Jan. 6 was Epiphany of course. Here’s a quick thought. Not profound, but sometimes it’s simple things in life that can help us substantially.
5 Things We Can Learn From The Magi
1 -They traveled together and worshipped together
2- They sought answers from the Scriptures
3- They wanted to be in on what God was up to
4- They weren’t above putting some effort into it
5- They offered their resources to Jesus
Ok, I’ve been out most all week deer hunting in my spare time, so finally here it is:
(names are changed)
Rhoda is a single mom struggling to make ends meet. Her brother and sister in law used to worry about her involvement in New Age spirituality or Wicca. She became a Christian at our church around 5 years ago. Almost immediately she became a Super Inviter, drawing all kinds of people in.
Jimmy and Fire arrived in our town about a year ago with their 3 children, the clothes on their back and five dollars. They put their kids up at Fire’s mom’s place since they had no way to take care of them; they had no home, no jobs, no food. They had smashed their life against the rocks of addiction in Florida. Rhoda had known Fire in school, so this single mom with two kids of her own struggling to make ends meet said to Jimmy and Fire “move in with me until you can get life together.” Rhoda put out word and people at our church started gathering things this family of 5 would need.
Rhoda invited Jimmy and Fire to church. They decided this was a point in life to make a change. Within a very short time they had tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and turned their lives over to Him. Prayer and a new life of faith became the norm for them. Their repentance (metanoia – about face) was the real deal. They both got jobs, started living responsibly and got their kids back. They got an apartment. Rhoda put out word and the people of our church outfitted the place from top to bottom with what a family of five needs to live. We’re talking furniture, kitchen gear, bedclothes, you name it. Our congregation showed them love. A family in our church gave them a minivan. (Keep in mind the people in my church are not rich! Many, if not most, of them would qualify for government assistance). All this happened without anyone asking me. The pastor was not the one who orchestrated all this.
Jimmy and Fire are at Sunday morning small group, Wednesday nights and Sunday worship. They are engaged in learning and growing. They’ve made relationships with other couples and brought people to church. They renewed their lease recently for the first time in their married life. “That felt good,” Jimmy told me. They’ve received their one year sobriety coins. They help other people. They ask me for ways to give back to the church. They are both enrolled in college on-line. When I told Jimmy I happened to have a battery for his van, his reply was “Thanks man, but let me be a man and get my family our own battery.”
God is very clearly doing wonderful things in Jimmy and Fire’s lives. Rhoda was a gift of God to them, gave them a base to get their feet under them. As part of that, I can’t help but think that our church reaching into their lives tangibly beyond Sunday worship had something to do with their incredible turn around. I know we hesitate to prescribe things all churches should do, however I believe this is exactly the kind of thing churches should be doing.
I’ve been away a lot lately, most recently at a missionary assessment event for my denomination in Kansas City. It was a great experience, and as I reflect on it, the high point was like many things in life: the people. There were five young couples there, in their mid twenties to early thirties – talk about smart, winsome, gifted and amazing – what an outstanding group of men and women! Even if I were of the temperament to wring my hands and worry about the future of the church (I’m not), meeting these young leaders would put my heart at ease. If this is the future of the church (in terms of humans inheriting the leadership) man, we have nothing to worry about. In a very short time I already loved them. What a blessing to be with them.
Which got me thinking about another group of people dear to my heart. I’m finishing up a Master of Arts degree in International Development at Eastern University near Philadelphia. Here again, I’m the old guy in the group. Mostly twenty-thirty somethings, these development practitioners and church leaders are a fabulous, diverse group of young, dynamic, creative, deeply intelligent, loving, Christ-shaped, Kingdom-minded people. If they are a snapshot photo of the future quality of the Church, we’ve got nothing to fear. I’m a richer, happier, better person for having my life intersect with theirs. USA1 and 2 Cohorts, you rock.
And then there’s my church. Once again, it’s the people. 17 years we’ve shared life together. I love them and they make it evident they love me. I’m amazed such a diverse group has laid aside their many differences and walk the path of following Jesus together, an amazing group. I’m so glad my kids grew up here. It’s, humanly-speaking, absolutely crazy for me to ever leave – I should stay and retire here. This gig is amazing. Sunday mornings I look around and think “I can’t believe I get this gig.” The kind of culture and vibe that has developed here is incredibly gratifying. It makes me want to tell stories that a lot of churches could pick up on – in fact, next time I will.
