Words from WW Blog

“Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. (John 13:5)

  At our chili cook-off last Sunday, a couple of our young people washed the bowls, dishes, and utensils afterward. Chili is not a “neat” meal to clean the dishes from. I applaud these two for getting into the midst of the smears, sauce, bowls still filled with half a scoop, and all those spoons. I don’t know if they volunteered or were assigned, but they did a great job.

    Mike Woodruff, in a recent “Friday Update” wrote that he had recently overheard this comment: “Everybody wants to save the world. Nobody wants to do the dishes.”

    In the heat of our political election, we often hear that a candidate will right the ship and be the answer to all our society’s ills. It has caused me to mute the TV when commercials come on during episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond”.

    On the other hand, there is a couple in our neighborhood (roughly sixty) who can be seen picking up trash along the curbs a couple of days a week. They carry trash bags and those useful utensils that let them grab an object without stooping down. No one has asked them to pick up the trash; they just do it. It’s the outdoors equivalent of washing chili bowls.

    A group wanted to put Jesus on the “New King Ballot.” Instead, he took a basin and a towel and washed a bunch of dirty feet. As a result, side jobs and simple services seldom get headlines. When you’re on your knees, not that many people can see how tall you are.

    Jesus washed feet, then was betrayed, and then crucified. Not the kind of ending that most of us would hope for. But, of course, it was part of the plan. Like washing chili bowls, it was part of the journey that led to the destination.

    May the Lord call more dishwashers than world savers.

 One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” (Matthew 22:36-40, The Message)

Some folk become so consumed by minor details that they miss the big picture. It doesn’t matter what arena of life it is playing in. Detail-oriented people may see the misshapen campfire but not the forest fire. That happens as we read scripture, also. We (I put myself in there) may focus on a detail that we know doesn’t bring judgment on our way of life, but miss the blowing headwinds of the words that mess up the hair of our daily existence. For instance, a hardcore Baptist might emphasize abstinence from alcohol while gossiping like a supermarket checkout display issue of the National Enquirer.

We have an unwritten, unspoken way of customizing our journey with Jesus that gives us the false illusion of intimacy with Christ, while at the same time liberally using the bottle of white-out to avoid discomfort with our personality warts. It’s our protective shield that keeps the reality at a safe distance from the illusion.

Honestly, the 21st-century church has not strayed that far from the first-century Corinthian congregation, filled with freshness and faulty relationships, gathering to celebrate the Agape meal and gorging themselves to the point that some were left with nothing. (For our time, that means the jello fruit salad that is the last thing on the church potluck table.)

As a good friend of mine summarized the mega-church he attended several years ago: “Praise Jesus with lifted hands in worship, and then drive like we’re demon-possessed getting out of the parking lot!” Just as there is often chatter about worship feeling like a performance, most of us have been guilty of giving a performance in our demeanor in worship and returning to our real selves afterward.

Jesus brought a sudden silence to his questioners when he talked about loving one another. They were used to selective love and choosy generosity. After Jesus talked about loving others, the next verse in Matthew 22 says, “As the Pharisees were regrouping…”(Matthew 22:41, The Message)

They were religious, but their relationships were problematic.

So, back to us, has the contentiousness of our culture become so normal that the faith community of followers has slipped into that shoe as well?

Last Sunday, I preached on Matthew 22:1-14, a parable that Jesus tells that is…ugly! At the end of the service, I said to the congregation, “After hearing that parable, I think we need to hug one another.” Several people approached me and embraced me. This Sunday I think I’m going to look for a few people who seem like they need to be hugged…loved on, as a saintly sister has said. It’s not fulfilling Jesus’ words, but it is a step in that direction.

 “Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.” (Philippians 2:1-2)

I like to be liked. There’s nothing wrong with that; sometimes my need to be liked outweighs my need to be firm and consistent in my faith walk. That’s a hard confession to lay right out there in print (The first three sentences, to be exact!), but it’s true. There’s a “Peter-side” to me that is standing by the fire, warming my hands, as the name of Jesus is being abused or, more commonly in church, misused.

In like manner, sometimes the pull in church to be liked dominates the struggle between itself and being like-minded. Like-mindedness is an earnest desire to find the mind of Christ: a thinking, acting, and loving point of view that guides the Body of Christ along a path that brings joy to the heart of God.

When Paul wrote to the Philippian church about being like-minded, it was a church, by the way, known for its positivity. I mean, if you want good vibes, read Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It is the other side of the spectrum from his first letter to the Corinthians. First Corinthians is full of examples of people “liking it” their way. The Philippians, on the other hand, had”symmetry.” Their symmetry wasn’t based on how many times they attended church each week, following the congregation’s unwritten dress code, or the orderliness of the worship gathering. From Paul’s words, the Philippians seemed to share a spirit of compassion and tenderness, encouraging one another.

