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Alas for those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them;
houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance.
- Micah 2:1-2
Ephesians 4:14-16 (emphasis mine)
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
Wow… okay, where to start. This morning, as I was going about my usual routine, eating breakfast, checking e-mail, I had a notice that a comment had been made on an item posted on my facebook account. I clicked over to read what my friend had written in response to a video I had posted. The video, I found humorous, mocked the McCain/Palin selection. Granted, I still find it funny, but upon reading the comments my friend had made, my heart sank.
She had written, very kindly, and with much grace, about the apparent difference of the words written here, and the commentary regarding the political process on my facebook. She challenged me to see how my attitude was not in love, and how my actions may have been perceived. My first instinct was to get defensive, to insist that she was wrong, and I was right. I felt my face flush in anger and the urge to react bubbled up. I started to type out a response, but paused. I realized that what she had said was true. I realized that in my arrogance, I had assumed to have a moral high ground, that I was above all of this nonesense, and that pointing out the flaws and weaknesses of the candidates somehow made me a better person. I was guilty as charged.
So with humility, I wrote her back, thanking her for candidness, and thanking God for people such as her, who do the hard task of speaking truth in love. In writing to her, I was reminded of a passage we’d covered in Sunday School this week regarding earthly leadership. 1 Samuel 8:6,9-21
But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. And the LORD told him:… “Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”
Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.
When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. The LORD answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”
After reading that again, I began to identify myself in the cries of the people of Israel. Instead of turning to God to trust Him alone, I had begun to place my trust in politics, in the voice calling for Change. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not writing off politics, nor am I going to stop working towards improving things for our nation. What I am saying is that my attitude has mirrored those whom I criticize… though I may not be calling one of the candidates “blessed” by God, I had begun to place my hope for change not in the hands of the Almighty Father, but rather in the hands of a broken human soul, who may be able to do great things, but cannot match the wonders that Christ can do if I place my hope and trust in Him. The backdoor way of depending on others to enact change frees me from the responsibility to create the change myself, through the help of Christ.
I believe that we are called to be above the fray. I might believe that, but living as such is much harder. I must set aside the arrogant notion that one person can bring change. I must realize my part in change, and therefore challenge others to start where they are. If we all were to seek out justice, to help those in need, to reach out with love and forgiveness, we could change this world from the bottom up. Perhaps our prayers should not be that we pick the right candidate, but that our lives may be guided by Christ, and that through our actions and our trust in Him alone, we might bring about the very change we hope and pray our politicians to do. That come November, it might not matter who is president, as long as we the church continue to trust God to guide us, continue to seek His will in our lives, and continue to look for opportunities to serve Him where we are.
I had a revelation this morning on I-40 driving toward work. Yesterday I went to church and had lunch with friends and we whined in community about some church politics. Lifeway had pulled a magazine that had female pastors on the front cover. We were all very sure that a great injustice had been done.We sat there and reveled in the injustice and how WE were above such lunacy. I left feeling a bit self-righteous and satisfied that our little group of rebels was in agreement.
This morning at 5:38 AM for no apparent reason it occurred to me that I need to confess this sin. I haven’t changed my mind of how I felt about the SBC or women in ministry. But I suddenly realized how petty and ridiculous I was yesterday and most days. The world is filled with injustice… babies die of hunger, little girls can’t go to school, disabled people, women, and racial minorities are denied employment, the poor get poorer while the rich get richer, children die in wars they didn’t start and on and on and on. I was almost in tears. While I am so quick to point fingers and whine about the apparent injustice in my little bubble of a world, how rarely do I look beyond to greater injustice, greater oppression, greater pain?? Which sort of injustice comes to mind more easily? Which one do we talk about in church?
I think the key to getting beyond all the denominational insanity is to realize how small and insignificant it really is in scheme of the world, in scheme of the Kingdom.
