Is it disobedient to be afraid? (2012)

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, ,

In my long stint as a Philly pastor, I often answered “frequently asked questions.” This speech reflects a time when someone asked me, “Is it disobedient to be  afraid?” Someone must have asked me for more Bible study, because there is a surprising amount of scripture here.

Is it disobedient to be afraid? We are going to talk about that. The answer is, generally, yes, but probably not for generally accepted reasons.

Rhyolite bank building

What are you afraid of?

I am afraid of heights. I’ve done a lot of things to try to overcome this fear, but I am not very successful. One time I got stuck on a ruin Rhyolite, Nevada (like the one above) when I was out in the desert with some friends and could not get down from my climb because I was too afraid to bridge the gap between my foot and the next foothold. They had to come up and rescue me.

But I think I am more afraid of depths. It is hard to look into certain territories inside. I am not alone in this.

But the worst thing might be that I am most afraid of people I am close to, even people I love. I have a nagging fear of you, right now. I am so afraid of the things that might hurt me again, or make me feel too alone, or make me feel smothered or shamed. My reaction is so automatically fearful I am afraid of my reaction! What’s more, I am afraid to be myself because that might hurt someone else. I not only don’t want to do that, I don’t want them to do it to me.  Are you as messy as me?

So if the Bible teaches I am being disobedient to God when I am afraid, I am pretty much disobedient a lot. I’ve got sin ready to pop out all the time!

The Bible does say, “Do not be afraid” a lot. Like in the famous account of the resurrection. Some one read it and everyone read the bold part.

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”  — Matthew 28

Jesus has died, there has been an earthquake, an angel has appeared to the soldiers and they have fainted they were so afraid. The women see the angel (note they do not faint) and he says, “Do not be afraid.” I suppose it is disobedient to not do what a messenger of God tells you to do.

But also note that in verse 8, they are disobedient, still afraid, but they are filled with joy. You might want to hold on to that seeming incongruity for later.

So they are obediently running to tell the disciples the news that Jesus is risen, when they run into Jesus! They fall on the ground. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.”

Is it disobedient to be afraid when Jesus says “Do not be afraid?” I honestly think the answer to the question is “Yes.” It is, at some level, basically disobedient to be afraid. It is idolatry, the fear has a bigger place in your worship than Jesus.

People organize their lives around fear every day. Why are our national leaders so afraid of people in Northwest Pakistan? There are a lot of reasons that could be given. But they are not afraid because they trust God!

Why are we so afraid of each other? You get next to someone and suddenly you are afraid of what they think of what you just said. You are so concerned about what they might feel  you are anxious and miserable all day. When all the while, if you actually follow Jesus, you are going to live forever, which means even if what you experience kills you, things will work out OK.

What can mere humans do to me?

The writers of scriptures from about 1000 BC to 64 AD have a common memory verse that you might like to add to your thinking: what can mere humans do to me? My spiritual director often asks me, “What can really happen here? Really, what’s the worst thing? Why be so locked in fear?” He does not always succeed in getting me to not be afraid, but he is right to ask.

Four of you read one of these as an invitation to us to give up our fear. Don’t read the reference:

  • In God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere human beings do to me? — Psalm 56:11
  • When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; / he brought me into a spacious place.
    The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. / What can human beings do to me?
    The Lord is with me; he is my helper. / I look in triumph on my enemies. — Psalm 118:5-7
  • What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. — Matthew 10:27-9
  • God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can human beings do to me?” — Hebrews 13:5-6

So yes, God tells us to not be afraid — and for some very good reasons. If we don’t trust him and are afraid for our usual bad reasons, then it is disobedient. God commands us to act for our best interests. Trusting God is in our best interests.

How to Calm a Fussy Baby: Tips for Parents & Caregivers - HealthyChildren.org

Is there a fearless human somewhere?

All that being said it would be bizarre to find a fearless human. They might be a sociopath. Some Christians seem to be to have some kind of psychological talent that allows them to act like they are not afraid and pretend they have no fear.  They are committed to being obedient, they saw that the Bible said “Do not be afraid.” So, by God!, they are not afraid. But I think they might be afraid of being afraid, deep down inside. And they might be so afraid of God that they would shut their feelings down in order not to offend her. They might be afraid their religious house of cards will tumble if they call God “her!”

Contrary to that, I think it is very likely that all those scriptures that say “Do not be afraid,” were intended to be comforting scriptures. Those passages are more like when you are holding your screaming child and you say, “Don’t cry honey.” I think they are saying “God and all his messengers know you are afraid. Don’t be afraid.” They are pointing out our fear, acknowledging it exists and working with it.

We have a strange problem in this era. We think what we feel is who we are. If I feel fear, I am afraid. I think It makes more sense to separate feelings from actions. You can be afraid and filled with joy, too! God and his angels might scare you, but you could respond with worship.

After all, Isaiah says:

Therefore, this is what the Lord, the LORD Almighty, says: “My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrians, who beat you with a rod and lift up a club against you, as Egypt did. “

Isaiah is speaking for the Lord, who is telling his children, the people of Israel — the whole nation is like his offspring, “Don’t be afraid of the Assyrians,” even though the Assyrian Empire is huge and is undoubtedly going to take you over, and your King, Ahaz, is trying to make a deal with them instead of trusting God. Be faithful to God.

Isaiah notes however, that the experience of being beaten is installed in the nation’s memory, since that is what happened in Egypt when they were slaves. When they were just a child of a nation God rescued them from their abusive condition, but the fears born of having been in that condition are still real.

When God tells you don’t be afraid, he remembers your beginnings, too. I have a story about why I am still afraid inside, even though I can act fearlessly in many ways. I have an Egypt in my past where I was hurt. Some of you have stories you don’t even want to tell, they are so painful to recall. Some of you have stories you can’t tell because you blocked them out completely. They were being formed when you were just a small human. There is no way God is telling you, “Don’t be afraid,” as if you were never in Egypt. He encourages us to not be afraid because we were in Egypt and we needed to be rescued. And now the Assyrians are coming upon us.

We have a lot to be afraid of

Get a picture of what you are afraid of in your mind. Even make a mental list. I am not going to make you tell us what it is, so don’t be afraid. But I am going to offer the opportunity to a couple of people, so we can be honest, like God is, about carrying things that scare us. Any body want to tell us the first thing that came to mind?

I don’t think being obedient is not ever being afraid. I think being obedient is listening to God’s call and trusting him when we are afraid, which is pretty much all the time. “Do not be afraid,” should be translated, “I know you are afraid. Listen to me. Trust me. This is going to go someplace. I am with you. Act in faith even though you are afraid.” The scriptures suggest ways to live that out.

Meet God in the night

Everyone read this if you can:

Do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight,
preserve sound judgment and discretion;
they will be life for you, …
When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. — Proverbs 3:21-2,24

I sometimes wake up in the night and can’t resist making a list of things that trouble me. I did it last night, because I forgot to do something I needed to do and I was afraid of the consequences. My fears get to me when my defenses are quieted by sleep and they can get out. I hope that does not happen to you. But for most of us, it does happen, at least once in a while.

To be obedient, try some rituals. You might need to get up and pray or get up and deal. You might need to push it off. You might recite the Jesus prayer and re-center. You might use your new memory verse “what can humans do to me?’

When we become aware of our fear it tests our obedience to God’s command. We need to meet him in the fear. The Lord is calling into the fear for us — calling us out. If you experience fear, it is a place to meet God.

Trust in the touch

Let’s all read this in a mysterious whisper:

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. — Revelation 1:17

 This is John in Revelation thinking about the end of time. The other day we got a movie out of Red Box called Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It turned out to be a God-free rendition of John’s revelation! The movie was all about fear and finding someone to touch before the meteor hit. It was touchingly disobedient and lovingly hopeless. I think John’s vision is better. John’s vision is such a wonderful thing he experiences as he is awaiting the end of this age, exiled on his island. He has a vision of the risen, ruling Jesus, and Jesus tenderly touches him. Do not be afraid.

God is going to touch you where you are afraid. But you will have to let him and learn to let him when you are too afraid to let him or too accustomed to not letting him. You learned to be afraid and not let it touch you. You have a tendency to fall down dead in the face of what you fear. The touch of God, who is the beginning and the end, before you began and bringing you to your end, is how we deal. That is obedient.

Take a step

Let’s have a woman be Moses:

See, the LORD your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”  — Deuteronomy 1:21

This is Moses telling the people of Israel that the people of the promised land are not too big for them and they should go inhabit what God has given them. They are afraid. We come up against things that make us feel tiny and helpless every day, don’t we?

