Alpha-Omega

Prayer on Prayer

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Our Ever-Present Refuge & Hiding Place,
we come to you again, today, to worship You
and to seek refuge and to hide from the troubles and worries of life.

O Great God, as we pray this morning,
we are mindful of our need to pray
in order to grow in our relationship with You.
Yet, we have difficulty with our prayer life.
How should we pray?
Is there a book that will tell us how to pray?
How will we know we are saying the right words to You?
How will we know that You, O God, are happy with our prayers?

O Lord, calm us in our anxieties.
Remind us that prayer is a dialogue with you.
Remind us that our prayers are just communicating with You
as we would a beloved friend or a loving parent.
Help us to be so close to you that we are not afraid to say anything to You
just as we are not afraid to say anything to our closest friends –
even if we are mad, sad, confused, or excited – just as the writers of the Psalms often did.

Yet, O Ground of our Being, calm us and slow us down more to remind us that
prayer is dialogue between two parties.
Help us to listen to You, as well.
Remind us that our communication is a two way street.
Lord, You are ALWAYS with us, no matter what.
Help us to see, then, that You are always trying to speak to us.
May we hear You in people that we speak with.
May we hear You in the people that we help.
May we hear You as we read our Bibles and other writings as well.
May we hear You in the music we listen to and the music we sing.
May we hear You in the beauty of nature.
May we hear You in the routine of life.
Help us, O Lord, to take the time to listen.
Help us, O God, to listen with great expectancy
for what You have to say to us.
Amen.

The Powers That Be – A Life-Changing Book

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“That is, by far, the funniest movie we have ever seen,” my parents kept repeating.  They were not alone as other friends and family members had profusely offered a similar judgment.  I had yet to see it and wouldn’t see it for a few years.  I missed the window of when the movie was in the theaters, and this was still the time when it took quite awhile for movies to make it to video.  I was also cheap, so I seldom rented new release movies.  I preferred waiting until I could rent it for only $0.99.

Eventually, I got around to renting (at $0.99) and watching Robin Williams’ Mrs. Doubtfire.  To be honest, I was underwhelmed.  It’s not that I didn’t think it was funny – it was.  The problem was that with all the praise I heard, I was expecting even more than I got.  My expectations were too high, so it turned out to just be “okay.”

In saying that Walter Wink’s book, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium, was a life-changing book, I fear raising your expectations too high.  Many things lead to this:

  • I don’t know how life-changing this book would have been for me had I not already had a year and a half of seminary under my belt.  Would I have been ready for or understood many of the concepts in the book?  I remember when serving First United Methodist in Wichita Falls, Texas that I recommended it to one Sunday School Class who was ready for it and loved it.  Another class who studied it shortly thereafter was not ready, did not understand it, and hated it (except for one or two individuals).
  • Had I not read this, I may have had similar life-changing experiences with other books.  At the same time, would I have been prepared for those other books without the new understandings I gleaned from this book?

Whatever the case, I do know this was a life-changing book for me at the right time, and it continues to be.  It molded the way I looked at the remainder of my time in seminary as it has my outlook on life in general.

The book was required reading for my Supervised Ministry Class at Brite Divinity School conducted by Dr. Steve Sprinkle.  The purpose of the class was to help me critique (and be critiqued) in my service of ministry within a local congregation (for me it was First United Methodist of Lewisville, Texas).  To help in this process, we had reflection papers along the way.  One of these papers was entitled “Appropriate Pastoral Authority and the Minister of Integrity.”  The required texts to influence this paper was The Powers That Be and Michael & Deborah Bradshaw Jinkins’ Power and Change in Parish Ministry: Reflections on the Cure of Souls.  I had a hard time writing the paper as I kept wanting to contemplate other aspect of Wink’s book that didn’t relate directly to the paper.

