Breathing In and Out in the Kingdom of God

Jesus told his followers that he was doing the work of his Father. He came into the world with something to do. He was on a mission. Jesus had his identity. He had his relationship with the Father and the Spirit. Jesus was completely stocked with all the desired inner life elements. The inward disciplines of retreat and prayer were a part of maintaining his life.  All of the innerness prepared him for his outward life -- the life of giving, listening, serving, healing, teaching, hurting, crying, suffering, dying. His inner life undergirded his outer life -- his work.

While one could argue that a life of inner devotion might be a work offered to God, that is not a complete offering by any means. We are meant to get on with doing the work of the Kingdom of God. The inner life and outer life are two sides of our Christian respiration. We have heard it forever. We cannot just breath in and in and in. We cannot always exhale. The rhythm of life and the rhythm of Christian life are the same: breath in and breath out.

What I have learned about all this from myself is that my fleshly self doesn't want to breath in or out in the Kingdom of God. My flesh does not want the holy desire of my spirit or the presence of the Holy Spirit. Like an obstructing airway, my dark heart does not want early mornings with the Lord or late night devotion. My flesh wants to reserve my inner world for fears and imaginings unspeakable. My flesh does not want me to take time and energy for acts of faith. My flesh makes out my Daytimer without room for caring for others. My flesh is always trying to book me for stardom and attention. My flesh cares nothing for crosses — not that of Christ, not one for me. My flesh has one hand around my throat crushing my airway; the other hand tries to trip me every step I take toward loving action.

So today I have to commit out of my heart and mind to want what my flesh cannot stand. I have to commit to want the life God can give in Christ. Against the backdrop of the disaster my flesh desires for me, I can see a different life. I can see life in the presence of God's sweet Holy Spirit. I can see the Cross of Christ as the expression of God's love for the world and for me in that world. I can open myself to holy CPR as God breathes his Spirit into me. I can open myself as the example of the ministry of Jesus calls my Spirit-given gifts into meaningful action. I can see that life. 

I pray that my spirit's hopes will overcome the desire of the flesh. When I died to the flesh in Christ and was raised with the Holy Spirit, this impossible life became possible. Today I must urge my spirit to continue to want in me what the Holy Spirit wants in me: breathing in and out in the Kingdom of God. We can do this. By God's grace,we can do this.

God help us all.

Palm Sunday Coming

This Sunday is Palm Sunday. 

I didn't grow up knowing about Palm Sunday. We didn't think holy thoughts about holy days. We were every-Sunday-is-holy folks with a conceit that such a regular focus made us better than the folks who were spiritual on an annual calendar. But now. I guess because I am aging, Sundays come twice a week, and the annual holidays seem to be pretty frequent. So, I am thinking about Palm Sunday. 

Jesus was kind and sweet to the people of simple hopes and nascent faith. They had little, if any, idea what Jesus was going to be about, but they showed up and showered the road with greenery and Jesus with praise. What did Jesus think of all that noise? He could have been cynical, knowing how the week was going to unfold into betrayal, inquisition, torture and crucifixion. He might have been happy knowing that the joys of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem would pale in comparison to the following Sunday's triumphant re-entry to life from the tomb.

I think it is wonderful that Jesus was willing to play the part of the earthly king coming to accept his kingdom. I think it is wonderful that he is as willing now to walk into my own conflicted heart as he was then to enter Jerusalem's contradictory scene of faith and doubt, anger and joy. I want to stand on tip-toe in my own life and watch him enter my life to accept shame for me, die for me and live for me. May each of my days, and I pray yours to, be a Palm Sunday day.

I am thrilled that Jesus enters our gathered worship, invited and praised, willing to be honored by the imperfect, but eager voices of his people. May he always enter. May every Sunday be a Palm Sunday for us in our churches.

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

It is not good for man to be alone...

Since I had the time and focus to blog last, I preached a three sermon series on men and women in the public worship assembly. I tried to show from the text that the core teaching was that from the beginning the image of God was projected best into the world when men and women together were fulfilling the responsibility to fill and manage the earth. In the same way, the image of God is presented well as men and women do the work of the Kingdom of God in the world together. 

The overture of the ministry of the church plays at Pentecost and the lyric is from Joel. The word of the Lord comes heralding the day when the sons and daughters of God will prophesy as the Holy Spirit rains down. That day has come in Acts 2. How the church that began under such words would become one in which the women would be excluded from having a voice in the family meetings around the family table is mystifying. The Corinthians were told that the men and the women could pray and prophesy as long as the men looked like men and the women looked like women. To be sure the disruptive wives were to be silent and ask their poor husbands at home. And it is not without cause that Paul tells Timothy to urge a quieter and more serene demeanor from the overbearing women teaching in Ephesus. 

Still I hear with louder, clearer tones the words of Paul to the Galatians, who are plummeting back into legalism, that now because of Christ the Jew-Gentile distinction is done; the slave-free distinction is done; the male-female distinction is done. I am thankful that God has worked to restore the wonder of his image in the life of the church as men and women work together without power and authority other than the power of love and the authority of the giftedness distributed by the Holy Spirit. This is not a matter of caving in to the demands of contemporary culture; it is the matter of restoring an ancient, honorable culture of man and woman together before the fall in the fellowship of the Father in the quiet of a garden.