So, all that to say, like so many of life’s most precious experiences, it’s the people.
In Malachi 2: 4-6, God says this about the ancient Israelite Levi:
4 I am telling you this, so I can continue to keep my agreement with your ancestor Levi. 5 I blessed him with a full life, as I had promised, and he kept his part of the agreement by honoring me and respecting my name. 6 He taught the truth and never told lies, and he led a lot of people to turn from sin, because he obeyed me and lived right
Not a bad description, short and succinct, of the kind of life to aim for.
Every year my family takes a pilgrimage for a week or two to one of two barrier islands on the North Carolina coast. Topsail Island and Holden Beach are quiet places with mostly just houses. This is not your boardwalk kind of beach. Instead of T-shirt shops and noise, this is a tranquil juncture of sand and water, sky, dune, sun, the sound of waves, gulls and the wind. We go in the off season (bring wetsuits!) so we mostly have the place to ourselves. We can set out surf rods, swim, snorkel, hunt for shells and shark’s teeth, swim, surf and cast spoons all at the same time without worrying about crowding anyone. The houses we rent sit right on the dunes themselves, you walk off the back porch and onto the sand. Paradise. Oftentimes we go with my wife’s extended family, all of us great friends, so it’s also a reunion event.
One of my chief pursuits while there is the surf fishing. Mullet, pompano, flounder, redfish, drum, blues, sea trout, and shark cruise the shorebreak. I could do this from morning til night and never get bored. Sheer delight. And although I love the fish, both on the line and in the skillet, the experience isn’t dependent on the catch.
It’s the zen. The rituals of preparing the rods and tying rigs are done slowly, meditatively. “Like a samurai putting on his armor,” my teenage son intones. He understands it. Standing at the edge of the continent I am totally peaceful, my mind at ease, I am just there. The wet sand underfoot, the sound of the waves, the view out to sea, sunlight on my body, the sound of gulls, terns, kittywakes, there is a quiet that settles in on me. And God is all around. Calm, my mind empties. I am in this place of sun, water and sky, just God and myself. Totally immersed in the natural world that God made. Henry Beston, who wrote The Outermost House in the 1920s after spending a year living in a shack on a remote stretch of Cape Cod, captures better than I can the soothing solitude and natural rhythms of this part of Creation. I cannot summon the words to adequately describe the experience. After years of doing it, it takes only a moment for my mind to unwind once I am standing there with the Daiwa rod in hand, finger on that 17 lb. test Cajun Red.
The things needed for me to do in my regular daily life mean I couldn’t live this way 24-7. However, like Isaac out in the fields meditating (Genesis 24:63), I recommend getting alone on a regular basis, daily if you can, and calming yourself, getting centered in God; praying without hurry. Surf-fishing for a week gives me a long, wonderful, luxurious dose of that. It is an example of the long Christian tradition of ‘retreat’.
Every year before he goes back to college my oldest son and I go backpacking somewhere for two or three days. This year we climbed the West Rim Trail of Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon/ Pine Creek Gorge into the Natural Area and then packed down to the creek and camped under the hemlocks beside the stream. Juvenile Common Mergansers, a bald eagle and perhaps the nicest smallmouth bass I’ve ever caught were some of the creatures we shared the Gorge with.
Each year we take along a couple copies of a recent theology book and have a blast reading it simultaneously laying in the tent at night and talking back and forth about it. This year we took N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian, a book that’s been out for quite some time, but which Tanner had never read. I heartily recommend it: it’s one of the best introductions to what we really mean by Christian spirituality for the postmodern world. Wright is the leading New Testament scholar on the planet, an Anglican who has been at the forefront of both Pauline and historical Jesus research for more than two decades.