One of my grandsons is learning to swim. When he is done screaming, he is quite proud of what he can do. He feels better because he has gone through a fearful thing. We don’t get very far if we don’t travel through fear to get there.

One of my directees talked to his father after five years recently. It turned out even worse than he expected. But not talking to him had clogged him up with the fear of not making that connection. He feels like he is getting free. He took a step.

You are not going to be unafraid when you take a step. See what the Lord has given to you. See what those who have taken steps before you are telling you. Go with it.

So is it disobedient to be afraid? Yes, if what you mean is you are ruled by your fear and not by your faith in God. But no, it is not disobedient to be afraid. You are just afraid. It is a feeling, and one that makes a lot of sense, given your circumstances. It will pass through.  “Do not be afraid.” Have joy in your fear, Jesus is with you.

Did the devil write The Sound of Music?

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“What?!” the Evangelicals say, “The only movie my parents would allow me to watch is being subjected to the latest litmus test?”

Well, if that is how you want to see it, yes. Call it deconstructing, if you like. But the population was fed a lot of hogwash. That’s especially true when it comes to the sweet, romantic, almost iconic scene I want to briefly discuss.

There is some ambivalence about this earworm

I have the misfortune/blessing of having a song in my head most of the day. My mind seems to trap them. The other day this one from The Sound of Music popped up. I was upset, because it had been banished for while due to its terrible theology. But it is a hard earworm to resist.

Before I ask you to give it another look, you might want to give it another look. If you choose to do that, you can hit this link to the YouTube (less than 2 minutes long). I’m going to give it some disrespect. But before I do,  it is fine with me if you look beyond its terrible lyrics.

While you are watching it, go ahead and vicariously enjoy being a grieving, angry man who  has been re-awakened by the governess who initially irritated him. Or vicariously relish the wonder of being a woman poorly assigned as a nun who has found her place as a wife and mother, loved and accepted as she is. I hope someone has met you in the gazebo! If not, I hope they will. Be glad that love can unexpectedly happen – even when the Nazis are at the door! Good grief! Stop being too cynical for this lovely story!

Feel free to get a little tear in your eye for a second before we cast off the terrible, supposedly Christian, logic that led to this scene in this strangely religious musical.

Here’s the problem with this lyric

It is evangelism for a gospel that is not THE Gospel and believing it lands people in misery.

Richard Rogers (who wrote the music) was reportedly an atheist. Oscar Hammerstein (who wrote the words) said this about his faith is a 1958 interview with Mike Wallace. He was telling a story about an exchange he had with a fan. The fan asked,

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” and I said “No.” “He said are you religious?” and I said, “Well I don’t belong to any church,” and then he patted me on the back and he said, “Ah, you’re religious alright.”

And I went on feeling as if I’d been caught, and feeling that I was religious. He had discovered from the words of my songs that I had faith, faith in mankind, faith that there was something more powerful than mankind behind it all. And faith that in the long run good triumphs over evil. If that’s religion — I’m religious, and it is my definition of religion.

In The Sound of Music Hammerstein is trying to picture what he thinks Catholics would probably be thinking if they were getting into this wonderful love relationship – a bit like he looks into Polynesian culture in South Pacific or Oklahomans in Oklahoma. He’s painting in stereotypes (and often undermining them).

Unfortunately, he got it right when it comes to the mess people make of Christianity, which is why I hate it when this messy song pops up. It has such a lovely feeling and such terrible thoughts!

Let’s go through this once and for all

Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past
There must have been a moment of truth

To be clear, he’s teaching usto beleive: “there must have been a moment of truth” because otherwise I could not deserve this moment. I must have done something right because me doing the right thing is how I get good things and, what’s more, it is how I get into heaven.

I have atonement explanations in the side column over there if you want to revisit what Jesus Christ is all about. He is certainly not about noting our “moment of truth” so he can reward it later by fulfilling our deepest desires. My Christian clients are often tormented by the thought of how unworthy they are of being loved by God or anyone. They may accept that God is good enough to love them but they don’t accept that they are good enough to be loved. Hammerstein captured their dilemma in a song:

For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

Yes, you were wicked and miserable (and many times still are), but you were not and will never be responsible enough to be good enough to balance it all out. You will not be able to perform well enough to solve the problem, even if you can sing like Julie Andrews! You did not merit the blessings God delivered out of love in Jesus. And if someone professes their love for you, you should probably just take it instead of evaluating it according to your self-loathing.

I think many people believe the theory of God’s grace. But we still feel it is unlikely, if not impossible, for God or anyone to love the real us. Many of us feel if we were just better everything would be better — that’s the truth we live by and deeply suffer as a result. We never get good enough. Whatever nasty thing you say to yourself when you look in the mirror (or suppress saying,  it is so terrible), it is probably spawned by “truth” that pops up like this lyric I’m decrying. We vainly try to control the conditions that led to our lack of love. We’re always sorting things out, “I’m wicked. I’m good.” But inconclusive sorting ends up being the habit of our heart and closes us off to what we need.

A lot of the problem stems from this terrible line of logic I wish I did not remember:

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

If you are a Jesus follower and you believe this nonsense, dash back to your Bible and go directly to:

1 Cor 1:26-30: God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.

Colossians 1:15-23: [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Romans 4:16-23: [We] share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Everything comes from nothing by God’s grace.

It is the presence of God that matters, not how well you present or whether what you  present is good enough.

So did the devil write it?

I don’t know and neither do you. But so what if he did? If he didn’t write it, any one of us might be saying a similar thought in our head right now: “Maybe I did the wrong thing and that is why no one loves me” etc. The fact we are awash in such thoughts is why we need a Savior. When my clients triumph over the wicked, miserable thoughts in their heads, it is still not enough. Ultimately, we are all seeking to live in the presence of God, “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist,” who out of great love chooses “what is low and despised.” People also call and choose like that in various gazebos — it is a wonder.

Maria von Trapp died in 2014

I hate to spoil the lovely scene. But we all know that after the kiss it will only be a decade until the Captain is dead and the von Trapp family is making a living in Vermont as struggling immigrants. Maria von Trapp was not thrilled with The Sound of Music. She thought the stage and screen stars, Mary Martin and Julie Andrews, “Were too gentle – like girls out of Bryn Mawr” (times change, eh?). Her life was tough. You might not be thrilled with how your life story looks on film, either (or how it is torn apart like in Anatomy of a Fall). Our lives are messy.

The Sound of Music certainly got that right. What a mess! Love in 2024 is a miracle, too, and yet it happens all the time. It happens even when a false line in a sweet song threatens to corrupt the whole thing. When the temptation to control the world pops into our minds, we hang on to the faith — of millions living and hundreds of millions dead, in the presence of God in Jesus,  “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. “

The basic motivation that keeps us going.

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I noticed an uptick in my motivation this morning. My zip contrasted with the nagging zapped feeling several of my clients reported.

My energy was also right on the heels of a client’s sense of victory over the issue that drove him to therapy: his lack of motivation. It is sort of a mystery why some of us change and others struggle. I sometimes feel like I am surfing the tempest more than channeling the stream, myself.

8 Reasons Why You Feel Unmotivated – Psych2Go

Why are we unmotivated?

So, I started a little research project on motivation. I was intrigued (OK, appalled) by one of the first articles Google supplied (there are hundreds). It was from a website called Medical News Today, which looks like it is based in Great Britain (it uses an “s” for organize) but exists mainly on the internet. It is led by fortysomethings (apparently) who may be interested in making hay on the web. They boast 85,000 readers.

I want to improve upon their teaching on motivation. But first let me complain about it: What makes people lose motivation?

Like most articles for professionals now, this one starts with a summary so you can decide whether you want to read for another 5 minutes. Here is theirs:

A person may experience a temporary lack of motivation when they are overwhelmed, stressed, or burnt out. However, a sense of apathy, or lack of interest in doing anything, can be a symptom of something more severe.

Lost motivation could indicate a mental health disorder, such as depression or schizophrenia. It may also occur in conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

I can only hope my more tenderhearted/anxious/traumatized clients do not read this article and worry, “Oh no, I have Parkinson’s!” Apart from scaring people, the only thing the writers have to suggest is the common idea that lack of motivation comes from being “overwhelmed, stressed, or burnt out.”

But, of course, people may be overwhelmed, stressed, or burned out because they are unmotivated. I think there are medically trained people who do not just look in their textbook for symptoms but also have some sense of deeper places: light and dark, known and unknown, obsessed about and shunned – all the things that motivate people!

