Questioning Life

Regrets?

"Adults' most common regret:

I never took enough risks.

Next: I wasn’t assertive enough, and I lacked self-discipline."

Rickard T. Kuiner, March, 1989, Homemade.

Are these your regrets?

No Time to Waste, 4

Let us follow without hesitation. Those first disciples came without questions when called. They just followed Jesus. That’s all. They did not understand when he called them. And, as we see clearly throughout Mark’s Gospel, they never understood. They abandoned Jesus near the end, when things got really tough. Yet, Jesus, Jesus kept relentlessly calling followers, sticking by them, searching out new ones. He does this still. That is how we came to be here today. Great is God’s faithfulness. God holds onto us no matter that we have let go of God years ago.

I hope you were able to see the following in your reading of Mark 1:14-20 and 1 Corinthians 7:29-31:

First, note carefully that you have not sought and found God. God has found you in Jesus Christ. Jesus calls his own disciples. This one realization is worth ongoing gratitude for the rest of your life. “While we were yet sinners…,” God sent Jesus for you.

Second, then as now, those disciples Jesus calls respond in both positive and negative ways: they leave behind old lives, jobs, family obligations. They also follow Jesus. This is part of the mingling of joy and sorrow I mentioned already. This is part of repentance. This is part of the cost of the decision to follow. We so often say that grace and salvation are free. By this we mean that one cannot do anything to earn salvation. But, never think that your turning towards God will not cost you in the decisions you must make in the all the areas of your life: joy and sorrow.

Third, having set out to follow Jesus, the first disciples and we today will not become students of the Law, as students of a rabbi might have, but will become those who fish for people to bring them to the throne of God, to offer them entry into the family of God, so that they experience the joy and sorrow of their own walk with Jesus. In other words, Jesus now enables us to carry on his ministry in his absence

No Time to Waste, 3

The poet W. H. Auden put it this way in “For the Time Being,” a Christmas Oratorio: “And because of His visitation, we may no longer desire God as if He were lacking: our redemption is no longer a question of pursuit but of surrender to Him who is always and everywhere present. Therefore at every moment we pray that, following Him, we may depart from our anxiety into His peace.”

Isn’t it our experience that we hope to leave behind our anxieties, our depression, our fears, our sadness, and our grief, hoping to leave all that and more behind, and to fall into the peace of Christ? But, look how many will not do just this. They will not follow; they will not believe. They still want to search. They want further proof, as if there could ever be enough. One more question. Once more about all those lost books of the Bible the church has been pretending don’t exist and are not trustworthy. And on, and on.

We think we can make our own substitute heaven, and not choose the one Jesus offers. An example: a retirement center in Florida called The Villages, the world’s largest, gated retirement community. It is about 40 miles from Orlando, land of Mickey Mouse and company, and sits on 20,000 acres, as much as Disney World. There are at least 100,000 residents living on 100 miles of golf cart paths, and there is a book detailing just how many of these 100,000 are scrambling to live out their unfulfilled dreams from earlier in life. From the stories it seems The Villages is something of a geriatric spring break, in a world without children. One female resident told the author of the book that “You can be anyone you want to be here,” a form of senior make believe in a city of streets lined with nothing but golf carts, and again, no children allowed. Is this retirement? Is there a place for such useless lives, for no longer following Jesus? What a lousy version of heaven! Substitute heaven or substitute hell, you decide? Trusting ourselves instead of God, always leads to a substitute hell.

No Time to Waste, 2

Jesus calls us to live the gospel of God, a life in which joy and sorrow come together.

We are people living on the edge of time (1 Cor. 7). We live in this world as though we were not. We should seek God and the things of God, including God’s values. Augustine: Let us build a house in our heart and make a place where Jesus may come and teach us. That is, a house to take the place of the one to the care of which the unbelievers devote themselves. Like those first followers, we should be common folk on an uncommon mission. They left their father of the flesh to follow the Father of the spirit. They did not leave a father; they found a Father (Jerome).

The time we live, the time between the times, before the final time, the end, is nearer than ever before. Therefore, hold onto everything lightly. There is a mingling of joy and sorrow in life: The joy of faith makes up for whatever bitterness may accompany repentance (Jerome): “The hope of gain makes pleasant the perils of the sea” as we have seen this past week, in the loss of life on the grounded Italian cruise ship. News reports have pointed out how relatively safe “cruising” compared to flying, since there are fewer shipwrecks than airline crashes. So people undertake the joy of a cruise at sea, understanding the danger to be manageable.

