Category: meditations

to live simply, justly, and with integrity;
to humble yourself before the Lord;
to love all people as Christ;
to give of yourself more than you think you have;
to rejoice in triumph,
to mourn in sorrow,
to trust in doubt:
this is the sum of all things.

Kelly passed along a prompt for an article that someone needed written. I’m not certain if this will ever be published other than here, but I figured I’d throw it out for comment here at least.

Conservative. Liberal. Our modern day political arena often paints people with a broad brush. You’re either for the war in Iraq, or you’re not patriotic. You’re either pro-choice, or you don’t believe women have any rights. You’re either for the death penalty, or don’t really believe in justice. Every day there is a new wedge issue promoted by both sides, telling us the world we live in is simplistic and easily boiled down to a few core dichotomies, and that your morality and spirituality are determined more by a paper ballot than how you live your life.

Since the inception of our country, there has always been an uneasy relationship between church and state. Today it seems that religious groups want the church to be highly involved in the state, in many instances dictating policy, while at the same time wanting the state to be not involved at all in the church. At the same time, non-religious groups often want the state to be involved in regulating religious groups, but don’t want religious groups involved in government in any way. As Christians, sometimes it can be difficult to determine exactly how to integrate our faith and beliefs into our participation in a government of the people, by the people and for the people, especially when our ability as people of faith to have influence in the political arena is a relatively young concept. As we struggle with what to say and do in our modern political system, I believe the following principles can help guide us in making complicated political choices.

First, while it is vital for us to allow our faith and beliefs to guide our political participation, it is equally vital that we carefully examine both how those beliefs reflect on Christ, and the perceptions of non-believers regarding our actions. It is essential that we look not only at topics like abortion and homosexuality, but also at larger issues that affect billions of people worldwide like global poverty, international debt, genocide and the concept of justice for millions of people across the globe who daily endure gross human rights violations. Many non-Christians often view Mainstream Christianity as anti-homosexual, demeaning to women, and generally unconcerned with the poor. Whatever your political agenda, I think we can all agree Jesus probably didn’t have that goal when he said his disciples would be known for their love.

Second, we need to take a hard look at our personal actions and ask what we are doing to be a part of the solution to the world’s problems instead of participating in them. I know several Christians who would gladly picket the local Planned Parenthood, but who would scoff at giving their lunch to a homeless man. A recent USDA report found that in our nation of five dollar grande iced white mochas, 38 million people – about 12% of America’s population – were classified as “food insecure”, meaning that at some point in the year they had difficulty finding money to buy food. In Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz, the author writes about his friend Andrew who “believes that when Jesus says feed the poor, He means you should do this directly”, and sets up a makeshift kitchen on the streets of Portland each Saturday to serve breakfast to the homeless. As we read Scripture and discern the character of God, it is important that we focus politically on issues we honestly feel like Jesus would focus on. As we read again and again about God’s concern for the poor, the oppressed, the outcast, we must not only engage in making our voice heard in the political arena, but daily being the hands and feet of Jesus, bringing hope to a hurting world.

Though it’s often tempting to fuel the fire of political division, Jesus reached out across social, ethnic and moral groups to minister to anyone who was in need. As his followers, our primary goals should be ministerial, not political. When we become myopic enough to lose sight of people and focus instead on politics, we not only forget the mission of Christ, but nullify the essence of what it means to be truly Christian.

Sometimes I wonder about this picture we have of Jesus. The one of the nice happy guy with long flowing blonde hair and bright blue eyes who always bent over backward to help people. I think it makes us feel really good to picture Jesus as a guy everyone would like – the friend you would invite to a party, not just because he could do some cool tricks, but more importantly because he really *was* the life of the party. I like that Jesus, and I suspect most people do. I’m pretty sure he’s easy to “sell”, and popular among crowds.

But would they kill him?

So often in our modern quest to make Jesus marketable to the masses, we’ve made him an impotent, gutless diplomat who wouldn’t make anybody mad. Ever.

And the problem I have with that idea is that nobody would kill that guy.

But when I look at the people who killed Jesus,
and realize that I look a lot like they did,
and when I realize that if he were here today
he might have a few things to say about me…

I wonder whether we’ve killed the real Jesus too.