Perhaps the Christian faith was still so new that other issues hadn’t emerged yet, such as what songs to sing or where to place the pulpit. Maybe the gospel was so new, but also so freeing, that it was able to be the central reason for their existence. Other issues hadn’t shown up yet in their fellowship. In a way, simplicity was the fertilizer that grew their like-mindedness.

Like-mindedness is a tricky objective in today’s church culture. There is a taffy-pull that happens more often than not between different factions. Pet projects become objects of worship. In connection to that, the need to be liked causes some to attach to an emphasis not out of commitment, but rather because of who is leading the charge. I recognize there is also the danger of being like-minded, but that like-mindedness having an absence of purpose. In other words, like-mindedness of nothing, like a bunch of folk all scrolling on their phones in a restaurant instead of talking about life as a community of faith.

A couple of years ago, I led a youth retreat where the group talked about what they are committed to as a group. We wrote down a list of seven essentials that would help the group become more like-minded. The students felt like they had accomplished something. They were energized. And then life happened, and what they had committed to got pushed to the side by the need to be liked. I don’t disparage them. Adults do it so much it’s “like” a routine. It is far easier to lose a like-mindedness that has depth and meaning than it is to embrace it.

Paul was ecstatic about a community of embrace that was not afraid of walking with Jesus…together. It’s more than the use of our advertising symbols…bumper stickers, T-shirts, and evangelistic meetings disguised as free concerts. Paul shook with emotion when he encountered a faith community seeking the mind of Christ, being patient in finding it, and then being guided by the Spirit to live it out.

I realize that sounds a bit cynical and pessimistic. I apologize for that, but as I said at the beginning, I’m dealing with my need to be liked. Sometimes I even write things that cause me to ask “Whose mind is working here???”

 “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” (Acts 2:1-2)

I’ve been slowly weeding out my personal library. It covers most of two walls in my study. Some of the books are hand-me-downs from Dr. Floyd Norton, a pastor who departed from the world to stroll the streets of paradise a good four decades ago. I can’t bring myself to give away Floyd’s books that were so lovingly gifted to me. Others, however, have been put on literary waivers and picked up by our local library.

I noticed a trend in several of my books. I purchased them at different times over the years and recognize that they seem to offer different “formulas” for doing church. Some of the books focused on the latest worship trends, others on innovative outreach ideas, and others on growing your church through small groups. Many of the books were based…Or, I should say, came out of a certain church’s success story. Growth had caused people to notice, and the book was an offshoot of the story.

Like a new offensive scheme in football…the shotgun, the spread, the wishbone, the Wildcat…I recognized, from looking at my library, that I had too often been sucked into the latest-and-greatest idea. It wasn’t that they were bad ideas. Most were very creative and ingenious. My gullibility had convinced me that the church I pastored could do the same thing, use the same idea, and produce the same mega-growth result.

Quite frankly, a couple of the ministries/programs of the churches I pastored were picked up by some other churches close by. And just as my attempts at copying success had mixed results, so did the ministries of our church have less-than-noticeable impacts in other locations.

There’s something about us that causes us to chase success. It’s like a narcotic that we have tried to spiritualize. Our belief in the breath of God that brings new life is treated as an acknowledgment at the end of the story, rather than as part of the story itself. The moving of the Spirit is hidden in the shadow of the book display.

Honestly, I’m more disappointed in my tendency not to trust in God’s providence and to be swayed by the “Success-in-Seven-Steps” manuals. In hindsight, I can see how my faith in the Almighty wavered back and forth like the flag attached to my front porch. I can’t speak for the other pastors, but I assume that, among the masses of us ministerial types who showed up at seminars and workshops, notebooks and pencils ready to copy down every word, I’m not the only spiritual success seeker.

Back to my library, although I shed a tear for each book I lay to rest (in the local library donate box), I’m whittling down the numbers to those books that cause me to ponder, wonder, and discover the grace, peace, hope, and joy of the Lord. I’m embracing the story of God and the journeys of His saints.

And I’m sort of symbolically reserving some space on a shelf for the things that God still desires to reveal to me.

“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations; I am exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)

It has been two months since my friend and coaching buddy, Joe Miller, collapsed and died in the midst of our high school gym. I keep seeing that scene, going through the seconds of performing CPR on him, sprinting to get the AED device, the call to the paramedics, the stunned faces of our players. It is a moment I seem to replay on a loop. I am glad I was there, and yet, I am haunted by the fact that I was there.

