GO
August 28, 2009
1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. (Gen 12:1)
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (Matthew 28:19)
The Bible is full of wild stories that encourage us to live differently. One word, however, stands as a clarion call to God’s work of transformation in the world. The word is “Go.” It may take some adjustment on our part to realize this, but nothing of God’s Kingdom happens unless someone is willing to Go.
Sometimes GOING will require a 30-second e-mail to encourage a friend, a five-minutes walk across the street to help a neighbor, or the willingness to give up a quiet evening with your spouse in exchange for inviting some friends over who don’t know Christ. Other times, GOING may require a week-long commitment, a large chuck of money, or even a lifelong commitment to leave your city or country to serve God.
Whatever the case, the word GO will cost you something. It will require that you creatively look for the opportunities that God provides you to leave what’s natural and self-serving in order to extend his love to others. From The Tangible Kingdom Primer
Where may God want to send you today? What would it cost you to GO? What adjustments may need to be made? Is it possible to follow Jesus without GOING?
A Good Life
August 21, 2009
I just finished and strongly recommend Robert Benson’s A Good Life: Benedict’s Guide to Everyday Joy. Here is a small taste.
“Many of us do not even know much about the office anyway. We are not always taught that this way of praying is part of our heritage as faithful people. The liturgies and forms and practices have long since been dropped from the ways that we are taught.
Our lives are already very busy from morning until night-too hectic, it seems, to stop two or three times each day and read the prayers from a book or to say them from memory. We live in a world in which we are encouraged to multitask, and to read books on tape (which is something that actually cannot be done, if you think about it). We eat fast food, expect overnight delivery, and sign up for instant messaging. We get too little sleep, have too many commitments and too much on our plate most days and weeks.
So we look for books that can help us pray our way to powerful Christian living in ten minutes a day, and we wonder why we are often left feeling somehow devoid of God’s presence in our lives.
“Can you not stay with me for one hour?” asks Jesus of the ones who said they loved him.
“Can you not move a little more quickly?” we seem to be saying in return.
If it is beginning to sound to you like I am trying to sell you something, it is only because I am. And if you have begun to feel that I am preaching to the choir, remember that I am in the choir myself and have been in it long enough to know that this is the best way to get us to sing.
For centuries, the payer of the office was at the center of the life of those who would serve the God that we say we want to serve. The people of Yahweh, our mothers and fathers, and the people of the early church and the people of the church across the years since–the desert monastics, the ones who kept the church alive through the Dark Ages, the ones ho wrestled it through the Reformation, regardless of which side they were on-kept such traditions of prayer alive. They preserved the prayer, they observed the prayer, and they have now handed those traditions of prayer to us in our time.
It may well be time for us to pick up the mantle, shoulder the burden, take up the song, or whatever metaphor you want to choose. It may be time for us to learn to pray the hours, to do the Work of God-with devotion, with art, with discipline, and with care.
It is reasonable to wonder about the efficacy of such prayer, especially when it is unfamiliar to us. And so much has been written and said about dead liturgy and dry, rote prayers that we are right to enter into such prayer with care and with discernment. And we are certainly wise to consider the time and effort that it will take to say such prayer.”
Healing in his wings
May 29, 2009
I was reminded yesterday of the axiom, “Hurting people, hurt people.” My 12 year old son, Logan, came in the house on the last day of school fighting back tears. Apparently one of his closest friends said some very mean things to him. Logan’s heart was crushed! He was hurt and wounded deeply and now flowing out of his heart and mouth was more pain and hurt. Hurting people, hurt people. (I suspect that the friend who “hurt” my son is carrying around more pain and brokenness than his small body can contain.
You and I are no different. We too have been hurt, some of us very deeply. We’ve been betrayed, lied to, lied about, abandoned, abused, forgotten and forsaken. It is reality. The question is, “What do we do with that pain and brokenness? How do we love others, instead of using them to find our own healing?
There is a tremendous story told by both Luke and Matthew. Luke phrases it this way, “As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.”
A couple quick observations.
1. Like each of us, this woman new what it was like to suffer. She understands what it’s like to be betrayed, rejected, taken advantage of, ostracized and forgotten.
