breathing room

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Jesus vs. the Anxious Urgency of Eternal Destiny (and all other varieties as well)

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 02/05/2012

Matthew 7…

7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ²For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

³“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴How can you say, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from the other person’s eye.

Matthew 7:1-5

We have on the one hand the commands of Jesus to fix our eyes on our responsibilities for ourselves, first and foremost - the planks in our eyes - and after we've done that to be available to help one another with the sawdust in their eyes.

And on the other hand, we have this sense of anxious urgency produced by the following logic:

our sin separates us from God.

we are often blind to our sin.

if, in our blindness, we never turn from our sin, we will stay eternally separated from God.

we who are not blind to others' sin, then, have a responsibility to tell other people about their sin.

Especially the sins that separate them from God.

So that they can see their sin and repent.

So that they can be saved.

So we end up facing this dilemma when we see someone with some sawdust in their eyes – especially if it seems to us to be the kind of sawdust that we think might really be a problem:

I'm not sure I should say anything, but…

But: if I don't, and they keep doing that, what if they end up in hell, separated from God forever?

But: if I were them, and I were going to hell unless they said something, I'd want them to say something.

But: if I don't say anything, and they end up in hell, I might be responsible for their eternal fate, and then I'd be in trouble too.

But: if I do say something, and they ignore me, or even if they hate me, I'll at least be in the clear, and it's on them now.

This sense of urgency, of a high stakes game in progress, makes it challenging to listen to the voice of the Spirit leading us, doesn't it?

He'd better tell me what to do quick, before it's too late. Because if I don't hear anything soon, I'm going for it!

[anxiety like static in communication; all communication is emotional, if you're not moving towards, it's hard to hear…the anxiety itself can 1) make it hard to hear, and 2) get us turned in the wrong direction, making us miss what the Spirit is trying to say…]

So what can we do about that anxiety?

we could examine the logic, trying to figure out if any of our assumptions are flawed, or any of our conclusions in error, or

we could listen to Jesus.

[indiana jones clip, whipping out gun against swordsman…]

Jesus does to the anxious urgent edifice constructed by this logic what Indiana Jones does to the swordsman. He looks at it, shrugs, and does away with it.

Jesus says in essence: “hey, I don’t know where you got this anxious urgency from, but you didn’t get it from me.” And as his followers, if it doesn’t look like Jesus, and it doesn’t walk like Jesus, and it doesn’t talk like Jesus, it’s probably a good sign it’s not Jesus. And anxious urgency surely ain’t Jesus.

After all, is a life of faith an exercise in mastering a logic system, or an exercise in trusting God?

Here's the fundamental problem with the anxious urgency approach. It's simply not how Jesus related to sinful people. And it's not what Jesus uses as the basis for our mission. So regardless of the merits of our logic, something is off. [which, if we were brutally honest, we’d admit we suspected, if only because of the bad fruit we’ve seen come from it…]

Consider how Jesus went about his saving activity. Do we ever see that kind of anxious urgency in his interactions with people? No, we don't. In fact, we see all kinds of indications of just the opposite.

[Judas, Peter, as we mentioned last week…]

Jesus withdraws from time to time, time after time, to reconnect with the Father, to rest, to pray. Despite the clamoring of the crowds. This is not what anxious urgency would compel him to do, is it? Shouldn’t he just go, go, go, trusting God to give him energy – I mean, he’s only got to keep on keeping on for 3 years, right? What’s the point of conserving energy?

I don’t mean to suggest that Jesus’ mission isn’t urgent, that it isn’t important. I don’t mean to suggest that he thinks it doesn’t matter, so he’ll take his sweet time, thank you very much. No, his mission is so urgent, and so important, that nothing could keep him from it. I only mean that anxious urgency isn’t what moves him. He is intent on cooperating with the Spirit of God – on doing what he sees the Father doing – and the Father values kairos time over kronos time, everytime. [explain…] In fact, Jesus seems to resist anxious urgency whenever he encounters it (mother, lazarus).

When Jesus speaks of how God's kingdom works, he uses language loaded with waiting, with patience. Yeast working through dough, slow and invisible. Seeds being planted, sprouting in the ground, in season growing up into a harvest. Anxious urgency nowhere to be found.

²⁴ Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶ When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

²⁷ “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

²⁸ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

²⁹ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

³¹ He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. ³² Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

³³ He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

³⁴ Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. ³⁵ So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:

“I will open my mouth in parables,
I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.”

Matthew 13

Farming, gardening, cooking. All about kairos time. Anxious urgency will ruin all equally well…

Watching Jesus, one might even be tempted to think that forging a peaceful, healthy way of being human before God was as important and urgent as getting on with the mission. One might even be tempted to think that it was somehow an integral part of the mission… One might be tempted to think, even, that anxious urgency could be as destructive a sin as any sin that the people anxious urgency compels us to enlighten are dealing with… I’ll leave that for you to consider, if it interests you.

For now,

Consider the context and pace of God's salvation work culminating in Jesus.

Calling Abraham.

Wrestling with Jacob and renaming him Israel.

Allowing Israel's descendants to suffer in slavery 400 years.

10 plagues.

The 12 tribes wandering in the wilderness 40 years.

Hundreds and hundreds of years more, much of it filled with silence, before Jesus arrives.

Jesus starting as an embryo, a fetus, a baby, a boy, a teenager, a young man, then finally, around 30, beginning to preach good news and teach and heal and drive out demons.

Walking from place to place to place, speaking in small towns scattered throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside.

Anxious urgency nowhere to be found.

Then, when Jesus commissions his disciples to follow in his salvation mission, listen to what he tells them:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28

Notice what the "therefore" follows, and what it doesn't. "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore…And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Therefore doesn't follow what our logic tells us it should follow: "The time is short, and every second you delay, people are dying and going to hell in their ignorance, therefore…And if you fail, you just may join them."