I think “overwhelmed, stressed, or burnt out” is usually applied to the workplace. There, people need to stay motivated to do all sorts of semi-interesting things in semi-conflictive relationships. I think the article is probably looking there for readers, since that is where the money is — one has to keep the workforce working, somehow! Being burned out is a real condition, especially in the workplace. But I have usually thought the designation feels superficial. Identifying burnout rarely resonates with anything beyond a certain track in the frontal lobe.

What fuels lack of motivation?

Instead of plowing through Google I decided to bring to mind my clients who are concerned about or afraid of their lack of motivation. I jotted down about thirty reasons that seem to cause it or fuel it in them.

While I think they might just be going through what humans always go through, I also think they might be like canaries in the coal mine for humanity as it barrels unconsciously into the next era of troubles. They might be the ones who can’t respond to superficial diagnoses by doctors handing out ill-attended-to medications. They might be the people who can’t cope because what they experience should not exist in the first place. They might be honestly shutting down in the face of something that can’t be conquered by indomitable will or a positive view of human potential.

For the sake of dialogue, I boiled my brainstorm down to four big elements that de-motivate people I know or leave them listless and looking for wind in their sails. By listing these things, I think you might see your own condition. Even more, I hope you will take heart in my conclusions.

Why are some people unmotivated?

They are addicted.

Addiction colonizes motivation (“colonises” for Brits).

These are my acquaintances’ addictions: Marijuana/alcohol/street drugs/nicotine, their “meds” (some of which are crucial, of course, but some probably aren’t), TikTok (and anyplace there is a “reel”), online games and gambling, porn, food or trying to control food.

Long before they met me, most of them knew they were medicating their lack of motivation with substances, prescribed or not. Many suspected they were vainly searching for how to avoid that lack, or get around it, by using the predatory offerings advertised in online markets.

They are trapped

They feel like they can’t change.

Their living situation is or feels unchangeable. The leaders of the nation, workplace, or association are terrible, and they don’t know where to turn. They are married and parents (or one or the other) and it does not feel good.  The weather is frightening. They are aging and their bodies feels more like a cage than an ally.

Feeling trapped and thinking one has to be responsible to survive or escape leads many people to shut down. It is too much.

They have been or are being abused

The terrible past is present.

They were bullied, neglected, stunted, injured, especially in their childhood, and every similar circumstance triggers their deeply-installed reactivity. They were betrayed loved ones and it challenged their sense of worth. They are in or on the other side of power struggles that sapped their energy. Society has no morals so they live in fear. Huge corporations and bureaucracies demand a lot of energy to get basic necessities or to avoid jail.

I am amazed at the courage people demonstrate as they come up against forces that threaten to destroy them. They face truly overwhelming things; I often feel overwhelmed vicariously.

They are immature

They missed a developmental onramp.

Their parents did not or could not provide the love they needed as a young child or help them through the crucial teens and twenties. They are run around by negative, often secret, self-talk: “You are a loser. You are damaged. You are unlovable. You are stupid. You are unwanted. You are a bother. You must not let them know you or you will be abused or cast off.” They believe the myth which says it is all up to them. They just need to believe in themselves. Never give up. Do it right or don’t do it at all, etc. They are alone.

In the U.S. The “invisible hand” generally does not value adult development or wisdom.  I am surprised at how much knowledge people have but how unable they are to feel it or do something with it. Instead of growing into who they know they are and doing what it takes to embody their true selves, they shrink back. They give in to their resistance. They blame or criticize others and perfect many other defensive behaviors.

Any one of these realities will undermine one’s motivation. You probably saw what you were up against as your were reading them and maybe even did that thing you do when you are faced with what needs to change and grow. One client had to say “No porn.” Another had to resist “blanking out.” Another had to tell themselves, “Turn away from that damning voice!” Another had to resist dismissing all I said because they could not trust it, or me. The deeper things that undermine our motivation are not simple or easy. I rather resent the article I read for implying, “If you aren’t handling this you might be schizophrenic.”

The basic motivation

I love and hate that heading. I love it because I know life surges from a basic, common fountain and we can all drink it. I hate it because it implies that something is basic in the sense that you’re a dummy if you haven’t achieved it yet or it is basic equipment and you are missing the part. Motivation is not a one-size-fits-all dialogue. It is about the deeper, mysterious parts of us that are not easily measured.

For instance, several clients lately have expressed beautiful looks at their inner life and felt enthused about what they could do and intended to do. They even felt some joy. But they immediately, almost automatically, followed up their joy with a set of observations about themselves and why they would not or should not change: “That’s not me.” Or “I remember when my ex-wife told me she never loved me.” Or “How will I ever find time for this?” Or “I’m not very good at self care; I’ve failed before many times.” Or “I never truly stop my addictions.” Or “It will all work until my husband comes home.” They often don’t know they are contradicting that other “sunshiny” self! Their inner dialogue is just rolling along.

Beyond the Horizon | Dark Life Note
Click the pic to meet Vadimka Rassokhin making music for the soul in Izhevsk, Russia

I have told a couple of people who have introduced faith into their development that they may need something more than just their own capacity. The love of God, the truth of God, the Spirit of God, the prayers of Jesus may be what they find when they stop trying to avoid hitting bottom. Beyond the parameters of their top and bottom, that uncontrollable control system, is the kingdom of God.

I think surrendering to the reality that God is with me is highly motivating. I experience it every day and throughout most of the day, even when I deal with Comcast (like I did last week, AGAIN). Refusing the grace of God, not being beloved, contradicting the Lord when she sees you worthy of his relationship is the sin that keeps us pushing a rock up a hill and seeing it flatten us every day.

Better to feel it like the Psalmist:

we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place  — Psalm 66:12 (and James Taylor, NPR)

What if God really is on your side? What if you are created beautifully? What if you are loved? What if the future holds possibilities? When such questions take root and hope starts building a narrative, a new story tends to overwhelm the other one that tells the old, enervating tales of being alone, in charge, or impossible.

A meditation to help us face 2024

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Are you or your friends scared to face 2024? After everyone finished their reports on the December sicknesses last week, many people went on to report their anxiety about the coming year — for some it was more than anxiety, it was terror.

I can see why they feel that way. The Trump effect has created trickle-down lawlessness that makes simply driving one’s car frightening. The decades of partisan power struggle in U.S. politics has leaked into everyday transactions. Left-leaning institutions cancel their leaders, right-leaning institutions fire their pastors and directors and everyone has a litmus test, everyone is primarily concerned with power. Jane Coaston coined the term, “vice signaling,” to describe how Trump’s core supporters convey their tribal allegiance and show how little they care about conventional moral norms. The basic questions of life have become “Is my side winning? Am I getting what I deserve? Am I getting ripped off? Can anyone be trusted?”

It is not like humanity has ever stopped asking those questions. But cultures all over the planet have found striking ways to fight our sinful impulses. People keep reporting how they don’t have anyone fighting for them and don’t have the strength to protect themselves.

We all have something to give

We may have more capabilities to cope and even thrive than we think. That reality also appears in my office every day.

We all have something to give that makes things better. I think Jesus followers, especially, should feel an obligation to express the truth and love in them — that truth and love which is given to you in a unique way only you can give. In light of that I have been trying to figure out how to keep putting some truth and love out there that is not just outrage about Trump or despair about how many bad things have happened to me (e.g. – I have Xfinity issues).

My attempt at truth and love today centers on my recent, new soul friend, John O’Donohue. I think you could use some time to meditate on the teaching I received from his book Anam Cara. It could soothe your fears and even help you find a way through all those things you dread.  Throughout his book, O’Donohue keeps describing the basic alternative to the constant power struggle we are all sick of and sick from.

Life is not about who wins the election and who controls the economy. If it is, then life is just about getting power, and most of us do not have a life. That is, the life we have remains hidden from us.

In his Celtic way, O’Donohue reinforces what every baby knows and every adult longs for: life is about love.

O’Donohue can’t help but write poetry, even when he is writing prose. So I took a nice section of his book and made stanzas out of it, like a poem. I gave each section a title.

After you’ve used it all to meditate, I’ll make a few comments in closing.

See if this meditation gives you a non-anxious few minutes and fans the flames of God’s love in you. I believe as we claim such space in the world and live out of it, the Spirit of God transforms fear into fulfillment.

Your face is the icon of creation

Against the infinity of the cosmos and the silent depths of nature,
the human face shines out as the icon of intimacy.
It is here,
in this icon of human presence,
that divinity in creation comes nearest to itself.
The human face is the icon of creation.

Your heart is your inner face

Each person also has an inner face,
which is always sensed but never seen.
The heart is the inner face of your life.
The human journey strives to make this inner face beautiful.
It is here that love gathers within you.