As I sit on my usual stool at Starbucks, I’m tearing up as I write this. Joe and I worked well together. He didn’t expect me to be all about winning. He expected me to develop the younger players in our high school program, chiseling away the roughness to find their potential and assuring them they could someday be varsity players. He had to contend with a couple of varsity players who thought they were all that. I just had to teach some players how to do left-handed layups. Joe was patient. His lighthearted, sarcastic humor came out as the two of us sat together on the bench or waited for practice to start. We had planned on being a coaching team together for a few more years.

And then he was gone.

The past two months have been an emotional roller coaster. I’ve been cranky, huggy, dull, excited, uninterested, easily perturbed, lonely, wanting to be alone, wanting to be with the grandkids, not wanting to be with the grandkids, wanting to fall asleep, not being able to sleep, laughing, crying, questioning, majorly disappointed, and, in some ways, rescued and restored. Honestly, it is only the second time in my adult life that I’ve considered seeing a counselor. It’s a journey dressed in grief and sorrow, a variation of what we call “the dark night of the soul.”

In our culture, there is a tendency to “hurry through it”, to get to the next thing, to get over it. With grief a person needs to live with it, walk with it, ponder it, and…be still.

I remember a dear elderly gentleman I was privileged to pastor, who had lost his wife of 68 years. It was a deep and echoing grief that numbed him from the rest of his life’s details. We talked about the pain, the all-encompassing sense of emptiness. We talked about the house that they had lived in for over fifty years. He wanted to sell it, but also didn’t want to. It was a time when he needed to be still, to not be moving.

We have times in our lives when we need to be in neutral, to let God control our comings and goings, pauses and ponderings. If we speed ahead, like the world expects us to, the danger of going off the road greatly increases. Being still is a hard place to be, and yet the necessary place to be.

So, I’m being still as I grieve the unexpected death of my friend. Being there when he fell to the floor and seeing him staring up at me are moments that I must live in. And I trust that God is close beside me as I ache with them.

“For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…” (Colossians 1:9)

It’s not that I think “I’m all that!”, but recently I had a situation in which I thought I knew what the will of God was. It seemed so clear to me. I even thought that He had put me in a position a couple of years earlier to be His instrument now.

But I was wrong! That’s not how things played out. I wrestle with the confusion and the questions that came flooding into a sleepless night. As a friend of mine told me, there is difficulty moving from the “why” to the “what”, the transition from “why not me” to “what would you have me do now, Lord?” It requires, so to speak, some rearranging of the furniture…moving the couch from what I thought was the best spot to somewhere over to the side.

When disappointment invades the perfect picture that has been painted in your mind, it causes a person to rethink the journey. It seems that the steps have brought the individual to this point and then, suddenly, there is a detour that veers away. It’s like thinking you’re going to Las Vegas and then realizing it’s Las Vegas, New Mexico. The glitz of the city that never sleeps is transformed into the town where you may need to get a fuel fill-up…and go on.

When the answer is “Not me”, it is the natural reaction to question why you thought what didn’t happen was God’s will? Was it my ego that reshaped the scene? Did I think I was hearing what God wanted me to be about, but really, it was what I wanted His will to be? Did I rush ahead and not hear His no?

Most of us have experienced disappointments that are similar in nature. We’ve had the indigestion in the midst of the waiting and the numbness after becoming aware of the unexpected decision. It becomes a point of growth. Our spiritual maturity is often fertilized by the pain of disappointment. We draw close to the Lord as we endure some pruning of our excesses, our unnecessaries, and the subtle hints of entitlement. Like peeling an onion, we shed a few layers of our outer skin in order to get back to what is at our core.

Thirty years in the rearview mirror, I remember a search committee from another church contacting me about their open pastorate. They showed up on a Sunday at the worship service of the congregation I was pastoring. It looked like a good situation. Carol and I drove down to their community and met on a Friday night with the Search Committee. After the interview, one of the committee members made the verbal statement, “Why do we need to look any further? Here is our next pastor right here.” We drove back home thinking that God was going to be moving us.

But the committee had one more person to interview, and they went with him. I remember the disappointment in that situation, but then our congregation had its own period of maturity that developed new life and new intentionality in the ministries with our community. The other church experienced some serious struggles that I would not have been ready to help lead them through. In the midst of the situation, I was dealing with my lack of worth and confusion. It was only after getting some distance from the disappointment that I could focus more on the “What now, Lord?”

I’ll still be wrestling with this situation for a while. There are other factors involved with it that accentuate the pain. But I know, maybe even more, that the One Who created me will guide me and care for me.