Being Built Together as Living Stones

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house… 1 Peter 2:4-5

As we come to our Discerning Retreat We find ourselves in the sometimes-absurd-feeling position of taking the verse above with radical seriousness. Let me rephrase that, we are not just seriously considering being living stones; the event presumes that we are living stones being built into a spiritual house. There is a huge difference between merely aspiring to be something and seeing if it works out, and actually assuming one is something and working it out. It takes some courage to be so presumptuous.

Let me lead us in a lament on why it is hard for many of us to presume we are what Peter is talking about:

1) Some of our best potential partners hover above the church. Good people can’t abide denominations; they go parachurch for their mission; they can’t stand relating too long without getting to do exactly what they want. So they hover over the rest of us, dipping in periodically to abscond with what they like and leaving the rest of us to be the church. I compare them to free-radical atoms that cause organisms to deteriorate. They are like high-end shoppers who periodically hold an extravagant fair where they get their goodies; the rest of the time they cast their nets into various groups and scoop up their preferences.

2) People who were once radical enough to be a member of the “tribe,” no matter what, have a tough time maintaining that once they have children. It is hard to imagine your child’s needs being met among the living stones when they are in the process of being indoctrinated by the school and their peer group. When your child is having trouble relating or participating, it is hard not to adapt to their leadership.

3) We have quite a few ex-dating, even ex-marriage partners cordoning off sections of the fellowship. If I am upsetting you right now because I said this, I probably mean you. I feel your pain, but if we organize around you, worry about how your despair is driving you out, or are drawn to see the world in terms of being on your side or not, we are not being constructed; we’re expanding your sense of being destroyed.

4) On the same subject, we have numerous mixed marriages or mixed faux-marriages among us. I mean that people are built together with mates who don’t follow Jesus. The mates are usually open to faith (at least to their mate having some), and are likely to be nice people. But they often take their mate out of the building materials storehouse. It is hard to be a living stone if you are not really available to be built into the building.

5) Some of the partners really keep their faith in their head. That’s not all bad – there are intellectual issues to be had. But being built together is physical, emotional and mainly spiritual. We can’t just argue all day. We don’t want to live in a relationship that is like a bad marriage, in which the partners are just out for some kind of justice that matches what they are thinking or meets their demands, instead of being out to build the love of the relationship.

Don’t take this the wrong way. This piece is kind of a “lament” based on my longing to be all that Peter is talking about – a living stone built into a spiritual house. I am a living stone and I do experience life in the spiritual house. It would have been easy enough to write a psalm of praise about how people are doing the exact opposite of what I have enumerated above. And I could have written a psalm of praise for how people in the conditions enumerated above are dealing with them faithfully. I have plenty of well-founded hope. Besides, the church depends on what Jesus is building. We are being built, Peter says. We, and millions of living stones all over the world, are being built by God into his typically wild array of diverse expressions of his grace.

But I like the reality of the stark contrasts that also permeate Peter’s letter.  I think Peter wrote the exhortation I’m riffing on today because he was facing the same kind of stuff we face. People in his day, like in ours, just didn’t get the facts of their new lives in Christ or they didn’t accept them or they wouldn’t/couldn’t live out of them. They had any number of good reasons to not be built together into a spiritual house. We have the reasons our world tempts us to apply, too.

The Discerning Retreat is one of our radical antidotes to all that. It gives us a chance to take Jesus and one another seriously, in hope that we won’t be something in our head, just a theory, or merely a prospect. It calls us to be a people in real time, in love with each other, with the living Lord at the center. It is far from the only thing we do, of course, to live out our lives in Christ. But it is such a good opportunity to come to the Living Stone and be built, as living stones, into a great place for him to live.

A Stance: How Jesus Acts on His

This post is more in the vein of “What does Jesus do and how” as we are looking at Mark these days.

And he said to them: “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” Mark 7:9-13

The Pharisees had a stance. They saw the world in a certain way. They had a point of view that had been refined over a few hundred years. They had an intellectual and emotional attitude. Their stances were so important to them that quite a few conspired to get Jesus killed when he threatened their validity and power.

Jesus had some stances, too. Most of them were pretty basic, when it came to behavior. To the law-abiding Pharisees who wouldn’t even follow one of the ten commandments he said, “You nullify the word of God by your tradition.” When he was talking to people who sin he said, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.” (Mark 9:43)   But what did Jesus do as a result of his stances? Did he try to get someone killed? Not at all, he did not treat us according to his stances, he died for us. He treats according to his love.

Postmodern democracy is a constant collision of stances. Supposedly, the world is ordered by a people expressing their individual consciences within the safety of laws that protect their identities. Mostly it is ordered by people who can buy enough influence to guarantee their stance seems very important. Regular people get lined up behind a particular stance and are defined by massive definitions of “identity” and argue all day like congress. Since the institutions are God-free there is no center to bring any substance to the dialogue, so the process is a constant competition to see who will define the center today.

