Promises

An Open Letter to My Love

My Love, 

When we married, Given the misogynistic culture we inhabited, I knew that a part of loving you meant creating space for you to be all God made you to be. I needed all those skills I gained as a lineman on my high school football team to "block for you" clearing obstacles from in front of you so that you could score. This wasn't because you needed help to function joyfully with your King. It was because others in our world would try to stop you. My first job was to make sure no one held you down and secondly, to ensure; I didn't get in the way.

We've known for several months that this was gong to be tough, for me at least. I took a risk last fall telling you that this year, my 50th birthday, as I entered the back half of my life, and as I finished graduate school, it would be a good time to learn how to be celebrated. I was going to leave it in your hands, partly because the idea of celebrating me is so f**king awkward, and partly because after all the shit I've pulled in the first half of my life it doesn't feel right to celebrate me. Today, it seems as if God doesn't either. That feeling sucks, and it is mine.

None of that is said to make you feel guilty. You are living into the fullness of your ontology. It is truly glorious and beautiful to watch. This is the moment we (you and me, Babe) get to reflect Trinitarian love and sacrifice back into the heavenly realm. This is where I get to be who God made me to be for you and those 80 folks you get to love this coming week. It costs more than I thought myself able to pay. 

The weight seems heavier in the furrow of Cyril's death somehow. I will take the kids to Ecola to talk to both Dad & Mum tomorrow. I kinda think Mum & Dad might like how things are turning out on this side of the implosion of "Clan Grant." Besides, it will be good for the kids to see where their grandparent's ashes are poured and remember them. 

As we physically move in opposite directions these next days; and as thousands of miles divide us, I'm writing to help us (me) remember that we've made Kingdom choices this week, and though in this moment they feel shitty to me I believe they will ultimately lead us to worship. 

When I married you the biggest surprise was discovering that I didn't need to be a lonely rebel. So, as you preach this week to many who are weary from "running for God," I pray that they find rest and delight -- like the little boy jumping off a park bench into his Daddy's arms == "Running to God." I'll pray as you "kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight."¹ And while you are unleashing the Spirit of God on the Demons of a well-meaning system that destroys its people, I will revel in beauty, and rest in the love of my son. I too will battle the darkness by playing in the light of creation. Maybe through our joint efforts, we'll create a crack that will let the light get in. That is my prayer, anyway.

it's gonna seem like I'm changing the subject in one of my famous ADHD moments, but I'm not. Earlier today I watched this U2 video. It moved me and I imagined us worshiping together as we live in the presence of our King. "

I like everything about this video. "Yahweh," the first song, feels descriptive of us. Everything from Bono's pleading lyric: "Don’t make a fist,” to the call for a broken heart at the end of "Yahweh," all rocked my world on this day where I find myself being so tender.

The second song, "40," was a soundtrack for our young adulthood, and it always moves me. Toward the end, when Bono picked up the spotlight, people knew they mattered. When the camera person caught the look on Edge’s face as he listened to Chicago’s choir ask, “How long?” he captured a transcendent moment. And when Larry needed to join the choir's plaintive question one last time, all of our corporate, pent up frustration with God not living up to our demands went into his rhythmic Gestaltic act, unloading on his drums and cymbals.

"How long, must we sing this song?"

I don't have a great answer to this question. I know that I am singing the chorus to "40" this week while you are away. And, I know that singing the song with you as we patiently and sometimes impatiently wait --  and as we point and walk with people toward Jesus, toward hope, toward freedom, and peace; we too touch the transcendent reality for which we were made. Touching the transcendent with you makes everything worthwhile; even the pain that we experience in moments of profound disappointment, when we feel not only unloveable but unworthy. Those moments of hopeful eternity are bigger than the moments of turmoil. So, break a leg, sweetheart. I love you. The Kingdom is better because you love and delight in our King. 

Jim Elliot wrote, "I have one desire, to live a life of reckless abandon for my Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it." It was my prayer for a long time. Now, I've added, so long as Paula is by my side.

______________________________________________

^{1 Bruce Cockburn, "Lovers in a dangerous time," performed with Steven Page of "Bare Naked Ladies"}

 

 

 

Another Letter to My Children: On Advent, Joseph and Holding Love More Tightly than Truth

I failed to teach you about Advent. That is on me, and I cannot make up for it in a letter or a series of letters. However, as Paula and I  were talking and praying together today some things came up for me that are important for me to share with you as your Dad, so you can understand a little of what I hold to be dear; and see the world through the lens I see the world.