No, “therefore” follows Jesus' proclamation that he has all the authority in heaven and on earth. In other words, go about your mission out of obedience to me…and have peace, because I'm with you always, to the very end of the age.

Obedience and peace, those are qualities connected to faith, to trusting God, aren't they? When we trust, we obey. When we trust, we act out of a place of peace. When God is with us, it empowers our obedience. When God is with us, peace that passes understanding is present.

And, to top it all off, after he commissions his disciples to carry out his mission, he tells them first, they must wait indefinitely in Jerusalem.

But Jesus!? People are perishing, and you want us to wait!??

Yes, wait for my holy spirit, which I will send you.

Because our mission is a mission of faith, requiring us to listen to the voice of his Spirit, to be led and directed as we trust the leading of his Spirit. If we run off on our own teaching people to be disciples, we'll be teaching people that what it means to be a disciple is to run off on our own, trusting our own logic, rather than obeying him. If we wait for the leading of his spirit, and out of obedience carry out our mission, then we will be teaching people that what it means to be a disciple is to trust and obey. The medium is the message. What kind of disciples do you think Jesus wants?

It's so much like the “buts” we have when it comes to judgment. Jesus tells us not to judge, and we say, but…!

But, somebody's got to let them know what they are doing is wrong!

But, they are wrong and I am right!

But, I have enough information in this case, it's not a matter of being to hasty and getting it wrong!

Sure, that all makes sense. It follows a certain logic. But Jesus says don't do it.

Because when we judge, it doesn't matter if we are right in our judgment or not. What matters is that our judgment puts us in the wrong posture towards other human beings (above them), and makes it impossible for us to be obedient to Jesus' command to us to love (which requires that we be in a posture of service to one another, below them). Judgment is for him, and him alone.

It’s similar with the way we come alongside of our fellow image bearers and help them to see and follow Jesus. Jesus tells us to wait and obey him every step of the way, to focus on our responsibilities for ourselves first, and then help one another with the sawdust after that. And we say but…!

But, the time is short!

But, they can't see how much it's hurting them!

But, they could be paying an eternal price for some short term pleasure, and they might never know!

Sure, that all makes sense. It follows a certain logic. But Jesus says don't do it.

Because when we focus on others' sawdust, it places us in the wrong posture towards other human beings (responsible for them), and we fail in our responsibilities for ourselves and towards them. And when we act out of anxious urgency, instead of trusting obedience, we become disobedient and unfaithful.

story of Saul.

¹ Saul was thirty^[^a^] years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-^[^b^] two years.

² Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Mikmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest he sent back to their homes.

³ Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, “Let the Hebrews hear!” ⁴ So all Israel heard the news: “Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel has become obnoxious to the Philistines.” And the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal.

⁵ The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand^[^c^] chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Mikmash, east of Beth Aven. ⁶ When the Israelites saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns. ⁷ Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.

Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. ⁸ He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. ⁹ So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. ¹⁰ Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.

¹¹ “What have you done?” asked Samuel.

Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, ¹² I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”

¹³ “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. ¹⁴ But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command.”

1 Samuel 13

God’s priority for us in every situation is for us to be responsible for ourselves, and as part of that responsibility to be responsible to love and serve those to whom God has called us.

Saul was king of Israel. King of the people who were called apart as God's own, in a land God had given them. He was responsible before God to, first and foremost, trust God.

Then his men started to desert. His prophet didn't show up.

The invitation of God in the midst of every anxious urgency is "trust me." Saul didn't. He abdicated his responsibilities as king to take on the prophet's responsibilities, out of fear. I felt compelled, he said. That wasn't God's Spirit leading him, was it? No. And the kingdom was taken from him because in his anxious urgency he stepped out line and did what was reserved for another to do.

We face so many anxious urgencies, don't we? Anxious urgency is always a tool of the enemy to draw us away from our responsibilities for our ourselves and to others, to twist those up in a such a knot that we can't hear the voice of God's Spirit leading us, in such a knot that we can't see clearly the way forward, in a such a knot that we stop trusting and obeying.

We face it about our money...

We face it about our important relationships...

We face it about our kids...

We face it about our bodies...

We face it about our ministries, even...

[pastoral questions about the eternal fate of loved ones…do you trust Jesus? Is he good? That's where peace comes. That's the place from which we can live faithful, obedient lives. It's the same with questions like "do you think such and such a behavior that so and so is engaged in leads to hell…?" what does it matter with respect to your trusting obedience of Jesus? The real question is, in what way is the Spirit leading you to love and serve that person? Oh, you have trouble listening to the leading of the Spirit? Perhaps that's the plank that needs attention first…]

Jesus is saving, restoring, healing this broken world. Jesus. He is redeeming, renewing, rescuing. He is making all things new. And he’s including us. Starting with us, and commissioning us to join in cooperation with him through the empowering of his Holy Spirit.

We, in our old creation bodies, with our old creation minds, are subject to the anxious urgency of Kronos time, which always seems to go too slow when brokenness abounds, and go way too fast when heaven rains down. But Jesus, the firstborn from among the dead, in his resurrection body, equally at home in the river of time and in the eternity of the heavens, has eyes to see Kairos time.

Will we wait when he says wait? Will we go when he says go? Will we learn to resist the voice of anxious urgency, recognizing that it is not the voice of the good shepherd? Will we come to understand that no matter what it says, no matter what sense it makes, it is not the voice of the one who loves us? Will we learn to listen to Jesus’ voice? His voice is the voice of peace. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. He will be with us always, even to the end of the age.