The other day Gwen and I were in court because she was subpoenaed to appear in the district attorney’s case against the young man who Gwen met on our stairs holding the letter opener from my office on floor below. She talked him down the stairs and was fine (thank God!). But now she must go through the court torture while the young man languishes in jail for a month waiting to get arraigned. What the lawyers do epitomizes what we all do these days. It is even worse, maybe, than what the Pharisees were doing with their law, but similar. The lawyers compete, case after case. They try to get witnesses confused (“You said the knife was six inches long, and now you say eight. What was it?”). They try to find a way out of following the law. They accuse the other side of procedural mistakes. There is no real interest in the truth. They often make sure their clients don’t tell their story at all, lest they don’t play the game well. It seems to me that we all are being trained to defend our self-interested stances with the same kind of dialogue.

When “what is your stance on?…” is the big question in the church, which it sometimes is, it is trouble. For one thing, the church is a kingdom, not a democracy, essentially. That doesn’t make democracy a bad way to run governments; it just means governments are different from the church. But the main reason it is trouble is that if we argue our stances all day we’ll end up with a competition to dominate a godless center, just like the world does. I don’t think that means we don’t have any stances. Jesus has some very radical stances. But while he doesn’t mind talking about them, he has an even more radical way of acting on them. It is how we act in relation to our stances that makes the church like Jesus.

The big example, like I began, is Jesus’ stance on sin. He has a strong “point of view” (from the center of creation), “It is killing you. Don’t mess around with pretending you aren’t doing it.” His stance does divide up the world between people who are for him and against him. But he does not treat people according to his stance. He wrestles the sin for them and then with them. He acts for everyone, with him or not, by acting out of his dying love.

Our church and all the churches are in danger every day of getting divided up into competing stances. People look toward the validation of their rights/opinions/political identities/power as crucial these days. They judge the church according to whether they agree with its stances. We even get judged for not having stances! I think our only hope in such a day is to discern whatever we could call Jesus’ stances and then act on them the same way he did. He is the center and we listen for truth from the center, but then we treat people in love, not according to their stances or ours. The love may not be based on how great they are, or on their right to be loved. At its best, it will be a dying love that comes from Jesus himself.

In Honor of White Corpuscles

A few weeks ago a thoughtful friend told me about a revelation he had. It seems that he had translated certain cultural instincts from his childhood into the church, unwittingly. He was getting some wit about that. (Gimme a church wit’ wit). Whenever there was a person who was doing something “wrong,” his first instinct was to “shun” them. He avoided them. He certainly did not talk to them about what they were doing wrong. He kept them on the outside of his life. They became somewhat invisible.

This did not work for much good, of course, since he still felt bad/mad/sad about the problem and the person he shunned did not get whatever benefit he might bring to their struggle. It was something about God getting right into the middle of the human mess as Jesus and dying for people while they were still sinners that finally dawned on him. “So this passive-aggressive thing we do where we never say anything directly and surround offending people (essentially everyone) with unspoken (constant) disapproval is not particularly Christian?” No, it isn’t.

The way the body of Christ works is exactly the opposite of shunning, at least as a first response. The body of Christ works like a human body. When there is an infection the white corpuscles in the blood stream multiply and rush to the area of disease or wound. They don’t shun it. You can see their spent residue in the white ooze that surrounds the boo boo on your finger. In the church, people who become aware of some sin, or disaster of judgment, or lack of reconciliation, or of anything that might weaken or, if left unattended, kill the body, turn toward the person and the infection and surround it with love, truth and attention until it gets better. Shunning the infectious person would only make them more powerfully infectious and might be as good as telling them to go to hell. The church is in the healing business.

In the physical blood stream there are a lot more red blood cells than white corpuscles. The life delivered by the red cells far outweighs the need for infection control by the white. The life of the body of Christ is the best antidote to the death that threatens it. But we do have some built-in defense systems. Like white corpuscles in the blood, the infection fighters in the body of Christ increase in the day of trouble. On a normal day, there are relatively fewer people with the awareness of what could kill us moving through our body. If they are wise, they only worry us with their worries when it is necessary. Most of the time, they trust the life of Christ to overcome its opponents. Pray for them. They are an important minority. Watch for them to instinctively go about their business. When you see them caring, join them. They lead us to turn toward the trouble.

I’ve been watching this life-giving process happen in healthy bodies over the years and watching it not happen in dying bodies. It isn’t that easy to kill a church, but it can be done. When a simple cut is left to gangrene poison can take over the whole group. That is rare, though. More often, like a physical body, the church will work to naturally cleanse itself. I have warned people from time to time that they should stop being infectious, since the body will eventually, without even thinking about it too much, treat them like a sliver until they pop out. As a pastor, I feel responsible to be among the white corpuscles.  But my goal is rarely just to pop someone out. Jesus redeems “slivers” all the time. I usually feel even more responsible to those who are unwittingly in danger of losing the connections they cherish or missing the experience of growth they long for because they have become an infection. It often pains me to bring it up, since I have some avoidance mechanisms that encourage me to shun people…but then I remember Jesus turning toward me.