I remember the three things that most impacted me back then:

  • The idea that there are different ways of viewing the world, and the dominate way of viewing the world has changed through the centuries.  Wink gave a brief definition of several of these worldviews (ancient, spiritualist, materialist, theological, and integral) highlighting positive and negative attributes of each and offered an invitation to begin to view the world through the integral worldview.
  • He pointed out something many of us have experienced in life: even organizations have a “spirit.”  Haven’t you entered a church and right away could feel a positive or negative vibe?  Or have you taken a job somewhere expecting it to be a certain way, but as you got to know the organization you sensed a positive or negative attitude that was deeper than a surface level critique of the place?  Or have you worked or participated somewhere where the leadership changed and with it so did the demeanor of the organization (in a good or bad way)?  Although I had experienced things such as these, I’d never taken time to consider that sometimes the spirit of an organization needs redemption, too.
  • For the first time, I experienced the teachings of Jesus as being more than simply personal – for personal salvation only.  There was a social aspect that I’d never been exposed to (or chose to listen to).  So many of Jesus’ teachings were about dealing with and changing society, and Wink made this very clear for me for the first time.

I think these three stood out the most to me on my first reading as they most closely related to the paper I had to write.  Since that first reading, though, Jesus’ promotion of non-violent resistance has been what has been most eye-opening for me.  This is clearly in Jesus’ teachings when we are able strip away the way we have often been taught some of Jesus’ teachings, and this book helped me to do that.

So far, I’ve read this book cover-to-cover at least three times, and I’ve gone back to study and / or reference parts of it for deeper understanding.  Each time, I’ve come away with a new insight or way of understanding the world and our Christian response to it.

For me, the one weak point of the book is Chapter 10, “Prayer and the Powers.”  In many ways I feel that he retreats from the integral worldview back into the ancient worldview in his understanding of prayer.  That being said, the thoughts he laid down about prayer made me reconsider my own thoughts on prayer, and there is still good insights to take way.

For those wanting a good book to study, this one can create some good conversation.  Vern Rossman has created a study guide to go along with the book, and it can be found at http://www.bridges-across.org/ba/vr_confront.htm.  Honestly, I haven’t found that to be very helpful for me, but that probably has more to say about my teaching style than his guide.  In the fall of 2011, I led two groups from First United Methodist in Wichita Falls through this book.  To accompany, I used video clips from some Living the Questions produced series:  Victory and Peace or Justice and Peace, featuring John Dominic Crossan; Tex Mix: Stories of Earthy Mysticism, featuring story of and told by Tex Sample; and the segment on “Prayer” from Living the Questions – the original study.

If you haven’t read the book, obviously, I’d highly recommend it.  If you have, please, leave a note below about your thoughts of the book.

It’s Not Just Forgiveness

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WHAT WAS THE STATE OF TEXAS THINKING?

They gave me, at the tender age of 15, a learner’s permit.  I filled out a form, and there it was.  So long as a licensed driver over the age of 18 rode in the car with me, I could drive anywhere, anytime.

Essentially they were saying, “You haven’t proven yourself in any way; yet, we are giving you this freedom and responsibility of getting behind the wheel of a potentially dangerous piece of machinery.  Good luck.  Practice hard.  Take Driver’s Ed this year, and come back in a year for a simple driving test.”

Didn’t they know that I felt a need – a need for speed?  Didn’t they know I had a full-time 4×4 pickup with a 350 V-8 under the hood?  Didn’t they know that I would actually drive occasionally without that licensed driver?  (At least I never drove myself by myself to my Driver’s Ed class like my friend Matt did).

What they did in that instance was to empower me – to give me grace – to handle the big responsibility of looking out for myself and others on the highways and byways.

I believe God empowers me – gives me grace – to handle the big responsibility of looking out for myself and others on the highways and byways of life.

Yet, it seems that the majority of the time that I hear the word “grace” used in church or in pop and Christian culture it simply means forgiveness – no more, no less.  Some will say something along the lines of, “Even before you sin, God has forgiven you.”  You might hear someone follow up with something like, “Since you’ve been forgiven, you have a responsibility. . . .”  Seldom, though, do I hear, “You’ve been given grace, and that is a big responsibility.”