Love awakens what is divine in you

Love is absolutely vital for a human life.
For love alone can awaken what is divine within you.
In love, you grow and come home to your self.
When you learn to love and to let your self be loved,
you come home to the hearth of your own spirit.
You are warm and sheltered.
You are completely at one in the house of your own longing and belonging.

Longing and belonging fuel the fire of fulfillment

In that growth and homecoming
is the unlooked-for bonus
in the act of loving another.
Love begins with paying attention to others,
with an act of gracious self-forgetting.
This is the condition in which we grow.

Once the soul awakens,
the search begins
and you can never go back.
From then on, you are inflamed
with a special longing that will never again linger
in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment….

Love unlocks eternity

At the deepest level of being,
possibility is both mother and transfigured destination
of what we call events and facts.
This quiet and secret world of the eternal is the soul.

Love is the nature of the soul.
When we love and allow ourselves to be loved,
we begin more and more to inhabit the kingdom of the eternal.
Fear changes into courage,
emptiness becomes plentitude,
and distance becomes intimacy.

Godless people are going to try to use fear, emptiness and distance this year (and always) to dominate us and steer us in the direction of surrendering our true selves to their power. Trump even shared a fan-made video on Truth Social saying he was chosen to save us.

What should we do?

I am going to keep re-membering as the powers try to dislocate my insides and separate me from loved ones. I plan to keep turning into the truth and love in Jesus.

I am going to go back to James:

For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. — James 1:23-25

I am not going to forget what my face looks like, whether distorted by AI or tracked by cameras. My inner, unique face is going to be shown to the world through self-forgetting, transfiguring, and embracing love. I don’t need the world’s power if I am secure in the heart of creation, resting in the grace of God in Jesus. I may use my power to good ends, but I will never try to live off it like it longs to feed on me.

**********

Today is the MLK National Holiday in the United States. If you’d like to join in and learn what it is all about, visit The Transhistorical Body. 

There is a lot of bloom left in you, too.

A life in the Spirit, Music, Spiritual direction, , , ,

When we first moved into our high-rise condo overlooking the park and the Philadelphia skyline, we were, along with all our neighbors, shut into our units by the pandemic. Not good. What’s more, our wrap-around balconies had been condemned by License and Inspection and needed to undergo a complete, expensive and LONG rehabilitation. Also not good. If situations like that, and worse, kind of resemble your life in the last few years, shut in and in need of rehab, you are not alone my friend.

Thank God things change! The pandemic was just recently declared over – although my son and my dear friends are fighting off Covid as I write, so I guess they missed the announcement. But things are generally better when it comes to the virus. What’s also exciting: our balconies were reopened last Spring, just in time for me to experiment with a new little farm I planted on them. I had plenty of new territory to plow. My daughter-in-law remarked at our New Year’s party, “These balconies are like extra rooms!” That’s really nice.

Hawaii State Flower Yellow Hawaiian Hibiscus
On the Big Island

Miracle hibiscus

I have a stories that go with each of the dear plants I have been nurturing, but in the interest of time I will just mention four that seem rather miraculous, especially the two hibiscus.

It started getting cold, so I thought I’d bring the plants inside and see if I could keep them alive until spring. They looked kind of “peak-ed” (FYI – in farm territory that means you’ve wasted away with illness until your cheek bones are pointy like mountain peaks). The hibiscus were already losing leaves, like they do when they aren’t in Hawaii.

To my surprise, when I brought them into the house to nurse them over the winter, they all got a second wind! The geranium budded. The dipladenia sent out six shoots looking for a trellis. And the hibiscus leafed out and began to bloom! My wife wondered how she was going to get rid of these plants that invaded the living room. But I was giddy with delight over late-fall blooms.

You are glad you read far enough to hear this good news, right?

Lessons from bloom to bloom

I confess, I visit these plants like they are much-loved children and attend to their buds and shoots with tender interest. So they have been central icons for my meditation. I am writing to share my revelations with you.

First, I did not know my 21st floor balconies are, in fact, more like Tibetan steppes than a Narberth backyard. I thought it was a perfect place for a farm. But if you saw my tomatoes you’d know something was very wrong. The plants baked in sun amplified by window reflection. They were rocked by unobstructed wind. Storms blasted them. They got dried out faster than I watered them (and then I went to Spain). It was very stressful for them!

It dawned on me my friends and family look like they have been on the balcony for a couple of years. Like I thought of my balconies, the world kind of looked like it should be a hospitable place. But there was virus, economic upheaval, riots, new wars, all sorts of tyrants — big and small, and unpredictable weather. A lot of us have very small tomatoes, spiritually speaking, and our leaves are about gone. My plants got small and tried to survive, so did many of my loved ones.

Opal Red Vining Dipladenia - Container
Diplandenia

Second, I did not know that moving the plants a few feet into my condo terrarium would create an environment conducive to a miracle. Those hibiscus did not need much of an excuse to let loose with some flowers; Lord, they wanted to bloom! And I thought the trellis I made for the stunted dipladenia looked silly it was so big. But now the tendrils are reaching up into the nothing above it. I think the farm still needs more experimentation. But I can see how resilient the plants are if they are given a chance.

My friends are like that too. I am thinking about three people, in particular, who had a classically terrible pandemic: lost jobs, went off the wagon, or went broke. But they are budding these days. One of them is starting on something that looks more like him than the other career ever did. They ended up in unexpected territory and started noticing unexpected growth. There is absolutely hope. I’m a bit shocked about how good I feel right now myself!

Rest in God’s presence

My recent guide, John O’Donohue, keeps reopening my mind to the reality that instead of frittering away my sleepless nights worrying about my friends and family, my frayed connections and threatening circumstances, I need to remain at rest in LOVE. The creation is friendly; look at it. Slow down. Let things develop. Suffer. Recover. Explore. Fail. Die well. Be resurrected.

The other night when I was lapsing into being a Christian and my spiritual cheeks began to plump up, I remembered a song we sang at my best friend’s funeral after he died in a plane crash when he was in his early thirties. My part in the funeral was to lead the singing for this very large crowd from the very large Assemblies of God church where we had worked together. I had never led such a big group, so I was terrified of looking foolish. I had said I’d do it because I’d do anything for Rick, not realizing what it would be like to lead in someone’s funeral I deeply loved (and still miss!). But the moment turned out to be a wonder, one of those thin places you remember when you need to find another one.

The other night, I needed that favorite song of his  and the experience of the moment we sang it at his funeral. When we sang it then, I remember the shocking feeling of God’s presence orienting me (and surely everyone else) right into the center of the Lord’s great love. I felt, “Rick is OK. We are OK even though we feel all the things we are feeling.” It was the first hint I got that goodness and grief are not mutually exclusive.

It is a simple, might be less-than-true, sort-of-sentimental song — and that made no difference. It was Rick’s song, our song, that moment’s song and the singing of it was truer than any words could convey:

Surely the presence of the Lord is in the place.
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can feel the brush of angels’ wings; I see glory on each face.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place. [People still sing it.]

It was as if I’d been moved just a few feet into God’s living room. I felt the bloom coming, in spite of grief, fear and everything else swirling around in that room and in my soul.

In our DNA, spiritual and physical, love is waiting to bloom. There are not too many places or moments in which that blooming is unlikely to happen. The Spirit of the Lord is in us and around us. We are suffused with Love, even when we are sick, unhappy, stupid, or somebody put us on the balcony in the burning sun, or forgot to water us.

I may need to learn that again tomorrow, when I am surprised by tiny tomatoes. But I keep getting better at learning reality — and I at least expect another opportunity for learning to arise, just like all the other opportunities have sprung out of strange songs and unlikely situations. There are always a lot more thin places than I know about before I really need to find one. Then I stumble into one and realize again: there is absolutely hope. You’ve got some bloom in you.

Top Ten Posts of 2023

A life in the Spirit, Climate, Doing Theology, Film/TV, Life as the church, Marriage and Family, Music, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction

2023

Group communication “sad?” Try on some Virginia Satir.
My new group reminded me of two things Virginia Satir taught me: 1) Tell your own story, 2) Be aware of your communication style.

Slander divides: Six ways to overcome it
Trump has unleashed a slanderfest. If it threatenes to swallow you, what are some things you can do? I’ve needed to try a few myself!

The Upside-down Apocalypse: Power fantasies be damned
My acquaintance, Jeremy Duncan, wrote an intriguing commentary on Revelation that makes so much sense I wanted to add my review to advertise it.

