We All Are Loved

I think that the words of this Psalm (except vss. 19-22 which are out of step with the rest of it and are not helpful to me today) are what we all need to be Musing on this day:

Psalm 139 - NRSV

The Inescapable God

To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from far away.

3 You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, you know it completely.

5 You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is so high that I cannot attain it.

7 Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

10 even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light around me become night,"

12 even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you,

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

that I know very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven

in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

all the days that were formed for me,

when none of them as yet existed.

17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

18 I try to count them—

they are more than the sand;

I come to the end —I am still with you.  

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my thoughts.

24 See if there is any wicked way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

God be with us all.

Using the Lord’s Name

No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won't put up with the irreverent use of his name. Exodus 20:7 (The Message)

I’ve noticed something recently, Christians of good faith and spiritual maturity aren’t using the term “God” very much or even Jesus Christ when talking about why they think, feel, believe what they do. Now it may be that I just am not listening closely enough. Amy will tell you that I can be sitting there looking like I’m paying attention but really, I’m not catching anything that is being said. But I don’t think this is true in this situation even if it is true in some others.

I think that we shy away from “God” talk because we don’t want to offend or put people off. But if we fail to mention God then we lessen the impact of what we have to say. I think some folks feel that it is to presumptuous to say that “God has shown you” or “God has led me to” or some such phrase. I also think many of us (maybe me included) are worried that if we say things like this we will be ignored because it sounds like the language of those Christians that try to speak for God or those that use their religion to separate.

I was involved recently in a lot of conversation about why I am a pastor, why I believe what I believe, why I feel strongly about how the world works. It was conversation so I was listening to how others answered the questions, how they talked about the vision they have for life, the church, faithfulness, etc. In a lot of that conversation God was not claimed. People would hint at the holy connection – my faith tells me…in my pray life I have come to see…we have discerned a particular direction… these types of statements hint at the presence and influence of God but fail to name God directly.

I must tell you that I sympathize with this hesitation. To bring God or Christ or the Spirit into the picture is to take a great risk of being misinterpreted or misunderstood or dismissed entirely. But to refrain is to dismiss the source of your revelation, insight, or discernment. I think it is all in how you say it. It is in the way you present it. It is how humble and honest and authentic you are that will help you be heard.

To say, “God has shown me the way!” and do so with force, intimidation and an obvious air of superiority is to bring that declaration into question. To say, “Through my prayer, study, and reflection I sense that God is wanting us to head in this direction.” Is to be honest about how you came to your conclusion without the baggage of “divine revelation” to you and you alone. When talking about your personal vision for things or your mission in life or the vision you have for an institution and your concept of its mission it is not only appropriate but I think necessary to bring your God given insight into the conversation. But you can't do it as if yours is the one and only true and real revelation. I think God reveals things to us but because of our basic human nature we only grasp pieces and parts and it takes others to construct the whole. To own that God has been a part of your position is not to exclude the input of others. It is to honestly state how you have gotten to the place you are and can free others to share what God has shared with them.

I think as faithful people we need to speak the name of God when it is appropriate. Instead of being afraid we are using the Lord’s name in vain maybe we should fear not naming God at all. To have a faith is to be in a deep and meaningful connection with God but to refrain from naming that connection is to lessen that relationship. If you are authentic in your life others will not be put off when you use the name of God.

Dear God, help me to name you when it is appropriate. Help me to share with others what you share with me and to make sure and give you the credit. May I use your name correctly to its glory. Amen.

Living in the Gray

Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. Matthew 27:50 (NRSV)

Well here we are again at the most unpleasant time of the Christian year – the end of Holy Week. We have remembered Jesus’ final night. We have walked with him to the cross. We have flinched as we imagined the spikes being driven in. And we’ve symbolically watched as he died on that cross. And if we are honest, we are unsettled and uneasy and unsure of what to do with this reality that we visit once a year.

One aspect of the job of being a local church pastor is facing death. Everyone must deal with it at one time or another but a local church pastor spends a lot of time there. We keep vigil with a family as a loved one slowly passes. We cry with the spouse when their partner is taken suddenly or with a parent when their child dies unexpectedly. We listen to loved ones as they share about the deceased as we prepare a service of remembrance and celebration. We comfort the survivor a month, a year, a decade later. Death is part of our life, part of life but more so when you pastor a church.

Regardless of how much time I have spent with death, the end of Holy Week is still uncomfortable. And I know it isn’t the closeness of death that brothers me. That happens because it shows me the dark side of humanity and our institutions. It lays bare the reality that power and calm rely on violence. It makes me face the fact that maintaining the status quo is often more acceptable then justice. And it makes me come face to face with my own bend to seek revenge, use manipulation, resort to force, and try to keep things in check so that the relative calm can continue even when it is far from what I desire or what is right.