GIFTS

Let’s be honest.  The guy had skills.  He was able to unify a large number of people behind common goals.  To people who were hurting economically and emotionally, he gave hope.  A group of people, who seemed destined for destruction, rallied together behind this charismatic leader to make things better for a majority of the people.

I could be talking about Jesus.  I could be talking about the Apostle Paul.  Sadly, I’m talking about Hitler – yes, Adolph Hitler.

He had gifts for administration, leadership, and exhortation.  In a sick way, he was an evangelist who shared what seemed to many to be good news, and he equipped the Germans for the building up of Germany.

He was given great responsibility with great gifts that he squandered for selfish gain.  Just think what he could have done had he used these gifts for God’s kingdom instead of his own.

GIFTS & GRACE

In the New Testament, the Greek word that is translated “grace” is the word CHARIS (or a form of that word).  One of the Greek words often translated as “spiritual gifts” is the word CHARISMATA – notice that the root word is CHARIS – grace!  The abilities God gives us to DO, to LIVE OUT our faith, is grace.  I’ve seen the term CHARISMATA also translated “grace-effects.”  God’s grace causes the effect of doing.  As we have seen, we can use these abilities to do (using these elements of grace) for good or evil.  We have a choice to make and a responsibility to accept in receiving this grace.

JESUS’ TEACHING & HIS PARABLES

I believe that the point of most of Jesus’ teachings was to empower his listeners.  Not everyone that he reached out to and taught were the worst sinners in the world who simply needed forgiveness.  Many, by no fault of their own, had been labeled outcasts.  Lepers and others with illnesses or physical maladies certainly fall into this category.  Plus, a prevalent theology then was, “If you are not doing well financially, you must be doing something wrong.  Otherwise, God would be blessing you with wealth.”  Thus, people who had lost their land would fall into this category.

Have you ever thought about what happens in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)?

  • Matthew 5:  The beatitudes make hearers reevaluate labels as do his teaching on salt and light.  He next reinterprets aspects of the law to help his hearers live out a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.
  • Matthew 6:  Then we hear how to give alms, pray (which apparently includes forgiveness), and fast.  It’s important to see that giving alms and fasting helps people to not store up treasures as does praying only for a days worth of bread at a time.  These help one to serve God and not wealth, and through living these out, one will not worry but will be striving for God’s kingdom and will to come upon the earth
  • Matthew 7:  Don’t judge until you’ve first removed the log in your own eye!  Don’t force your ideas on others until they are ready, but don’t let that stop YOU from asking, seeking, and knocking for more information!  Do to others what you’d have them do to you, but know that doing all of this is not necessarily easy.  Pay attention to the fruit produced by others, but don’t assume that just because they do great things that they are to be trusted or followed.

Then, in Matthew 7:24, we read, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock” (emphasis mine).

Essentially, Jesus says, “I’ve given you the gift, the grace, of knowledge, but you have to act on that.  You have to live it out.  I’m not doing it so you don’t have to.  I’ve told you how to do it; now I’m going to show you.”

I’ve also come to believe that Jesus told parables primarily to get his hearers to think.  So many of them had essentially been told that they didn’t have a voice, but Jesus was trying to help them find it.  I also think that it was used as a community-building tool.  Let me explain.

Let’s say Bob and Tom – two total strangers – are listening to Jesus teach.  He tells the parable of the Good Samaritan and then leaves.  Well, it just so happens that Bob and Tom have to walk home by the same route, and they begin talking about that parable.  Before you know it, a friendship has formed in which each helps the other strive for God’s kingdom and justice.  The friendship brings together two (or more if you include family) in the name of Jesus, thus, bringing the Spirit of Christ into their midst.

WHAT AM I GETTING AT?

I hope and pray that we can move away from the idea that grace is only about forgiveness.