A call to prayer: Frodo and Sza on Mt. Doom
The dialogue Frodo has with Sam and Gollum on Mt. Doom is just like what is happening in us (and Sza).

The Spirit of God is Praying for You
Forget cetrainty. Prayer is all about discerning the presence of God who is constantly praying for us, who desires to be with us and hopes to see us flourish.

The Sad History of Christians Co-opted by the Powerful
The good things Jesus creates and recreates in the world are always threatened by some power that wants to co-opt them or just eliminate their alternativity.

The Common Emotion Wheels Need Unpacking
The emotion wheel charts imply emotions just happen in us, they are built in, “it is what it is.” I not only think we make meaning of our thoughts and feelings, I think we make choices that create them and heal them.

Beyond Trauma and Resilience Is Love
Psalm 139 has always been a good reminder, a symbolic representation, of what we all know in our deepest hearts beyond our brokenness. We were created in love.

I am Disconnected: Why? Can I change?
A perfect storm of troubles has atomized the country and wicked people are capitalizing on our disconnection to seize power and keep us divided, as they historically do in such circumstances.  What should we do?

The Wonder of Being Saved: A collection of Ways
Nobody in The Whale wanted to be saved. If you do, there are many ways to get there and stay there.

2022

FFF #17 — Brendon Grimshaw and his Seychelles wonder
I loved being in solidarity with the Fridays for the Future climate strikers.

The church in the rearview mirror
While on retreat I get some vision for my future that might help you move on, too.

I believe in you: I’m rarely talking about me
My 50th reunion gives me a lot to love about the community I have.

Jesus gives 5 ways to endure the shame: Kansans lead the way 
The first followers of Jesus would applaud the declarations of independence from corrupt Christianity some people are proclaiming.

Should I forgive them if they never offer an apology? 
Forgiveness is hard under all circumstances. When reconciliation is unlikely, it is even harder.

“How I Got Over:” Mahalia Jackson helps us do 2022
I have been singing with Mahalia all year. She did, indeed, help me get over.

The new movement of the Spirit takes lament, commitment, action
Time with the Jesus Collective inspires me to move with the Spirit now.

Overwhelm: The feeling and what we can do about it
The word of the year might be “overwhelm.”  Better to name it than just wear it.

Three reasons the Trump effect is not over yet
The elements of the Trump effect are not going away too soon. The wickedness has a “trickle down” impact.

In this uncertain now: Who are you Lord and who am I?
I have had a tough couple of years in a few ways. How about you? Who are you and who is God now?

Top ten posts from the past — many of them read more than 2023’s

I’m wasted, but I am not wasting the 12 Days of Christmas

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction,

I looked at my journal earlier today and noticed my first reference to Nyquil was on December 5. I had a week’s respite for a vacation (so there ARE miracles) and then I was in bed for three days straight and I am still in some stage of whatever it is. How has YOUR month been?

So why in the world would I begin twelve days of celebration of the Nativity of Jesus, the famous “12 Days of Christmas?” There are a lot of reasons to hole up and practice popular forms of dissociation, or roll up in self pity and exhaustion. Like: 1) I am sick and tired (I am!), 2) I am alone with no one to call, 3) Christian stuff should not be touched or it encourages Christians to think they are right even more than they already think they are, 4) This twleve days stuff has been done and I hate that song, 5) Learning about rituals is for fans, 5) Organized religion is for suckers, 6) My church blew up and I don’t do well by myself. 7) I don’t feel like it. Etc.

Now that I am piling up popular reasons, I realize we could observe the “12 reasons not to observe the 12 days” and start from there.

Santa in southern Ukraine

Emmanuel, God with us

My wife is so sick, we cancelled our annual Christmas breakfast, which may be a 40 year old tradition! So the FIRST day of the 12 days of Christmas is going to get a severe test this year.

Fortunately, we have forty plus years of spiritual discipline to tie us to joy and love that are deeper than germs and war and hypocrisy and cruelty and poverty and lonelinees. We know Jesus does not need the world to work out right to be the light of the world.

The main reason Ben and I wanted to restore our The Transhistorical Body blog was to stay connected to the spiritual disciplines and the Spirit-filled predecessors who keep us tied to our true selves, that rescue us from miry months (like this one has been!) and inspire us to keep our focus on eternity, to turn into our birthright like one season turns into the next, to keep writing our version of the greatest story ever told.

Each day of the twelve days of Christmas we’ll have a special entry over at The Transhistorical Body [Here’s today’s]. Some days you’ll meet an inspiring spiritual ancestor as we celebrate their day, some days you’ll learn about a special day in the Christian calendar. You’ll get resources if you really want to learn something that puts you and your time in history in some perspective. Especially for these twelve days, it will give you a daily reason to sink into the reality that the incarnation of God in Jesus is the scandalous miracle which continues to work into each of us and all of us just like God managed to get into Mary and be born as one of us so we would be the family of God.

 

PS — Please consider subscribing to The Transhistorical Body. It is just one month old!

The Pregnable Fortress    

Fiction, ,

We invite each other to write a Christmas story every year. Here is mine from 2016.

John did not like his new home very much. He thought he should like his aunt and uncle, but he didn’t. And he was quite sure his mother’s sister and her husband did not like him very much either. And it was almost Christmas. And mom used to like Christmas before she disappeared after Dad apparently died.

He still did not quite understand what happened. There was talk about bad heroin and angry phone calls about being a terrible mother. He stood in his aunt’s kitchen one time and listened while she walked up and down the hall yelling. She stopped and looked at him blankly when she came around the corner. He walked silently out the back door.

That cold afternoon, he began to build his fortress of solitude.

He had seen one in an old Superman movie and wanted to fly into the ice and hide there. He was already someplace in the wilderness, still not used to the noiseless nights in the mountains after growing up with sirens and voices in the dark.

They had not told him there was a property line, so he assumed the forest spreading out behind him was a safe playground for a ten-year-old. He stepped around prickly bushes and over fallen trees until he came to a gully and a log that was just right to sit on. Without too much thinking, he began to make a fortress out of fallen branches right there.

After a couple of hours he had a roof and space enough to feel like he had a little house. He discovered he was not out of earshot when his aunt finally called him to find his way back to the house in the dusk.

Everyone in the house was always mad or crying — and irritated with his silence. They called it sulking. He called it nothing, as he sat at dinner eating little and closing in further — like his fortress in the woods.

Soon it had walls through which he could barely see. He took some trash bags from the closet and made it so rain did not get in so much. He put more branches over them so it looked to him like a big bush and he was a bushman, far off in the desert where no one could find him.

But someone did find him.

He went into his fortress one afternoon and turned on his flashlight to decide where to put a piece of foam he had found in the neighbor’s trash. On one of the flat rocks he had brought in for a table there was a cookie and a note. “You better wear orange or you are going to get shot.”

He panicked. Someone knew about his hideout! Someone had been in his fortress. Someone was going to shoot him. There were other people in this forest and one of them could fit through his doorway.

Maybe someone was spying on him right now! He carefully drew back the towel he found in the rag box that served as his door, peeked his head over the edge of the gully and looked around. He wasn’t sure who to be afraid of more: whoever was going to shoot him or whoever was watching him – maybe they were the same person.

He saw no one in the quickly-darkening December light. The forest was smoky and wet, and suddenly he felt very cold and alone. He went into his hut and wondered whether to tear it all down and give up. He ate the cookie.

The next day school was even more annoying than ever. He had been in his class just a short time. Being the new kid was bad enough. But the teacher would not leave him alone. The fact that she felt sorry for him made him feel things and he did not want to feel.

Then his classmates became emboldened and started questioning him. When he answered with one word or angrily told them to go away, one boy mocked him with a loud voice. “Oh, so we have a baby in our class. It’s the fourth grade, baby.” He was glad it was the last day before the break.

That day, when he went to his fortress, he did not know what to expect. He wore an orange vest that was too big for him that he found in the shed with the fishing poles. He drew back his towel and shined his flashlight around the shelter, finding his rock table. Nothing. He lay down on his foam bed and went cold. The darkness seemed to wrap around him like some damp, new skin. He closed his eyes and let it take him.

The next day he did not wear his vest. He did not care if he got shot. When he got to his fortress, he almost kicked it. He wanted to take a big rock and throw it through the roof. He wanted to hurt something or someone. But he didn’t. He just crawled in with a grunt of irritation and slumped down on his foam and looked at the dim light seeping through the spaces between his branches, filtering under the trash bags.

Before long, his eyes were acclimated enough to see the contours of his wooden cave. On his rock table was a sparkle. He turned his flashlight on it and saw a small angel ornament made of thin gold metal. There was another note on top of the first one: same paper, same writing. “This place needs a little Christmas. Hang me up.”