Living for the gospel ought to be like that, more joy than sorrow. But, even if this were the case, the majority of those who hear the good news of God turn away, rather than turning towards God. Why do you think they refuse to follow Jesus?

Many (most) refuse to believe and live the gospel of God.

Many of us live as though we will never die and the world will never end. This is not a good choice! In mainline protestant churches most of all, we tend to fall into this wrong worldview, with the result that we over-identify with the world and become wrongly involved in it. Our possessions own us. We decide that just the right politician will bring us freedom or even salvation.

We decide, basically, that we want to build a heaven on earth to take the place of God’s promised heaven. Many of us spend our lives searching for God and for meaning. Now, Jesus has come, he is calling, and the tables have been turned. We are no longer searching for God, we are not on a spiritual journey or pilgrimage, our role now is to stop looking beyond God and to surrender to God who is here and now, always among us in Christ and in his Spirit.

No Time to Waste (Mark 1:14-20, 1 Cor. 7:29-31)

Jesus has been born. We have followed him now from Christmas, through his manifestation to the Gentile world (Epiphany and the Three Kings), and saw him baptized. Now, we see the grown Jesus who has begun his ministry. He tells us that the Kingdom of God is near, at hand, and that we should believe the Gospel of God. That means that the Kingdom has come into history. Jesus calls us to live for that Kingdom, to live for him, for he himself is the kingdom. We don’t have all the time in the world, so to speak. The world as we know it will soon come to an end and be transformed. God is in charge of his world.

Jesus tells us the gospel of God. God’s rule as King is beginning. We must now adjust ourselves to God’s time (repent). God’s kingdom has come into history, with both present and future aspects.

Jesus calls these first disciples, who were very, very ordinary guys. They disappoint him again and again, especially noticeable in Mark’s Gospel. Still, Jesus holds onto these same men as his first followers. He gives them everything he has, all that he is. And, Jesus leads them to the kingdom, the kingdom he talks about here. But, Jesus did not stop calling followers with those first 12. He calls us, too. We are here because we were called by God to be here. And, we are the same ordinary men and women Jesus has called to follow him from these early days.

What to Do When Your Cup Overflows

You remember the line in the 23^rd Psalm: “You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows” (NIV). Many of us still think first of the older King James Version, “my cup runneth over.” Have you ever considered what you might do with that overflow, with the excess, with the abundance of God’s Spirit, God’s gifts?

Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), Doctor of the Church and founder of 70 monasteries, had a suggestion worth considering:

“We must not give to others what we have received for ourselves; nor must we keep for ourselves that which we have received to spend on others…(Y)ou dissipate and lose what is your own, if without right intention and from some wrong motive, you hasten to outpour yourself on others when your own soul is only half filled.

“If you are wise therefore you will show yourself a reservoir and not a canal. For a canal pours out as fast as it takes in; but a reservoir waits till it is full before it overflows, and so communicates its surplus… We have all too few such reservoirs in the Church at present, though we have canals in plenty…. They (canals) desire to pour out when they themselves are not yet inpoured; they are readier to speak than to listen, eager to teach that which they do not know, and most anxious to exercise authority on others, although they have not learnt to rule themselves… Let the reservoir of which we spoke just now take pattern from the spring; for the spring does not form a stream or spread into a lake until it is brimful…. Be filled thyself; then, but discreetly, mind, pour out thy fullness…. Out of thy fullness help me if thou canst; and if not, spare thyself” (Sermons on the Song of Songs, from For All the Saints, Vol. III: Year 2, Frederick J. Schumacher, editor, [Delhi, NY: the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, 1995], pp. 187-8).

This is good advice, and from the 12^th century! If we think of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit filling our lives until the fullness of the Spirit “runneth over,” perhaps we could divert this overflow into the lives of those around us and out into our communities.

At the beginning of this New Year, why not let God’s grace and Spirit flow into, through and out of your soul? Don’t dam up the reservoir about which Bernard speaks. Instead, allow for a spillway, so that the Spirit may more easily overflow, taking God’s blessings and God’s grace into the lives of others, through your witness.