Practical Tips:

1. Get on the right hook. Do you feel this gets you “off the hook” for confronting other people about their sin? It might, I suppose, depending on the context. But it’s really about getting “on the hook” for being obedient to Jesus. For you taking the next step of discipleship with him. Does that mean asking him what you need to repent for? Does that mean asking him who you need to serve and love and how? Yes, yes, and yes. Are you doing that – intentionally, actively in your life right now? Keep it up. Are you not? It’s time to start. Kairos time.

2. Get off the Anxious Urgency train. Is there something you are doing in your life because of an anxious urgency? Talk with a wise brother or sister about it. Pray that Jesus would give you grace to resist the anxious urgency and trust his leading instead. Pause and pray the Lord’s prayer before you act next out of anxious urgency next time.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Sawdust

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 01/29/2012

[conversation with mortgage broker…]

By way of preview, before we finish today, we will look at 4 questions we can ask ourselves before trying to help someone “improve” themselves.

1. Do I love this person?

2. Am I in a posture of service?

3. Am I free from anxiety about their response to God or to the help I give?

4. Am I willing to suffer pain to help them see God more clearly and follow him more freely?

If the answer is yes to all 4, and you think Jesus is leading you to help, then dive right in. If not, wait.

But more on that later.

7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ²For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Matthew 7:1-5

[recap of first week, first things first, responsible for self, responsible to others / downside of over-responsibility (being responsible for others instead of for self) creates destructive stress, a violation of God-given self, makes us fail our true responsibilities / how this is central to faithfully pursuing our mission…1) Follow 2) Create Breathing Room….Last week we talked about resisting the strong forces that lead us to ignore our own planks and focus on the sawdust in others’ eyes, our instinct for triangulation in our relationship with God, because it is always easier to focus on someone else and avoid the uncomfortable or painful things between us and God ]

We closed last week by saying that Jesus is teaching us that if we want be his disciples, if we want to follow in his footsteps, then with respect to our relationships with him, we must let go of the supports and relief valves that focusing on others sometimes provide us, and in faith, deal with him face to face. And then we will be properly positioned to take the posture of a servant and not a judge towards every other image-bearer, and be a true help to one another in our discipleship with him.

How do you know when and how to help others in their relationship with God? How do you know when you are supposed to help someone get a speck of sawdust out of their eye?

Let’s be clear before we go any further what we are not talking about.

We are not talking about when someone has done some unforebearable wrong against you that creates the need for reconciliation. [examples…] When a wrong is done against you that requires the work of reconciliation to set right, Matthew 18 points the way forward (Go, speak to your brother or sister in private, etc…), not Matthew 7.

We are also not talking about the kinds of correction we have to bring for the sake of peaceful, well-ordered community. Where some member of the community is acting in some way that disrupts the community or brings harm to others. [kids teasing Elle…] We see Jesus firmly correcting his disciples all the time when they get out of line with his purposes.

The truth is, of course, we will handle both of those kinds of situations better without judgment and without planks, and from a posture of love and service, [examples…] but those aren’t the kinds of situations Jesus is addressing in Matthew 7.

Matthew 7 is about the experience of living in community with others and the endless opportunities that provides us to focus on either the specks of sawdust in the eyes of others, or the planks in our eyes. Matthew 7 is about following the way of Jesus together, in a way that allows us to create breathing room for God to do what God does best as we fulfill our responsibilities for ourselves and towards others.

Jesus, as we’ve talked about, says first things first. Deal with our own planks. Be responsible first and foremost for ourselves. But he also implies that there are times in which one of the ways we fulfill our responsibilities towards one another is by helping each other with the sawdust floating around in our eyes.

In other words, one of the ways we love and serve each other as brothers and sisters in a community of faith is by helping each other gracefully get rid of the obstacles that we have to clear sight and forward movement in discipleship with Jesus. [examples…]

So how do we know when the time is right for us to help, and when the time is wrong? And how do we know how to do it, once we know the time is right?

The truest answer is both the simplest and probably the least satisfying. When God, through his Holy Spirit, tells you to. And as to the how, we do it gracefully. No ifs, ands, or buts.

For followers of Jesus, this is the ultimate answer to every question about when to do anything. Jesus himself said, I only do what I see the Father doing. This is what life in the Spirit looks like. It’s what inside-out living looks like. It is the kingdom of God within us expressing itself outward through our words and actions.

If our actions are a response to the leading of Jesus’ Spirit, and nothing else, then we will always be acting in love, and if we are operating from well-formed character, we will act gracefully in the posture of servant, like Christ himself. We can’t lose.

Each of us is well aware, however, that discerning the voice of God’s spirit in our lives is a lifelong exercise, and character takes time. Both are gifts that need development over time. And in the meantime, we might need some guidelines, some nudging in the right direction. When we have the inclination to go help someone with what looks like a speck of sawdust to us, how do we know if it’s God’s spirit showing it to us? How can we be sure our own planks aren’t distorting our vision? How do we know if it’s God’s Spirit telling us to go offer help? How can we be sure it’s not just our instinct for triangulation kicking in?

We can learn a lot from seeing how Jesus attends to the sawdust he encounters.

Consider the woman caught in adultery…

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

John 8

The Pharisee’s eyes are full of sawdust. Jealousy of Jesus’ influence on the crowds, a willingness to use this woman to entrap him, anger, you name it - triangulation of the first order. Their sawdust has made them blind to themselves and to their responsibilities to others. So he gently turns their attention to their own planks. “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” That’s enough. He doesn’t go one by one correcting each of them. He just directs them to their planks in order to protect this woman from their judgment and lets them take it from there.

This woman has some sawdust. But it seems that the first sawdust Jesus deals with is the sawdust flung into her eyes by the crowd. Because that is the sawdust that has the capacity to blind her to God. “Has no one condemned you…? Then neither do I.”