2. After 12 years of searching and hoping to find healing, she learned “no one could heal her.” Too often many of us look to the approval of others to find healing for our broken and bruised lives. We too know the disappointment left over from those failed attempts.
3. After pushing through the crowd, she touched the edge (kanaph) of Jesus cloak and found healing. Malachi 4:2 had told of the day when “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings (kanaph).” (In Hebrew the word for wings and edge is the same; kanaph.)
4. This woman believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah; that in himself there was healing power, she but needed to take hold of him.
We are all broken people, struggling to find peace and wholeness in our fractured world. We can continue to search for wholeness in the approval of others or we can push through with desperate hearts and take hold of Jesus and find healing in His wings.
May God grant all of us who are broken this day to press on to take hold of the One who is already holding onto us!
Sabbatical
May 25, 2009
I am taking a two-week fast from blogging.
Lord, may these two weeks be a time of refreshment and deep reflection leading to surrender.
Amen. Christ, have mercy.
CDP 3
May 15, 2009
Have you memorized this Canticle from morning prayers in CDP?
Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.
Christ under me;
Christ over me;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
When you do, it will open up uses of it that are not readily available to you otherwise.
1. It allows you to pray in secret for people you are sitting next to or with (anywhere) replacing “me” with “him” or “her” or “them”.
2. It allows you to say a prayer that is uniting everyone you are with in a meeting by substituting the word me with us.
It has blessed me and the people I have been with many times.
Missio Dei 8
April 30, 2009
Without compassion there is no missio dei. The compassion of God, intermingled with the compassion he sows in human hearts, are the sine qua non (meaning literally in Latin “without which nothing” i.e. most necessary thing) of the sending enterprise of God and the church.
A popular way of my tribe in our call to mission is to find where God is working in the world and to join him there. This is sound biblical advice. But this is not meant to be the final biblical word on missio dei. The reverse is just as true and perhaps more revealing of the premise behind the statement. The church or group who receives a call to be compassionate will not only try to find God in the heart of the world (for where is God not working?) but will also find the world in the heart of God (a paraphrase of Nouwen). This dual understanding of our modus operandi is crucial for the mission of God. Prayerfully we seek our call to missio dei in the heart of the Father. Was it John Piper who said in Let the Nations Be Glad: “Missions begins in the Heart of God.”
The healing pen of Henri Nouwen in his book Compassion resonates with all this when he marries prayer and action into one enterprise:
Prayer and action… can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. If prayer leads us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will always give rise to concrete acts of service. And if concrete acts of service do indeed lead us to a deeper solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed, they will always give rise to prayer. In prayer we meet Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet people, and in them the suffering of Christ.
Missional Order is about compassionate praying, ever-changing into Christlikeness, and being sent into the world as a way of life.
Confession 2
April 6, 2009
Here in the presence of Almighty God, I kneel in silence, and with penitent and obedient heart confess my sins, so that I may obtain forgiveness by your infinite goodness and mercy. The Book of Common Prayer
How much does confession figure in your daily life?
Just as I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot.
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O lamb of God, I come! I come!
Did this verse from Just as I am still speak to your soul?
Psalm 32: 1-2
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered over.
Happy the man whom the Lord does not hold guilty and in whose spirit there is no deceit (JPS).
Reflections: A happiness from the Lord comes upon the person who does not hide his sin but lets God do the cover up job. Is forgiven, is covered over are what is called divine passive verbs, meaning God acts on our behalf. Our part is confession. His part is forgiveness (separates our sins from us) and hiding our sins or putting it out of sight. The benefit is happiness (blessedness); perhaps tears of joy.I suspect that the happiness that we enjoy as a result of forgiveness is shared happiness. That is God enjoys happiness when we confess and shares this happiness with the confessor.
What testimony can we give to this? We are not in the habit of sharing our happiness upon forgiveness. Do you do this in your church? We pray in confession but notice no difference in the mood of the people? Could it be that happiness can go unnoticed? Could it be that we are going through the obligatory motions of confession?