Remember that God did not bless Abraham and Sarah with a blessing that stopped there. God said, instead, “I will bless you…and you will be a blessing…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12).

 That is how we should see ourselves. God has blessed us, adopting us through Christ as his sons and daughters. This is not a gift we can grasp tightly to ourselves. God calls us to be a blessing to those around us, thus witnessing to God’s grace.

Go, be a blessing to someone. Spill the Holy Spirit all over them!

The reason productivity improvements don't work (as well as they could)

GTD, 18 minute plans, organized folders... none of them work as well as you'd like.

via sethgodin.typepad.com

Seth Godin has it right. We don't need plans or resolutions for the new year. We need to make and keep commitments, whether in work or in life. Do what you know you need to do.

THE video you should be using for your Christmas Eve service «

This video of the re-telling of the Christmas story is going to blow you away.

via mikebreen.wordpress.com

Thanks to Mike Breen for pointing out this lovely Christmas video from New Zealand. Watch!

Christ is at the Door (conclusion)

Everything is not yet revealed, but the promise of transformation means we are called to practice humility…and gratitude. What would it look like if we celebrated Christmas as if we really expected to see Jesus again, and sooner than later?

Remember that the Heidelberg Catechism is divided into three sections—guilt (for our sin), grace (God’s gift of our salvation) and gratitude (lived out in service). Remember, too, the words of Mother Teresa when speaking about her organization in Kolkata, India, saying that they are not social workers…they are there doing the work of Christ because this is what God wants them to do. This is gratitude lived out in one’s life.

As many of us sat with family and friends celebrating Thanksgiving Day, we shared that for which we are grateful. I would expect that those “thankful” lists included family, friends, health, and probably thanks for things we have or what we have achieved.

The gratitude of which I write is somewhat different. Foundational to our lives as created by God is gratitude for who we are in Christ, a status we can claim by the grace of God. We are also grateful for who we will be—in God’s presence for all eternity. This is real Thanksgiving, gratitude for being called to be children of God, saved through faith in Jesus Christ.  

We are also called in this in-between time to practice humility. Again, we don’t practice gratitude or humility for God’s good gifts. Look again at the order: guilt—grace—gratitude. Our salvation is something that comes to us from outside ourselves, from God, completely as gift. Therefore, we can only accept God’s grace in humility. We don’t deserve it. We can’t buy it. We can’t pray or fast or feed the poor enough to merit it. After all is said and done, our status as children of God is still 100% gift.

Someone has said that “humility is the ladder to divine understanding.” God knows what he is doing. We do not. By following Christ we can, over time, understand more about the ways of God. Of course, at the end we are still on the first rung of the ladder!

When Jesus returns, all this will be made clear and complete. While we wait, we wait in gratitude and in humility. We humbly acknowledge that God is meanwhile transforming creation, ourselves included. What little we can understand, we can know that Jesus is just outside our door...not “if” but “when.”

I read this Celtic prayer on a blog I like:

Christ with us sleeping, Christ with us waking, Christ with us watching, each day and each night. Save us, Lord, while we are awake, guard us while we are asleep; that, awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in his peace.

I would add the following:

May you watch for Christ.

May you watch with Christ.

And, may Christ watch over you. Amen.

Christ is at the Door, part 4

Jesus will come as King. This will wrap up time and creation as we know them. Therefore, the world, everything and everyone, will be judged as the old is transformed into the new. We see the signs all around us, but we find it hard to believe that all this will take place. It has been so long since the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is often hard to keep our faith. It seems easier to try and pick dates when all this will happen, or tie the promises in scripture to current events. Harold Camping. Adventism.

The Bible teaches that we should be neither fanatic nor unconcerned about the dates. Christ is ever at our doors. Don't sleep. Do watch.

We have, after all, seen many of the "whens" come to pass: prophets come and go, but calamities seems to be worse and worse--earthquakes, floods, fires, falling meteors or space debris, tsunamis, riots, revolutions. Are the ancient powers on the move?  It is confusing, so many signs, year after decade after century. Remember that these are meant to be "when" questions of comfort. Why, because the question is not "if" Jesus is coming, but "when." For those who believe, the "when" will be a time of great comfort.

So let us be concerned with questions of transformation. We will be changed, and that is a good thing, a good "when."