This is what we don’t like about Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. They make us face the darker parts of ourselves. They force us to see ourselves in the betrayal, in the denial, in the crowd, in the soldiers, in Pilate, in the religious authorities, in the criminals, in the women, and not in Jesus. They make us uncomfortable because they show us this. Because they pull back our carefully constructed vials and expose our ugliness. Because they make us so very aware of how far away from the ideal we are. It isn’t the gruesome torture and death that causes us difficulty, it is being exposed that we really don’t like.

I might be trying to lump you in with me but I think what I am saying applies to us all to some degree. I really wish it were different but time and time and time again this reality shows up. It comes out when we bomb another. It surfaces when we wish harm upon the thieves that steal from our church. It shows itself when we lament the babies dying of poison gas and ignore those dying from hunger. It comes out when we fail to love as Jesus loves.

I ask you to spend some time at the cross. See Jesus there and recognize how far from him you are. Look beyond the wounds and the face drained of life and see the reality of our all too human ways. Allow yourself to be in the darkness of these days. Don’t try to run for them or hide from them or ignore them. Let yourself see who you are in the people and events of these days. Then when Sunday comes see the light, the life and know that we all have the opportunity to get it right. We all have the possibility to live as Jesus lived and love as Jesus loved. And know to the deepest part of yourself that God’s love, grace and presence are with you in every moment of every day.

Dear God, help me to be the person you dream me to be. Amen.

Discovering Who I Am

 But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. - John 1:12 (The Message)

Over the last few weeks I have been engaged in an effort to understand myself a bit more and how I react and interact in the world. Depending upon who you are talking with there are a variety of tools that might help you discover your true self, your way of viewing others and being in the world. There is the standard, the tried and true tool of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (those four letters that try to define you – I am an ISTJ). Another is the Predictive Index (PI for short) which I have never taken. There is the Traitify which is targeted for the Millennials and younger set and uses pictures in their process of typing you (again I have never done this one). There are two of a kind: Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence test and Adaptive Resilience Factor Inventory which bring emotional resiliency into the equation (not ones I have considered). And there is the Enneagram – which focuses on the influences of one’s basic fears and motivations (for those keeping score I am an 8). An interesting side, most ISTJs are not 8s; only 5% seem to fit into this combination.

Before I go any further I need to point something out. Any and all of these personal type tools are just that, tools. They do not fully define you and they are not all that you are. They help you know yourself and give you some insight into how you see and engage the world. They help you understand the dynamics of your interaction with others. But they do not control you and if my personal experience is any indicator, your specifics can shift and change depending upon age, stage and how you are feeling/doing at the time you take the “test”. The core of who you are may be indicated by these tools but they do not have the final say when it comes to how you see and engage others. You can develop and learn ways that are outside your “natural” self that serve you well in life. In fact, most all of us do this.

I have been delving into the Enneagram. I found a respected practitioner who evaluated me and then talked with me about how my type functions and shared practices and tools to assist me in working with others. He was very clear about the fact that what we were discussing was not the “final word” on how I see and engage others and the world but that it was a tool to help me understand why I react like I do and why others react to me the way they do. Ultimately what we are talking about is behavioral modification. I cannot change my reptilian response to the world but I can understand it and then let that understanding guide me as I try to become what God hopes I can be.

I am beginning to think that human evolution is becoming more about evolving our ways of behaving then with physical changes that allow us to better survive. All the major world religions are about evolving humans away from the fight, flight, and freeze responses. They all call us to seek a more social, interpersonal and communal way of being in the world. They all ask us to develop our compassion and to have empathy. They all look to our developing a commitment to the common good over our natural tendency to focus on what’s best for me and mine.  They all ask us to move beyond our “natural” selves and to embrace the humanity that God so wants each and every one of us to be.

I have said that I live the unexamined life. It is not a fair assessment of how I function. I examine myself but in ways that are not recognized. Only 4% of the population are 8s and 13% are ISTJs. I am one of the smallest groups (8) and largest groups (ISTJ) so I am a very unusual mix. This means that I don’t do things like others do, including self-examination. I also have to know that the way others do things will seem foreign to me, but that doesn’t make their way invalid or wrong, it’s just another way to do things. I’m 58 years old and still learning, who would have guessed? Life is a journey and if you plan to get anywhere you must learn and grow and change and modify as you go. Let the next stage begin!

Dear God, thank you for making me who I am – a unique and beautiful reflection of you. Help me to see others as unique and beautiful reflections of you. Amen.