Who Are You?

Tomorrow is the day we remember Teresa of Avila (1515-1582).

The famous Teresa was a reformer from the center of Spain, along with her protégé, St. John of the Cross. In response to the radicals of the protestant reformation, which was like an earthquake in the Church of their time, they wanted to return their order to the ways to the hermits that founded it near Elijah’s well in Palestine, on Mt. Carmel (see 1 Kings 18). They ended up with an offshoot of the Carmelites called the “barefoot” or “discalced” Carmelites. [As a total aside, we stayed in Aylesford Abbey last year when in Kent, the site of the first convocation of Carmelites in England in 1240. They had a yard full of elementary kids when we arrived, befitting the order’s traditional love of children.].

When we were in Avila a few years ago, Gwen and I went to the house where Teresa got started on her remarkable, influential ministry. For some reason we were the only pilgrims at the site and had a great museum all to ourselves. On the stairs there was a mannequin of a little boy, replicating one of the moments of ecstasy that popped up in Teresa’s prayer. One day, as she was preparing to ascend stairs leading to the upper rooms of the convent she met a beautiful child. He asked her “Who are you?” She replied, “I am Teresa of Jesus, and who are you?” To which the child responded, “I am Jesus of Teresa.”

Biographers say that encounter with the Lord, as a child, affected her so deeply that whenever  Teresa set out to found a new house (she founded eighteen in all) she always brought a statue of the Child Jesus with her. She did a lot of teaching on contemplative prayer and encouraged everyone to leave their hearts open to visions and mysterious connections with God. But she didn’t want people to seek them or to rely on them.

In Carmelite spirituality there is an ancient custom of choosing a name which uniquely expresses a member’s personal relationship to the mysteries of the faith. Thus there are people like Teresa of Jesus, John of the Cross, and Elizabeth of the Trinity. In honor of these ancestors in the faith, I have been pondering what name I should have.

If the risen Lord were to ask you today, “Who are you?” How would you answer? If you were a Discalced (or other kind of) Carmelite, what new name would you choose for yourself? What mystery of the faith has been central to your life-journey in Christ?

When I pondered this in Teresa’s honor, I realized I have been blessed with so many ways to connect with God that it is hard to choose something central (and Teresa cobbled together another name for herself, as well, since she couldn’t quite decide either). Rod of Jesus works for me, too. Rod of the Silence. Rod of the Pioneers. But mainly, I think, Rod of the church. The mystery of the body of Christ in action: restoring people to their rightful place, redeeming the creation, fulfilling what is left of the Lord’s suffering as a living organism of many diverse parts – I have never been diverted from my passion for it.  Maybe that is why I have a hard time figuring out a name – I would prefer to be named, by my brothers and sisters, as they recognized Jesus in me, Jesus living through me to contribute what I have been given to share.

“Who are you?” How would you answer?

Afghan War Anniversary

At least someone was out on the streets on the anniversary of the Afghan War yesterday.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/100709_protest_marks_afghan_war_anniversary

In the past few years, it has been fascinating to watch the country be muzzled by the new “no news” news which makes every issue a postmodern discussion of equal, red state/blue state opinions. More and more people now get their news from random internet sources who all have a point to push. Dialogue is dead. Everything is marketing.  

Meanwhile there was nary a peep of outrage around here yesterday, on the anniversary of the Afghan war — no lament over the fact that the government is still pouring billions of wasted dollars into the war and still wasting lives in their hopeless cause of domination. I am feeling sorry for Obama, since the previous regime alienated everyone who might have helped (like Iran, Russia, China) and decided we had enough wealth, power and the all-important juevos to fight a perpetual war on terror on our own. They propped up a fake, corrupt “democracy” (again)  and decided the dirt farmers of the Afghan hills would cower before their faceless weapons. Now what does a president do? A fabulous lack of wisdom, a tremendous act of godlessness (in the name of all that is good, of course) is hard to follow.

My sympathy notwithstanding, I am feeling a bit Jeremiah today, as my prayer book lead me to chapter 6:

I appointed watchmen over you and said,
`Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
But you said, `We will not listen.’
Therefore hear, O nations;
observe, O witnesses,  what will happen to them.
Hear, O earth:  I am bringing disaster on this people,
the fruit of their schemes,
because they have not listened to my words

While I do not think we have responsibility for what the country does, no matter how many times they try to convince us that this is a democracy in some remote representative way, I DO think the people of God have a responsibility to tell others to “listen to the trumpet” and to blow it ourselves at appropriate moments of dire warning. I find it kind of scary when we don’t seem to be “feeling it.”

I suggest we take off our muzzles, slough off our apathy, renew our resentment of godless domination, stoke our concern for people languishing in ignorance of God and their plight, and make sure (at least!) to say a few words of outrage to people who need to hear them today. It might be a good idea to remind a few people that our government has sent soldiers to Afghanistan for eight fruitless years, now; and they are still adventuring in Iraq. Politically, it is disastrous; spiritually, it is hard (even on our least-Jeremiah-like day) to even imagine a connection to Jesus.