Advent is the period of days that lead up to Christmas itself. The days mark the beginning of the Church calendar. This is actually our New Year. This year the celebration lasts 32 days. Other years it may be slightly more or slightly less. This month long period is a period the Church sets aside to remember the events that led up to Jesus’ arrival on the planet as a Baby. And while we look back, we also look forward to a time when He will come again and bring World Peace, set right the wrongs and injustices in the world, destroy hate and shame, bring laughter, joy, and true connection with one another and with Him. It is a time where all we desire in relationship is fulfilled and all the sucky parts are taken away. This is my hope. It is how I get up in the morning and is a primary lens through which I view life.

This morning as we were considering the days we are in, I said to Paula, “Everyone talks about the shame that Mary carried while she was pregnant with Jesus; but can you imagine the shame that Joseph must have carried with him?”

She responded, “Yes, that is right, Joseph had to completely change his theology, and his morality to stay with pregnant Mary.” She caught me off guard with her wisdom.

Imagine yourself in Joseph’s shoes. You are a good are reverent Jew, with Jewish morality, and your fiancé comes to tell you that she is pregnant, and you know you had nothing to do with it. How do you feel? I’d be angry. I’d want revenge. There would be moments where I’d want to have her stoned as an adulteress. I’d feel betrayed and broken hearted.

But then God came to Joseph and let him know that Mary had not cheated on him after all. Now Joseph probably has issues with God. I know I would have. God robbed him of something that he thought was his and his alone. Mary would have a child without his seed impregnating her. His first child would not be his! On top of that, the entire town would know that her first born wasn’t his! And they’d never believe the story.

Joseph had to hold one truth  that he learned from childhood to be true while trusting God’s word that the immorality he was now seeing was somehow beautiful and even blessed. And Joseph did exactly that. He protected his fiancé. He lived with the shame, and the questions that must have come at him from family and friends. His theology was turned on its head, and he was OK with that.

In a similar way, we’ve been focusing this year on making space for whatever Christ brings to us in the coming year. Our life feels pregnant and incredibly full. We are becoming aware that we need to prepare ourselves for what God has for us, and that means we must be expectant and yet not demanding. We will continue to hold onto the emptiness in order that it may be filled. I don’t like emptiness very much. I don’t think you do either. And Advent asks us to live in it for a period of time waiting for Christ to come and fill the emptiness with his fullness.

A funny thing happened as we were talking. I flashed to my Sexual Disorders class. Dan (who joyfully proclaims it is his job to offend everyone – just like your old man) brought in an Episcopalian Priest named Eric who identifies as gay in order to have a conversation with him, so that the class could hear both sides of the debate that is currently raging in society and the church. Then he let Eric have the pulpit for a good chunk of two classes.

I heard things from Eric I needed to hear. I heard Scripture taught in ways I needed to hear them taught. Eric approached Scripture reverently, coming under his authority. Though I disagreed with his conclusions, he opened my eyes to much. Though the church tradition that gave me birth and raised me in faith, would deny him a place at the table of our Lord, I’d take communion with him should I be given the chance; and I’d happily and joyfully work with him, side by side for the sake of the Kingdom. I will defend him should I need to, for he is my brother.

You must be wondering what this has to do with Advent. Because of Advent, like Joseph, I need to hold two things: Love and my understanding of Truth. I choose to hold love tightly and my sense of truth (in this case, moral truth) loosely. How can I – a moral screw up – point at anyone else’s morality and say that they can’t welcome Jesus as I do? I can’t. So, I hold to morality for me, letting go of my need to hold morality for others. For me, homosexuality is wrong. And I choose to love those who come to different conclusions about sexuality own lives. My gay friends didn’t choose homosexuality any more than I chose heterosexuality. How they live with their sexuality is between them and their Creator, just as the way I choose to live out my sexuality is between me and my Creator.

And because of Jesus I stand with my gay friends who love Jesus, hand in hand echoing the call of John on the final page of the Holy Scriptures, “Come quickly Lord Jesus, for we need you.” That, I think, is one way to understand advent through Joseph’s eyes in the 21^st century America. It is my way. I hope someday, if not already it will be yours too. That hope is not a demand. You will learn to see the world through your own eyes. I simply pray that they will be the eyes of love.

Celebrating Faithfulness

I first met Carson in the fall of 1993. He was in the second Arrow Leadership Program cohort, a year behind me, and yet, at the same time, so far ahead of me. In those days he ministered alongside a spiritual hero of mine, Bruce Milne who had come to the Lord through my Dad’s ministry back in the UK, and who wrote the wonderful book, Know the Truth. Back then, all of us in Arrow were a lot younger and I, for one, was a lot cockier. Springsteen might as well of been referring to those heady times as the Glory Days. And indeed, from a corporate perspective, those were my glory days.