Male and Female, He Created Them

So here I am minding my own business in Austin, Texas, when it becomes apparent that I need to preach a series of sermons about women in the Body of Christ and their public roles in worship. The congregation here has a long-standing commitment to expand the participation of women in the public worship. The problem is that the good teaching that was done here was done in 2005. The teacher is gone. The preacher at that time is gone. A different eldership is in place. So I need to put my own teaching out there for the church to consider. This eldership continues the commitment to change, but I need to outline the biblical teaching that under girds the direction we are heading.

Some folks believe that everything is settled on this matter just by checking a few proof-text verses and going on. I believe that before any verses are examined very closely it is good to know what the overarching teaching or theology is in which any verses about women in this case might be read. All the individual, exclusionary teachings must be set against the backdrop of what God has been doing from the time his image was expressed in the complementary unity of man and woman, against the backdrop of the thundering, Pentecost fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel and against Paul's teaching about the walls of separation that fall when the Jew, the Greek, the slave, the free, and the male and female come to Christ and are joined to him in baptism.

The issue of women's roles in the church is not just a women's issue. The truth is that men cannot know their roles until the roles of the women in the church are right and proper. No distorted role exists alone. The life of the oppressed slave isn't as it should be; neither is the life of the oppressing master as it should be. The abused child lives in a cruel, false world. The abusing parent has a world just as much a lie. The life of the suppressed Christian woman isn't as it should be; neither is the life of the suppressing Christian man as it should be. I want the women's roles to be as they should be in our church, so I will know who I am in Christ and His Body.

God bless us all.

Moon at Perigee

Last night the moon was 14% larger and 30% brighter than the normal full moon. Over the last two nights, the moon has been stunning. It is at perigee in its orbit. The moon's elliptical orbit has a point at which the moon is most distant from the earth: its apogee. It also has its perigee: the point in the orbit closest to the earth. At this perigee point, we get a bigger, brighter moon. 

When I looked at that moon last night, I thought, "I want to shine like that! In this dark world, I want to shine like that!" So do I really? Like the moon, do I want to orbit closer and closer to the source of my light? What would that mean for me? For any of us?

You see, I think I get accustomed to God being at a certain distance. God can have so much influence in my life and no more. I am willing to have a certain love and life that looks like it has come under his influence. But I have been tempted to set a boundary to just how close I will get. I have guarded the radius of my God orbit.

My prayer in the moonlight was for God to draw me closer. I wanted the distance between the Light and the satellite to close down, so the light reflected from me would be more and more. I could hear the lyrics to the old song: "draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord." Then to the world around and, even to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I could be 14% closer and 30% brighter in the fellowship of Christ and the glory of His Spirit.

What if we all decided to get closer to the Light? What if we and our church were suddenly unhooked from our orbits and began plunging into the very heart of God? Oh how we would shine!

God help us all.

NEW YEAR 2009

The beginning of a new year around a church holds natural hazards. One can easily get trapped into "snappy sayings for the new year" mode in which things like "church is mighty fine in 2009" come too quickly to mind. Bold, new, world-changing initiatives tempt always: we promise that this year we are going to eliminate poverty and homelessness within 25 miles of our building, or we begin here and now a year without an ambiguous statement from the pulpit. At the beginning of the year, I can fall into the traps of empty exuberance. 

On the other hand, and you knew there would be an "on the other hand," another kind of trap looms at the beginning of the year: the trap of informed, smug cynicism.  The bitter cynic looks at the new year as an illusion of hope against the backdrop of the meaninglessness of the universe. The cynic says nothing is going to help. Nothing new is better than any of the things that have failed before. All the optimistic plans and words are just the brass band at the front of the parade. At the end of the day all that will be left will be trash in the gutters and horse manure in the street. Rosy, huh? Don't want to be that guy either.

So here at the beginning of the year what is the right thing to do. For most of us the right thing to do is take the opportunity to begin again. Go ahead, against all the cynical wisdom of experience. I think it is better to risk failure than to fail to try at all. Living a life of limiting losses by refusing to hope can hardly be the Christian approach to life. 

God is all about new beginnings. "This is the day the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it" sounds like we get to begin anew every day. The phases of the moon preach monthly renewal. The coming of Spring heralds seasonal hope. "Happy New Year!" is an annual breath of fresh air. But our renewal is based on more than celestial mechanics. Our renewal is based on our faith in the One Who Makes Things New — not on our ability to forget our past failures and try again with the same old self. 

Our new days are possible because we ourselves can be different. We ourselves are not who we were in 2008. Already in 2009, the Father, Son and Spirit have transformed us in some way. We may be pessimistic about our ability to have a better year this year looking at our own limited capacities. But we can be optimistic about the future knowing God is making us fit for it. Between shallow optimism and bitter cynicism stands new life in Jesus. Let's take his hand and walk into a happy new year.

Moving Experience

The hiatus in the blog has been the result of our moving from our nice apartment at the Triangle in Austin to our new house at 2129 Emma Long. 

Moving is sobering in many ways. You anticipate the move. You can hardly imagine actually leaving where you are and going to the new place. At the beginning, the move is far in the future—almost over the horizon. Then day by day, moment by moment, you creep toward the date. Suddenly it is the time. It is time to pack the apartment where you are living and sign papers and promises for an hour to buy the new digs. Then the movers show up and in three hours or so you don't live "there" anymore. You live "here." You had normal. Now you have new normal. 

So is that the way it will be at the end of this life? Will we have anticipated a move to a new home sometime, someday and then be surprised when moving day comes? I bet so. We will be surprised to leave our temporary apartment body and place and move into our new body and place. May we all find our lives firmly resting in Jesus so when moving day comes we move to his house.

God help us all.