Joseph Helps 30somethings with Spiritual Roadblocks #2

Joseph was sold to Ishmaelite traders who passed by Dothan on their way to Egypt. They showed up just in time for Judah and his brothers to flag them down. The boys must have shouted over the braying of the camels, “Hey what do you say about buying this fine potential slave we have in a pit over here? We think you’ll find him dreamy, just like we do.”

It is very possible that the main salesman, Judah, is a 30something, or nigh on to it, when he makes the sale. Judah   spent his twenties being a jealous, rapacious youth. By this time, he is hardening into a bitter, greedy adult who can traffic in brothers. As we know, God can use anything for good, but that doesn’t mean Judah is going to be spiritually present for the results of God’s grace. His act unwittingly ends up saving his family and he, personally, fathers the tribe that produces King David — God may use you, too. But that doesn’t mean you won’t make yourself disposable after you have pursued yourself or some other master instead of him. Life is meant to be lived in relationship with God. If we don’t do that, we appropriately return to the dust whence ywe came. God brings the life.

So Joseph ends up in Egypt, delivered by Bedouin Express, perhaps with the shipment of the balm the picked up in Gilead. Potiphar buys him. Some people say they can verify that both Potiphar and Joseph were in Egpyt and were the people the Bible says they are, by reading the scarce records of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom during the reign of Pharaoh Amenemhet III

Like many artists have done as Noel Halle did, portraying Potiphar as old and his unnamed wife as young. It is a juicy story. Everyone wants to but a brush to it. It looks like Potiphar may been the head of the secret police, so one could paint the whole picture in 1940’s uniforms. Maybe he is the old, established captain of the guard with his trophy wife. She seems to wish she had a different husband. Maybe she has a reason to wish it — he owns slaves; he may own wives, too.

The artists also like to portray everyone in this story naked, but I like this more chaste rendition by Orazio Gentileschi. It is just so hyper real! – with the beautiful work on the red curtain in the background; it is kind of a “still life with seduction.” 

The story is relatively predictable and gets played out on the TV about every night in one way or another. What doesn’t get played out on TV (except on Saving Grace which is a lot like the story of Joseph), is that God is in the middle of this predictable story. Joseph is actually considering God, and that makes all the difference in how this scene gets played out. Joseph is faithful to God; and the story is about how his fidelity is being challenged by his subjection to a master and the invitations of a potential sex partner. If he can maintain his fidelity he will be with God and God will be with him and we can move on to the next challenge.

Considering God, being faithful and moving on seems like just what should happen; it is obvious the obvious choice to anyone who follows Jesus, until you place it in the workplace. In the workplace so many of us are convinced that mentioning Jesus it is impolite, if not illegal – “Better to be put in jail, then,” Joseph might say. Or put us in a relationship with a sexual partner and we might not think morality makes that much sense any more if “they love me and want me.” Some people would sell out God for a chance at sex or love or whatever it is we are doing since we moved in with each other – “Better to never have sex, than not trust God,” Joseph might say. Or put the choosing in our social circle in which half the people are ambivalent about Jesus, at best. We are tempted to give Jesus up whenever we are around such friends because it isn’t nice to believe things and we don’t want to seem pushy by being ourselves or thinking we know where being ourselves leads – “Better to have no friends than to trust such friends,” Joseph might say. But the fact is, 30somethings have been sold out and they are tempted to sell out.

Joseph does two things that are brilliant.

1)      He honors who he is. This begs the questions “Do you honor who you are?”

When Potiphar’s wife wants to have sex, Joseph remembers who he is. “No one is greater in this house than I am.”

30somethings are getting hold of their true selves and operating out them, or not. It is their great task.

Listen to Jesus working this out. He tells people who are essentially trying to get him to conform to their way of thinking in John 7:28-30 “I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.” Jesus knows where he is from and why he is here. In the face of his opponents he reaffirms who he is and honors his true self, even if others discount him.

It is not easy to be confident about being who we are, especially when we are just learning about that. Sometimes we have a slippery hold on what we’ve been given and what we’re sent to do. That’s why it is so important, during the first fruits of our thirties, when we are feeling our capability, being useful, possibly nurturing a young family and marriage, that we honor who we are. If your faith makes it to thirty, you will be especially challenged to maintain Jesus at the core of who you are. It is the prime sell-out decade for believers.

Joseph was tempted to doubt that what he was entrusted with was worth being faithful to. He was tempted to give up his integrity for an orgasm. It seems that he considered the prospect and then came to his senses. “No, I won’t do this, I am who I am.”

Going through this doubt and staying faithful to our true self is fundamental to overcoming the 30something roadblocks to faith. For instance, if you get married, you’ll face a subset of the problem when you are tempted to doubt the love in your marriage and start over somewhere else instead of going through the problems and letting them refine who you really are, like all good marriages do. The emotional landscape is littered with people who did not make it through that doubt. Many of them are still kicking themselves for giving in to Potiphar’s wife in one way or another. Even if you did give in and you were not faithful or they were not faithful to you, God is much bigger than your faithlessness. But you’ll still have to recognize what you’ve still got from God and go with the maturation of that.