Our cohort’s president described our class’ first meeting in1992 as a time where we measured one another up, wondering what the others had that we didn’t; and wondering what we had that they didn’t. After all, each of us had been hand-picked, recognized as being leaders of the next generation of Christian leaders; and indeed, many of us would prove to be just that, while others of us fell by the wayside, caught up in narcissistic sin and idolatry that destroyed us as humans, as pastors, and as leaders. Leighton’s vision to bring to bear the resources of the Kingdom to personally raise up a new generation of leaders who would “lead more like Jesus and more to Jesus,” was up and running. Those wonderful days were life-changing for all of us in one way or another. Much of what I learned over those eighteen months twenty years ago is still a part of my practice and my faith.

Back then I didn’t know Carson well. He was one of many, and yet he was different too. He was completely unassuming, quiet, ponderous, peaceful, and yet possessed a unique inner structural integrity I wished I knew in my own life. Even then this unassuming and, in many ways, unremarkable strength invited those who knew him into the presence of Jesus in ways that are rare and beautiful.

As time went by and our lives changed, I watched him transition to lead Arrow Leadership Ministries; and then transition again to pastor in the local church again. When I sinned and ended up in rehab, many of those I loved were nowhere to be found. One of my staff wrote to me while I lay broken in rehab, informing me that he wouldn’t come down to eat with me in the pig’s trough. Yet Carson always took my calls. Occasionally he even called me. He was always kind, gracious, encouraging and inviting. Fairly soon after my fall into grace, he invited me to an Arrow Leadership family camp held at Barnabas Family Ministries. While we were there he sat with me and listened, probably to a lot of garbage, as well as much holy desire. He never gave up on me when others did. He never looked down on me even though it meant he had to get pretty low to look me in the eye. He was willing to come meet me at the pig trough, if that was what he needed to do. He embodied Leighton’s call to, “Lead more like Jesus and more to Jesus.” I was... no... I am grateful to call him friend.

This past winter, like many of their friends, I received an email letting me know that Brenda, his dear wife who is a extaordinarily remarkable lady in her own right, had been diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer that had already spread to her brain and other parts of her body. I wept. Some things simply aren’t fair.

Many months have gone by and many of us who don’t live close enough get to walk with them via their Caring Bridge blog posts. Last month via a Facebook post and the First Baptist Church Vancouver’s website the news was published that Carson had stepped back from pastoring to care for Brenda. I wept again as I read, not because the church was losing a champion (It isn’t); but rather, because one of its champions was living faithfully in spite of an unfair world that is breaking his heart.

Carson is living out what Leighton called us to. Carson is being faithful. My faithlessness is not made up for in his faithfulness, and yet, his faithfulness calls and beckons me to redemption’s story.

Colin Gunton, the remarkable English theologian, reflected on the story of Abraham praying for Sodom. If you remember the story, Abraham gets God to promise that if there are ten good men in Sodom, He will hold back his wrath. Gunton goes onto suggest that perhaps our job as Christ followers is to stand for those who would encounter the wrath of God without their faithfulness.

I think, in many ways, Carson has done this for me. For while I will never be able to be faithful like Carson; I threw that opportunity away many years ago. I can live faithfully today because one of God’s champions is showing me how. Without knowing it, he is standing for me, so now I am able stand for others, who like me, need someone to stand for them.

Thanks for standing fast, Carson. Thanks for your faithfulness to Brenda – to you Lord, and to His Church. Brenda, thanks for standing with and for Carson over all these years I continue to pray for both of you. I love you both, and give thanks for you so very often.

Sex addiction recovery at its worst

When twelve step groups aren’t safe, what is? I’m angry and sad, and I don’t know what to do with my emotions. Since it is unsafe for me to carry them alone, I decided to write about it. Maybe it might do some good out here.

I just talked to a good friend who has historically struggled with sexual addiction. I called him because I heard he was back in the quicksand. As we talked, I heard part of the story I wish weren’t true. (Well, actually I wish none of the story was true, but it all is.)

In late summer, in the midst of some profound struggles and poor choices, he went to his sponsor to get some help. His sponsor felt incapable of “holding” his travails without putting his own sexual sobriety into jeopardy. So he “fired” my friend. My friend still hasn’t recovered. The actions of his sponsor sunk him even deeper into the cesspool of his challenged and warped perceptions.

