Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Kingdom is a Journey


Super Bowl Sunday is here! It is the highlight of the football season. Every team at the beginning of the season aimed to be at the Super Bowl. Only two make it. At the end of the Super Bowl game, the players will talk about being in the Super Bowl next year. It is the place to be.
Heaven is like that in the faith. It is the place to be. The Scriptures paint a picture of unbelievable sights—streets of gold, no tears, church going on ALL the time, not old songs but new songs! Some of you do not realize that when you are taught a new song in worship, you are being prepared for heaven! The best description that I have heard of heaven is being with God. Heaven is for some is the aim of life.
Some Christians are so heaven bound, they are of no earthly good. It is interesting to read the red letters of the Scripture. For some who may not know, the red letters are the words that Jesus said. Jesus points us towards pretty earthly visions of the kingdom of heaven. It is like a pearl that is so great that when a man finds it, he will sell all he has to obtain it. To know eternal life (heaven), Jesus tells the story about caring for your neighbor (The Good Samaritan). In the Gospel of Matthew, one knows heaven because one visited the jail, clothed the naked, and visited the sick. It seems that Jesus pointed us to heaven on earth through some earthly obligations and relationships. The entire book of James is written to move early Christians from sitting on the rocking chair singing "I've Got a Home in Gloryland" to the idea of bearing witness to the love of Jesus in everyday relationships.
Heaven is the place where we will one day spend eternity. However, until that day, the kingdom of heaven on earth is the place to be. It seems that we can "touch" or "catch" glimpses of heaven on earth when are compassionate and caring people. After all, in the Lord's Prayer we do pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done."
Maybe it is the journey to the Super Bowl that is of greatest value, not the game itself. Oh, winning a Super Bowl is of great value. But being able to say, I made it to the Super Bowl is quite a feat that few will make.
I love to play golf. One year, I decided to try to qualify for the Louisiana State Amateur Golf tournament. It is quite a long shot. Few people think of a preacher playing well enough to do that. Well, I qualified. It was a great feeling. I played in the State Amateur that year. I played poorly--not good enough to make the weekend. But I played. I did what many will not do.
The faith is about journeys, not destinations. The destination is confirmed and waiting because of Jesus. Jesus has freed us to worry about the journey! Journey well. You may touch heaven on earth.
Pray for me as I pray for you.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Listen for the Kingdom’s Invites!


I am not a patient man. But as I get older, I am getting better. What is the line—I am not as good as I should be, but I am a lot better than I was.
Wal Mart is not a good place for impatient people. There is such a big ego in my life sometimes that I think that everyone in the whole store should know that I am doing God's work so get out of my way. I think that miraculously everyone else should be at the same pace of the day that I am. If you slow me down, don't you know how long it takes an old man like me to gain momentum again?
There is a grandmother in front of me in line. How do I know she is a grandmother? Not by her age but by the behavior of the children with her. They are climbing all over everything. The three kids are touching everything. As my father would say, "those kids need some parenting!" However those rules do not apply to grandparents. I know. I am one. I guess it is because we do not have to carry them home with us all the time.
So the kids are everywhere. The grandmother and the cashier are moving at slow grandparent pace. Then they decide that it is time to talk about the illnesses of life. Do you know how many illnesses a grandmother knows in life? Grandma and the cashier are oblivious to my presence. I stand in line noticing that one of the people that I raced to get ahead of to get into this line has left the store five minutes before me.
It has taken me this long to finally hear what God would have me hear. The cashier begins to talk about her two year old daughter being sick. Her voice is filled with worry. She does not know what to do. Every person disappears in Wal Mart except this one cashier. So I begin to pray.
As I pray I remember the feeling of being a parent of a sick child. I remember the anxiety of having to leave and go to work. I remember the parents that I have prayed with as their children suffered. Sometimes parenting is really tough. Sometimes as a parent you feel so helpless. I ask God to touch this parent's heart with a peace. I ask God to pour God's healing grace upon the two year old child.
As I go to leave, I look directly into the eyes of this worrying mother and tell her that I have prayed for her. I tell her that I will continue to pray for her daughter's wellness. And then she smiles. Her "thank you" is not a routine pace or rhythm. She looks at me with a strange but gracious look.
Days have passed and I continue to remember this mother and her child in my prayers. I ask God to hear the cries of all the sick children in the world. I ask God to give the peace that passes ALL understanding to parents who will hold their ailing children. I ask God to give this peace to all parents who will have to leave their sick child to go to work.
One of the things in my journey that helps me is when I listen for God's opportunities as they come in life. I wonder how many I miss because of my own ego or agenda. I find myself carrying a checklist that I feel a compulsion to get done. And yes, some things must be done. However, there are times that God slows us down and invites into the world of suffering and anxiety.
The Good Samaritan surely had things to do. His schedule was probably as full or maybe even fuller than the Priest and the Levite. We like to think that Samaritans had nothing to do all day. However the Samaritan stopped. He accepted God's invitation to care for a man on the side of the road. God interrupted his life with a kingdom invitation. May we not be too busy or in too much of a hurry to stop and pray.
Pray for me as I pray for you.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Open The Doors!