The doubt about who we are, especially applies to our fidelity to our relationship with Jesus. Being 30something is often the biggest challenge to that relationship because the other masters are in full competition for our allegiance. We have something to offer the powers that be and they want us. We can become excellent slaves for their greed or other pursuits. Once they get us in their thrall, we often get re-educated to think about things their way. They pay us to learn their ways. They buy us to do so. They fire us if we don’t. We begin to doubt that following Jesus is worth it. He can tag along if he likes, but He hardly has the stuff to lead. We have to answer hard questions — Do I have Jesus? Is Jesus enough? Who or what owns me and my time? Do I honor Jesus in me?

2. This brings up the other brilliant reaction Joseph demonstrates that saves his fidelity. He risks the wrath of the master. It begs the question, “Do you ever risk the wrath of the master?”

When Potiphar’s wife wants to lure him to go against what is of God, Joseph says one of the phrases in the Bible that everyone needs to put in their knapsack to bring out at the appropriate moment (like 100 times a day), “How shall I do this thing and sin against God?”

The easiest thing to do might have been to have sex. Joseph doesn’t have his own wife, it appears, so having sex would be nice and she wants to do it. But even more, if he doesn’t do what she says, (she is the master’s wife, after all, anyone could see that she might get even), she’ll start screaming and enrage the old man, upon whom Joseph’s whole life depends. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t – that’s life, unless you are faithful to God. Joseph hangs on to his faith in God and risks offending the master and his wife!

Jesus is frank with us about the likelihood of these situations. And I don’t think that when he was telling his disciples this, he wasn’t telling himself (in Luke 12:47ff), “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”  Don’t you think Jesus was a Joseph? Wouldn’t he also say, “I would rather risk the wrath of the earth-bound people who threaten me than sin against what is from God for all eternity.”

Getting through this fear is the way through the roadblock to faith that comes up in our journey through the thirties. That is especially hard these days, because our whole country has been bending the knee to fear since 9/11. People have been appalled this week that the junta in Myanmar (which our president’s insult-first policy causes him to call Burma), has been surrounding Buddhist monasteries and keeping the monks from going out to protest. It is such naked domination. Meanwhile, the powers that be here in the U.S., have been using the means of domination (mainly the money to buy the air waves and direct the communication) to convince the country to spend billions to pursue Osama bin Laden in Iraq when he is in Pakistan making videos, all out of fear. We’re all reacting to it. Joseph does not react to his fear of the future when he refuses to jump into bed with Potiphar’s wife and that is what keeps him moving toward becoming the man he is destined to become.

More specifically for believers, we have to face our fear of the consequences of following Jesus. Just being a Christian can be a fearsome thing. We have some Joseph–like believers in our cell; I hope they will tell you stories. But, we also have a lot of friends who are really struggling with the fear they have about being a Christian. Simply not doing what others are doing because they go to a cell meeting and a PM each week makes them a weird person in the eyes of their friends and family – that tiny show of devotion gets them in trouble with other masters! What if they did what the Holy Spirit really compells them to do? What if they said what they really believe? What if they doubted out loud about the things that run them, like the things that run them doubt about them? I sent a youtube screed by Bill Maher the other day as an example of what we’re up against.

We’ll see the results of Joseph’s actions in full as the story goes on. At this point we see that his actions get him thrown into prison — where he prospers. The upside-down logic of God is something that 30something Joseph is now fully capable of accepting and living out. All us 30somethings have come to that age and can do it, or not. Now is the time. You’ll either be a slave to an earthly master, commtting adultery against God, your husband, or you will honor your true self and dare to risk the consequences of faithfulness. You’ll say right in their faces, speaking the truth in love, “How could I do this thing and sin against God?”

Joseph Helps 30somethings with Spiritual Roadblocks #1

A friend was telling me about his remarkable triumph over the temptations that accompanied his 30something decade the other day. He reminded me of a series of messages I offered in 2007. Here is an adaptation of one of them I thought might be useful to some of you facing temptations to your fidelity, like Joseph faced in Genesis 39, when he might have been in his thirties. Tomorrow, the second half….

The Inquirer interviewed Daniel Brook at El Vez, up on 13^th St on September 2 about  his new book called The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All-America. As they were interviewing, they observed a lot of happy, young professionals enjoying happy hour. Daniel’s take on them? — “They won’t be happy for long.” In his view, the small luxuries, from sangria to Ikea, may come cheap these days, but the ballooning costs of education, housing and health care will soon drive these young people into making the bargain with corporate America they wish they did not have to make.  Daniel Brook says, and I imagine you agree, that a great many 20 and 30somethings are in the process of selling out, right now. If you just look at everyone’s school debt or at the inequity of salaries between teachers/social workers and lawyers/big pharma workers, it is so striking, who can consider teaching or doing social work or doing anything that isn’t about surviving? Who can live in Center City unless you go for the bucks? In 1970 a beginner lawyer made $2000 more than a beginner teacher. Now the salary gap is $100,000. The corporate takeover of America under the business-friendly policies of Clinton and Bush, especially, is making freedom to choose impossible if you want to have a family and live in a decent house. In some places, like San Francisco or Manhattan there is no middle class at all anymore, and everyone thinks this is normal.