In sexual addiction twelve step groups, members talk about their own sobriety being a priority. Newbies are encouraged by “old timers” to get rid of anything that gets in the way of staying sober (In SA that means "no sex with self or anyone other than a spouse"). New sponsors are encouraged to sponsor only insofar that their sponsoring another helps them stay sober-- not their sponsee. It is acknowledged that recovery is a selfish program.  This makes sense, if one’s life depends on sobriety (and for sex addicts it does) everyone needs to be cautious in holding or engaging things that may trigger their own personal demons to have authority in their lives once more.

The reality of what I just wrote leaves me wondering about my friend and recovery. Sexual recovery groups have power because members love one another not in spite of but because of their weaknesses – “It feels so good to know I am not the only one that struggles that way. I have someone to walk with who understands.” When groups can’t live out love, they fail in their purpose, laid out for them in the traditions: “Each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the sex addict that still suffers.”

Indeed, this should be the wonder of recovery(and I know I am “shoulding” on twelve step groups here): While a lone addict alone can’t make it. Together, they can. While one addict alone can’t contain and hold another addict's struggle, the community can. Together they are capable of far more than they think is possible. The majestic wonder here is that accepted weakness makes both the group and the individual stronger than they could possibly imagine so long as they walk together.

I just wish they had realized this in time to practice the twelfth step with my friend. He is in a world of hurt, and though he alone is responsible for his own choices and actions, the group must bear much of the responsibility for his current brokenness. I don't know if he will make it back from this one. It may be too late. I have to leave him in my heavenly Father's care (and that is easier said than done.)

I am angry that the system failed him. Though I want to blame his sponsor, I can’t. If I blame anyone, I blame his sponsor’s sponsor. He is the one who encouraged his sponsor to dump him (However, I want to fight this finger pointing tendency as I don’t think it is helpful at all). Whatever conclusions one reaches, it is a sad day for the recovery world, and an even sadder one for my friend, his wife and children. 

You Remember that time?

So you know that moment when you are totally drenched from rain that is hitting you like a thousand needles being driven into your face as you keep telling yourself, “If I ride a little faster, I can dodge the raindrops that aren’t supposed to be falling at all? Yeah that moment earlier tonight on my way home from Seattle to Portland…

God and I had a conversation as the rain came down and my body temperature dropped. I was not equipped for rain today. And I was asking him a couple of things:

1. That I would find a way to be grateful for my soaking. I ended up deciding that I was grateful for it because it was teaching me how to be grateful for the damndest things.
2. For the person I was trying to blame for my getting caught to find peace and love today. They were not the reason I was caught in the down pour. My own thoughtlessness was the reason I was caught in the down pour and I didn’t want to hold myself accountable. It felt easier to blame someone else. I had to give that up and so I prayed for them to have what I wanted. I prayed for them until I meant the words I prayed. This one wasn’t so difficult
3. And I apologized for trying to manipulate him by my choices to pray and, “surrender.” I realized I started my prayers not so much because I was trying to connect with God as much as I thought that maybe if I paid attention to Him, He’d turn off the faucet. I am grateful that I am aware of my attempts to manipulate God. I don’t think it really fazes him one way or the other. It is more a testimony of how I am, and want to be no longer… “I am now ready that you should have all of me, good and bad…”

And in the midst of these prayers I became incredibly grateful for the man who taught  me to pray in such a way; who called me to be the kind of man that could finish a year at The Seattle School; who taught me how to live in spite of my best efforts toward destruction. He and I don’t walk the same path any longer and I am sad about that, and I am eternally grateful that God would place this non-Trinitarian /non-Christian in my life to teach me about Jesus and what it means to follow Him. I still remember telling him, “David, I find it remarkable that God has chosen to use you to teach me more about Jesus than I ever learned in Sunday School or seminary; but then again, if He can use an ass to speak to the Israelites, I’m sure he can use you to speak to me.” I’m here in large part because David listened to God and then gave me what he had been given by another who went before him.

For too much of my life I limited God. He could only speak through approved channels: The Bible and/or a Bible believing (and by that someone that believes the Bible the way I do) pastor or friend. God was small and I was scared. I’m still learning that He is bigger than I can possibly imagine. (Kant was at least right about that.) He can speak through whatever means He chooses. He can even speak through a Unitarian/Universalist or King JAmes only fundamentalist. The trouble is not that He isn’t speaking, but that I don't listen because I don’t believe he speaks that way or through that medium. And so I miss out.

The rain didn’t stop, and God gave me one of the most glorious sunsets I have ever seen, complete with a rainbow on the other side of the freeway. I laughed so hard at His glory that I had to bring my speeding bike back under control. I have a strong feeling that He was laughing with me.