He was not sure whether to be terrified or elated. Someone was waiting for him to leave before they invaded his space. They knew about him but he did not know about them. They liked him.

That night he ate a piece of chicken. His aunt cried. She suddenly got up and left the table with her napkin on her nose. He silently looked at his uncle. His uncle gave him another piece.

It was almost Christmas and dad was still dead and mom was still gone somewhere no one would say. At his new house no one played Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer over and over. No one ever came home and acted silly and danced with him until they fell on the couch laughing and then sleeping. No one came home with little presents that never got wrapped saying, “I could not wait until Christmas when I saw this in the store.”

Instead, there was a very neat Christmas tree with white lights and ornaments that were all red. The packages were all wrapped with the same paper. He avoided that room and usually went to bed after dinner unless they made him watch TV in the den.

Mostly he went to his fortress of solitude.

There were no further angels, just the one hanging at the very top of the ceiling from a twig. He would shine his flashlight on it and watch the reflections. He knew very little about real angels or even if there were real angels. But he began to believe in this one. He even talked to it sometimes. One time he whispered, “I hate everyone and they hate me.” The angel was silent. He shouted it, “I hate them and it doesn’t even matter!” The angel did not reply. But he did not get the feeling it did not care.

The next day was Christmas Eve, mom’s favorite day of the year. People were coming to his uncle’s house. He had to take a bath and wear special clothes his aunt bought. He had to be introduced to a bunch of people he did not know, to whom he did not speak or even smile. His uncle told him he had to do it before they got there and he was too afraid to resist. But inside he wanted to scream, “Do not touch me!”

Before long they drank enough wine to be loud and unaware, so he quietly slipped out the back door and headed into the deep dark of the forest. He took a blanket and wrapped himself against the cold.

His flashlight made a beam that caught the eyes of a deer off in the distance. He did not care if an animal got him. Just as he arrived at his fortress he heard a crack nearby. He froze with fear. Then the sound of hooves and running — he wildly threw his light toward the noise. He thought he saw a flash of orange, but he could not be sure. By then the sound was far away.

He climbed into his dark, dark house and shut the door. He lay on his foam and shivered under his blanket. Dad. Mom. Mom. Mom. Alone. Alone. Cold. Crying.

He had not cried at his father’s graveside memorial. It was chaotic and felt embarrassing. And people kept shuffling him from here to there. He could barely remember what happened. The tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes. He could feel the cold streambeds on his cheeks. No sobbing. No release, just an overflow of sadness in his isolated hut, surrounded by fearsome, unknown things.

He lay there a long time listening to his breathing settle down until he could feel himself exhale warm clouds that were already cold by the time they settled on his nose.

He wondered if he had really seen orange in the woods and looked at his stone table. There was a piece of candy. At least he thought it was candy. He had never seen anything like it. A third note was on top of the others, “Jesus will be born tonight. God sees us. Have a sweet.”

He lay back down and set the sweet on his chest. He wanted to eat it but he didn’t. He felt like he would spoil his appetite for anger if he ate that candy. He felt like he would betray his dead father and his lost mother if he sat in his solitude, free of them, eating sweets. And he knew they would like to share his sweet. So he fell asleep that way.

He awoke with a start and sat up, disoriented. People were shouting his name. He could see light beams crossing his walls. He realized he had fallen asleep in his fortress, which was about to be discovered. He lunged for the door, ready to meet them before they got too close.

Before he could leave he remembered the candy. It had been on his chest. He frantically shined his flashlight on the floor, threw the blanket on the table, stirred leaves. He was desperate.

Finally, he spotted it, just a little brown thing that looked much like the other brown things in his fortress of solitude. He sat on his heals for a few seconds, kneeling in the dirt, breathing hard, candy cupped in his hands, head bowed.

He stuffed it in his mouth and bolted through his towel.

Is choice a spiritual problem?  (2010)

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , , , ,

In 2010 our church was coming to its fullness in number and effectiveness. This speech reflects how we were forming a sense of “alternativity.” Serious people. 

A little late in the game, I imagined someone asking me what this week’s final FAQ was. When I told them it was, “Is choice a spiritual problem?” They said, “Oh wow, you are going to tackle abortion this week! Interesting. But I don’t think I will invite my mother.” It did not even dawn on me that people might think I was talking about a woman’s right to choose, or about the opposite argument that is often voiced on the bumper sticker as, “It’s a child, not a choice” – choosing for the choiceless.

Drowning in choices

But it should have dawned on me, because the preoccupation with choice, to the point where it could be boiled down to a slogan about someone’s right to choose, is just the spiritual issue I want to talk about. Maybe I am on a subject that is just too abstract to be understood. But I am focusing on the general opportunity or even the obligation in our society to choose.

We have a lot of choices to make and every one seems to include more options all the time: Make a phone deal. Buy a car. Shop in the King of Prussia megamall. Endlessly swipe for a mate. Be entertained by something on a screen. Or visit my favorite example of the proliferation of choices: the cereal aisle. I was at Pathmark yesterday. To get some cereal, one must sift through an amazing array of choices, most of which are some variation of corn.

In the movie the Hurt Locker (2008), we see Sergeant First Class, William James, come back from his tour of duty in Iraq. First we saw him go through the amazing, traumatizing craziness he endured as the number one cowboy on the bomb-defusing squad. He has total PTSD and he’s trying to cope with normality back home. His wife Connie asks him “Do you wanna get some cereal and I’ll meet you at the checkout stand?” Her patient smile tells us that she is challenged by having to live with this guy who has become an alien from having all his choices be life and death ones. There he is in the aisle facing a new kind of enemy that he can’t defuse – too many choices. He has a little minor explosion before he gets out of the aisle, as you will see.

What I want to say is that the choice presented and demanded by the cereal aisle is no friend to the Jesus-follower. The choices in themselves are not necessarily bad or good – that is not really the spiritual problem. It is the implication that we need to choose all the time and that choice, in itself, is a great good. Even worse, it is the implication that we have a right to choose, because what we choose is what makes meaning.

We will see if I get all the way to what I want to say.

But choice is basic, isn’t it?

It is a little ironic for me to be complaining about choice as a Christian, because it is basic to our story that once we had no choice and now we do.

Here is a version of our common story: We were imprisoned in sin and death. There was no way out. We were dead in our sins. We were groping around in that dim-light-before-night-falls-completely thinking it was the only light there was. But the light of the world came to us and freed us. We had no choice but to sin and die. Now we have a choice to live.

John and Charles Wesley used to take that story out of its confinement in big fat Anglican churches in the 1700’s and go tell it to coal miners who were in slavery to the man, who were doing an incredibly dangerous job. They lived near death, poor, illiterate, basically slaves, choiceless. The Wesley’s high-class friends were scandalized by their mission. Charles put their message into music. One of my favorites songs of his fits here, you might help me sing it.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? — Psalms and Hymns, 1738.

The coal miners would stand in the fields after work and listen to the story of Jesus and tears ran down their cheeks and left streaks in the coal dust. They were not doomed after all. They were free. They could choose to follow Jesus; their chains were off. It was revolutionary. A lot of the human rights and freedoms Western democracies have built into their laws are influenced by faith in Jesus undermining the domination system. [Here is the hymn extracted from its original context).

But this freedom to choose has become a problem because people took out God and grabbed for the freedom without him. It is a little bit like when Aubrey left Brendan with baby Nat the other day for thirty seconds and suddenly Brendan had freedom to parent the baby the way he wanted without mom’s guidance or participation. By the time she got back, Nat had sippy cup water all over his head and Brendan was blowing it around his face with a flute of some sort.

Freedom boiled down to choosing

Once this intoxicating sense of freedom and human worth got built into the laws without any regard for God, Christians responded by fighting for the choices people were allowed to make. American Protestants, in particular, made an aggressive sales pitch for Jesus and demanded that people stand up in public and make their choice known.

My favorite example of this adaptation is probably Billy Sunday. Here he is making front page news in 1915. I like Billy Sunday because he had been a professional baseball player (he even played for Philadelphia) before he came into the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, heard about Jesus in a way he could understand and not only surrendered his will to the Lord but became one of the most famous speakers in the country from 1893 to 1935. He was not sophisticated—he was famous for his theatrics: jumping, shouting, posing, and hitting the pulpit. He also took an aggressive stand against the evils of his day – especially booze. Here’s a famous quote: “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile, but public, definite enlistment for Christ makes you a Christian.”

