Advent Preparation

Advent is the preparation time for the coming party. The King is coming December 25th! Party preparations are always busy, filled with checklists, to-do’s, cleaning, cooking, invitations, etc. We can all relate to this flurry of activity for our own Christmas day. But this King is still coming - he comes for the heart, the soul. How then does one prepare for a party in one’s soul?

Slowly, unhurriedly, unbusy, quiet, reflective and in holiness. Advent is a time of anticipation and a time of purification. December 6th is the traditional St. Nicholas Day and it is a festive day. Many Christians give gifts on this day and have a huge meal. But the day before is fast from meat. Many Christian traditions around the world celebrate a small series of fasts and feasts during Advent. Lakeland families can capitalize on this tradition by fasting and feasting. Fasting isn’t always a “strict fast” of no food or drink. You may wish to fast from meat once a week during Advent and pray for the world’s hungry. You may wish to fast from sweets, “saving up” and building anticipation for the coming Christmas Day feasting. Be creative and build the excitement towards Christmas Day and you and your family will appreciate the day so much more.

The Discipline of Inconvenience

A few stout individuals mowed nine lots in the inner city from April 1st until... well they haven't stopped yet. They committed to ten times to raise money to help fund their pilgrimage to China last June ('09).  All have continued to go down and mow well beyond their necessary ten times.  Over half didn't have mowers.  They picked up trash, chopped, sawed and weed-trimmed.  Others brought their push mowers from home and beat the heck out of them on beer bottles, ditches, holes, logs, rebar, half-buried bricks and small trees.  Several people got poison ivy over and over.

Still they went.  They went to stand along side the poor, the criminal, the forgotten and voiceless. They swam upstream in a world that says 'forget about the inner city, it's a lost cause.'  If you haven't heard Kansas City MO has the highest number of vacant homes in the nation.  This is something the City Council has recently reacted to with some kind of committee to buy up these vacant houses - uh huh.  Zip code 64128 is the number one killing zip code in the state of Missouri (we mow next to that zip code, 64130). Tall weeds and unkept vacant houses and vacant lots create a downward spiral of neglect and violence (reference the KC Star, Jan. 26, 2009).  So we decided to do our part - and raise funds to go stand along side the politically persecuted house church in China.  It's a 2-fer.

As we started the Nine Lots fundraiser/social action idea we discussed the spiritual idea of "Displacement."  Displacement is the intentional disruption of our comfortable lives for the sake of solidarity with the poor and voiceless.  More than just helping, displacement means "downward mobility" as a lifestyle choice.  Mowing lawns in the inner city isn't a radical downward displacement, but it is a nice starting point.  Mowing took about two hours minimum.  It was (is) difficult to lug your mower in your car 35 minutes downtown when you'd like to be doing other things on Saturday morning.  During the summer months we met at 7:30 a.m. to avoid the heat and muggers.  I had a profound moment of clarity this summer:  I absolutely loathe weed trimming.  My trimmer breaks an average of four times; ivy salad flies in my face.  I truly dislike trimming.  After mowing I'd race home and shower in hope of washing away the poison ivy before it got a foothold.

For weeks I'd ask, "Hey does anyone know anyone with a really big commercial mower we could use so we could knock this thing out in less time?"  Silence.  Now my car trunk is littered with grass clippings.  But standing in the street with Jason one hot August Saturday morning I said, "You know, I don't think we need a big mower.  I don't want a big mower.  This is supposed to be inconvenient."  He nodded yes.  We've all learned something this past summer:  the discipline of inconvenience.  The hassle is most of the soul-benefit.  We have been seduced by the displacement!