Changing my image of a chair to a hand

The image I used to describe my approach to life began with a stool that I sat on: If I am disturbed, the problem is in me; if I spot it I got it; and what other people think of me is none of my business...

It became a chair when I added: I have one employer, his name is God. I have one job description and it is to love.

Now it must be a hand because I know of no five legged chairs. This is an outworking of my work in hermeneutics with Dwight Friesen and my practicum with Tim Reber. It is still being formed in my mind but now I am adding: I must actively and quietly listen to the Spirit's voice in every circumstance. She is always speaking. I want to hear her voice.

Peter Grieg's book Disappoints Me

Occasionally I will write something for school that I think is worthy of further dissemination. I will adapt those papers for the blog and post them. Here is my response to Peter Grieg's book, God on Mute (Eastbourne, Sussex, England, David C Cook, 2007)

Often one goes to a movie with such high expectations that even though it’s a good movie, it disappoints because expectations were not met, having been set too high to begin with. This
is what happened to me with Grieg’s book, God on Mute. Having read the forward, by Brian McClaren, my expectations were too high. I wanted something new coming from a post-foundationalist author who would provide new ways of talking about prayer in an ultra-subjective and skeptical age. Grieg did not accomplish this. Occasionally he would tease me with what it could be but never get there.

He formed his book around the rhythms of Holy Week. It was not until chapter twelve that I understood why. In chapter 12 he touches on the reality that we still inhabit the Kingdom of the “already / not yet.” We have not reached Easter morning in our own lives. Our resurrection and the final answers to our prayers will not be realized until that day. True and complete resurrection
still awaits us and so to expect that we should not inhabit a world of death somehow misses the point.[1] I need to be continually to be reminded of this truth and Grieg did so beautifully. This alone probably makes the book worth reading. I only wish all of it was as engaging.

In his chapter entitled, “God’s War,” Grieg retells the story of Jesus’ conversation with Peter.
It was in this conversation that Jesus informs Peter that he is going to deny him. Grieg gets so close to a truth about prayer but never gets there in this chapter. He states, “…sometimes instead of delivering you immediately from evil, Jesus will intercede for you in the midst of your trials.”[2]
I so wanted him to flesh this thought out and wanted to scream that he didn’t do so. For this small prayer seems to be the model of His prayers for his people --  not to take them out of the world but to help them live well and love well in the world which they inhabit.[3] Grieg is clear. God will not override his creation’s free will but he will strengthen those who live in this broken world.[4]
I wanted him to finish the thought but he didn’t.

Nowhere does Grieg challenge the types of prayers I pray, asking God to change my circumstances. Nowhere does he challenge me to pray to trust and be changed by the one who is in control and who will not bring me only so far and then drop me.

Grieg missed an opportunity to help me see that maybe God is silent because I want to use Him as a giant, cosmic “fix-all.” (Though he kind of gets there in his final chapters) I wanted him to re-direct me to see that God wants me to pray so he can change me – rather than all the things that I want him to change in the world. The problem isn’t out there in the big, bad world. The problem is inside of me. He wants to change me. He wants to help shape me into His image and likeness.

God wants me to pour out my heart and desires to him without me demanding that He act in ways I think are best. He wants me to humbly ask Him to give me the faith, the sight, and the courage to receive whatever my world is giving me as a gift so that He can change and mold me to join the resurrection throng.

Having been so dismissive of Grieg, I am grateful for his final stories of God’s love and his suffering with us: hanging with a boy, executed by his Nazi captors,[5] or despairing with a grieving husband who lost his wife, after a life full of loss,[6] or hurting alongside an old woman suffering with migraines for the majority of her life.[7] For although these stories may not provide the hope I demand; they provide solace, and in that solace there is peace in the midst of the suffering.

I wanted Grieg to realize that the eschatological hope he points us all to – a real,tangible, bodily hope [8]– can begin now, but he didn’t. I wanted him to call us to ask God to help us see things His way. But he didn’t. I wanted him to let us know that through prayer, and prayer alone, eternal life really and truly can begin now, as we trust The Spirit to work things out His way and to bring us through the fires that will undoubtedly last until our final breaths, so that we will be transformed into His likeness.

I talked to a skeptic that also read the book. Their perspective was that it only gave, “Sunday school answers to hard questions.” I wanted more than that because McClaren promised more than that.[9]
I didn’t get it. I wanted more than He gave. I hoped this book would be as helpful as Bingham Hunter’s The God Who Hears,[10] but it was not. And in that I am disappointed.

 

 

---

[1]
Peter Grieg, God on Mute,  300-315

[2] Ibid.,
p.  209

[3]
See John 15-17, Jesus’ prayer for us.