He boiled becoming a Christian down to making a choice. And you could express that choice by simply walking down the aisle to shake his hand. Up to our day, most people seem to think that being a Christian is all about one’s personal choice — like choosing your favorite cereal among the brands of religions. If you are more advanced, it is choosing bits and pieces of religious-like thinking and concocting one’s own personal collection of choices into a playlist on your spiritual ipod. In the end, the Christian becomes no different than the world at large, who think that having a choice and making a choice is not only a right, it is how one makes a life for themselves. People think we are the sum of our choices. It is a spiritual problem.

I am trying to set up my simple discussion by highlighting the problem we need to solve or processes we need to face. The choices in themselves are not necessarily bad or good – that is not really the problem.

  • What we need to consider is the implication that you need to choose all the time and that choice, in itself, is a great good — that is the spiritual problem.
  • Even harder, we need to consider the implication that you have a right to choose, a psychological obligation to choose well, because what you choose is what makes meaning — I think that is a huge spiritual issue.

Jesus has many important things to say about this spiritual issue. I want to give you two. Let’s see if I can bring it down to two sound bites.

Being chosen is more important than choosing well

The main spiritual issue we have today is not ‘choosing well,” it is surrendering to being chosen.

You did not choose me, but I chose you — John 15:16

Jesus frees us for this surrender. Before Jesus presents us with the gift of being chosen, we are basically stuck in whatever choices we make. As we see recorded in John, Jesus was about to leave his disciples, and before they got the wrong idea, he wanted to make sure they knew who they were – chosen by him to be his disciples and to bear the fruit of a life in his Spirit. Each of us has been called by Jesus. The story of Jesus calls us into our destiny. We are chosen people.

The other day I shared a psalm I wrote with Gwen and she laughed at the line that said, “I still feel like a fat girl asked to dance.” She could not imagine me relating to that. But I have had many girlfriends who thought they were fat even when they weren’t, and really suffered at the hands of men when they were. I can relate. God help me, I am still shocked when Jesus comes across the dance floor of the universe and chooses me, fat, ugly me waiting over here to be considered valuable.  Before I take his hand, I am imprisoned in whatever I can choose to do to make myself safe and not go crazy from feeling alone and unwanted. I’m helpless, really.

One of the main spiritual issues of our choice-ridden day is to stop choosing and be chosen. You do not have to choose. You don’t need cereal or anything else they say you’ve got to decide about, you’ve been chosen.

Not being choosy is more important than choosing well.

Then you will not take pride in one man over against another. For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? — 1 Corinthians 4:6-7

Paul was talking to people who were well-acquainted with life in the Spirit. But they still got tripped up when their teachers seemed to be competing and they seemed to be asked to choose. They began to choose which camp they belonged to, like we might, as well: “I’m of Rod or I’m of Joshua or I’m of Nate” or “I’m too holy to bother with your petty distinctions – I’m of Jesus.” Paul is trying to ramp down this natural choosiness. He said, “You are acting like you can choose a better life for yourself than what someone else gets from God. Why are you acting like you got something more than anyone else when Jesus chose you?”

It is so tempting. We have become so automatically choosy and we think it really matters whether we have a Droid or an IPhone, a bike or a car, a mate or not, cool Bellagio glasses or contacts, urban life or country life, on and on. We are always on the edge of a slippery slope to thinking we are making ourselves by what we choose. The Jeep commercial before the new George Clooney movie (not good) celebrated the recovery of the American car industry by saying that what we make makes us. We think things like that: what we do makes us, what we choose makes us. Not so.

The discipline of not choosing

A main spiritual discipline of each day is to sit down and be chosen and work at not choosing for a while. Work at opening up space in our hearts to receive. Gain some receptivity. Do some nothing so God can give you life. Stop thinking that if you choose the right path, choose the right book, choose the right church, choose the right day to come to the right church with your right mate it will all be OK, as if you could choose from the good things God has to give and make it all good, or worse, just give up on that and say, “Its all good.”

This is not the only way you can do that, but why not spend this next week having no other choices for your daily time with God than just the two portions of scripture I have given you tonight. Starve your lust for more, craving for new, anticipating of what’s available next. Just stay with God until you have what you can receive from what you’ve been given already. Someone took me up on a challenge like that a week or so ago and it was quite revolutionary for them.

In closing, I beg you not to get me wrong, I am not saying our choices don’t make any difference so just do “whatever.” I am ultimately saying exactly the opposite. Now that I have been chosen and I have given up making the world be all about my choosing, what I choose really makes a difference. My true-self expression just keeps getting better. When I come to you, I am a lot more like Jesus who came to me knowing he was chosen. I am more like Jesus who obviously was not too choosy when he decided to love me and serve me, even serving to death.

When I have received my place with Jesus, I stick out among the people of the world because what I choose comes from somewhere more than just the right to choose. I am not on an endless treadmill of my endless choices. I actually come from somewhere and get somewhere, my choices make an eternal difference. I don’t fear them; I look forward to them, no matter how hard they are. Some of us might feel scared about being that important, but that is how God sees us. He is endlessly interested in how we are going to turn out, because what we do in relation to him makes all the difference in eternity.

Let’s have some dialogue about all this and see if I got close to where you thought I should go.

Accept the one whose faith is weak (2009)

A life in the Spirit, Building community,

In 2009 my former church was going through growing pains. We were organized in a way that required many leaders to take initiative and get along. This speech reflects that. 

In the letter to the church at Colossae, Paul says: “After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.” It appears a lot of people in the first century can’t read. And no one has invented the printing press, yet, even if you wanted to get your own copy of something to read. So people read to each other. That seems nice to me. There is something about hearing something read that makes it more personal, I think, more communal. There is also something ceremonial about public readings, tribal. The new churches to whom Paul is writing are getting their identity shaped by doing new things together, like hearing a letter to them. So since this chapter of Romans is all about creating redeemed people and being together in love, let’s have a major reading of Romans 14:1-15:7.

Let’s take turns, a man and then a woman, and everyone read the parts that are in yellow. We’re going to read it slow and ceremonially. Let it sink in. Maybe you can imagine it is a time, like the first century, before last vestige of tribal activity was gathering on Wednesdays to watch Lost and having a letter read to you might seem important.

Activated acceptance

Isn’t that a great chapter? And did you notice how well it fits into our era! So often the Bible seems kind of dated (since it is 2000 years old) — but not this chapter.

The thing I like best about living in the postmodern world is that the post-Christian, Eurocentric countries hung on to and activated Paul’s message about acceptance. A great contribution to western thought from Christianity is the duty to accept others as having a basic, God-given freedom of conscience that should be respected. That principle is clearly stated in this chapter.

Without Full Acceptance by Christians, Gays Are Demeaned and Hurt - NYTimes.comOne of the things I like least about living in the postmodern world is that the Christians are known for NOT activating Paul’s message of acceptance. I’m not sure the reputation is deserved, since many Jesus-followers are performing the miracle of reconciliation all the time – they are mostly unnoticed as great lovers often prefer to be. But there are Christians who like to get noticed who are out there front and center. Such signs were in the background of the recent Equality Forum. Those are Christians making sure that they are known for not accepting what they consider unacceptable. Paul says don’t dispute about disputable issues, but it looks like there are not too many issues that Christians find indisputable.

The Horning Church of Black-bumper Weaverland Mennonites split from their church in 1927 over the use of cars, but covered up the flashy chrome with black paint.

My favorite example of disputatious Christians has always been the Amish, who are supposedly among the peaceful people of the world. But they are quite disputatious.  Some won’t use any modern conveniences and are stuck around 1880. Others own vehicles but won’t drive them – they hire the English to do that. Others own vehicles but won’t allow any ornamentation on them – they are known as the black bumper Amish. Others can have chrome. They seem to accept one another’s weirdness OK, but it is kind of hard to imagine how someone got the argument going that started a new sect of black bumper Amish.

Acceptance forms a peculiar culture

In our church, in which some of us are the only-own-a-bicycle people, we are pretty good at accepting one another’s weirdness, too. But even though we are pretty acclimated to the best thing about postmodernism and we also like Paul’s ideas about accepting people, we still have our moments when we just don’t know how far acceptance should go. That is what Paul’s chapter is trying to sort out.

Like how much accommodation do meat-eaters make for vegetarians and vegans? How much should the rule-followers allow the footloose to NOT follow all the incomprehensible laws of Licenses and Inspections when we rehab another derelict building? Can a proactive peacemaker accept someone who thinks war can be OK? What matters of faith are not disputable?