Daniel Brook is talking about teaching, social work, writing for the City Paper or creating an arts cooperative as occupations for people who want to care. He’s lamenting that such a choice is unaffordable. As Jesus-followers, we’re talking about a life that is not merely a matter of choosing a place in the economic order of things. I’m talking about Christians who receive basic directives like “love your neighbor as yourself” and hear demanding teaching like “If you have done it for the least of these, you have done it to me.” Our choice is not just about how big a house we can afford; we have a moral imperative that is stronger than that impulse; the compulsion to love is bred into us. We can’t help but care, if we are following Jesus. But we face the same social circumstances as everyone else. Will we sell Jesus out for a seat at the economic table? I think that is the big question for 30somethings as they continue on the spiritual journey; and as we’ll see, the answer doesn’t just boil down just to economics, but answering might largely take place in that arena.

Jesus describes the spiritual challenge of the 30s with a picture that every 29-year-old might want to display somewhere in her house. Remember what he said in the parable of the sower? “The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the person who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.” Put up a picture of a believer getting choked with worry and deceit. That’s the threat of the 30’s.

Our friend Joseph fell into quite a thorn patch, didn’t he? I am saying he is about thirty by the time we get to the part of the story we’re looking at. That gives him a few years to rise up in the ranks of Potiphar’s employees and become the head of his household. But even if he is not quite thirty, he is facing what 30somethings often face. (And if we haven’t gotten over the roadblock we typically face in our thirties, if there is some arrested spiritual development, it is the roadblocks any of us could face. There are striking parallels between him and us.

Joseph, the boy who had the great coat and the pampered place in his family is now a slave in Egypt. 30somethings around here may have grown up in wealthy, pampered environment, as well — at least as far as the U.S. compares to other countries. Now, many are often as good as slaves. They have first-rung jobs; they are in debt; they are working long hours under threat of dire consequences; they get two weeks vacation and no job security; if they are married they may have a couple of kids tying them down to the house with both parents working to stay afloat.

Nevertheless, Joseph, the youth who had his splendid dreams, seemed full of potential but ended up a slave, is still very capable. Everything he touches prospers and his boss has notices how he makes things better.  Likewise, the 30somethings we all know are generally more capable than they used to be. They learned from being in their 20’s; maybe they went to school; they have at least been in the school of hard knocks; they have survived. They are bearing the first fruits of coming into their fullness as the person they were meant to be. This fruit will ripen for the next 20 years or so and feed people. It is no surprise that Jesus was a 30something when he died. He was just ready to do what he was sent to do and did it as soon as he could.

So I am mainly talking about the roadblocks to faith that are presented to capable slaves. The roadblock to gaining faith, if you have passed the 30 mark, is often insurmountable, since most people are fully in thrall to some master by then. The master might just be a philosophy, or one’s own entrenched habits of the heart, maybe an addiction, or it may be an actual master, like the job. In my cell last night we named the people who weren’t there because of school, but mainly because of the job – and the absentees assumed that was normal. The job was unadaptable, but their expression of faith was easily pushed to the margins — they didn’t even have a problem with it. So although there are 30somethings who do not fit this description, I think most do and all are going to have their fidelity tested.

For people who have faith, I am still talking about the unfortunate circumstance of basically being a capable slave, caught in some demand that needs to be satisfied and facing serious consequences if the master who is usurping the place of God is not obeyed. Like never before, perhaps, we face the thorns in our thirties. The main roadblock for Joseph is obvious, he literally belongs to someone else! For most of us, it could be more about belonging to one’s employer. Or it could be about belonging to someone else you love. There are serious roadblocks to being faithful to God and doing what God has given you to be and do.

I think Joseph is a brilliant example of what one must do to get beyond the roadblock. His response boils down to two basic questions we will all have to answer, “Do you honor who you are?” And “Will you risk the wrath of the master to serve God?”

Re:Orientation — my small part

[I had a short offering to give last night at the “Re:Orientation” event. I thought I’d put an even shorter version out here for you to see what you think. We were presenting an alternative to what universities usually say during orientation.]

Friday we were going out to 69^th St. to buy a birthday present with my 2-year old grandson, who loves to ride El. A nice man got on the train and started talking to him and I ended up talking a little, too. He ended up saying, “I like Obama, but he said he would bring the young people home. And that is not happening. Instead he wants to send more to Afghanistan. “ Like every president,  Obama says he wants world peace and then sends 18 year olds, mostly poor ones, to die to protect Citibank and Exxon. No wonder there were well-organized anarchists in Pittsburgh on Friday to represent the angry 18-year-olds. We have more un-kept promises from a new president (who makes a lot of promises!). The future looks like more of the past.