The most significant obstacle to clear vision and forward movement for this woman apparently was the picture of God she had because of the inappropriate judgment of those in power around her. Jesus attends to this first. You think you stand condemned before an angry God? No, you stand under the grace of one who loves you.

Jesus is always doing this for what he describes as the lost sheep of Israel, harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. The sinners and tax collectors, the poor and the hurting. The first thing he addresses for them is the false picture of God they have because of the inappropriate judgment of those in power around them. Blessed are those who... Blessed are the… and on and on. Cleaning out sawdust. Helping people see clearly so they can take steps of faith towards God.

And then, after that, he helps her with the next speck of sawdust. Go now, and leave your life of sin. So simple, calm. Jesus isn’t anxious about her at all. Repentance is almost a foregone conclusion, isn’t it? Now that you see God clearly, and yourself clearly, those other specks of sawdust are going to wash right out, aren’t they? See that they do.

It’s essentially the same pattern with the Samaritan woman at the well, isn’t it? Jesus reshapes her picture of God by the way he relates to her and what he says to her, and then gently addresses the other sawdust, the stuff that the tears welling up in her eyes are just about to wash out anyway.

Or what about Zacchaeus?

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. ²A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. ³He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. ⁴So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

⁵When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” ⁶So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

⁷All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

⁸But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

⁹Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

Luke 19

Are we noticing a pattern? Jesus – through his graceful actions – deals with the sawdust that keeps Zacchaeus from seeing who God is, and the other sawdust doesn’t stand a chance.

In this case, the other people are muttering (sawdust alert!), but Jesus leaves it alone for some reason. Presumably because that sawdust doesn’t require any further attention from him in that moment. And he doesn’t seem anxious about it at all.

How about one more?

³⁶When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. ³⁷A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. ³⁸As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

³⁹When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

⁴⁰Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

⁴¹“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴²Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

⁴³Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

⁴⁴Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

⁴⁸Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

⁴⁹The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Luke 7

He sees her sawdust, and simply forgives it. It’s not keeping her from him at all, is it? Forgiveness is the only attention it needs.

Simon and the Pharisees on the other hand are blinded by their sawdust to themselves and to their responsibilities to others. So Jesus attends to what is lodged in their eyes by drawing their attention to their planks. “You gave me no… You gave me no… You did not…”

Before we try to apply all this to our own situations, I want to draw something else to our attention about the way Jesus related to his disciples in the midst of some of their most obvious sin.

Think about Peter and Judas at the last supper. Jesus knows both of them are about to screw up big time. Judas is going to betray him (John 13:21-30), and Peter is going to deny him 3 times (John 13:38). But Jesus doesn’t do anything to stop it. And he doesn’t seem anxious about it at all. Judas’ sawdust is completely Judas’ responsibility at this point, and Jesus’ fulfills his responsibility towards him by simply letting him know he sees it and giving him permission to do what he has determined to do. And Jesus allows Peter’s sawdust to remain unattended, because it seems that the time for him to help Peter with it is not now. It will be later, as we talked about last week, but it is not now.

In light of Jesus’ approach, let’s return to those 4 guideline questions we mentioned earlier. If we think the Holy Spirit might be leading us to help someone with a speck of sawdust I’ve noticed, or that they’ve asked us for help with, we should ask the following 4 questions:

1. Do I love this person?

2. Am I in a posture of service?

3. Am I free from anxiety about their response to God or to the help I give?

4. Am I willing to suffer pain to help them see God more clearly and follow him more freely?

Do I love this person?

If you want God’s best blessings for them, for them to have life, and have it to the full; if you see them as a beloved image-bearer of God, then that is a sign you are seeing clearly enough to help.

Love is our guide and our aim. Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Am I in a posture of service?

If you can see that the most important relationship in that person’s life is their holy relationship with God – them to God, and God to them, with them responsible for themselves, and God responsible for leading the discipleship process in cooperation with their surrender – then you can see yourself as one who comes as a servant to them in their responsibilities for themselves, and as one who comes as a servant to God in being an agent of his grace to one of his kids.

Am I free from anxiety about their response to God or to the help I give?

If you feel like your well-being is tied up in their response to God (or to your help!), it will be easy to move from servant to judge. This may be a sign you are acting out of a misplaced “responsibility for” instead of a graceful “responsible to.”

Remember, stress is a function of over-responsibility for the relationship of two others. And we don’t function very gracefully when we are stressed. We have a harder time hearing the voice of the Spirit leading us. So we need to give space for our input or advice or suggestions to be rejected, or poorly implemented, without getting frustrated or letting go of our humility.

Am I willing to suffer pain to help them see God more clearly and follow more freely?

If you can see how their sawdust is keeping them from seeing God clearly or having confidence to take a step of faith towards God, and you would be willing to suffer pain to show them God more clearly, then you might be seeing clearly enough, and be properly positioned, to help.

Because this work of sawdust removal rarely happens in a hit and run fashion. It almost always happens in the context of loving relationship. And loving relationship almost always involves pain.

Next week, what to do with the pressured urgency of eternal destiny? What if that speck of sawdust is what stands between them and heaven?

Practical Tips:

1. Practice Practically. Help somebody with a practical project – painting a room, fixing something, cooking with them, etc. – and notice how you relate to them as you do it. Ask God to teach you through the experience.

2. Ask God for a No-Brainer. Ask God to prompt someone to ask you for your help with some part of their discipleship journey. If that area of their life comes up in conversation as a point of pain for the person, ask them if they would be willing to let you help them. The very fact that they are open and vulnerable with you about that part of their life is often a sign that they experience you as someone who loves them, who is not in a posture of judgment towards them, and who is not overly invested in the outcome.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Sawdust, Planks, and Triangulation

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 01/22/2012

Let’s begin again by looking at Matthew 7.