It is the pain in the - neck of it that matters most for comfortable distant white suburbanites.  The discipline of inconvenience is one part suffering, another part purgation, add in a little penance, stir in a big bunch of obedience and determination, blend in 'I-made-a-big -promise-to-my-donors" and you've got the discipline of inconvenience.  Everyone goes about their work silently and steadily... prayerfully.  Quietly we do the job.  The inconvenience of the job forms an attitude of prayer while you're doing it.   Inconvenience constantly shouts into your head why you are there.  Those who can't figure out why they are there don't last more than a couple of weeks.  And let me clarify: I've haven't been down there nearly as much as some.  A Lakelander named Terry jumped in even without raising money for a pilgrimage to China.

I think we need more inconvenient serving opportunities, something obscure and hidden, a hassle and thankless.  This is akin to Jesus' idea of giving your alms in anonimity... "don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" (Matthew 6:3).  I need to weed trim.  You need to weed trim (or whatever you loathe).  This isn't just some shallow attempt to 'build character' or a sicko thing about social guilt.  This is about those who claim to follow Jesus actually following.  The Apostle Peter never dreamed that day when he dropped his fishing nets and followed Jesus he'd be crucified upside down for his Lord someday - upside down because he didn't want to disgrace Jesus' crucifixion with his own crucifixion.  I am not saying that just because we mow lawns in the inner city we well be crucified someday.  But I am definitely saying that if we don't find some inconvenient discipline, some inconvenient point of followership I doubt we will ever seriously surrender to Jesus and be considered a Christian.  Besides prayer, out of the discipline of inconvenience flows other benefits:  a smart, socially conscious compassion, gratitude and generosity.  But those are their own subject.

These words of Garrison Keillor are still some of my favorite:  "Give up your good Christian life and come follow Jesus."

Have a very evil, terrifying wicked All Hallowed Ones' Eve

Halloween is not supposed to be Happy.  It is the night before All Saints' Day, the glorious day when the minions of hell are reminded they lost the battle to King Jesus and his holy ones.  The holy ones consist of all historical Christians and us today.  Halloween has various pagan backgrounds (you can google this stuff all day long if you desire) but for authentic Christians the eve of remembering and celebrating the legacy and victory of the new people of God through Jesus' victory over death and evil, Halloween is nothing more than that moment to watch the demons flail about, torn to bits within their own chaos and destruction.

I find it interesting that local Christians have forced our schools to stop saying Happy Halloween.  Now they have Fall Festivals at school instead of Halloween parties.  My guess is that none of these Christians understand nor celebrate All Saints' Day November 1st.  Yet, I will assume most would celebrate the lives and causes of Christians like Francis of Assisi (the poor), John Calvin (reformed the western church), William Wilberforce (slavery in Britain), Clara Barton (started the Red Cross), Corrie Ten Boom (saved Jews during WWII), Rev. Dr. M.L. King, Jr (civil rights in America), Bishop Desmond Tutu (against Apartheid in S. Africa).

Historical Christians have helped bring education and medicine around the world; come along side the diseased and dying, stood up against tyrants - and been martyred for it; fed and clothed the poor, refused to fight in wars - or refused to celebrate victory over political enemies, propelled the arts, stood up for the rights of unborn, stood up for the rights of the oppressed and the list goes on.  (At this point some will point out the evil some Christians have committed - and they have.  But in the balance, the good done in the name of Jesus far far far outweighs any wrong done in the name of Jesus.  Compare at this point Christian good to the "good" atheists and secularists have done: a few names will suffice - Marx, Stalin, Mao...)

Each saint (holy one) celebrated November 1st stuffs the demons back into their holes.  In the end love wins - always.  In the end the Devil loses.   And let us not fall into the idea that this victory has not occurred at all yet.  The Apostle Paul makes this clear over and over that a new kingdom has already begun... Colossians 1:23 "the gospel... has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven..." The victory is won.  But the full expression of that kingdom is not realized -- yet (cf. Romans 8:18-39).  But it will when the King returns.  Until then, do not be scared of Halloween.  But realize the demons are real and they are really in trouble - YOU, Christian, are their worst nightmare!  For one night, October 31st we allow those who reign in hell to express their anguish and bitter defeat.  But bright and early the new day dawns - All Saints' Day.  Sing a new song!  Announce Jesus is King!  Put your hand to the plow and continue to press forward with the work of the kingdom (1 Corinthians 3:12-17 - ...build on the foundation of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit).