As we were soaking up the extreme beauty of the Gorge we talked about the bizarre Left Behind version of Christian eschatology in which they imagine God abandoning His good creation – the earth – and destroying it. “Why would anybody be attracted to such an ugly and disheartening story?” I asked my son rhetorically as we stood in the creek. We commented what a joyful addition to our lives the biblical doctrine of the renewal of all things has been for us. That is, the Bible teaches that, rather than betraying it, God intends to renew the world, healing Creation of all its ills – and all of the mountains, rivers, dolphins, bluejays, wildflowers et etc will still be around for us to thrill to enjoy in the Age to Come. What a better, more Gospel “Good News” story than the toxic, twisted Left Behind plotline.
In the next blog I’ll cite the biblical references for the healing of all Creation.
This is country music artist Brad Paisley’s song One Of Those Lives. He’s right.
Rush hour traffic,
Always puts me in a bad mood.
I got chewed out by the boss today,
And now I’m stuck on highway 92.
Then you call me on my cell phone,
While I’m cussin’ out a Cadillac.
You say remember Tom and Jenny’s little boy?
Well, the doctors say the cancer’s back.
Man it’s been one of those days,
When I been thinking poor me.
I got no right to complain I guess,
Cause right now all I can see
Is a little angel in a Yankees cap.
It makes me realize.
It’s just been one those days for me,
But for him it’s been one of those lives.
Everybody under my roof,
Is healthy- knock on wood.
Oh but I sure do sweat the small stuff,
and I don’t thank God as much as I should.
Tonight I’m thinking about Tommy and Jenny,
And how they spent the last four years.
All those extended stays in Memphis,
All the sleepless nights, the prayers, the tears.
It’s just been one of those days,
Where I was thinking poor me.
I got no right to complain I guess,
Cause right now all I can see.
Is that family moving back to Target House.
It makes me realize
It’s just been one those days for me,
But for them it’s been one of those lives.
And so it’s been one of those days,
I let things get to me.
I got no right to complain,
Cause when I look around I see.
Folks that are fightin’ for every breath,
And it makes me realize.
It’s just been one for those days for me,
But for them it’s been one of those lives.
A year or so back around St. Patrick’s Day we spent a Wednesday evening at church talking about what we know of Patrick’s life, ministry and impact on the world. Part of our service we prayed through the Lorica, or Patrick’s Breastplate – a prayer for protection attributed to Patrick. It was a good service and all agreed the Lorica was a meaningful, good prayer.
The next week Delora, a 80-some year old saint of the church came to Wednesday night service. She was excited about using the Lorica prayer in ministry. This was her story: her neighbor was a gay man who had just broken up with his lover. She knew him to be heartbroken and she invited him over for supper that night. At supper, after the food was set, she pulled out the Lorica prayer and said to him, “I think you need to hear this.” She then commenced to read through the whole thing while their food got cold.
For me there was something precious about this 80 some year old daughter of the holiness movement, this charter member Nazarene, reaching out to a gay neighbor and sharing a 1600 year old prayer with him. Delora is a huge blessing to our church and a saint in a multitude of ways. Below is the version of the Lorica we used.
The Lorica – St Patrick’s Breastplate
I arise today invoking the Trinity
Believing in the Threeness, confessing the Oneness
Of creation’s Creator.
I arise today invoking
The love of angels, the service of archangels, the prayers of the patriarchs, the deeds of the righteous,
Heaven’s might, sun’s brightness, moon’s radiance,
Fire’s glory, lightning’s swiftness,
Wind’s quickness, sea’s depth, earth’s stability, rock’s fixity.
I arise today
With God’s hand to pilot me,
God’s strength to sustain me
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s eye to look ahead for me
God’s ear to hear me
God’s word to speak for me
God’s arm to protect me
God’s way before me
God’s shield to defend me
God’s host to deliver me
From the snares of devils, from evil temptations, from nature’s failings,
from all who wish to harm me,
Far and near, alone and in a crowd.
I arise today in the power of Christ’s birth and baptism,
In the power of his crucifixion and burial,
In the power of his resurrection and ascension;
May Christ protect me today –
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me
Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to me right, Christ to my left,
Christ in my lying, Christ in me sitting, Christ in my arising;
Christ in the heart of all who think of me;
Christ on the tongue of all who speak to me,
Christ in the eye of all who see me,
Christ in the ear of all who hear me.
I arise today with God’s hand to Guide me.
In the name of the Trinity
Believing in the Threeness
Confessing the Oneness
Of creation’s Creator!
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