The nature of this happiness is surely different from say enjoying an ice cream, good delivery of the sermon, or siding with the winning team. It’s much deeper, not unlike coming home and seeing that all is in order or knowing in our hearts that a ton of good has been done in the name of Christ around the world despite what we hear on the news. Or that deep sense of contentment knowing the faithfulness of Christ by faith.
Prayer: My sin, O the bliss of this glorioius thought,
My sin, not in part but the whole
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, O my soul. It is well with my soul. Amen. Christ, have mercy.
The Way of the Cross 6
April 4, 2009
Jesus is taken down from the Cross
Time passed by and a soldier came to check on the crucified ones. He looked at them and realized that the two thieves were still alive while Jesus seemed dead. He asked for instructions from his superiors. He had to come and break the legs of the living and with a spear pierced open Jesus’ side.
Cruelty building upon cruelty. All this for the sanctity of the feast. The soldiers had received orders to get rid of the dead bodies before sunset because “the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath and they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down” (Jn 19,31).
Everyone started to leave. They had to hurry to get back to their homes before the beginning of the Sabbath, otherwise they were not allowed to celebrate it.
But sitting under the cross in complete silence stood Mary with those accompanying her.
Two men were seen coming up to Calvary. They went to the soldiers and presented them with a written permission. The soldiers did not hesitate. It was Pilate’s order. They had to bring down the body of Jesus and hand him over to these two persons.
One was “Joseph of Arimathea …a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews…” the other “Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.
Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs” (Jn 19,38-40). They took Jesus from the cross and laid him on the bare ground.
His mother could see again her son. She could hug him for the last time. She could cry aloud and pray. She whispered softly “Why did they do this to you? Why had they taken you away from me?” She saw the bloodstained body and could not believe this was the same infant to whom she gave birth in the grotto and laid in a manger. She wanted to hear him scream again the scream of life, she wanted to understand fully the Mystery she had carried in her womb and who now laid there lifeless in her arms . Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Those standing by looked over to the horizon and realized they had to hurry to bury him before the sun sets in the west. They took away the lifeless body from his mother and wrapping him in white linen cloth carried him to the tomb.
The Year of Living Rhythmically #2
April 1, 2009
A friend of mine recently turned 40. When I congratulated him on passing this milestone he smiled and replied, “Thank you. It’s just another year for me to learn how to repent.” Part of what prompted such an unusual response from my friend was the fact that he recently joined the Eastern Orthodox church. Grateful for being a part of God’s family and the privilege of entering the Kingdom, my friend found repentance to be the most appropriate means of expressing thanks to God. While all of Christianity stresses repentance it is interesting to pay attention to the attitude toward repentance found in the traditions of our Orthodox brothers and sisters.
Alexander Schmemman, Orthodox theologian and priest, describes the season of Lent as a “school of repentance.” Such a description reminds us that repentance is in fact learned rather than something natural to us. It is not inherent to our personalities. Precisely because repentance is something to be learned we should develop, or perhaps discover, ways through which it becomes a part of the rhythm of our lives. The observance of Lent, which is at the center of the church year, is one way to do this.
For those of us outside of churches with strong liturgical traditions, these following words help us make sense of practices like Lent, which seem so foreign. Schmemman continues:
“…the liturgical traditions of the church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent, and return to it.” (from Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, pg. 13)
Rather than a dry and disconnected religious activity, Lent and the other seasons of the church year, serve the purpose of reminding us of the new life, the renewed experience of God’s presence, which we have received through faith in Christ. None of us are immune to the toll that time and inattention can have on our faith. Regular opportunities for renewal built into our very calendars and fortified by the seasons of the year reignite our passion for following Christ, experiencing God’s love and enjoying the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
If you have not engaged the Lenten season this year let me urge you to do so. It’s not too late to participate in this season of repentance, reflection and preparation for the great and celebration of Easter. All proper preparations for Easter morning include repentance.
The Way of the Cross 5
March 27, 2009
Jesus Dies on the Cross
Someone yelled an order and the body, nailed and tied to the cross-beam was hoisted in its place. Pain passed like electric shocks from the pierced wrists to the strained shoulder blades as they pulled him up. There was no careful handling. Just a rough treatment reserved for criminals.