Each November 1st at our house I make sure there is no hint of Halloween left over.  Every jack-o-lantern or string of lights, or cobweb is hidden or thrown out.  Clean out the house of October 31st first thing on November 1st!  Bring your small children into this tradition and let them understand the Eve of the Hallowed Ones is just a cheap last ditch cry of a defeated Devil - that October 31st is really the Eve of All Saints' Day.  And teach your children that they are children of the new covenant, the victorious ones, the hallowed ones, created for good works, creating the building materials to be used in the kingdom once the King returns.

"Therefore... stand firm.  Let nothing move you [especially not Halloween].  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
- 1 Corinthians 15:58

Time is a crop

I realize once again that my default setting is "more efficient." I signed up for a drawing class during the day so I could be home at night. But the class overlapped a standing meeting. As I searched for another time slot for the standing meeting, I found my self saying these words, "By taking the drawing class during the day, I thought I was being more efficient." In other words, I want to do more in a fixed amount of time each week. The answer therefore is simple: be efficient.

Eugene Peterson says 'hurry is a form of violence done on time.' Henri Nouwen says the best word to describe our lives is "compulsive." I am convinced the demons of our False Self thrive best on chaos. Noise, noise, noise. Televisions on all the time, radio on all the time, just-in-time shopping, squeezed between suburban soccer practice, church meeting, dinner (eaten in mini-vans as God created us to do - J. Ortberg), car fill up, movie rental return, run by the office supply store for a padded envelope... You get the idea.

What if time was not a commodity, which we could barter for, trade for, collateralize and squeeze? Time is a crop. This definition of time means we should think of time as something to be nurtured and tended - not "hot-housed," synthesized or plasticized.

Perhaps the best way to describe time as a crop is to think about our prayers. We want g-d to answer our prayers fast. We fervently pray for a long time because we mistakenly believe that if we load enough time and intensity to our prayers, then g-d will be won over against his will and he will have to do our bidding. This is driven NOT by the desire to hear from the Lord, but to control g-d's will. But if time is thought of as a crop, then WAITING is the bulk of prayer.

Think of time as crop. Now we must WAIT for the winter thaw, WAIT for the right soil moisture, prepare the soil, plant the seed, WAIT for the rain, WAIT for the right temperature, hope against hope that blight, fungus, pests and such don't destroy our TIME plantings (what others think of us will damage our sense of peace more than any spell a demon could ever concoct).

More is NOT the fruit time should bear. Efficiency is not the fruit time should bear. What should time bear? Relationship. Relationship with g-d, SELF, relationship with family, friends, soul-mates, fellow Stuff-marters... humans.

Can we make the sun hurry? Can we make the sun more efficient in it's appointed course? Daylight savings makes me chuckle. We shift the clock in an attempt to hurry the rise of the sun (Fall). How feeble this feels! How weak we really are! We are such pitiable "little gods," working our little incantations upon the sun.

Waiting really is the art of living well. I am no longer convinced Patience is a character trait. No, Patience is listed in the New Testament as a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). It comes as a result of the Spirit's Presence. How then, does one gain the Spirit's Presence? Not by contrived hurried worship or self-effused prayer. The Spirit comes on its own agenda, its own time. G-d is younger than us. Yes, g-d is young like a child enjoying every moment, lingering, dilly-dallying, playing, creating, laughing, singing, lost in minor moments from our perspective. Time belongs to g-d, he owns it, all of it. G-d needs no Efficiency, g-d needs no More.

Of course it is wrong to say g-d waits, but to us, that is what it feels like. For we are getting older, slower, maybe crankier, and we are in a big hurry. We are restless sheep who cannot lie down (Ps. 23). We are anxious (Phil. 4:6). So we commodify Time... buying and selling Time like a commodity at the Board of Trade. Time has lost its real value - or to say it in technical terms, time as lost its "nomena" or its "realness" and has just become a "phenomena" or Sign or Signifier, a symbol only of Relationship with g-d. No wonder prayer feels cheap and more tricksy, like g-d is a vending machine who won't give what we paid for and demanded, and we now must "shaken 'em down." "Give----me----what----I----want------now!"

Become a Time Farmer. Wait. Prepare prayers. Write them out by hand. Drop out something from your schedule. Throw away the stock certificates of Time and just dilly-dally more. Go slow and watch. Otherwise you and I will be only desperate predators, seeking and prowling for our next Time meal, compulsive and aggressive... angry, greedy.

Eat This Book

The question was asked, "If you only could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?"
"Turkey sandwich."
His answer was as quick and deliberate as a gavel rap. "No question about it, turkey sandwich."
I was thinking about the Bible, the Lord's Table and the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer's petition to g-d after the Eucharist...

Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The entire Breaking of the Bread is washed over with edible language...

Alleluia. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. The gifts of God for the People of God. Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.

The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven.

The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.

I love the sacrament of the Lord's Table. I believe the metaphor of food and drink are wonderfully confusing - eat Jesus' body? drink Jesus' blood?

It is like this: It is like when you drop your new ice cream cone on the ground. You want to pick it up and eat it but - yuck! Now this heavenly Jesus is defiled by a crash to earth. Pick it up, eat it. Fortunately our symbols are quite edible: good bread and wine (or lame grape juice in Lakeland's case). Earthly EDIBLE food of heaven is very intentional. We are supposed to think, "Hey, it's only bread and wine. Don't try and tell me it's Jesus' actual body and blood." Of course it isn't real body and blood. But what if we are eating "grace" or "the presence of Jesus"? The right perspective is not 'Jesus' body and blood is here in the bread and wine,' but rather 'food is spiritual' -- if a shared meal with good friends is more than mere food - it is social, then food is spiritual, yes? The raw symbol becomes bigger than its self. Therefore, it is NOT just bread and wine.

How tangible, how earthy, how human and yet transcendent - how mystical. Body and Blood: take, eat.

Now for the other Communion Food: The Bible. The Bible is not a sacrament of the church, but it is a sacred food -- our only food, no question about it. Eat this book. If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be? The Bible.

Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long... How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psalm 119:97,103)

Beyond inspiration and "infallibility" (and certainly beyond 'inerrancy') the Bible is like food for the soul. When I used to hear "Thy word is sweeter than honey" I thought, "I dunno - it's just a bunch of morals, character qualities - boring." Now I think of the Bible as story and a conversation with g-d. I read it like I read The Hobbit. I want to figure out how it ends up where it ends up.

It's food to me. Daily we eat it, digest it, build the body with it. Real Food, Real Drink - like bread and wine, the Bible is food for the soul.

Take the little book and eat it - Revelation of John, 10:9

Sometimes delicious, sometimes bitter, the Bible speaks into our complex//basic lives. Consume it, feast on it, drink it down, like the Lord's Table, the one Meal.