There are twenty three doors in my house.
Only three open to the outside—four if the garage door is up. Eleven of them are to storage or closet space.
Doors are interesting in some respects. When a door will not close, it stays a door even though it has lost its primary function. Door that will not open are really a pain. Weather can do strange things to a door.
I always love the sign on hospital doors, the one that says, "This door must remain closed at all times." So how does one get out? But it is still a door.
On a mission adventure in Jamaica, our team installed doors. My expert carpenter when he learned that we were going to do this asked what else we were going to do. He envisioned this being done in a day or two. When I told him we would have to cut the doors to fit the opening, He packed a table saw in his suitcase thinking it would be easier. He did not realize that we would only have electricity for about an hour a day. Neither did he realize that all the doors would be 38 inch doors and the openings would range from 33 to 34 inches (never square or consistent). It took us a week but we got them hung.
In this world, there are people who open doors and others who slam them shut. There are times that the only way you can get in a door is when someone else opens it for you.
Who opened the door for you to Jesus?
My family life was an open door to Jesus when I was growing up. Then there were places and events that opened another door and then another. Buster Carlisle was one of the youth directors in my early life that opened the Jesus door to mission. It changed my life. Dr. Webb Pomeroy opened the door to expanding my critical thought about God when I was in college. That door has helped me answer many questions in my life journey. Henry Blount and Kenneth Shamblin opened the door of practical ministry in my formative years of pastoral ministry. They showed me how to be a pastor. I would not be who I am today without the many who opened doors for me.
Who are you holding the door open for?
We are doorkeepers in the house of the Lord (Psalm 84). Justifying grace, that time when the love of God becomes intensely personal, has been described as the door to the faith. Prevenient grace is the porch. Then God invites you into a more personal understanding of God's love. Most of the time, someone is holding the door open for you. Are you an open door keeper?
What doors are you slamming shut?  
We do with with our judgments, our harsh words, and our unwillingness to see children of God in our world.  Some are quite content to keep most of their world confined to storage and closets.  Maybe we need to think about less doors for this.  Maybe the number of internal doors in our physical world has affected our ability to open ourselves in the world of relations.
How many doors are in your place? How many are open? Where is God inviting you to open doors? Where is God urging you to go through a door?
Pray for me as I pray for you.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Leave the Porch Light On!


I have a confession to make. Now it is not a manly confession, but who cares. One wise sage told me once that real men cry. It is the other type of men that will not admit it.
As I watched my younger son leave for grad school again after the Christmas holidays, I cried. I am not sure if my kids know that I cry when I say good bye. It is not an outward weeping type of cry. But it is tears in my eyes and a voice cracking type of cry. I try to tell them two things—I am proud of them and to remember who they are!
I wonder how many days he sat or stood on the porch. When Jesus told the story, it was a fact left out. It did not matter. In fact, the story gives one the impression that looking out in the distance from the porch was something that happened.
While one is sitting on the porch wondering and worrying, life goes on. You try to go on as well. Some days are good days your mind does not wander or wonder. But at least once during the day, you stand on the porch and look out. You wonder if somewhere someone is reminding them of how much they are loved. You dream of maybe a stranger saying something that tugs their heart homeward. Is a stranger giving them the grace they deserve? Are they well? Are they safe? From the porch so many questions can overwhelm you. Who can I draw into the conspiracy of love?
Then you remember that the porch is where God goes before us. It is God's prevenient grace that is porch grace. It is the expression of grace that you only recognize in hind sight. It is grace that brought you safe thus far. It is the grace that leads you home. It is the divine conspiracy by God and God's people to lure you back where you belong. It is the place and space when you do remember who you are and WHOSE you are.
When Jesus told the porch story, he said that when the son was far away. When the son was at a distance, the father recognized him. And the father did what fathers are not supposed to do in that day---run out to meet the one that was lost and is now found! The father lifted his robe and ran out of his shoes. Tears filled his eyes! Joy filled his heart! The conspiracy of love and grace had brought back to life that which was thought to be dead and gone.
You see, our tears and fears are about losing and letting go. It is a strange potion of happiness, fear, and joy. But the porch is a part of being a parent as is conspiring to love a part of the parental journey.
When my son was growing up, there were times when he would get angry at us because we would not let him do what he thought he should do or needed to do. At those times, I would tell him in a joking manner, "Don't you realize that mom and I stay up at night creating ways to make your life miserable!" One day when he was particularly unhappy with some parental boundaries he looked at me and said, "I guess you and mom stayed up all night long dreaming up this one!"
Yeah, we leave the porch light on….as we conspire to love.
Pray for me as I pray for you.

 

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Blessed to Be a Blessing

The book of Judges ends with this verse, "And every man did what was right in his own eyes." The result was utter chaos.

I think the world could do with a little less of me. Now do not think that I do not see my own self value. I do. Sometimes it gets in the way. Okay, it probably gets in the way more than I want to admit. There are times when I do not see what God would have me see. There are times when I am not what God would want me to be. My own eyes can deceive me. Now before you laugh or judge me harshly, look in the mirror. This seems to be more common than we want to admit.

It is critical for me when this happens to get a larger view of the world. It is at this point that my "rights" become null and void for the sake of the common good of the Lord. It seems to me that our culture could use a daily dose of "common good" provided by the Lord.

There was a time when our country was served by statesmen and stateswomen. Their wisdom for the way in which their decisions were made was shaped by this view of common good. It was not about what was good for my constituency or my own little world. There was a vision and urgency about common good. When the gentle beast of common good was fed, the world was a better place for all.

There was a time when wealth was a blessing to be a blessing. When clothes were too small, they were given to those around us who needed them. There was no need for a garage sale or rummage sale to make a few bucks. Contentment was found in having what one had and sharing the blessings of life. Earning more and more seemed to be in balance with giving. Ordinary people did not present themselves as poor. The world was a place of abundance instead of scarcity.

It seems to me that lines in our culture have become blurred. When did we move from thinking that military weaponry and garb was the "rights" of everyday people? When did we move from the idea that "my world" trumped the common good? When did we lose sight of sharing for common goodness rather than making a quarter to sell our stuff? When the lines of common good become blurred we wake up finding ourselves in need of a compass than points north all the time.

When lines and boundaries get blurred, financial woes are prevalent. Blurred lines and boundaries confuse love and lust. Blurred lines and boundaries do not care about how dangerous or insecure our children are. Leadership is not welcome because the call is for sacrifice and self -denial---for the common good.

One theologian has said the demise of the American culture was the air conditioner. (Tex Sample) There was a time when all sat on their front porch and visited. When neighbors walked by, they sat down and talked. The front porch was always open and welcoming—filled with people. When the air conditioner came into our world, we closed the doors and stayed inside. Our comfort became more of a focus. There may be more truth to this than we know!

Maybe this is the year that we do what Israel did. For a better understanding of God's vision, the Israelites accepted a prophet. The prophet was the one who pointed towards true north—what God intended for the world to be. The prophet was the one that spoke words not about the rights of the individual but the call of the community. When the lines were blurred, the prophet would shout out, "Thus says the Lord…." Maybe this is the year that we gain clarity about boundaries and our vision becomes clear. Our mantra as individuals and as a community can be changed to what is God calling us to become? Could this be the year of contentment with what we have rather than the rat race for more?

Now here is the interesting thing that we forget. When we become what God invites us to become, all of us get better. We are better neighbors. We are better individuals. Our world is better.

Pray for me as I pray for you.