Jesus is now hoisted and they hurry to nail his legs. More hammer blows. More torn flesh. More blood. More pain. It is all happening fast. The soldiers are done. It was just past the third hour (9.00am).
One of the soldiers posted a notice written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek which read “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (Jn 19.19). As soon as the notice was affixed to the top of the cross, the elders expressed their vehement protests. They left and went directly to Pilate to ask him to change it. But Pilate stood firm in his decision (Jn 19,20).
Timed passed by slowly. Three hours of agonizing pain had already passed. Dark heavy clouds covered the sun. All around the spur of Calvary seemed to reign an eerie silence. Only the heavy suffocating breathing of the condemned could be heard. Their lungs were slowly giving in, as did their senses.
Jesus said “I am thirsty”. (Jn 19,28), and a soldier went running and “offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it” (Mk 15,23).
The robbers crucified with him started arguing between themselves about Jesus, and he, looking at one of them, said “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23,43 ). Silence on the hill and festive chaos in the city.
And Jesus gathered his breath and screamed aloud the lines of the Psalm “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ?”–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27,46).
He was praying aloud now. His lungs were making a whistling sound. Pain was all over his face and body. The extremities of his fingers and toes had changed color to bluish black. The sky was overcast and darkness fell over the city.
Those under the cross heard him whisper “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Lk 23,46). And after a few moments he almost screamed his last breath out with the words “It is finished” (Jn 19,30). Saying this he breathed his last!
The earth shook and the rocks split. (Mt 27, 51). “When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” (Mt 27,54). It was the ninth hour (3 pm) when Jesus died on the Cross at Calvary!
*Thanks again to via cusis for their content
The Way of the Cross 4
March 21, 2009
Jesus is nailed to the Cross
The soldiers grab Jesus and lead him to the cross-beam on the ground. They almost push him down. He offers no resistance. He is forced to lie down face up. They stretch his arms. In an instant, too many things happen. The banging of hammers on the nails, the piercing pain of sharp metal entering the flesh, the echo of the wooden beam, his painful scream.
He screamed aloud to relieve the pain. His voice echoed to the furthest corners of the city.
With each hammer blow, the metal tore into the flesh at his wrists, broke the arteries and fractured the bones. It was unbearable. He was almost senseless and the sunbeams were blinding him.
He had lost count of the hammer blows, of the orders yelled next to his ears, of the different voices talking or screaming. He could not follow the sequence of events any longer.
His feeble body was contorted with pain. Blood was dripping from his pierced wrists. He closed his eyes. He could not take it anymore; he almost lost his senses.
On the sides there where those who had come to see this “spectacle”. They stood there motionless and impassive. But there were also a few women sobbing quietly in a corner.
All was set. The body was nailed. The chords had been brought down from the wooden beams prepared to take the crucified body. And Jesus was now nailed to the Cross.
Prayer
Dear Jesus, I cannot stand the pain you are suffering for me! I cannot bear to remember what you had to go through for my salvation! If I pierce my finger with a needle I scream! And you? A nail went through your wrists tearing into your flesh! How can we ever understand your suffering, Lord? And still with dignity you suffered through all of it!
Lord, help me to never inflict pain on others and above all, Lord, help me put all my faith and hope in you! Visualizing your nailing to the cross, Lord, makes me realize how futile it is to put my hope in anyone except you. You know, Lord, how many times I got carried away thinking that someone or something might have been more important than you. You know too, that whenever this happened, many times I lived to regret it! Dear Jesus, I do need my faith in you!
*Thanks to via crucis for their content
Way of the Cross 3
March 13, 2009
Jesus is Stripped of His Clothes
Reflection
Jesus arrives at Golgotha. The soldiers take away the cross-beam from his shoulders and neck. Jesus is relieved from this weight. He stands there motionless. Everyone around him is doing his business. He just waits. They move around.
Jesus looks up and sees the two thieves already in their place. They are screaming with pain. He looks down again and, keeping his eyes fixed to the ground, awaits his turn. Suddenly the soldiers came. He knew it was his time.
