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.

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.