All perfection in this life has some imperfection mixed with it, and all speculative thought involves a certain amount of fuzziness. A humble knowledge of yourself is a surer way to God than any deep scientific inquiry.

Neither learning in general nor knowledge of even simple things ought to be condemned, since they are something good in themselves and ordained by God; but a good conscience and a virtuous life are always to be preferred. Because many people spend more time and effort in becoming educated than in living properly, it happens that many, therefor, go astray and bear little or no fruit.

If we were as dilligent in uprooting vices and planting virtues as we are in debating abtruse questions, there would not be so many evils or scandals among us … Certainly, when Judgment Day comes we shall nto be asked what books we have read, but what dees we have done; we shall not be asked how well we have debated, but how devoutly we have lived.

– Thomas A Kempis

Now the body is not made up of one part,
but of many.

If they were all one part,
where would the body be?

As it is,
there are many parts,
but one body.

How well do we reflect the body of Christ?
Not only in gifts,
but in viewpoint?
in race?
in wealth?
in culture?
in background?

As individual gatherings of Christ’s people
do we look like a complete body
or like a collection of noses,
with a collection of eyes across the street
and a group of feet down the road?

Now the body is not made up of one part…

it didn’t take long to figure out that danny probably wasn’t going to make it through the week.

it was his first time at camp, and by dinner on monday night, he’d already had his first run-in with his counselors by refusing to clean his plate. every other kid behaving well didn’t help his plight. after derick, the camp director for the week came over to talk to danny in order to avoid an incident, danny cleaned his plate and everything was fine for a little while.

at the beginning of the week, i took danny for one of the dozens of punk kids that come through camp of the hills every year – someone who was just out to cause trouble and wanted to get sent home. i even though it was a bit funny that he wouldn’t stay the whole week, thinking that he’d get what was coming to him.

but soon i began to discover a problem: danny really wasn’t a bad kid. he was generally respectful. he didn’t cause fights. he said, “yes, sir” and “no, sir” when he was in trouble. it wasn’t that danny was a troubled troublemaker like so many kids who come through camp – danny and his brother simply couldn’t understand what was going on around them. “it’s like every two or three minutes, his brain just reboots and loses everything,” my friend mark, a counselor, said.

they didn’t understand the difference between “positive” and “negative” points, and had no concept of how many points they were earning, or why it was good to earn positive points and bad to earn negative points. they couldn’t seem to comprehend that doing good things (or even not doing bad things) would earn them credit to be traded in at the end of the week for rewards, while refusing to follow instructions would result in them going home.

adrian, danny’s brother, was far less antagonistic, and seemed to do fairly well. danny, however, did not. after dinner on monday night, things seemed to go ok, but by 10:00 on tuesday morning, danny had already “broken contract.” while everyone else had fun fishing or playing basketball or canoeing or playing on the ropes course, danny spent an hour moving rocks. he would take one rock from the first pile and move it about 50 feet away to a second pile. once there, he would take a rock from the second pile and move it back to the first. another broken contract would mean he was going home.

at first it was just annoying, and several of us joked about when he would be sent home. but it didn’t take long before we started cheering for danny, hoping he would make it. each completed activity lessened his chances of being sent home. he survived tuesday night only by the grace of his counselors. at 10:00 on wednesday, danny had a new lease life – contract free. wednesday was uneventful until bedtime, when he went on contract again.

this time, he didn’t make it past breakfast.

as chris drove danny home, he asked him about his favorite counselor – was it mr. robert, mr. asa or mr. josh?

“my favorite counselor was mr. derick”

“oh really? mr. derick? why was that?”

“i like mr. derick – he let me move rocks!”

“he did! how was that?”