[4] Grieg,
192-193

[5] Ibid.,
p. 253

[6] Ibid.,
p. 256

[7] Ibid,.
p, 259

[8] Ibid.,
p. 305-307

[9] Grieg,
p. 12

[10]
Bingham Hunter, The God Who Hears.

What Does it Mean for Me to Follow Jesus

This past weekend a church gathered and heard testimony of "What it means to follow Jesus." Individuals shared how they were going to to approach their lifes' of discipleship. I thought I'd add my voice to the chorus of the four who testified.

Following Jesus means that I come to the end of myself and realize I can't do it. Even the good in my life is affected by selfishness. My best attempts to follow will always fail. The first step in my journey is realizing that I am incapable of following Him at all.

I slowly realize (it is a daily discovery) that God wants to help me (often times drag me) along the way, and sends His Spirit to empower and enable the impossible. He helps me to the extent that I give up.

I give up my will, my attempts at holiness, my attempts at righteousness, and my worries that I'll never get it right and trust, the Spirit to do what I can't (even when I don't see it.)

I prayerfully, thoughtfully, and carefully inspect all I have done (both good and bad) with and without the Spirit, and then acknowledge to God, myself and another human exactle how I've screwed up and how I've succeeded. I reveal myself. With loving and gentle help I discover my faults and my strengths -- the good and the bad. I trust that God is in who I am, as well as in who I have been, and who I will be.

Once discovered, I have to acknowledge my powerlessness yet again, and I ask the Spirit's help to remove all my sin, even the sin that occasionally works for me.

With the help of my fellow travelers,I make a list, similar to the tax men that followed Jesus, of all the people that I have wronged (even if they have wronged me) and I start asking that same Spirit to empower me to want to make amends to them, cleaning my side of the street to the best of my ability. Then I take action, making those amends doing the cleaning work that needs to be done, taking responsibility for my selfishness, freeing myself from the chains of guilt which hold me down.

Having taken these steps, I find a new freedom in the Spirit that I never dreamt was possible. Life takes on a new dimension. My relationship to Jesus, and my fellows changes. Though not perfect, my trust levels go up. I become willing to make more immediate amends when I screw up in the daily ins and outs of life. I find that I am less fearful of taking ongoing inventories of my life, knowing that the Spirit is in all of it. He doesn't make mistakes. I can trust Him in everything.

I find that I seek His face on everything. My prayer life changes and instead of telling Him how He should behave or how He should arrange things, I seek rather to understand and accept what He has for me in the time that He has it for me. I Become willing to meditate and trust His quiet leading. Things that used to baffle me don't any longer, and I find joy in the trial and the journey.

Having met Jesus in such a way, I'm finding that I want others to know Him too. I want others to be freed from the chains that bind them -- the obsessions, the resentments, the hurts, anger and hatred, and so I a become willing to offer hope in the power of the Spirit and the communion of the Saints.

We really do follow a wonderful Lord!

A Good Friday Letter to Thomas & Maggie -- How We Killed God

Hey guys, I wrote this over two days. It is now Good Friday. This is part one of a two part letter.

It is early in the morning of Maundy Thursday. It’s a weird name, huh? Maundy Thursday is part of Holy Week. It is the day that Jesus sent his disciples ahead to find a room to celebrate the Passover, At dinner that night, he washed his disciples’ feet, he foretold Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial. They went out to the Garden of Gethsemane so Jesus could pray. He asked the disciples to pray with him. They couldn’t stay awake.

The gospel writers tell us that Jesus was so stressed out that he actually sweated blood. Then Judas brought the religious leaders and their guards. They arrested Jesus and took him back to one of their estates for a mock trial. This is the night that Peter denied Jesus. This is the night that Judas betrayed Jesus. This is the last night Jesus lived on this rock before we executed Him.

Given that background, and given all that I’ve already said about Him; it is fitting that we talk a little about what Jesus did.

Nothing breaks my heart as much as people who make fun of the cross. For to me, the cross of Jesus is where everything I’ve written points. Everything I’ve said in all my previous letters to you comes to a confusing climax at the cross.

It is confusing because it is the place where Jesus actually lost. He was beaten and killed. His followers went into hiding, and hope died a long breathless death. It is confusing because God doesn’t die. And yet, for us, he did.

The question is why?

In December 1987 I travelled back to a Missions conference in Urbana, Illinois simply called, Urbana. It is an amazing conference. It occurs every three years and the three times that I attended it was held at the University of Illinois. Over 18,000 college age students literally took over the campus. We stayed in dorms and fraternity and sorority houses. Speakers from all over the world came.

