the Gift of Listen

Since graduating from seminary 18 years ago (whew!) a handful of my classmates and I have met every year as a "covenant group." We take turns playing host and typically spend about four days together. Again, we've been doing this every year for the past 18. Pretty amazing, I think. We've experimented with various formats and content. We've critiqued one another's sermons, studied books together, and have met with mentor pastors and church leaders around the country. But from the very beginning one staple of our time together has been the "hot seat." No matter what format our covenant group takes on a given year it always includes a "hot seat" for each of us.

We take turns putting the focus of our attention one person at a time and we listen. We listen to what's going in our jobs, with our kids, and in our marriages. The focus stays exclusively on that one person until the group decides we're done.

What makes the "hot seat" such a great gift is that my friends' listening isn't just polite head nods and occasional clarifying statements ("what I hear you saying is…"). I mean they do that too. But their listening more real. It's the kind of listening that plunges between the words and peels back your soul. When I'm in the "hot seat" they know when to listen in silence while I ramble around to the deeper truth of my own words. But they also know when to listen to me with their own words. (Sometimes they talk at me a lot when I'm in the "hot seat.") But oddly enough, I need that kind of listening too. I guess it's the artful dance between listening in silence and listening with words that makes the gift of listen meaningful.

Uncertain times, really?

Saturday night a couple hundred folks gathered to pray for those in our community impacted by the upcoming changes at NASA. The news reports say as many as 7,000 people in our area could lose their jobs. Add to that a sagging economy, health care reform and a just all the personal stuff people are facing these days and you get a feeling of insecurity. It's hard to predict what the future holds for us. What will happen to our economy, our churches, our schools, and our families if things continue the way they seem headed now? Will we have jobs? More importantly, those who have given their lives to human space flight are wondering even if they have a "job" will it be for anything that remotely matters. Questions abound. Uncertainty looms.

As I was praying Saturday night for all of us facing these "uncertain times" I had a startling revelation: Isn't all our time uncertain?

James 4:13-14 pokes at our well intentioned plans for the future and reminds us that all of life is a mist.

Perhaps God has us living in such a time of overt uncertainty to remind us that all of life is uncertain except for the life which we find in our sovereign and loving God?

I'm not going to give up planning for and working toward the future. I don't think James is asking us to sit on our hands and just let life happen. But I do think he's inviting us to hold our illusions of certainty in an open hand before a God who is the only one we can really count on for sure.

What good is a prayer - or even 500 of them???

The "Friendly Atheist" wonders what good our praying for the NASA community will do? (see blog "How Should We React to Their Prayers.") My atheist friend isn't going to boycott our right to pray and he won't confront anyone face to face with the futility of our praying, but it does make him want to laugh. If I read him correctly, the "Friendly Atheist" would rather we do something that might actually do some good and save jobs.

The "Friendly Atheist" is well of aware of studies that people who are prayed for often "get better" but, according to him, this is due to no more than the person being cared for by another. "But the people doing the praying aren’t thinking that. We know that. They think a god is going to act on their prayers. That’s just silly." (How Should We React to Their Prayers?)

Oh, I LOVE that!! "That's just silly..." "They think a god is going to act on their prayers."

Yup, Mr. "Friendly Atheist" that's exactly what we think happens when the people of God pray.

God acts.

Stuff happens.

Lives change.

And yes, it is silly... just silly amazing to be a part of.

Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a relatively new thing for us native Hoosiers. All the time growing up we were one of the few states in the Union who did not spring forward or fall back each year. Just a couple of years ago (2007, I believe) Indiana finally joined the rest of the nation with DST. So, even though I've been a Texan now for almost two years there's still considerable confusion in our house when it comes this time of year. Oh, well. Hopefully all the clocks are set correctly tonight as I go to bed and I won't be late (or would it be early??) for church tomorrow!

Ten Commandments

Several people after worship yesterday asked if I would pass along the Texan/Cowboy version of the Ten Commandments I used in yesterday's message. You Saturday night worshippers didn't get this version either. So, enjoy!

1. Just one God.
2. Honor yer Ma & Pa.
3. No telling tales or gossipin'.
4. Git yourself to Sunday meeting.
5. Put nothin' before God.
6. No foolin' around with another fellow's gal.
7. No killin'.
8. Watch yer mouth
9. Don't take what ain't yers.
10. Don't be hankerin' for yer buddy's stuff.

(...and to give credit where credit is due, I lifted this from an old blog of Rev. Matt Tittle.)

Bad Things

I just think sometimes we jump too easily to “human choice” and “evil exists” as explanations for why bad things happen without fully considering the implications of what such a belief means about God and the world we live in.

It’s certainly not very comforting or helpful to tell the person who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer that this is really a “gift from God.” It’s not helpful to tell the person who has just lost a child in an automobile accident that “this was really God’s will... God has a plan.” Truth is, God weeps and aches for the pain and brokenness we experience and God weeps over the pain we inflict on others. And yet if human choice or random evil is the only explanation we have for why bad things happen, then what we are really saying is that we live in a universe that is in large part out of God’s control.

It’s one sort of problem to wonder what kind of a God might cause such awful things as murder, hurricanes, and cancer. But the alternative is a God who sits on his hands and just lets random stuff happen – a clockmaker God who winds up the machine and lets the world spin out of control and only occasionally intervenes. True, we don't believe God is passive all the time. We think that God is in charge lots of the time, or at least some of the time. But is it really any better to have a God who lapses in and out of involvement in the world?

I think the problem is that we believe God is far more impotent than God really is. We’d rather take the world on our own and deal with our “own” problems and just consult God when we get in a pinch. It cramps our style to bow to a God of the universe who is completely sovereign, wholly loving, and ultimately beyond human understanding.

Kingly Identity

I've been drawn to the story in the paper the last few days about a nurse's aid from Pennsylvania recently crowned king of a small country in Africa. Can you believe it?! One day you're taking orders from a boss, punching a time clock and the next day you're a king! You can read the full story here, but the parallel to the Christian story is remarkable.

Philippians 2 talks about Jesus "being in very nature God" but gave that all up to become a human servant. In other words, Jesus relinquished his rights to the Throne of the Universe to become a human servant of others. The Jesus story of Philippians 2 ends with Jesus re-assuming his rightful royal position but having left an example for us to follow. Paul put it this way, "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but in humility consider others better than yourselves... your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 2:3-5)

The Jesus Way is full of upside down logic like this. Jesus says if you want to find yourself, you need to lose yourself. He says the last shall be first. In the Jesus Way the servant way is the kingly way.

Perhaps if I lived with a clearer inner assurance of my true identity as a royal heir of Jesus' kingdom I wouldn't feel so compelled to pound the table and demand my rights. Perhaps if I lived in the daily reality that I am a child of the King, I wouldn't complain so much when I don't get my way.

I suppose it won't be long until Charles Wesley Mumbere's story becomes a Disney movie. And when it does, I'll probably be one of the first in line. In the meantime, I resolve to live more kingly myself - right here in my real life now.