7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ²For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Matthew 7:1-5

[recap of last week, first things first, responsible for self, responsible to others / downside of over-responsibility (being responsible for others instead of for self) creates destructive stress, a violation of God-given self, makes us fail our true responsibilities / how this is central to faithfully pursuing our mission…1) Follow 2) Create Breathing Room ]

Today we talk about our responsibility for our own planks. Next week we’ll talk about how we help with sawdust.

And for the moment, let’s not define planks as simply sin (i.e., something bad) but rather more generally as something that we must attend to in order to be able to see and serve more effectively. We might even paraphrase Matthew 7 this way, as members of a centered set church:

Why do you look at someone else’s next step of discipleship and pay no attention to your own? How can you say “Let me help you move forward with your step of discipleship,” when all the time, you are stuck in reverse? You who are playing at being responsible for somebody else, first get your feet moving forward on your own path of discipleship, and then you will be able to come alongside somebody else and help them move forward in discipleship too.

Isn’t understanding and obeying this command critical for fulfilling the great commission? “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…”

How can we make disciples if we aren’t first and foremost disciples ourselves? How can we teach others to obey what we’ve been commanded if we ourselves aren’t first learning to obey?

After all, the most effective form of teaching is modeling. Every one of us learned more from what our parents modeled than from anything they said to us. And when there was a discrepancy between what they said and what they did, what they did won, didn’t it?

And the greatest impediment to our own discipleship – the greatest impediment to being faithful to our responsibilities for ourselves – is taking on an over-responsibility for the discipleship of others. The thing most likely to make us overlook our planks is looking over at other’s sawdust.

[my team loses the big game, and I’m upset. Do I take it out on the coach, the ref, a player, the whole system, who knows!?... Or do I recognize in my pain a plank of discipleship I need to walk…? Because I’ll never be in the posture of a servant until I deal with my plank, will I? I’ll just be a judge over everyone else…]

Consider some other examples.

[share personal example…]

Someone insults you, does or says something disrespectful behind your back. You hear about it from someone who’s pretty reliable.

You feel hurt, a little angry, confused, maybe even a little embarrassed.

Do you…

A) Let yourself be offended, try to figure out whether or not you need to confront this person, address it, fume about the injustice of it all, think about how consistent with this person’s character this kind of attack is, try to decide if you even want to be in relationship with them anymore?

B) Remember that you are first and foremost responsible for yourself and your discipleship to Jesus. Say to Jesus, Jesus, I’m having a hard time remembering that this is just gossip, it’s second hand info, and therefore it’s dangerous, like an open can of gasoline near a flame. Help me recognize it for what it is and not receive it. Teach me what you want to teach me about myself through the way I’m reacting emotionally to it. Teach me to have my security in you and what you say about me to my face. I’m your disciple – what’s my next step in discipleship to you? And then, help me learn how to guard my heart toward this fellow image-bearer so I can love and serve him/her with grace so that I can be faithful to my responsibilities toward him/her.

Why is it the case that so often our answer is closer to A than B?

Because of our instinct for triangulation.

Relationships between two people have an inherent instability in them. Sort of like a two legged stool – it takes a lot of effort to balance them, especially when some kind of tension or unresolved conflict enters the picture. And so we are always looking for some third person or issue to focus on instead of dealing directly with the tension that exists between us and the original person.

[use stuffed animals as props…] The classic example is a husband and wife who have some trouble in their relationship – as all relationships do – and then a child comes along. The child can become like a stabilizing influence in the relationship, because the mother and father triangulate – begin to focus their attentions – on the child. On the challenges, the joys, whatever, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the focus moves from the unresolved things in the relationship between the husband and wife onto the third person, the child.

Now triangulation isn’t in and of itself a negative thing, and all relationships have some triangulation going on in them all the time. Think about how much of any relationship you have with anyone close to you is spent talking about other people, or ideas, or situations. It’s completely natural, and in many ways, healthy.

The problem with triangulation is when we use it to avoid dealing with the real issues that are compromising true intimacy between two people. 2 dangerous things happen. One, the person in the triangulated position – the child in the example we used – absorbs all the stress that is being offloaded, often unintentionally, by the parents. And two, even more importantly for us – as we think about our relationships with God – is that the false sense of intimacy created by triangulation masks the true needs that the original relationship has, and those needs are never dealt with, and in fact grow more and more significant.

One more example, now that triangulation is in view, and then we’ll bring this home to our relationships with God and what Jesus is getting at as he talks about planks and sawdust.

Any of you watch the Bachelor?

[bachelor example…]

Triangulation – especially triangulating somebody out – is a way of gaining a false sense of togetherness. A way of masking or numbing unresolved tensions or discomfort in a relationship.

We can triangulate others out as a way of achieving a false sense of togetherness with God. A way of avoiding uncomfortable things God might be inviting us to engage with him.

Pharisees did this with sinners and tax collectors.

Jonah did this with Nineveh.

We even see Peter attempting to escape the intensity of intimacy with Jesus at the end of John’s gospel, when he struggles to respond to Jesus’ “follow me” invitation, and tries to put the focus on John…

¹⁵When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

¹⁶Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

¹⁷The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

²⁰Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) ²¹When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”

²²Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

All the “do you love me?” stuff is heavy, intimate, emotionally charged stuff – especially given the context of Peter’s previous failure in that department. And perhaps even more especially given Peter’s man’s man kind of personality. And then Jesus drops the ‘how Peter’s going to die’ bombshell and says, “Follow me.” Peter’s looking for a way to triangulate somebody or something else into this relationship, ease the discomfort, buy himself some time and space. But Jesus won’t let him. “What is that to you?”