The first night my friends and I were sitting in the second row of Assembly hall. It was the last time Billy Graham addressed Urbana and the only time I ever got to hear him preach live. Everyone knew that this was his last address to an Urbana assembly and as if on cue, when he was introduced all of us in Assembly Hall and the overflow hall stood. He must have received a five minute standing ovation. Rightly so. No one did more for the Kingdom of God in the 20^th Century than Dr. Billy Graham. I remember his eyes that night. I can still see them. As he preached you could see them piercing into his audience. I watched the spittle fly from his mouth as he preached. Having said all that, I can’t remember a thing he said that night.

Two days later – this time from high above the Assembly Hall floor in the nosebleed seats – I heard a little Irish lady named Helen Roseveare introduced. I’d never heard of her before. She told her story: She was a medical missionary in a country that was then called the Congo. A Civil war erupted. The Blacks (oppressed for so long by their white colonial masters) wanted to expel the wealthy property owners and reclaim their own land. Dr Roseveare was captured by them. For a week she was held and repeatedly raped  and beaten before being set free and returning to Ireland. After the rebels completely won and Congo became Zimbabwe, Dr Roseveare returned. As you can imagine, what we now call PTSD was overwhelming for her. She was struggling, unable to forgive – unable to find a freedom to minister effectively. I cannot imagien her horror. I don't understand how she went back at all.

A black pastor informed her that he and his wife were taking her away for awhile. They reached a retreat center and the pastor told her to go into her hut and not to come out till she sorted it out with God. Days passed and things weren’t any better. She came out to see the pastor. He said
to her, “Do you know what your problem is, Helen?” She indignantly replied, “No. If I did I wouldn’t be stuck in my hut!”

At this point in the story Helen looked around the Assembly Hall and said, “The pastor took his foot and drew a vertical line in the sand – an ‘I’ – ‘This is your problem, Helen,’ he said. ‘And Jesus came to cross out the I.’ As he said this he drew a horizontal line two thirds of the way up across the I.”

When Dr Roseveare finished speaking the Assembly Hall rose as one to give her a standing ovation. I will always remember this little Irish lady’s message: “Jesus came to cross out the ‘I’!”

From every conceiveable angle the problem Dr Roseveare faced was not in herself. How couild anyone blame her for the abuse and the torture she endured. But that wasn't her point. She had spent all her time focusing on what others did. And it wasn't about what they did. I was about what was inside of her. God can only deal with what's inside of us when we have the courage to stop looking at others as the source of our problems and begin seeing that the real problem is in ourselves. That is the most outlandish thing I could ever say to you. But it is true.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is Good Friday now. This is the day of the cross; the day we killed God. Remember how I gave the metaphor of forgiveness requiring death.  When we wrong each other the one wronged, to truly forgive must have a piece of themselves die in order to forgive.

I believe the cross is about that. All the death that all of the wrongs committed by billions of people throughout history; whether Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Mother Theresa’s, Billy Graham’s, or my own were carried by Jesus up that hill called Golgotha so that forgiveness could happen.

I know I am guilty. From the lies I told in my childhood, to the betrayal of your Mother, to the little white lies told while trying to sell a car, or the anger at the Subaru driver in front of me going 3 miles an hour under the speed limit in the fast lane.

I am guilty. I’ve lied, cheated, stolen,  coveted, lost control of my anger,  committed adultery, written plagiarism, been a glutton, ignored the poor and the outcasts, acted selfishly, coveted my
neighbour’s wife, sworn, violated the Sabbath, taken the Lord’s name in vain, worshipped other Gods, provoked my children to anger, and a whole lot more. The only one of the Big Ten I haven’t violated is murder, and then Jesus has to go and say if I’ve been angry with my neighbor, I’m even guilty of that.

So this is the day, Jesus took all the guilt I carry for all that I have done, and all that I will do and he took it from me, carrying it up a hill on his back; getting nailed to it and dying on it for me. That is what is good about this day. In the end, he yelled, “It is finished!” Truly it was. My guilt was taken and killed with Jesus.

This is only one picture of what happened that day over 2000 years ago. A lot more was done and a lot of other metaphors give us glimpses of what Jesus did. This is the metaphor that explains my life to me though. Though we can’t theologically correctly say, “A part of God died.” (Jesus is not a
part of God, He is God.) As a metaphor it still points to truth.

Forgiveness requires death. Our ultimate forgiveness requires God to die, and so he did, at our hand, for us. Now that is love!