“that was great! it was the best part of camp!”

as chris told me about his ride with danny, i wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

danny’s favorite part of camp had been what was intended to be punishment. whether it was because he enjoyed the one on one time he got with derick or simply didn’t understand what was going on around him, or more likely some combination of the two, danny enjoyed moving rocks more than he enjoyed basketball, swimming, and the ropes course. the one thing that stuck out to him as “the most fun” was moving rocks between two piles while derick watched.

it would be easy to believe this is only a story. but for me, the troubling part – the splinter that is working its way through my mind – is the question of what to do with the danny’s i encounter in my life. there are so many difficult questions in his story, many of them without satisfactory answers. woven in danny’s story is a tale of justice and injustice, of punishment and mercy, of understanding and ignorance.

how do we deal with people who legitimately do not fully grasp how to function in their environment? can we necessarily hold them to the same set of rules as “normal” people? can ignorance/mental ability/history be an “excuse” (or explaination) for bad behavior? if so, what then do we demand in future behavior? what is our response to these people as Christians? how do we present the Gospel in a way that is both understandable and meaningful to people who have difficulty understanding the meaning of basic simple concepts?

how patient are we with those who need to be taken care of in a special way? as i watched mark take care of danny on tuesday night, going above and beyond the call of duty to make sure danny wouldn’t be sent home, i felt a tremendous amount of respect seeing my friend extend true unmerited favor so danny could make it through the night and stay at camp in the morning. i saw the love of Christ displayed in a special way in mark’s actions, and had to question what the love of Christ looks like to people like danny, not only on tuesday night, but wednesday morning and thursday, and however long they continue to remain in our lives.

in an ultimate Christian sense, is it ever right to send people away? in the situation with danny, part of the discussion was his effect on the cabin. his removal improved the situation for all of the other campers. as i reflected on the situation, the words of robbie seay’s song “go outside” echoed in my mind: “no one should be left out… no one should be left out… no one should be left out…” how do we turn this idealistic notion into a reality?

perhaps most condemning for me, what is my (our) attitude toward these people? it is easy to get caught up in our educated middle-class mentality and forget the vast majority of the world does not think or percieve the world in the same way i (we) do. first, do i (we) sincerely believe as Jesus did that these people are not only worth saving, but worth going to all lengths to save? second, do my (our) actions reflect that?

i doubt i will ever see danny again, and it is unlikely i will ever know how his story turns out, but in less than three days, he became a personal incarnation of many of the troubling questions i am wrestling with right now. my prayer is that God will continue to pursue danny, and that he will indeed draw him into the body of Christ. but i pray also that my eyes and heart would be open to the danny’s of the world, that my love would extend as far as the love of Christ.

I think Brian’s question this morning in class struck a slight nerve with me: Do we ever think God is too merciful?

All too often with myself, I think the answer is yes. For some reason, it seems to me like we feel that God should extend his mercy to everyone equally – generally to the same amount he extends us. In other words if I need X amount of mercy, then God should only extend X amount of mercy, or maybe slightly more than X so that I’m not the *worst* person let in, but certainly not 2X or 3X or X^2, for those of you who are math nerds. It’s as though we feel like somehow people who are significantly worse than we are don’t deserve mercy, or at least they don’t deserve more mercy than we received.

And I’m wondering why that is. Are we somehow subconsciously saying that if we’d only known that we could do a little more and “get away with it” that we would have done so? Do we not understand Paul imploring us to not continue in sin that God’s grace would abound, but rather to realize our new identities in Christ?

Somehow I think we feel that if we don’t get the “best deal” on mercy possible, that we’ve somehow been beaten by somebody somewhere, or that nobody deserves to get anything more than we received. After all, that wouldn’t be “fair”.

We must be continually reminded that we all hope to receive far more than we deserve. We must remember that our human scale of economics does not apply in a heavenly kingdom, where reward is never returned in equal portion to merit, and where each of us stands completely due to the merit of another.

Why is it so hard to understand justice?

Certainly we understand eternal justice – the idea everyone will eventually get what they deserve, though we conveniently ignore the fact we hope we *won’t* get what we deserve.

Why is it so hard to believe – or at least act like we believe – that people of every race, color, cocial group, economic status, intelligence, moral disposition, sexual orientation – in short all people – are treated by God with equal esteem, and that we are to love our neighbor as oursevles?

Ultimately our Christianity is not about the lip service we pay to the good things we *should* do, or to the bad things we *don’t* do, but about how we treat those who are in desperate need of heavenly mercy and justice. It is not about how we show justice to those who easily obtain it, but in how we treat the voiceless and oppressed and ignored, those who need justice.

Somewhere our theoretical Christianity must meet our practical Christianity. Somehwere we must go beyond saying we should be open and inviting to reflecting that – in how we dress, in how we talk, in how we give. We cannot be an abstract concept, but a tangible reality, the hands and feet and mouth of God, true justice in an unjust world.