Jesus is the most self-differentiated human being in history, and he is fully capable, in the way that no one else is, of sustaining direct, intimate relationship with his disciples. It’s another topic for another time, but our relationship with God does not need triangulation to be stable. And Jesus is teaching us that if we want be his disciples, if we want to follow in his footsteps, then with respect to our relationships with him, we must let go of the supports and relief valves that focusing on others sometimes provides us, and in faith, deal with him face to face. And then we will be properly positioned to take the posture of a servant and not a judge towards every other image-bearer, and be a true help to one another in our discipleship with him. Once the love relationship between us and God is on solid footing, we can begin to fulfill our responsibilities to feed the other sheep.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Specks & Planks

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 01/15/2012

Let’s begin by looking at Matthew 7.

7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ²For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Matthew 7:1-5

[kids complaining…]

This metaphor of specks and planks and judgment is best understood as a commentary about how we relate to each other with respect to sins and flaws and imperfections and failures and brokenness. Why do you look at someone else’s sin, and pay no attention to your own? It’s a comical, cartoonish, exaggerated image – the plank and the speck of sawdust – but Jesus is using it to make a lasting impression on us, because this really, really matters to Jesus. Because this really, really matters for those of us who want to follow him on his way of love, who want to partner with him in seeing salvation come to this broken world, who want to welcome and embrace the kingdom of God. It really, really matters to us in the Vineyard Church of Milan as well, especially as we try to come to grips with what it means for us to be a centered set church, following the way of Jesus together, creating breathing room for the disfavored to find favor, for the discounted to count, and for the disconnected to connect.

Think about it. Let’s say that you’re curious about Jesus. Something is drawing you to explore him. You haven’t been very religious in your life. Some parts of your life are going great. Some parts have been hard. Something is gnawing at you, whatever the case.

And let’s say, in a moment of crazy hope, you show up at church.

And let’s say the people at this church look at you and say, aha,oooh, er, wow. I see a speck of sawdust there in your eye. Before you go any further, here, you’d better let us help you with that.

If you are desperate, you might let these strangers give it their best shot. Or, more likely, you might not. Because something about the way they are looking at you tells you they are hungry for something different than you are hungry for, and that makes you a little unsettled. It’s not that you think they are wrong about what they see necessarily, it’s just that you are looking hard for God, and they seem to be looking hard for specks of sawdust.

But what if the people at this church look at you and say, aha, you seem hungry for finding out more about Jesus. If you’re like me, you might be wondering if that speck irritating your eye will keep you from finding him. I know what that’s like. I had one just like that, but it was way bigger, more like a log. But God still had favor for me, so much of it. If it’s all that mattered, it may have kept me from finding him, but it didn’t keep him from finding me! And he let me play, he let me count, even before I could see very clearly. And he gave me a big embrace, and put a ring on my finger, and sandals on my feet, and killed a fatted calf and invited his whole household and the whole village to just to welcome me home. Before I even had a chance to get that log taken care of. And I just keep finding more and more logs floating across my vision. But one by one, he’s helping me get rid of them. Come on in; there’s no way that thing can keep you from him any more than my logs have. In fact, when the time is right, he just might take care of it for you, or teach you how to get it out. And we’re all here to help, if help is needed. You just let us know, and in the meantime, get to know us; we’re eager to get to know you. Who knows, you might be able to help us deal with some of our logs.

Now that’s some breathing room, isn’t it? You just might be able to find some favor here, you just might be able to count here, you just might be able to connect to God here. And if you do, well, that sawdust isn’t gonna stand a chance against the river of life that’s going to start welling up within you and the happy tears that will be pouring out of you.

Now this passage about sawdust and planks shows up in Jesus’ sermon on the mount. It’s an epic teaching about the good news of the kingdom of God and what it means to be human in the reality of God’s kingdom.

And at the center of Jesus’ teaching about what it means to be a human being made in the image of God are the twin commands about love and judgment. Love one another. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love each other as I have loved you. And do not judge.

Both commands go hand in hand. If you adopt Jesus’ incarnated way of being human, you cannot help but both love others and not judge. And the reason for that, as we’ve spoken about in various times and various ways, has to do with our posture towards one another.

Jesus shows us that the proper posture for his followers towards other human beings is to be the posture of a servant. One who lowers oneself in order to love and lift up. And in that position, judgment is impossible. Because to judge, one must stand above to condemn. And human beings cannot simultaneously be in both postures. It’s like an on/off switch. We can either love, or we can judge. But not both. And because his command to us is to love, his twin command is to not judge.

Obeying these commands will produce a tension in us. A tension that it is worth acknowledging and becoming conscious of, so that it doesn’t rule us and get us off track.

That tension shows up here in Matthew 7. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye…”

We look at the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye, often, because we love them and we are concerned for them. I mean, heck, the very reason we notice is because we are looking, and we are looking – assuming we are in a healthy place – because we care.

And yet, Jesus warns us that there is a danger in how we respond to what we see in others as we love them. A danger so serious that we could end up with two tragic consequences. One, we might miss out on some serious problems of our own (the plank in our own eyes). And two, we might do some serious damage to those we are trying to help because we aren’t tuned in to how compromised our own vision is.

So Jesus’ solution is both simple and brilliant. Our attentions must be properly ordered. First things first. When it comes to sin, you are responsible for your own sin. Not for the sins of others. Attend to your responsibility for yourself, and as you succeed, then you might be in a place come alongside others as they attend to that for which they are responsible.

We are a centered-set church. Which means we are directing our eyes towards Jesus, who has invited us to follow him. Which means our primary concern is drawing nearer to him and being shaped by him as we take our next step in discipleship to him, step after step after step.

Each of those steps is a step of faith. A step of surrendering something he’s calling us to let go of so that he can put something new, and better in our hands, perhaps. Or a step of freedom from a particular sin. Or a step in service to others. Or a step in trusting him with some new area of our lives. Or a step in growing in love. Or a step of obedience. Or a step in taking off a mask and being our true self before him or others.