They take off his clothes and throw them in a heap nearby. Jesus is again humiliated. He stands there almost naked and empty handed. The bloodstained body shows the bruises and the open wounds of the lashes. He starts shivering as the northerly breeze chills his sweating body.
They place the cross-beam on the ground in front of him, and the soldiers begin discussing what to do with his garments: “Let’s not tear it,” they say to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.” (Jn 19,24) In this way they fulfill what was written in the scriptures, “They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing”(Ps 22,18).
Jesus then lifts up his eyes to heaven completes the prayer: “But you, O Lord, be not far off! O my Strength, come quickly to help me!” (Ps 22,19).
Prayer
Dear Jesus, what a shameful spectacle they wanted to make of you! Some hours earlier during that same week, dear Lord, you yourself took off your cloak to wash the feet of your disciples. You told us then that we have to do the same as you were doing!
And now Lord, you left them undress you of your clothes, undress you of your dignity as a human being! You refuse to grasp and clutch. You stand wounded, broken and empty handed.
How could you bear all this, Lord? Lord, teach me how to do my utmost to serve the poor, the humble, the homeless, the less fortunate. Help me never to be a cause of any injustice against human dignity. Help me to live empty handed.
Lord, how can I not bring in front of your suffering heart the multitude of human beings who are held as slaves to day, who are left to die of hunger while we pile up rubbish dumps all over, the innocent children who are suffering because of the waring adults. Lord look at our misery and help us never to be a cause of misery to others!
St. Patrick’s Breastplate
March 11, 2009
The feast day of St. Patrick will be upon us next week. In preparation I thought it might be useful for us to read one of the passages from which portions of the morning canticle are drawn. The “Lorica of St. Patrick”, also known as “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”, is a prayer attributed to the saint. It is theologically rich with it’s emphasis upon God’s nature as Trinity but at the same time a very earthy, practical prayer of protection.
Legend has it that when St. Patrick and his followers were being pursued by a non-Christian king they prayed this prayer together. As a result God disguised them as deer allowing them to run away and escape their pursuers. From this the prayer draws it’s third name “The Deer’s Cry”.
- I arise today
- through a mighty strength,
- the invocation of the Trinity,
- through belief in the Threeness,
- through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.
- I arise today
- through the strength of Christ with His Baptism,
- through the strength of His Crucifixion with His Burial,
- through the strength of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
- through the strength of His descent for the Judgment of Doom.
The following portion includes the section from which CDP’s morning canticle is derived:
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ in breadth, Christ in length, Christ in height, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me…
The Year of Living Rhythmically: #2
March 4, 2009
Brother Lawrence, a medieval monk from France, once remarked that people are to be loved, unconditionally, like trees in winter. So should we love and be loved. Not for what we can contribute, nor for any qualities that we possess unto ourselves, but simply because we are. This is a stark picture of God’s love.
The Lenten season is often viewed as a season of suffering. It is a season of abstinence, repentance and reflection. It begins on a Wednesday as an ashy smudge is smeared across our forehead and the words are repeated: from dust you have come and to dust you shall return. To the uninitiated these words sound anything but loving. They remind us of failure and frailty. These words, first spoken to Adam in Gen 3:19, serve to remind us of our death.
One of the central marks of the Christian person is hopefulness. It could be argued that a Christian without some sense of hope has lost her sense of what makes her uniquely Christian. Our faith is centered upon the idea of resurrection, both the first resurrection of Christ and the future resurrection of his people. How valuable it is then, to intentionally pause, reflect upon life before the cross and resurrection and be reminded of our sin and the reality of death. Lent is that time.
Suppressing, even if only ceremonially, our natural bouyant hopefulness, allows us to enter into a place of where we are once again stripped bare. With nothing to offer and nothing to do we simply receive, once again, the gift of God’s love. The words may sound cold but they are a sign of the love that brings deliverance.
It’s here that we are loved once again not for what we are, nor for what we could be and certainly not for what we do but simply because we are. Brittle and fruitless.