I have a friend who thinks that we humans have some morbid fascination with death.

I tend to agree with her.

We participate in elaborate funerals. We gather our dead in large rolling cemeteries. We construct huge monuments and memorials to commemorate those who have gone before us. Time and time again we return to the memory of the past, dwelling on what was instead of focusing on what is.

How often do we do that with God?

Do we return time and time again to the tomb, remembering Jesus as he was, treating him like he’s still there?

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?

He is not here;

He has risen!”

If you were going to write a song about that, what would it say?

“There is a God. He is alive!”

Maybe someone should do that.

Sadly, I still think my friend is right. We sing songs like “I serve a risen Savior” and “Our God He is Alive!” but seem to act in so many ways like God does not exist at all. Perhaps the most foolish group of people in the world are those who claim to believe God exists, yet act as if he does not. Kreeft has a brilliant comment on the popularity of this position in his ethics class.

My hope is that we will give the death of Christ the proper reverence it deserves, but not too much – that it will become another part of the story of Christ – not the only part.

“He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’

Then the wind died down

and it was completely calm.”

I wonder what that storm was like. It must have been some sight to see – enough to scare the serious fishermen and make them think they were in danger of death.

These guys had been on that lake their whole lives. They’d grown up there. Their dad’s had taught them how to move the boats and cast their lines there. They had been across that lake hundreds of times. They’d probably seen hundreds of storms. They knew that place like the back of their hands.

They didn’t expect the storm to come – they took Jesus in the boat and headed out across the lake with no question of whether it was safe or not. I can see the clear skies as they set out. Storm? What storm? Not a cloud in the sky!

But then it came. Unexpected. Unplanned. Out in the middle of the lake, far from land, there was nothing that they could do but continue on. The winds and waves buffeted the ship. They broke over the boat, and these guys who hadn’t worried about the storm suddenly began to worry a lot about the storm.

And then there’s Jesus. Their teacher. Laying in the hold of the boat, sleeping. Doesn’t he get sea-sick? After all – he’s a carpenter! He builds these boats, he doesn’t sail on them.

“Teacher! Don’t you care if we drown?”

“Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

And Jesus arises.
And Jesus speaks.
And the world is calm.
And the world is silent.

And I look at the storms in my life. They’re quite a sight to see – let me assure you. Problems that have even a veteran like me worried.

I’ve grown up dealing with problems. I’ve grown up dealing with chaos in my life. After all, that’s what they teach you. “The American Way.” Deal with your problems yourself. We’re no stranger to difficulty and struggle. It’s what makes us the people who we are.

I don’t usually expect the storm. It isn’t like I really want it, after all. While problems and storms are a part of life, they’re never a pleasant one, and I’d just as soon avoid them if possible. I can imagine myself, standing on the shore as I get ready to set out on my newest adventures. Storm? What storm? Not a cloud in the sky!

But then it comes. Unexpected. Unplanned. Out in the middle of the lake, far from land, far from help, there is nothing that I can do but continue on. The winds and waves buffet my life. They break over me, and suddenly I begin to worry a lot about the storm.

And then there’s Jesus. My teacher. And where do I find him, but calmly sleeping over in the corner!

“Teacher! Don’t you care if I drown?”

“Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

And Jesus rises.
And Jesus speaks
And the world is calm.
And the world is silent.

“Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

I often forget the power of Christ. Too often it’s an abstract or distant thing, something that is impossible to comprehend or something that only existed long ago – but nothing that is immediate, present, and real.

When I see the power of God displayed, it almost always confuses me – how did that happen? Where did it come from? Can it really be?

When I read these words again, I am reminded of the lyrics of an old song:

Jesus Savior pilot me
over life’s tempestuous seas.
Unknown waves before me roll
hiding rock and treacherous shoal.
Chart and compass come from thee,
Jesus Savior Pilot me.
Chart and compass come from thee,
Jesus Savior Pilot me.

As a mother stills her child
you have calmed the oceans wild.
Boisterous waves obey thy will
when you say to them, “Be still!”
Wonderous Sovereign of the sea,
Jesus Savior pilot me.
Wonderous Sovereign of the sea,
Jesus Savior pilot me.