Letter 13: How I Met Jesus

You remember our friend, Steve Ganz? He tells the story of how he started following Jesus. He was struggling with drug abuse and then talking to his sister, while coming off a high he met Jesus. For the next little while he went around knowing nothing at all except that he had met this Dude named Jesus, and he was really cool.

The Trinity is at the center of my faith; Jesus is the window and door to enter into it. He is the substance and example of my faith. Without Him, language could not begin to approach introducing us to the Triune God of the universe. Without Him we’d have no chance at forgiveness or forgiving; isolation would be our lot in life and there would be a lot more addiction, war and hatred than there already is.

While most of the Jesus stories are found in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; stories like I told in Genesis 32 are also Jesus stories. When God is seen in human form it is always Jesus.

When I was 16 I went to school in Otley, West Yorkshire, England for a year (Prince Henry's Grammar School).

A girl was responsible. She stopped wanting to hang out with me and wanted to hang out with another guy. I’d had a crush on her since I was ten and she first moved to Portland. She was my first love and I knew I lost her. So I left to England. I stayed with my Cousins. It was a great life except that everything I knew and loved was back here in the States. I don’t remember how long it took for the depression to hit; maybe it was when she sent me a letter and asked me if I had heard the new Journey song, “Separate Ways.”

 

Whatever the cause, there was a period of time midway through the year when I would go up to my room on the very top floor of the house, lay on my bed, look out the sky light and listen to music on my little cassette recorder wishing the wolrd would end. On one particular day I put on Larry Norman’s “In Another Land,” And the song came on:

 

“I am a servant, I am listening for my name.

I sit here waiting. I’ve been looking at the game,

That I’ve been playing and I’ve been staying much the same.

When you are lonely you’re the only one to blame”.

I heard those words and hit rewind on my tape recorder over and over again, because if there was one thing I was, it was that I was lonely. As I listened to the whole song, again and again, I got on my knees and met Jesus, for the first time. I told him that I was willing and ready to go anywhere and do anything for him. My life has never been the same.

I’d love to tell you that from there on everything got better, but you know it didn’t. There was a second meeting with Jesus. This one also kind of rocked my world. I was preaching to the old folk at Montavilla Baptist Church on Hebrews 12: 1-2”

“Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame.”

You know, Maggie, how you and I have ADHD moments every once and a while, “Oh, look, a squirrel!” Well, try having one of those while you are preaching and you get to see into another realm, cause that is what happened to me.

In the middle of my sermon, mid sentence, Jesus interupted. I saw this darling, cute little three or four year old boy on a park bench in Mt Tabor Park. He was running breathlessly down that bench as fast as he could and leaping off the bench into his Daddy’s arms who was laughing and twirling him around and putting him down so he could run and clamber up on the bench to repeat the process. I realized that the boy was the same boy I saw in my own childhood pictures. I was looking at myself, and though I never saw the face of Dad, I knew it wasn’t Papa, it was God himself.

Then the image changed and I remembered daily doubles for football, with the coaches standing in the middle of the field yelling through megaphones for us to run harder and faster, and us turning up the exertion level as far as our tired bodies would let us. I remembered coach Simons grabbing my face mask and screaming at me when I missed a block and my guy made the tackle, and I remembered the next kick off running down the field and knocking two guys over with a lay out block and being most concerned that Coach Simons saw it. He did. He was jumping in the air screaming he was so happy for me.

These images flashed into my brain in an instant, and I remembered my prayer, “God, I’ll do anything for you.” And all of a sudden I realized that He wasn’t interested so much in me doing anything for Him. He didn’t want me to run for him, work for him, speak for him, or anything else. He wanted me to run to him like the boy on the park bench. I run a lot faster running to than running for.

I don’t know how long that vision interrupted my sermon, but it changed it. I didn’t have to run for Jesus. I got to run toward him.

I wish I could tell you that this solved all my problems, but it didn’t. You know where I ended up.

Later, disavowed by the church. Abandoned by my friends, embraced and loved by people who wanted nothing to do with Jesus, I met him again. This time in their midst, with them; all of us broken. All of us left on the scrap heap of life, looked down on by the drug addicts across the streets, misunderstood, modern day lepers, Jesus came to me again, quietly, peacefully and without fanfare, to let me know that he wouldn’t abandon me even when his people did.

He let me know that he most often chooses to hang out with the losers, the outcasts, the poor and the needy, the broken and the needy. He let me know it was in my brokenness that he could meet me. It was in my neediness that he could make a difference.

He wanted me to trust him, not myself, my position, my possessions, or my gifts and talents. He let me know that he was bigger than the theological box I had confined him to. He was speaking just not in the places I was listening.

I want to talk more about Jesus, and I wanted you to know how I came to know and love him.