Like trees in winter.
Way of the Cross 1
February 27, 2009
On Friday’s from now until Easter Sunday we will accompany Jesus from the Hall of Pilate, where Jesus is condemned to death, to Golgotha (Calvary) where he was executed.
Station #1 Pilate Condemns Jesus to Die
Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. . . . So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” . . . and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. (Matt 27:11-14, 24, 26b)
Jesus, I wish you would say something. Defend yourself. Declare who you are. Where are the lepers you healed, the blind who can now see? Why don’t those who were lame stand up for you now? Where are your followers? Why are you standing there alone?
Why is Pilate such a coward. He has the power and authority to do something, to put an end to this cruel injustice. Why doesn’t he? What is wrong with him? What is he thinking?
But wait, I see in Pilate me.
I am Pilate when I fail to use my strength and power to help the innocent and the weak.
I am Pilate when I fear the crowd and choose what is easy rather than what is right.
I am Pilate when I seek to save myself rather than suffer for the sake of others.
What is wrong with me?
Jesus I see in you a quiet strength and a humble resolve I long for myself. O Lord, I want to be like you. Free me from the need to defend myself, while giving me a voice to speak up for those who suffer.
The imitation of Christ
February 20, 2009
To be truly redeemed by Christ is, therefore, to impose on oneself the task of imitating him; As man Jesus is my model because as God he is my Redeemer; Christianity can be defined as a faith together with a corresponding way of life. - Kierkegaard
I for one, find it extremely difficult to live the way Jesus lived. I continually fall short. I am a sinner. I am completely dependent upon God’s grace in my quest to love others the way Jesus does. But that is my hope, that I would become more and more like Jesus and because of that hope I continue to work and strive (1 Timothy 4:10)….
I am part of faith community committed to three basic rhythm’s (”rules” for you Benedictines out there). Our desire is to be an intensive fellowship of friends ignited by the missio Dei. Together we are seeking to live our lives in the way of Jesus by…
- Listening to the Father
- Loving one another and
- Living as agents of redemption in the world.
These three basic practices are our attempt at working and striving because of the hope we have in God.
What are some of the common rhythm’s or rules of your faith community?
What practices do you find most helpful in your “training” to become more like Jesus?
Pastor as Spiritual Guide
February 7, 2009
Patience is required when it comes to pastoral work. Patience is a fruit God’s Spirit produces in our lives as we abide in Jesus. Interestingly enough, Eugen Peterson contends that the working environment of many pastors erodes patience and rewards impatience. In The Contemplative Pastor he writes, “People are uncomfortable with mystery (God) and mess (themselves). They avoid both mystery and mess by devising programs and hiring pastors to manage them. A program provides a defined structure with an achievable goal. Mystery and mess are eliminated at a stroke. This is appealing. In the midst of the mysteries of grace and the complexities of human sin, it is nice to have something that you can evaluate every month or so and find out where you stand. We don’t have to deal with ourselves or with God, but can use the vocabulary of religion and work in an environment that acknowledges God, and so be assured that we are doing something significant.
I’m curious if other Pastors feel a tension between “running a church” and “caring for souls”?
Come with me…
January 30, 2009
Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. Mark 6: 31
The disciples just returned from a tour of announcing and demonstrating the arrival of God’s Kingdom. They were so busy helping and interacting with other people, they did not even have time to eat. Jesus aware of their condition has one thing to say, “Come with me by yourselves, to a quiet place and get some rest.”
As the pace of life continues to speed up and the people who make up our “societies of Jesus” get busier and busier, doing more and more, we are headed toward disaster. The disciples had Jesus. One of the things Jesus offered his followers was a healthy rhythm of life. Part of Jesus way of life was to often withdraw to a solitary place to enjoy intimacy with his Father. It must have been very natural for Jesus, when he observed his followers “red-lining” to say, “Come with me by yourselves, to a quiet place an get some rest.”
Think about your faith community for a second. Who is the one who can say, “Come with me by yourselves, to a quiet place and get some rest?” Is the Lord inviting you to rhythm that includes times of solitude and rest, for your own health and for the health of others?
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