Being a centered-set church requires different kinds of habits and responses in relationship to God and to one another than we might be accustomed to if our formative faith experiences took place in a church where certain kinds of boundary markers defined who was in and who was out. Because, in a centered set church, what defines our participation in the community of faith is motion. What defines our participation is the direction our hearts are moving us – towards Jesus, or away from him. Regardless of how close or how far from him he might find us in any particular area of our lives. So our faith journey isn’t a story of striving to get to some pre-established point and then stay there, but rather a story of continuously being called further up and further in to the heart of God.

In particular, a critical question that is answered differently in a centered set church from a bounded set church is this one: What are the responsibilities of a member of the community of faith?

In a community defined by its boundaries, the answer tends to revolve around the boundaries. Each person is responsible for the boundaries. Responsible for making sure the boundaries are clear, and well maintained, and honored. Responsible for dealing effectively with boundary infractions. Responsible for successfully getting interested people inside the boundaries, and protecting the boundaries from attack. Responsible for maintaining the purity of population within the boundaries.

In a community defined by movement towards the center, the answer takes on a very different shape. For a member of a centered set community, the answer revolves around one’s responsibilities for oneself and towards others. This week we will begin exploring this idea (and we’ll continue next week, at least, as well). In a nutshell, in a church devoted to centering itself on Jesus, each person is responsible for himself – for his or her own next step in discipleship towards Jesus – and each person is responsible to every other person – to love and serve them as Jesus directs through the leading of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the scriptures. Because after all, Jesus himself places loving one another at the heart of discipleship to him.

This, in fact, is the pattern Jesus sets for us, and the pattern he himself followed as he walked in our skin. Jesus is responsible for himself – for doing what his Father has sent him to do – and responsible to each of his estranged brothers and sisters, his Father’s image-bearing kids, to seek them and save the lost. [examples…]

Jesus lives out a basic truth about our responsibilities. I am only responsible for one person in the universe. And that person is myself. I am only responsible for myself because I am the only one I have any true control over (and truth be told, that control seems tenuous at best, sometimes!). I am responsible for my heart towards God, my heart towards others, I am responsible for the condition of my soul, for what I feed it and how I care for it, I am responsible for how I direct and use and nourish my mind, I am responsible my strength. How I care for it, how I steward it, what I train and prepare it to do.

Both go hand in hand. I am only responsible for myself. But God has given me all sorts of other responsibilities towards others. And in fact, I cannot be faithful in my responsibility for myself without also being faithful in my responsibility towards others. And I cannot be faithful in my responsibility towards others without being faithful in my responsibility for myself.

I am responsible to God.

To Love him. To serve him. To obey him.

In fact, it’s because of my responsibilities toward God that I am responsible to be responsible for myself. Because my life, my very self, is a gift that he has given me to steward.

And in the same vein, my responsibility towards God leads me into responsibilities towards others. If I love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength, I will also find myself loving my neighbor as myself.

I am responsible to my wife, Ronni.

To love her. To be in a posture of service towards her. To be ready to lay down my life for her in whatever way the Lord may so direct me.

I am responsible to my kids.

To love them. To serve them. To be ready to lay down my life for in whatever way the Lord may so direct me.

I am responsible to the church.

To love her. To be in a posture of service towards her. To be ready to lay down my life for her in whatever way the Lord may so direct me.

I am responsible to every other image bearer, friend or enemy. To love them. To be in a posture of service towards them. To be ready to lay down my life for them in whatever way the Lord may so direct me.

I have responsibilities towards all of creation as well, responsibilities to all God’s creatures, great and small, and to the earth itself that is God’s gift to us and an expression of his glory.

And bringing it full circle, as a member of a community of image-bearers and an ecology upon which I and my life have an impact, I have a responsibility to be responsible for myself. And if I am faithful, with God’s help, to my responsibilities, God’s good purposes can be done in me, and through me, in the lives of those around me towards whom God has given me responsibilities.

This, perhaps, seems a little bit like a “No, duh” kind of a thing. But consider how often we substitute our responsibility for ourselves and to others with a sense of responsibility for others.

The parent who is over-responsible for his children. The spouse who is over-responsible for his or her worse half. The coach who is over-responsible for his or her players. The employer who is over-responsible for his or her employees. (Did you ever see Jesus apologize for his disciples?)

Being responsible for others instead of oneself creates destructive stress. [monkeys responsible for getting food for others developing ulcers…] Because we cannot control others’ responses. (We can’t even predict their responses with a high degree of accuracy.) And because it will inevitably create conflict (who is responsible for them, us or them?) [Landis’s and the ice-cream]

Making yourself responsible for someone who is not you is a violation of God-given self. A violation of your own self and a violation of their self. It destroys life-giving boundaries. You lose your identity in the identity of others, and others without well-differentiated senses of self will lose their identities as you over-function in their lives. God made you, you. He made her, her. He made him, him. That was his call, and it’s not ours to override. Every unauthorized judgment is a form of over-responsibility.

Love, on the other hand, allows one to embrace others as one would embrace oneself, without violating either self. Love recognizes one’s self as made to be in communion with other selves, while still being fully one’s unique self. This is the truth of the trinity, is it not?

And being responsible for others will cause us to fail in our primary responsibility to them and to God, which is to love them. Because we will inevitably get frustrated. Or disappointed. And then manipulative. And judgmental. And soon enough we will stand above them as we stand above ourselves, from a place of authority instead of service.

“I was responsible for him!” No, you were responsible to care for him, or to watch out for him, or to teach him, or whatever. And you may have failed at that (or not), but he was responsible for himself. For his choices, or actions. That is a holy thing, territory where even angels fear to tread, a place one can enter only as a helper, and even then, only by invitation.