“Give fair judgment to the poor and the orphan;
uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destituteRescue the poor and helpless;deliver them from the grasp of evil people.But these oppressors know nothing; they are so ignorant!”Psalms 82: 3-5
Last night, we were practicing the music for next weeks service, and a new song was introduced. I hadn’t heard this song, but immediately loved the lyrics and of course, the music. As we sang the song, all of the anger of the days frustrations began to melt away, the insecurities I held inside quieted, and I watched as my beautiful friend Chase danced in the light of God’s glory.
I’ve known Chase now for 12 years, and with every passing day, he teaches me more and more. Chase has Downs Syndrome, but don’t let that fool you. He is one of the brightest, most compassionate people I know. He loves to laugh, and is endlessly teasing me, fooling around with others, and always exuding Christ’s love in ways I only wish I knew how to. Above everything else, Chase loves to worship. When most of us talk about worship, we think of singing songs, perhaps clapping, maybe raising our hands, and trying for a moment to quiet the distractions surrounding us to worship our Creator. For Chase, it comes naturally. He holds nothing back, afraid of no ones judgment, and simply glorifies his maker.
As we sang this song last night, and the energy of the song picked up, Chase stood up from his usual perch on the steps of the stage, and danced around the room with complete abandon. And suddenly, the room was filled with all that is Holy, and God breathed into that place. There was an electrifying energy that I can only explain as the Spirit of God, and suddenly I was compelled to dance with utter abandon. For a brief moment, I almost let go and joined Chase in his dance, and then… and then… my flesh grabbed my spirit and began to choke the life out of my joy. Questions arose… What if others see me? What if they laugh? Is it even appropriate? What if I’m wrong and this presence I feel isn’t God’s Spirit? And I watched, frozen in place, as Chase spun around, unaffected by the questions that were binding my soul, and my heart wept.
God has always had a way of choosing the least of these to teach us. By worldly standards, Chase does not afford much wisdom. But as I stood witness to the beauty of his abandonment, I realized that the words of Christ ring true today…
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” 1 Corinthians 1:18-19, 26-29
I’ve included the lyrics to the song we sang below, perhaps later I can post on the beauty of the song itself, but for now, enjoy the lyrics and the link to see Chris Tomlin playing this song, so that you might hear, you might taste, you might see the glory of God, and that you might join me in ridding ourselves of the fleshly chains that bind our spirits, and dance with abandon in light of who God is.
Sing, Sing, Sing by Chris Tomlin
We will sing, sing, sing
And make music with the heavens
We will sing, sing, sing
Grateful that You hear us
When we shout your praise
Lift high the name of Jesus
What’s not to love about You?
Heaven and earth adore You
Kings and kingdoms bow down
Son of God, You are the One
You are the One we’re living for
You are the love that frees us
You are the light that leads us
Like a fire burning
Son of God, You are the One
You are the one we’re living for
We will sing, sing, sing
And make music with the heavens
We will sing, sing, sing
Grateful that You hear us
When we shout your praise
Lift high the name of Jesus
“All of sudden, an administration that can’t find a spare nickel for children’s health, repair of decrepit infrastructure, education aid, green energy, and other useful outlays is proposing to increase the deficit by more than four percentage points of GDP, because Wall Street made some bad bets.” -
Read more from Kuttner here.
“In a single motion the river comes and goes. At times, living beside it, we hardly notice it as it noses calmly along within its bounds like the family pig. But a day comes when it swiftens, darkens, rises, flows over its banks, spreading its mirrors out upon the flat fields of the valley floor, and then it is like God’s love or sorrow, including at last all that had been left out.” -Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 1998, V
In my county alone, 13.6% of the population are living at the poverty level ($21,200 or less for a family of 4).
There are 488 homeless people, including children in our county.
There are 48,000 uninsured people.
The unemployement rate is sitting at 6.9% (and that was July’s rate).
The numbers are staggering. I sat and listened tonight as a wonderful lady shared her heart for helping those in crisis. She spoke of grace, of love, of mercy, of helping one another out when times are tough. Her presentation stirred anew in me thanksgiving for all that I have been blessed with. I was reminded of my dreams of community living, of opening a hospitality house, of opening my home to those less fortunate than I, of helping people, extending arms of grace and mercy outward into the darkness that chokes and robs people of joy and of life. I was energized and ready to put feet to those visions, and still, sitting in the quiet of my living room, wrestle with how to actually begin the journey. These dreams take time to flesh out, and I must remind my hurried, impulsive heart to sit in the silence and pray for guidance. To seek God in the crushed silence.