But that is generally not what the University teaches. Long before we go through the college orientation, the institution of “school,” in its many forms, has generally taught that the future will be better and it belongs to the educated. The omnipresent president was telling that to elementary school kids a couple of weeks ago.

Washington University in St. Louis was orienting physically-challenged students this year with this statement. “Work-based learning experiences can help a student make career decisions, network with potential employers, select courses of study, and develop job skills relevant to future employment. Through the interaction of work and study experiences, students can enhance their academic knowledge, personal development, and professional preparation.” That’s a standard statement of common sense in the university world. Of course they gave a shout out to acquiring knowledge and developing personally, but the big reason to go to school is to prepare for your future job, to make yourself into something that is employable. The future is all about getting a job so you better get the education to get the job.

But there is a lot more to education these days than they tell you. It is like this: the real future is about desperately needing a well-paying job to pay off the huge debt you incurred to get the education to get a future.

The Wall Street Journal on Sep 4 had an article about student loan debt. For instance, Zack Leshetz, a 30-year-old lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has $175,000 in student loans from his seven years in college and law school. Lately he has had his eye on the real-estate market. “Everyone says that it’s a great time to buy a house,” he says. But that is not an option right now, thanks to $800 a month in payments—and another chunk of student loans in forbearance, which means payments are halted while interest accrues. “I find myself living paycheck to paycheck.” He has also been engaged since March, but has held off on marriage. “There’s no way I can pay for a dream wedding, or even just a regular wedding,” Mr. Leshetz says. “I feel like I’m putting my entire life on hold.”

This is not all the university segment of “school” says about your future, but this is certainly in there: education is the future – it won’t be cool if you don’t stay in school. But the secret message is that debt is your future – get the education and then become a slave until you pay for it.

I want to present an alternative. Using a university to gain wisdom and skill is fine, but Jesus has a lot more in store for us than university education provides or than we can afford to pay for.

The quote below is part of an account in the Bible in which Jesus and the disciples are talking to a man who has “made it,” so to speak, but who is still intrigued with Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 
[The kingdom of God is where God rules and Jesus is followed]
Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
[The “Eye of the Needle” is a small gate in old Jerusalem that is a challenge to big camels]
Those who heard this asked, (If it is that hard) “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus replied, “What is impossible with people is possible with God.”
Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!” 
“I tell you the truth,” Jesus said  to  them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God  will fail  to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.” Luke 18:24-30

The university makes promises it does not keep. Jesus keeps his promises. But that is not my basic point. Jesus is calling for a basic reorientation.

Your future is taken care of; live your life now. Jesus doesn’t ask you to wait until you get an education to be someone. As you know, education can only be a useful tool in the hands of someone who is someone; it doesn’t make you anything. Jesus makes you someone who can use an education.

You don’t have to wait until you pay off your debts to engage fully in life. If you had to pay off all your debts, financial and spiritual, you’d never get finished, and you would just incur more debt, anyway. Jesus forgives you your debt to him — the heart-debts you owe to God for turning away from him and pursuing education and career like they can save you, or pursuing anything else. He gives you the future free of charge.

We, as the people of God who follow Jesus, organized as Circle of Hope, have never waited for college-age people to grow up before we invite them to show up. They are welcome to be a full part and to own the church. We are not looking for people who have paid off all their debts and come in with no encumbrances of doubt, sin, and other baggage, we can forgive you, too, and let you get on with it. We don’t want anyone to use all their energy on serving a false hope and end up a full-on slave.

We invite you to join us in doing the most important thing you can do in your twenties — even while you are getting an education, or struggling to pay for your apartment or to pay off your debts. You are valuable to God. Together, our resources make a huge difference in God’s hands. This is what we always say — Re-orient with us and see. Come along and be yourself in Christ with us and see.

Thoughts on Programming

Everyone who ever came up with a structured, even bureaucratic way to serve was NOT bad, of course. But “programming” CAN often be the hideout for spiritual cowards. “Programming” CAN be the big temptation for people with big ideas. The main reason I cast such blanket aspersions (apart from needing to remind myself) is that I don’t think anyone can see Jesus (or even the somewhat rationalistic Paul) doing or advocating “programming.” So why does it so often seem like a good idea to Christians?

I’m not saying that scheduling things, making a plan to serve some felt need, having a curriculum to follow, etc, etc is always bad. But I do want to protest filling up every spare moment with an event that is supposed to serve the purpose that normal human relationship and organic connections can and should fulfill. Just because we are all trained to create a programs to do what we should just do personally doesn’t mean we should do it. Just because we train to be “experts” in charge of “things” before we love someone doesn’t mean we should exercise the training..

I guess since we broke out into this song the other night at cell, it makes me afraid that people might rewrite it, now that we among the Circle of Hope have buildings and big ideas to fill them. Some people sing:

My hope is built on oughts and rules
On principles and schedules.
Like counter-service is my grace –
A drop to each receding face.
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All others rest on sinking sand
I dare not grasp one sinking hand.

When we came up with the idea for Circle of Hope, we installed the simple thought that we wanted life to be simple. So we have two meetings a week: the cell and the public meeting. We think almost everything we need to “program” can fit into those meetings somehow. Extraordinary people may have extraordinary things to do, of course. We wanted to leave a lot of time in the week to do them. What we didn’t want to see is the church filling up everyone’s calendar with obligatory things to do – as if the church were happening in the daily programs that happened in our buildings. Daily things might happen, but it isn’t like you are supposed to be doing them to get with the program.

I think we are, basically, like this. The leaders have a “daily” kind of obligation to who we are and what we do that requires their time. But most of us are free to live as free-range Christians. The problem is, preserving a habitat for free-range Christians is hard to do. As we get more capable, it is tempting to get us real organized and programmed. We have some nice corrals on Broad St. and Frankford Ave. and it is tempting to herd everyone in all week and ride them, train them to jump over fake fences like show horses and such.

Brave Christians love people face to face. Responsible Christians make teams. Paul says in Romans 13: Owe no one any thing, but to love one another: for one that loves another has fulfilled the law. Programming, at its worst, takes the one another out of the loving. The program does the loving. Love often gets mediated by the program. The “thing” is supposed to communicate – thus, I either don’t communicate or don’t have to. The event touches, the performances move — so I either can or do stay separate.

Not all programming is bad, of course, but you can see the temptation. It seems to me that Jesus is pretty much the anti-program. He is God coming into the moment and upending the control-system that violates his personal rule. I was going off on this subject the other day and someone quoted 1 Cor. 14:33 to me: “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.”  They were telling me how God had ordained hierarchy and propriety and we dare not deviate. Obviously he had a point. But Christianity easily dies when men (in particular) order it according to their understanding and don’t think Jesus can do that himself. We love organizing all those others rather than becoming one with them, suffering with them and for them. It is very easy to perversely admire a very tidy “love.”

It is the Lord among the “one another” that is the organizing force, not the program. If the life of Christ is pulsing among us, we’ll need to structure its expression. But if we just structure the idea of a pulse and expect it to fill with life, we may end up quite empty, and exhausted from all that effort, to boot.

Pray and Not Faint

Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” (Luke 18:1)  At least He said that in the King James Version. I think it might be more literally translated: Jesus told them that “they” ought always to pray and not to faint. The overuse of the designations for humans as “man” or “men” is often not warranted; it is just a bad, power-grab of a habit. But I digress before I begin.

The word to me lately has been right from the King James Bible verses I memorized as a boy. I need to pray, and not faint – that is “faint” in the sense of faint-hearted, “faint” in the sense that the circumstances make me despair that transformation is possible; my heart breaks, my heart melts within me, I am not stout-hearted. Jesus might have told them: “If you come up against the impossible, my friends, pray with abandon.” I am trying to listen.

I have had such a great couple of years of spiritual experience and growth! I am very thankful. But, you know, a deeper relationship with God does not necessarily make life easier. The more I know the Lord (and so myself), the less I can overlook, avoid, or miss the reasons Jesus chose to die. I may have a greater capacity to suffer well, but I notice more reasons to suffer. I may have a greater capacity to serve, but I understand what I am up against more clearly, inside and out. Fainting becomes a clear option.

Today, the outside seems rather threatening. My friend returned from southern Sudan and reported that leaders there are preparing for war again. My president got heckled in the joint meeting of Congress last week. My governor is pushing casinos on my city. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq drag on. I am very bothered by these things. But I almost don’t want to bring them up in conversation anymore, because it seems to me that people are so unaware or purposely turned away that they can’t engage.

Some days I feel surrounded by a spirit of disengagement. That’s far from everyone, of course, but so many of us seem to have found a way to survive that keeps us as safe as we can be from other people and the overwhelming facts of gigantic governments and corporations fighting for power, enormous info machines dominating communication, incomprehensible food production and medical care turning us into things we can’t imagine, and in my neighborhood, the constant threat that the thousands of guns will be used when the thin fabric of community finally tears.

We need to pray, and not faint! I keep hearing that from the Lord and I keep trying to figure out all it means to me, and to the church (one thing it means – this blog post!). My mind is drawn to the strange account of Daniel praying for the restoration of his people. An angel told him, Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. (Daniel 10:12-13)

My conviction to pray may be as strangely important as Daniel’s seems to have been. Angels may be deployed when I pray. Even though I speak my prayers into places I can’t fully imagine, I have been designated a key player. How are you working with that assignment?

Rather than giving up and letting the forces we fear drive us into a smaller and smaller boxes, we need to pray. Given how I am hearing the scripture, it makes sense that if just Circle of Hope prays for transformation, amazing things might happen. Since I know this is read all over the country –  if we all pray and not faint, who knows what we might release God to do?

If the impossible is crystal clear, the logical response is prayer. Now that we know Who we serve as well as we do, would we faint?