off in a monastery somewhere. 

 

What do we say to this?  First, I think it’s important to point out that chastity is practiced and has been practiced.  (Simply pointing out that practicing chastity is difficult and therefore impossible to practice is like saying that calculus or chemistry is difficult and therefore impossible to learn.  The challenge of a beautiful mathematic proof or of insight into atomic composition is part of what makes the endeavor worthwhile.)  

 

Secondly, I think it’s important to point out that the practice of chastity created the conditions for single women and men to make celebrated contributions to the church and to the world throughout Christian history.  In an age where women would be expected to marry and have children Teresa of Avila, Clare, Monica, Catherine of Sienna, and many others were able to make significant cultural contributions as single women.  The contemporary western church finds it difficult to honor singles because (at least in the protestant tradition) we hold up marriage as the norm.  (This is true for single men as well.) 

 

Third, holding our sexual desire before God is ultimately humanizing.  Look at the Psalms.  Some of the Psalms, particularly the Psalms called imprecatory Psalms, have shocking language.  “Break the teeth of the wicked, Oh Lord…. Happy is the one who takes your children and dashes them against the rock.”  We think… woah!  What’s that about?  Is the bible invoking violence and hatred?  No!  The Psalms invite us to pray our rage and hold it before God.  Rage, anger, disillusionment, are all a part of life in a fallen world.  If we act out our rage on our sisters and brothers we dehumanize them and we dehumanize ourselves.  If on the other hand we pray our rage, hold it before the Lord, and entrust it to him, then we can be free…we can be transformed.  It is the same with our sexual desire.  We hold it before the Lord honestly.  We bring our desire and frustration to God and entrust ourselves to him.  And then…we can be free.  We can be whole.  When we act out our sexual desire and frustration on our brothers and sisters we diminish them.  We diminish ourselves.  When we pray our desire, loneliness, and frustration we experience healing and freedom. 

We live in a hyper-sexualized culture. If the church has a valuable contribution to make within this culture it’s likely to be in the recovery of the virtue of chastity.

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Beyond Pheromones - Love in the Christian Tradition

The moment I first held my daughter I had an overwhelming physical sensation of attachment, care, and protectiveness.  I knew, in that moment, that I would endure any cost, bear any burden, and absorb any threat in protection and provision of this little life.  Few experiences have matched this in terms of emotional commitment.  My friend Larry, an older man whose wisdom has been father like, said, “you never know how deeply you can love another until you meet and bond with your child for the first time.”  

Still, love confuses me.  How much of that overwhelming sense of connection and protection I felt for my daughter was the simple pheromonal attachment response developed between primates?  Is love a simple biochemical condition, or is there more to it?  Loving my daughter as a baby meant sheltering, feeding, cleaning, and carrying her.  As she prepares to leave for college, I do none of these, directly anyway.  At some point soon the most loving thing I’ll be able to do for her is to let her struggle, fail, and build attachments of her own.  

Is love holding close, or is it letting go?  The answer is, of course, both, but how do we know when to hold and when to release?  If you’ve ever witnessed or experienced a helicopter parent, an enmeshed couple, or a controlling friend you know that holding close can be destructive.  On the other hand, if you’ve ever felt completely on your own, or needlessly exposed to risk, you know how neglect can starve the soul.  

In the Christian tradition to love is, "To will the good of another as other."  This dense statement has 3 parts.  

1. Will - Love is not primarily a feeling in Christian tradition, but an action of the will.  As powerful as the pheromones of attraction and attachment are, they stop short of love.  Love, thankfully, works with these emotions but also in spite of them.  Anyone can love a cuddly newborn, it takes a conscious effort of will to love a colicky baby who hasn’t slept in 3 weeks, a moody adolescent, or a spouse whose needs and interests conflict with your own.  
 

2. Good - In the Christian tradition goodness is a relational term of orientation.  Assuming we were created for relationship with God and one another goodness is a word that denotes anything that points toward love of God and neighbor.  For example, when we plumb the depths of the physical world and expand our collective understanding of reality, this knowledge is good.  But, when we learn in order to exploit or dominate, to build wealth upon informational and technological inequities, or damage ecosystems, we are no longer doing good. 

3. Other - Love assumes otherness, difference, and distinction.  It does not homogenize, but respects difference and differentiation.  It is only to the degree that I’m able to love my daughter according to her needs (not my own) that I love her in truth.  

  

What comes to mind when you think of love?