As I sit to type and mentally roll around the events of the past few days, trying to see how God is at work, I’m stuck, as I seem to have hit an awkward bump in the road. The bump we call honesty. As Christians, we espouse true honesty, yet few of us live lives of honest interaction with our brothers and sisters. Someone hurts our feelings? We bury our pain, and allow it to simmer and rot until it begins to decay and errode away our friendships. We feel compelled to share truth with someone, yet out of fear, we hide the truth. Tucked away in our heart and mind out of the light of God’s grace, it begins to wither and fade, until at last, choked of all power, it dies. And we wonder why people scratch their heads and throw around words such as “hipocrite” when they encounter todays Christians.
Honesty and truth are both very beautiful things, but they do not come easy, and they don’t come without a price. There are times when our honesty can hurt, and we must take care to lovingly and gently share truth with one another. There are times when what we have come to understand as truth is proven false through sharing our feelings with one another. Without such sharing, our truth is only subject to our own interpretation. Such a safe place to keep our feelings, not having to change or consider another point of view.
I share this because I have been blessed to have a friend who not only shares truth with me, but expects truth of me. It isn’t always easy to tell her how I truely feel, but I find that the times I do, despite the awkward days that may follow, our friendship somehow emerges stronger. If what is said is done so in love and with gentleness, and we understand that we are a fallen people, subject to being wrong, we will begin to see our lives become transformed by love and by truth. This is true of my friend. In the past 6 months, she has helped me learn to trust friendship again, and has encouraged me to be transparent. Granted, neither of us are perfect, nor do either of us have it all figured out, but we are striving together to allow Christ to transform our friendship. I love this friend dearly, and though there are times where I’m very wrong, or way off base, or I say something that may hurt her feelings, I trust that there is enough love there to pull us through… because our friendship is centered on the love of our redeemer. It is not in my power to always do the right thing or say the right thing, but it is in my power to allow God to forgive, to redeem, and to bless each and every friendship I enter into.
Last night, we discussed at length the subject of trembling. The focus was on Isaiah and his vision of God. We shared with one another experiences in our lives which caused trembling. There was Lorraine, who was held at gunpoint in the driveway of her house and lost her car to those men. There was Jane, who trembled in the presence of her dying mother as the room filled with an unseen peace. There was Cathy, whose dreams were so vivid and real they shook her awake. There was Jerry, whose leisurly hunting experience turned into a nightmare (and yet in the telling, got us all laughing).
I sat and listened to these stories and was reminded of the moments in my own life filled with trembling. I remember the first time I held Shepherd (and again when I held Colette), the trembling of my soul as it was overcome with joy. Or the time I stood in the middle of a dusty African village as dusk fell and cast my eyes up into the most breathtaking night sky. I close my eyes, and try to recapture the trembling I felt as I stood there, soaking in the grandious heavens, my heart skipping a beat as the tears streamed down my dusty cheek without reason or explanation. Yes there were other moments when fear overcame me and I trembled with all of my might, but the trembling I experienced on that African savannah and the trembling I felt when I held my first born son came from a much deeper place within me, a place long forgotten and long ignored.
We shared these stories, and reflected on what keeps us from experiencing them more often. The conclusion was made that so often, we insulate ourselves from the life of the spirit through our hurried pace and our ever present need for something to do. So rarely do we sit to be still and to allow the awe of creation, the awe of the spirit to pierce our souls and awake from its slumber our cold and hardened hearts.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes – The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Today, the same Christ is in people who are unwanted, unemployed, uncared for, hungry, naked, and homeless. They seem useless to the state and to society; nobody has time for them. It is you and I as Christians, worthy of the love of Christ if our love is true, who must find them, and help them; they are there for the finding.
- Mother Teresa