Back from China and John the Baptizer

Okay - confession: this is one of my most favorite dates - it is John the Baptist Day, the day the church remembers John the Baptist. Why this date? Think about it: what is the date? June 24th. Now remember this quote from John the Baptizer: "He must become greater; I must become less." (Gospel of John 3:30)
Jesus has become more popular than The Baptizer. John's disciples quiz John about Jesus' popularity... "everyone is going to him." John replies, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. ...Jesus must increase, I must decrease." The Prophet John is only a pointer to Jesus, a prophetic voice announcing the coming King and his kingdom. Elijah has come and spoke. Now it is time for him to decrease, to be taken... beheaded. Jesus speaks highly of John - "what did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind - nothing? A man dressed in finery? A man in a palace? No I tell you! There is no one greater than John in the kingdom of heaven. But -- but -- even the least of those in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (Matthew 11)
Oh that I could be like John! Jesus the king is born on December 25th. So the church places John's day as far from Jesus' birthday as possible. One hundred and eighty days opposite of Jesus, June 25th - this is John's Day. Truth be told, I think I look forward to John's Day more than Christmas. Why? I must become less, He must become greater in my life. I feel more attraction to John than Jesus. I know I am suppose to imitate Jesus, but I want to imitate John. I must decrease, become less. Then and only then will I be great in heaven's eyes. This is my Via Negativa - the great Kenosis, the great emptying of my SELF, silently caught up in the flame of god's grace, consumed, every thought captive, every moment sitting at the feet of Jesus. Moving out under the hand of the Holy Spirit with joy and power - DOING out of my BEING, my belongedness, not out of my head and hands or skills and talents. May we be so compelled to announce the King and his kingdom - like John, like Elijah, hand to the plow, no turning back, Surrendered.
China always drives me to this Day. In China I am surrounded by Baptizers. May I be like those in the persecuted house church in China.
"Let us go also, that we might die with him."

The End of Easter Season and The Great Permission

"In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, for I live and you will live" -- Alleluia!

I listened to the monks of Conception Abbey chant these words of Jesus. I felt a peace settle within me: it's the end of Easter - seven weeks after the Resurrection, then the next day is Pentecost (this year, May 31st).

"Go and make disciples..." says Jesus at the end of Matthew's gospel. We call this The Great Commission, but I think it should be called The Great Permission. Jump to Acts chapter 1 (verse six) and we find the disciples asking Jesus, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"

The disciples wanted the kingdom to come, on earth as in heaven. They wanted Permission to GO - to make it so. The disciples were still, even at this last moment before Jesus' ascension, still thinking of "empire and conquest" - "Now Jesus, will you kick out the Romans and restore King David's reign when we were top nation?"

"Yes, the kingdom is come," Jesus replies. "But not how you think." The telling TURN comes next. Jesus ascends. Two men dressed in white stand there beside them. "Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky...?" The two men say Jesus is coming back. But you've got work to do: GO! The disciples don't need to be told - like a shot, they are off to Jerusalem, the political, social and religious capital.

Fifty days after the Passover comes Pentecost and the Holy Spirit comes with tongues of fire. The church explodes.

Much of the time I feel like we are standing staring at the sky. We seem to be confused about "what time it is." Like the disciples, we ask "Is this the time...?" Then we fill in some lame self-conscious answers like... "fix my life, grow our church, straighten out my kid, end my addiction..." I suppose these are legitimate prayers. But they do not answer the question "What time is it?"

What time is it? It is time to collect the building materials for the kingdom of heaven on earth. What are these materials? Beyond redeemed souls, the kingdom of g-d according to Jesus is made up of energetic "greedy" children, the rich who share lavishly and live like everyone else, those who pray for peace, work for justice, take massive risks to life and comforts. Like King David, we are to be stockpiling materials so the next King (Solomon) can actually build the temple. David made plans and drawings, gathered the money and materials, but he never actually saw the temple built in his lifetime.

I believe Jesus comes back (we don't go away - we go to meet him and bring him here). When Jesus arrives what he should find are faithful obedience vineyard workers; investors who can say 'see Master, your one asset (talent) has increased tenfold!' I believe we should be fluent in the language of the kingdom of heaven BEFORE the kingdom comes in full.

Get on with the work. Beyond just a "commission," we have Permission. It is time to fight the right fight for justice and love, and walk away from materialism and consumer comforts.

You kingdom come, your will be done on earth during our lifetime with our lives as though heaven is realized for what it really is: heaven is all around us NOW.