What I hear in the midst of the Gospel is that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God who is love.  We are to be imitators of that God, loving as Jesus loved, being willing even to die for others.  As God has taken an initiative in reaching out to us, we need to do likewise in taking an initiative to live out the grace-filled responsibility given us by God.  We don’t have to prove ourselves before we do this, either.  We can just do it with God who is enabling us  both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure!

I believe God empowers us – gives us grace – to handle the big responsibility of looking out for ourselves and others on the highways and byways of life – and sometimes that does include accepting and giving forgiveness.

FOOTNOTES:

For more on the next-to-last paragraph, read:

  • Psalm 139
  • Genesis 1
  • 1 John 4
  • Ephesians 5
  • Philippians 2

You’ll find phrases from each of these passages in that one paragraph.

A New Kind of Christianity – Or Is It The Original?

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My wife grew up in a fundamentalist tradition.  It seemed normal or “the way things are” at the time.  Now years later, after following me to United Methodist Churches over the past ten years, she’s been able to more objectively reflect on that experience.

The first eye-opening experience she told me about after leaving that tradition followed the Easter sermon preached by Rev. John Mollet at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas in 2001.  She noted that up until that time, all the Easter sermons she ever heard before then were really Good Friday sermons.  They focused entirely on Jesus’ crucifixion, not the resurrection; they were about death, not life.

The second eye-opening experience occurred a few years ago following a discussion at our 2nd Thursday St. Simeon Study Group in Wichita Falls, Texas.  Despite all the rhetoric she heard growing up that the preachers were preaching “the Bible,” the “very words of God,” they actually kept preaching the same texts over and over with the same basic theology of “the Romans road” – the things supposedly required for one to be “saved” and go to heaven.  She made this revelation because our study group had been dealing with several Bible passages that she’d never heard before.  They spoke to things that had nothing to do with the so-called “Romans road.”

“They weren’t preaching the Bible.  They were preaching a particular theology, and they chose only the scriptural texts that supported that theology,” she exclaimed!

As I finished reading Brian D. McLaren’s book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith, I was reminded of these insights shared by Sandra of her evangelical experience.  McLaren is a self-professed evangelical, but he has turned off the Romans road onto the way of Jesus with the insights he shares in this book.

Once the pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church, which he founded, he is now Theologian in Residence of Life in the Trinity Ministries and continues to write and speak.  What I had not realized until reading this book is that he has no formal theological training.  He was a college English professor when he felt called to start Cedar Ridge!  Yet, I think this is, in many ways, something positive, for in this book, he approaches important issues facing the church today not simply as a trained theologian using religious talk but an English professor who can really write.  He describes things in ways that are more practical than theological in wording, making the theology all the more easy to grasp and understand.  To be honest, a few of his examples were a little cheesy, and a few he belabored, but they got the point across in such a way that should help any thinking Christian or religious questioner begin to question and hone their own thoughts and beliefs.

Although McLaren is less patently theological in this book, one thing I REALLY appreciate is the fact that he uses a lot of Scripture.  Many other popular progressive, liberal, emergent (insert your own description here) authors have great things to say, but they don’t show that their thoughts and theology can also be found in the Bible.  Thus, the more conservative and fundamentalist people can more easily discount them.  McLaren, though, uses the Scriptures much and well, leaving his detractors the choices of ignoring much of the Bible they claim to preach or opening them to new understandings and theologies in their own Bible.

For me, the two most important issues he tackles include:

  • The fact that ultimately, we have recast the Gospel and biblical message in a Greco-Roman philosophy, not keeping these in their Jewish roots; and
  • The fact that we have begun to read the Bible as a constitution, not as the library of 66 books that it actually is.

The way he unpacks these problems is eye-opening and potentially life changing.  He helps us put Christianity into it’s original context with its original intent and message – away from later theological additions.

Another important aspect of this book is that he ends with some actual things we can DO.  Many books in this emergent Christianity vein give us some great things to think about without give us something actionable – or they give ideas that are so vague one is left still wondering what to do.  McLaren’s recommendations are solid but also allow for the wiggle room of the different situations folks may find themselves in.  Plus, in his ideas, he is pastoral – looking out for the good of all – giving evidence of how he was able to build a thriving and diverse congregation.