As you can see in the chapter, these kinds of issues have always been with us. If we weren’t to be respected as people with individual choices to make, then we could just make rules and kill those on the other side – but God’s grace is more right than that kind of right.

The other day I was talking to someone about one of our blessed church leaders. There is a whole new crew of them now who are forming a new leadership team, if the Council approves this improvement on June 6.  I was seeing that a whole new crew of people has a whole new level of acceptance to exercise. It is very interesting to see how these things work out. This group doesn’t fully know how to communicate yet, so they have to listen hard. They all have power in their respective teams and now they have to actively share it. They don’t have mutual habits and agreements set, so they have to create them. These things all take a great deal of acceptance. To make the team work well, everyone has to start with Paul’s fact that everyone has their own beauty and value before God and God is able to make them beautiful and valuable to us.

The postmodern mindset leaves God out of this process acceptance. Most of us leave God out these days, too. When someone is about to go for a new job, like one of my friends did last week, we say Good luck! not God bless you! “God bless you” has fallen out of favor unless you are sneezing in certain parts of the city – some places less than others. So our acceptance these days takes on a form of godliness but denies God’s presence. We have laws that enforce acceptance and lawsuits to go with them. Now it is popular to be a comedian who is all about not accepting people, since comedians get mileage out of being cleverly contrary.

But true acceptance is another miracle born of the Spirit. We rely on that miracle happening among our leadership team, who are at the heart of a church where accepting one another is elemental to our character. That kind of grace can’t really be legislated, or willed; it is part of being redeemed and being a redeemer with the Redeemer. 15:7  Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

The point of accepting one another is not merely because it is SO much more pleasant than not doing it, it is to bring praise to God who crosses barriers and builds love in the world. The point of accepting one another is not just to be nice and be acceptable to God, it is much more active than that, it is all about redemption. Accepting someone like Jesus accepted you is an act of aggressive, world-changing love like the Lord’s.

Jesus concentrates this aggressive, world-changing love in the church until the church gets mass and pulls other people into mutual acceptance. But receiving someone where they are and respecting the light they have is also a weapon for goodness every day among people who don’t have intimacy with God or his people.

Like Paul said, the acceptance we have been shown by Jesus is the kind we should show. Jesus died and rose so that HE would be the Lord of all. Judging people as if we were the Lord is the reason Jesus had to die and rise, so He could gain his own authority and undo all that judgment with his world-changing acceptance. People will stand before Jesus and he is all about making them stand. If we’re moving with the Lord, we are doing that, too.

Using acceptance as a tool for spreading redemption

In Romans 14 and 15, Paul is mainly talking about accepting a person who is weak in faith.  This mainly means that he or she has a tender conscience. They can be drawn into behavior that makes them feel guilty – either before God or others. Their faith is not resilient enough to stand up to pressure or argument. They may not have a lot of light or strength or love. So even though their conscience might tell them they should not take their clothes off, if you ask them, they might take them off. So don’t ask them. If they are alcoholic or just think drinking is wrong for them, they might be thrown into a problem if you, their trusted friend, served them a drink. Don’t do that. Stuff like that.

File:Messene, Agora 2015-09 (5).jpg
Ruins of the agora in Messina, likely area for the temple meat market.

The example in Paul’s mind is all about meat that is sold at the pagan temple’s butcher shop. Some people don’t think they should eat demon-tainted meat, either because it might infect them, or because it is beneath them, or because their pagan mother-in-law might see them doing it and think they are violating their morals. Paul considers this a weak version of faith.

Paul, when he is just being himself,  doesn’t care what people think and knows meat belongs to God. And he blesses it before he eats it anyway, so any demon influence is eradicated. I think he quite likes being strong and taking control of his temple-sold meat and eating it with gusto in the name of Jesus in the face of any so-called god that might lay claim to it. So he is talking to himself as much as anyone else. Because it is really even stronger to not act strong, like God acts weak for us. I’ll be “weak” if being “strong” injures someone’s conscience and set them back. If you’re having dinner with people of weak conscience, don’t serve them temple meat. And yes, you need to be aware of who it is who has problems with temple meat, as best you can. Just because you don’t know doesn’t make you any less responsible for messing someone up.

Paul is hardly saying, “Just keep quiet and don’t offend anyone.” I don’t think anyone thinks Paul is never disputatious! His whole letter to the Romans has been one long argument! The goal is not to avoid disputes altogether, it is to use acceptance as a redemption tool.

The heart of the matter is that is makes sense to err on the side of being overly accepting since that is how Jesus is with us. We aren’t avoiding conflict, just like God doesn’t avoid conflict with us. But our conflicts with others, just like God’s with us, should be based in an underlying love that accepts another person as someone God loves, someone Jesus died for and is someone Jesus is in the process of transforming. No one gets damned – certainly not for whether they think driving emission-spewing vehicles is acceptable or not, or whether they break your heart with their faithlessness, or upend you with their mindless sin, or torment you with their unprocessed psychology.

The strong should accept the weak

I tend to take Paul’s admonition to its logical extreme. He says the strong should accept the weak. I presume everyone’s faith is weak. I presume everyone’s conscience is as challenged as mine, even if they look strong and even if they think they are strong and I should not be presuming they have weak faith. I think we all have something that makes our conscience tender. It is always something. So it makes sense to start out assuming that I don’t know what I might be doing to someone. That makes me trust God, and it helps me not to trust my judgment too much.

So let’s get as practical as we can,

  • since you have to go home and re-accept your wife or husband after hearing this, even though you feel a lot of judgment about all the disputable things they do.
  • since you need to go back to work and deal with that obnoxious person you have been telling stories about.
  • since you need to go on the sidewalk and meet up with a person who looks suspiciously like they might do something objectionable if you looked at them.

We all need to develop an aggressive acceptance that changes the judgment people normally live under into salvation and grace. We are making a safe place to explore and express God’s love when we start with someone where they are starting whenever we meet them and hope for their best in Christ, even if they are clueless about Jesus.

Very briefly, here are two of many things in the scripture passage that we can do that will help us develop and use this acceptance.

Make it a rule to Accept the one who is weak in faith…without passing judgment on disputable matters.

Most things that bother you just do not matter to God. Stop noticing what people are doing that seems wrong to you. Everyone will stand before God, not you, and the Lord is able to make him or her stand

Most things that bug us don’t matter that much, most things we want to hold on to don’t matter that much, but every person does matter. Even for the most toxic person, God has a plan in mind for what to do next to help them stand and to stop them from cutting the legs out from others. If you do not presume that and see them accordingly, it will be hard to accept them. That applies to yourself, too, since you need to treat yourself like God treats you.

Someone is going to bother you in the next half hour or so. I may be doing it now by bringing that up. Don’t just swallow being bugged or avoid noting how messed up they are – accept them like God accepts you. You’ll feel better; the world will be better. And you will certainly have a better place to have a conflict, if one is necessary.

Accept the one who is weak in faith…make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way… make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

Don’t merely react well, be a proactive accepter. Be strategic. If not strategic, then at least considerate. If not considerate, then at least not a pain in the neck.

Paul wants us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Eurocentric societies have been all about power, all about competition, all about blame, all about fear of not getting what we want or all about fear of not being respected for who we are. Our minds are infected and in need of renewing. In contrast to Eurocentric ways, Jesus insists on a new mindset of love, born God’s love which graces us all day. We didn’t know God’s acceptance, but Jesus has made it known and is making it known to us. So we have something good to do every day. We make peace. We build people up.

We need to make up our mind to accept one another like Jesus accepts us — do it and learn to love it. It won’t do much good to look like you accept someone on the outside but you judge them when you are talking to someone else, or hold on to their badness in your heart. Being outwardly nice it better than not being nice, but it is not the life-changing acceptance that Paul is describing.

An influx of migrant children tests the preparedness of NYC schoolsWe need to take this habit with us into the street, too. For instance, there are laws about discriminating against Spanish-speakers. They aren’t working. But we are not necessarily working that well either. Spanish speakers inhabit our neighborhood, but they are still invisible to a lot of us. I won’t suggest that each of us can undo this invisibility, but we could plan to look at someone and smile on the sidewalk – at least have that much proactive acceptance! Say “Hi.” Same goes for moments with our landlords or our  clientele. Same with the police and security guards. Same with the rich people and with the people working out at Sweat across the street. They are all potential brothers and sisters.

Paul is working hard to help us react well and help us act well. Just make sure to NOT think you can follow that law well and accomplish it. Accepting others starts with being accepted by God as he aggressively seeks us out in Jesus Christ and connects in love. It was hard to do that, and Lord knows we keep making it hard on him. Accepting someone who is weak in faith is hard because it is that good.