Thanks Giving

The turkey, dressing and all guarantee that this could be a five pound holiday. It is worth it to be at the table with family and friends telling stories and passing rolls. In this setting of abundance, I am asked to reflect on my gifts and give thanks. 

This is an interesting year at Thanksgiving. People are losing jobs; businesses are losing customers; consumers are losing confidence; portfolios are losing value. The GNP is in ICU; interest rates are hardly interesting at all. As they used to sing on HeeHaw: "If it weren't for bad news, there'd be no news at all." And on these cheery notes, have a great Thankgiving.

But that is not really the point, is it? The point is not to be thankful only in abundance or only for abundance. Christians are called upon to be thankful in all situations. Read again Philippians 4:4-7:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The heart of the Christian can appreciate blessings when those folks who are filled with darkness would not see them. The eyes of a disciple are much more discerning. Christians in war-torn Sudan offer thanks. Christians in brutally mismanaged Zimbabwe offer thanks. Christians meeting in secret in China offer thanks. Christians on Wall Street offer thanks. Giving thanks is the product of focused, disciplined attentiveness to the work of God in the world. So let us give thanks — not just because of what we have, but because of the One who has us and is at work in everything around us.

God help us all.

Be Careful What You Pray For

You have heard, "Be careful what you pray for." Usually the seemingly wise person who says these words is trying to warn of the creative and difficult ways in which God seems to answer prayers. A prayer for wisdom may lead into a time of severe circumstances that try and teach, adding the wisdom of experience. A prayer for patience may lead to a lingering difficulty or chronic annoyance, teaching that patience is necessary in unchanging difficult relationships and situations. The warning to be careful sounds wise at the outset, but "Be careful what you pray for" makes it seem like remaining foolish and impatient is a better alternative to the path of challenging, God-ordained transformation.

A great friend from Abilene wrote to me yesterday asking about those who pursue gifts from God and exercise ministries of prayer and intercession beyond what would be plain vanilla in the Church of Christ. It seems that some of these folks are finding their prayers answered in the lives of those for whom they have interceded. They are praising God for his grace and mercy. My friend wanted to know what I thought. My first thought was, "Be careful what you pray for." 

My second and better thought called both him and me to a bolder obedience to Luke 11:13: "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" We are going to ask. While we might like to know where a more fervent invitation for the Holy Spirit's presence and power might lead us, the prayer of faith does not demand a disclosure statement from on high. 

To be sure, the calling of God and the empowering of the Holy Spirit almost always lead those called and empowered to greater service and greater suffering. Such knowledge should not generate caution. Instead my friend and I have made a covenant with each other to ask God to bless us with the Spirit more and more and not to worry about where that might lead. I would invite any and all to join us in this simple response to the teaching of Jesus in Luke 11 … and as we respond, we will not be careful what we pray for.

God bless us all.

Do Not Fear—Believe

The words of Jesus to Jairus when they heard that the little girl had died are good words: "Do not fear. Believe." Here in the heart of Austin as we try to become the heart of Austin, we need to hear these words. God has great things in store for us to do in his name. University Avenue church wants to be a tool in the hand of God. God is willing to work with us and through us. We have to be willing to step with God into our own future.

The Israelites came out of slavery in Egypt and found themselves soon at the brink of the Red Sea with Pharaoh's army closing in hard behind them. The choices seemed to be wade and drown or fight and die. What do you do when the obvious choices are all dire and dreadful? Screaming and sulking, pouting and protesting are always high on the list of options. God invites us to another response: Do not fear. Believe. 

God invited the Israelites to step out into the dry land opened through the sea. Jesus invited Jairus to walk into the room of death. The Israelites marched out onto the other side of the sea and watched their oppressors be overwhelmed in the waves. Jairus walked out of that bedroom with his sweet daughter alive in his arms. Believe. Believe. What is obvious is not inevitable. What is impossible may just be the future we will know. 

Do you have the notion that you are caught between a rock and a hard place? As a church do we feel that we are caught between a difficult past and an uncertain future? Do not be afraid. Do not fear. Believe. Only believe and see the work of the Lord among us. 

God bless us all.

The Sweet Smell of Freedom

Jesus surprised and disappointed the leaders of Jewish orthodoxy. Their hopes for a Messiah probably involved finding a stunningly capable rabbi who would think their thoughts, only deeper,  and do their deeds, only more so. Their picture of the ideal Messiah no doubt would have looked a lot like the person they knew in the mirror. They would have liked him to surprise them with new, creative interpretations of the rigorous treatments already given to the Torah. If only he could be tougher, harder, narrower and more exclusive, he would be the perfect Messiah. 

What a disappointment Jesus was as he ate with the sinners, picked grain on the Sabbath and healed the crippled on the day of rest. He could not be the One. How could their orthodoxy be maintained by a heterodox Messiah! No wonder Mark says the Pharisees went away and conspired to kill Jesus with the Herodians,  their political enemies. The enemy of their enemy was their friend. The freedom lived out in Jesus was their enemy. The smell of such freedom sent the Pharisees hurrying back into the stench of their legalistic, judgmental lives.

I am afraid that I know the lure of a world that would never require a moral, ethic decision. If I could just have rules about every possible situation, I would never have to seek God's wisdom, wait on the Spirit or act out of simple understanding of the nature and direction of the heart of God. I would just have to know the rule that had already been established about the matter in question. Living would be a matter of keeping the rules. It sounds simpler than the world Jesus opens to me and to you. It might seem simpler, but the life God wants cannot be produced in it.

Jesus gives us principles to follow. The New Testament gospels and letters give us guidance in moral, ethical life individually and socially. But Jesus and the Scripture that followed him do not propose a world without the need for moral, ethical decision-making. We are called to a living relationship with Christ and to the life that flows from that. We are called to life as temples of the Holy Spirit and the choices that such a relationship demands. We are called to lives lived to the praise and glory of the Father. We are called make holy choices in the dynamic environment of real life.

I think it is harder to live watching the Ruler than it is to live making up and keeping the rules. As we try to be the Body of Christ in the heart of Austin, let us be a church ready to walk the path of a challenging freedom in Christ. May those who walk among us catch a whiff of the sweet smell of freedom.

God bless us all.