For those who might be looking for a group study book, this would be excellent.  We were using it in study group in Wichita Falls, Texas before moving out here to Maryland.  Plus, there are discussion questions in the back that help get the talking started.

If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it!  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the book as well, so please leave comments below.

Something to Believe In – A Sermon

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This is my farewell sermon given at First United Methodist Church in Wichita Falls, Texas on February 26, 2012.  I felt it was very personal and really only something beneficial for that church.  Yet, I’ve had much positive feedback from people from other UM churches as well as people from other denominations.  Thus, I decided to share it here.

The primary Scripture passage for this sermon is John 14:12: “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

D-I-V-O-R-C-E and the C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N

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“Can I talk to you,” I asked, a bit sheepishly (I’ve always been a bit shy).

“Sure,” was the response.

I was considering a call to vocational ministry, and a few mentors had advised that I should ask to hear call stories of others that I knew who were in ministry or going into ministry to help me discern my own call. This was the intent behind my question.

“I know that you have recently decided to go into ministry and that you’ll be starting school soon. I’m wondering if I’m called to ministry, too, so I was hoping to hear your call to ministry to help me understand my own.”

“You can’t be a minister. You’re divorced. The Bible is clear that a minister should have but one wife. You couldn’t manage that relationship; how can you manage a church?”

A bit perturbed but trying to stay positive, I responded, “Okay, but I’d still like to hear your call.”

The glare along with immediately seeing his back moving further away from me as he walked off told me that was not something I’d be hearing.

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A friend of mine was a minister of another denomination. He had been married, but his wife decided that marriage to a minister was not something to be envied or lived. So, without seeking any counseling as a couple, she left.

That particular denomination would allow a minister to remain in ministry following divorce, but only so long as that one remained unmarried. So, when he found the love of his life, he was forced to make a decision: drop her, forget ministry, or change denominations.

I’m pleased to say he has joined the rest of us “heathens” in the United Methodist Church!

++++++++++++++++++++++++

As I think about “the Church’s” approach to divorce, the first thing that frustrates me is this. According to Jesus the only unforgivable sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit (see Mark 3:28-29), and yet, “the Church” has taken it upon itself to essentially insist that divorce is not forgivable. The Apostle Paul can persecute the church (maybe even kill Christians), and that can be forgiven. He can do ministry now, but not someone who has been divorced.

The typical reason given by “the Church” for this is found in 1 Timothy 3:

2 Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) (NIV, Italics Added)

That’s all well and good, but think about. Not even God has been able to manage us human beings. Despite all of God’s wooing, we keep turning away. Consider Isaiah 50:1:

This is what the LORD says: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away. (NIV)

Even the LORD has gotten so upset with God’s people that God divorced them! If even God cannot “manage us,” why is it that “the Church” thinks we can “manage” our spouses who are the same wayward people that not even God can manage!

Of course, the next response from “the Church” is a quote from Matthew 5:

31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. (NIV)

“Unless the spouse has committed adultery with another person, there are no grounds for divorce,” “the Church” says.

There is something important to consider in thinking about this passage (along with other similar passages), though. God, in speaking through the Hebrew prophets, often says that the Israelites’ lack of commitment is “adultery.” Just read the book of Hosea, and we read that God sees that the Hebrews, in breaking their covenant with God, have become adulterers or prostitutes. We see this even in Hosea 1:2:

When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.” (NIV)

In the full biblical context, then, adultery / prostitution is not simply having sex with another person. It is also departing from one who loves you. For sure, God is willing to take them (us) back, but God does not force us (manage us?) to come back. God is not any less God because people turn from God, and ministers are no less ministers because someone has turned from them.

Can we, please, get back to the message of Jesus and accept all who are called to ministry and willingly serve together to bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven!