Parakalein

I had stopped blogging for over a year.

In some ways the well, in me, seemed to have dried up.  The hope and dreams of better days and better ways for the church and the world had grown hopeless and helpless in my mind.

I began doing less and enjoying less of life.

I discovered something old and fresh:

It is time to start new and fresh.   That is what I have decided.  That God has something and somewhere for  me to serve them.  Lots have changed but one thing remains true:

I believe in God.  The God I believe in is bigger than all the limited and limitless ways we speak of them.  They are one and many at the same time.  We limit God when we say this is true and that is not, this is good and that is bad, you are wrong and I am right!

I was at an unusual conference entitled "Pastor's Epic Failure Conference" in Pennsylvania a few years ago.   One of the speakers put on the screen a question of where is God on issues of morality, sexuality, faith statements. Debates sprang up in the room about different theologies, dogmas, decrees, etc. As he attempted to bring the discussion to an end he asked where is God in all of this.  Is God here? there?
My mind flashed to scripture in Matthew 24 that says when people say here is Christ or there is Christ don't believe it for no one know the time and place of his coming.

I suggested that he needed to draw a circle around the whole mess and say, God is there embracing it all loving us all into "One".  God's arms I am convinced are wrapped around the whole world wanting the whole world to come to peace in the way of love by wrapping arms of love around us all regardless of anything.

What if out of respect to ourselves we all said our statements of faith/belief regardless of religious identities but then added one last phrase, like:

Lastly, I believe that nothing I believe should separate me, make me feel superior to, or have me striving against anything you believe as we embrace the theology of love and peace, the anthropology of the forces of good and evil,  the discipline of integrity and honor, the characteristics of compassion and kindness, the qualities of courage and respect, and the practice of mutual respect, humility, and love.

Religion has so often been part of the cruelty and hostility in the world, I desire to sow seeds for a new age of spirituality leading us to a new kind of faith that is non-sectarian, a new kind of hope that is universal, and a new kind of love that is "willing to sacrifice as the prelude to true freedom".  Freedom is not when I have nothing left to lose but when I have everything to lose and everything to gain if I am willing to sacrifice!!

I desire to gift to my grandchildren and their children and their children not a "Christian World" but a world that embraces the Christian teaching of, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus" who being in very nature God, was willingly sacrificed by the God who is one with him, on the cross not because it was just or right but because it leads us to the way to justice and righteousness.  God honors all who learn the road of willingness to sacrifice and serve as the royal road to peace in the world.

The seven deadly social sins for Ghandhi are 

This morning I met with a group of men who were discussing the issues of climate change and responsible stewardship on the part of people and organizations.

John Lennon wrote,
"Imagine"

I recalled sitting with an atheist in a coffee shop who announced to me, "you know I am an atheist".

Her religious orientation and ethnicity was Jewish but she had become an atheist.  She expected a response of judgment form me.  I had been working with polarized parts of me.  I had begun to understand that the part of me that is a believer is not the only part in me.   There is a skeptic or doubting part in me as well.  There are multiple parts in me.  They help me to connect to others. All those parts are loved.

I said to her, "I get it as I have an atheist part inside of me that thinks all this religious and spiritual stuff is bull___."  She looked at me in amazement.  What followed was a delightful conversation about atheists parts in both of us.  Connection is the context for communication..

Skeptics are not born they are made.  I do believe that we, all, are made in the image of God.  In us all is a desire to know and a self that is of goodness, kindness, peace and harmony.  The way to speak to the skeptic is to embrace the skeptic.

The Beloved embracing the Beloved.  A world of peace and community.

Imagine.

I recently read Henri J M Nouen's book, Life of the Beloved.

The ending was his account of sending the book to his friend for whom he had written only to receive the honest feedback that he had not written to him, but that he had written to his religious audience.

I immediately felt the pain of being told what I wanted to do I failed at.  Then using the ideas of the book stepped out of that negative space and returned to an earlier part of the book in which a good note had been struck. Communicating is about connecting to the secular mind.  On page 18 Henri had suggested that Fred, his friend, read  the book of Ecclesiastes. A connector was offered.The next day Fred exclaimed, "I read it...I never realized that there was a place for the skeptic in the Bible..That is very reassuring".  Henri response was, "There is much more than a skeptic in you".

I got it.  I usually miss this very point so I am indebted to Henri for this book.

I get that Henri was trying to speak of faith into him.  The problem it was not there for him.   An optimistic response becomes opportunistic and misses the opportunity. The intention was right but he was not paying attention.  Fred did not believe or see it so they missed each other.

When I miss connecting to the skeptic in people by trying to convince them that there is a yearning spirit in them, my intensions are good but the effect is "I miss the mark". When I miss connecting to the skeptic in people by denying the skeptic in me I miss the mark of a great connection.  What if in that context I said, let's talk about that skeptic in you. I would like to get to know that part of you and how it lives in you. Tell me more about that part of you.  Then I could share about the skeptic in me.

I wonder who  will write that book:

"Skeptic to Skeptic" or the "Life of The Skeptic".

Could that be the first step toward the "Life of the Beloved".  We need to find connectors to people, then be willing to use those dark days to with humility speak from the darkness of light.

I have recently been through a dark tunnel of "unloveableness".  The dictionary even says there is no such word.  Trust me I lived it.

Today, I feel the light.  Ignoring the darkness does not allow the light to shine.  Letting the darkness overwhelm me has helped me to see the light in a more profound way.  There is light in the darkness.
Moses saw that in Exodus 20:21

Jesus was open hearted toward the skeptic.

I am impressed to think that when Jesus addressed Thomas about his doubting, he did not judge him but loved him.  Jesus dod not say "You gotta be kidding me Thomas, after I showed you my side and hands, offered to have you touch me, you still doubt, what is wrong with you". Jesus seemed to be unaffected by the "Lord I believe, help my unbelief" statement of Thomas. Jesus seemed to say, "Thomas I get that a part of you now believes but I also get that there remains in you a skeptic part.  That skeptic part is the part that will connect you to the world of skeptics. Now gop and preach this gospel to that world"

Instead of reproof, he is given a message, to Nouwen's point, teh message is  "You are Beloved"!  As you are, not as you think you need to be "You are loved".

Imagine!

Imagine a world in which everyone esteemed everyone as better than themselves.

In Paul's letter to the church in Philippi he makes that mind boggling life jarring suggestion.  He then seems to imply if not state that this is one way in which we embrace and are embraced by "the mind of Christ" (Phil. 4:5).

In Phil 4:3 "esteem others as better or having more significance than yourself".

That is not really true, right.  No one is better than you.  You are not better than me.  I am not better than you.  Imagine that you treated others, all others, as better than yourself not because they are but because you chose to treat them as better.  And then imagine if everyone treated you as if you were better than they are.  As a young journeyman, coming to faith and hearing this idea, once told me:  Everyone would start feeling pretty good about themselves, no one would ever feel bad, and maybe there would be no more wars!

Imagine.  Ending wars is not about peace treaties.  Ending wars is about treating people, all people as better than that, then helping us all to live into better than that!

This was indeed the "mind of Christ" when he who was God, thought not, "I am better than these people", but rather, I am in very nature God,  This is not something I need to grasp after but can let go of and treat them as better or more important than me, by choosing to become a man, and humbling myself, and dying as a man on a cross.  This will assure them that they are better than me, more significant than my life only to lead them into true significance that is beyond human life.  Spirituality leads into the world that is without end.  Everlasting life.

So in this practical teaching, God was very specific and purposeful.  There are no options here.  It is the mind of Christ to esteem others better than you even though you know they are not to help us all to be better than we could be alone no matter how good we are.

May 30th, the real Memorial Day would be a great day to commit to "honoring all people as more important, more significant, better than you".  All competition to better, bigger and stronger would fade into the sea and fields of love and peace.

By the way, when you esteem others as better than you, if they say "yes I am thanks for noticing" step aside as they may be in for a rude awakening.  If they say no I am not you are much better than me, ask them to hold that thought as you cannot receive it as truth.  We lie to ourselves when we say we are better than someone else or when we say that we are not better than someone else.  No one is better or worse than another but together we can be better, by esteeming others as better and treating them accordingly.

As I concluded yesterdays blog I was recalling a blog I did two years ago on God's favor.

God has no favorites but places favor on all of us.  People like to act like they are God's favorites but God makes it clear.  "God has no favorites".

What God makes equally clear, in Isaiah 61 and in Luke 4 where the passage is quoted, is that he came to preach the good news.......the acceptable year of God's favor ".  God declared that the essence of the gospel is the declaration to all people: To people bound up in resentment, anger, hatred, and violence that they can be set free, to people broken apart by hearts that had rejected, injured, or maimed their well being that they can be wrapped up and healed (Isaiah 61:1-3).

Clearly "God's favor rests on everyone in different ways, at different times for different purposes".
I believe that God's favor rested on Mary as when was chosen to be the mother of Jesus. I believe God's favor rested on Elizabeth who birthed John.  On Joseph who Cradled the son of God in the arms of a father.  And on and on! I believe that God's favor rested on my daughter (both of them in different ways) when they had a child, one outside of marriage and one within the context of marriage.  All four of my grandchildren are recipients of God's favor on them.  My joy is to watch that favor increase and envelop their living.

I believe God's favor is on you whoever you are and wherever you are on life's journey

The idea of God having favorites is just another kind of God game we play.

The idea that we are all chosen unites us a a community chosen to be a royal priesthood.  All people of earth serving one another as chosen people.

Are you chosen?

Do you feel chosen?

When you are selected for a team, a position, at place do you feel more important or the most important .   So the competition imperative of our society marches to the drum of "I am special" in the midst of an inner voice that says, "I am not special".  Who or what are we trying to prove to whom or by what?

In a book by Henri J.M. Nouwen entitled "The Beloved", he argues that you are chosen by God.  He adds that the fact you are not chosen does not mean that you are not good only that someone else is a little better.  The fact that you are chosen does not mean that others are not good, only that you are a little better (p.54-55).

Yet the fact that someone is a little better than me or that I am a little better than someone else perpetuates the secret enemy of contradictory competitiveness.  Competitiveness that has to be better or accept that someone else is better continues the comparativeness that contradicts the nature of all things.  The nature of all things is that everything fits together in a complimentary way not in a competitive way. It is when competition is about contradicting the other or co-opting the other that the seeds of negating or accepting, deflating or inflating take center stage.  When the seeds of complementariness take over something changes inside a person which makes it not about better but complementary.

So I agree with Henri Nouwen in that we are all chosen.  I simply think that when we are not chosen that it is not because someone else is better that we are but that someone else in some particular way seems better to another but only a compliment about a small arena not that I am not center stage.  I am chosen even when I am not.  Even when I am not chosen in a particular sense does not mean I am not chosen in a real sense.

I therefore would add to his words:
The fact that you are not chosen does not mean you are not chosen just that someone else thinks someone else is better than you in that particular way, at that particular time, and for that particular purpose. No rejection is present here. The fact that you are chosen does not make other not good or not make you chosen only that you are a little better in a particular way, for a particular time and a particular purpose.

The fact that you are chosen does not mean that others are not chosen it means that in some particular way for some particular purpose you are chosen while others are chosen of another particular purpose and way.  Being chosen is a compliment to being chosen.  Being chosen does not compete with others who are equally chosen.  Hostilities and arguments between groups of people who seemingly think they are God's chosen people or chosen messengers, would cease in the wake of depreciating others in false humility or self-rejection or appreciating in false confidence or arrogance.

When Jesus said you have not chosen me but I have chosen you it was not to feed their egos that need no inflating nor to starve their egos that need reassurance it was to make it clear that God choses to chose everyone and everything to live in a complimentary wholeness of life and love.  We live in a competitive deterioration of our wholeness as individuals and as a community.

I am not better.  I am chosen.  You are chosen. You are not better.  If we can hold those truths in complimentary community all competition will serve to make us better.  Competition would not be used for us to act like we are better or worse than anyone else.  Good competition brings out the best in people.  Self serving competition brings out the worst in all of us.

We are complimentarily chosen to be the people of God as individuals chosen by God for love and collectively chosen as a community.

I recently attended the world premier showing of "The God Game" by Suzanne Bradbeer.

So what is the God game.  It is not God's game for sure.  Rather it is man's game of using God for a purpose that is not all that Godly.  Perhaps that is indeed why it is a game.

An honorable, moderate, and popular senator with incredible integrity is asked to be the vice presidential running mate for a very conservative presidential candidate.  So what is the game.  As a vowed agnostic/atheist he is asked to compromise his integrity and say or at least imply while not saying that he is a Christian because in America you have to be Christian to be elected president.

Years ago I spoke at a conference in Hong Kong and began that talk with the following:   I know many Christians who in their daily lives to no act like a Christian should act..  I know others who claim to not be Christian who are more Christian in their actions.  So what is a Christian suppose to do?   My response was:  we need to be more open to the life of "honor, humility and integrity" than to any particular way of believing in God.

It is a sad state of affairs if a country forces a person to believe in a certain way or worse say they believe in a certain way or they are unacceptable as a candidate for that country's highest office!

If the God game is saying that politics is asking people to act one way while believing another, or believe one way while acting another, it is a game but God has nothing to do with it.  It is people using God and if they were to ask them for their opinion they would respond with a united:  "That is not Our Way".  Our way is about diversity and respectfulness, honor, humility and integrity.

Humility, honor and integrity are characteristics of God and in the game of life they are the highest of Christian  values eclipses while reflected in Christianity.  Let's hope!

Can we rally around humility, honor, and integrity and let all else remain a private matter of personal choice and conscience?

On this memorial day in 2014 let us all decide to put flowers on the graves of all soldiers of all wars of all nations......

Maybe that was the genesis of that first "Decoration Day".  What a moving moment to see thousands of people putting thousands of flowers on thousands of graves of soldiers on both sides of that war.  Maybe that is a path to healing and binding up the wounds of our world today!

What a moving moment.  Imagine being there and watching people who you do not even know putting flowers down to honor the life of every soldier regardless of what side of the war they fought?  Would that be enough to end all war?

We can hope!

We can act!

With liberty and justice for ALL!

This is a call to patriotism:  to honoring all those who during this time of war were willing to make this ultimate sacrifice while at the same time letting them know they led us to the road of love and peace.  In deed they did not die in vain.

In the seder celebration we read the words: "The willingness to sacrifice is the prelude to freedom".
Being willing to sacrifice all that you have to gain what no money, no power, no will can buy is worth it all.