As a church, we are responsible to one another and to the disconnected and discounted and disfavored.

We are responsible to love.

To create breathing room.

To announce good news. To proclaim the message of salvation. To forgive. To heal. To cast out demons. To serve.

To make disciples.

To baptize.

To encourage, exhort, correct.

To speak truth in love.

All of that under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Which brings us back to ourselves.

We are responsible for ourselves. To bring ourselves under the rule and reign of God’s kingdom. To be trained in the way of love and set free from the enslavement of sin. So our hearts beat as God’s heart beats. So that we listen and hear and obey the Spirit of God. So that we will what God wills.

The implications of this are more significant than we might realize, so we’ll explore more next week. The impact on our intimacy with God. How we help one another follow Jesus. What it means to be a leader. Should be fun. In the meantime…

Practical Tips:

1. Next time someone lets you down, take off your speck specs, and fill out your log log. [someone fails in a responsibility they have to you…do you look first at the spec in their eye – their failure in their responsibilities…? Or the plank in yours – your anger, disappointment, bitterness, your need to forgive, serve, love…?] Write down your responsibilities for yourself that the failure of the other person has created for you. Work through those. When you are satisfied that your slate is clean, then you can put your speck specs back on and see how you might serve them in helping them get better at handling their responsibilities towards you and others.

2. Risk 40 bucks on 20/20 vision. Ask 2 people this week if they can help you identify any logs in your eyes. Assure them that they are not responsible for how you respond to what they say. Give them $10 to answer your question, with the promise of $10 more if you get upset with them. If they won’t answer your question, you might already know one of your logs…

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Advent: May It Be (from the womb to the tomb)

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 12/11/2011

Scene from “Jesus of Nazareth” where Gabriel speaks to Mary…

²⁶In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

²⁹Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. ³¹You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

³⁴“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

³⁵The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. ³⁷For no word from God will ever fail.”

³⁸“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.

Luke 1

As we said last week, this advent we are reflecting on waiting, and the role it plays in new creation being birthed in our world. Because when God is ready to act to deliver his people, after years and years of waiting, he chooses to begin with pregnancy. Before the kingdom of God comes to the world out there, it must first come to the world inside of us. Spiritual growth, like pregnancy, is a patient unfolding. It requires endurance. Lots of uncertainty. Periods of deliberate waiting. Pain that is embraced and incubated for the sake of the new person who will be born.

Today we want to focus on Mary’s words to the angel.

“Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.”

Luke 1:38

How does holy waiting begin? What is holy waiting like? What comes of holy waiting?

We know how regular waiting begins. It’s almost always forced on us, isn’t it? Something we are powerless to resist. Somebody or something else is making us wait. And so we can either be zen about it all, or angry.

As for what it’s like, well, that kind of depends. Are you Zen about it? Then it’s not so bad. Maybe you find a way to pass the time relatively painlessly. Are you ticked off? Then maybe it’s a little bit of frustration hell as you fume and rage against the machine.

And what comes of regular waiting? There’s really no way to know for sure. Maybe you get what you were waiting for. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you just give up and never find out. Maybe you say, enough is enough! And you take matters into your own hands.

Holy waiting is altogether different.

Holy waiting always has a purpose, and that purpose is always new creation. Salvation. Redemption. Rescue. Growth. New life.

As for what it’s like, 9 times out of ten, holy waiting is painful. And although we are welcome to be Zen or to get angry, it will only postpone, not eliminate, the pain of holy waiting.

And most of all, holy waiting begins with Mary’s prayer: “May it be..”

God’s new creation plan, salvation, redemption, rescue – it all hinges on those who are willing to say, “may it be done to me according to your word.” And then who are willing to enter a pregnant period of waiting.

We see this in Mary. But we also see it, perhaps even more profoundly, in Mary’s son.

Jesus entering womb. May it be. Then born. Entering wilderness. May it be. Then beginning ministry. Entering garden of Gethsemane. May it be. Then resurrection.

And we see it in Jesus’ Father, as well…in the parable Jesus tells about the prodigal son. The son who demands his inheritance early, and leaves home to seek his fortune. May it be, says the Father. And then he waits. And waits. Not angry. Not Zen. Just with pain and longing in his heart, until the prodigal returns.

May it be is how true, holy waiting begins.

It sounds so much like surrender, doesn’t it? So passive. So helpless, powerless even.

It is one thing to have the kind of faith to step out on the water.

It is another thing to have the kind of faith to let yourself be thrown out of the boat.

That is the kind of faith it takes to say, “May it be…” That is the kind of faith it takes to see the kingdom come to the deepest places in our souls. That is the kind of faith that leads to new creation being birthed in the world.

Consider Jesus in his last days before his death on the cross. The death that defeated sin and death and evil, and opened the door to resurrection life. In those last days, Jesus is characterized not by a take charge, make it happen kind of attitude, but rather one of surrender. Isaiah even describes him prophetically as a lamb being led to slaughter.

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ²“As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

Matthew 26:1-2

paradidomi // to give over into one’s power or use

Sometimes translated “handed over”, sometimes “betrayed”.

Throughout those last days, Judas, and the chief priests, and Pilate, are all described as “handing Jesus over” or “betraying” Jesus.

So, in fact, is God.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up (handed him over, betrayed him) for us all…

Romans 8:32

When you are in a time of holy waiting, it can feel like you are being betrayed. Even by God. [wife in labor… “you did this to me…!”

Nonetheless, neither Mary nor Jesus fight the betrayal. They surrender to it. They allow themselves to be handed over. May it be. Not my will, but yours.

Jesus, extraordinarily, resists the temptation to use his power to escape. In the wilderness, he won’t turn the food into bread. During his arrest, he won’t call in a legion of angels to slay the arresting guards. On trial, he won’t use his words to marshal a defense. He even resists the impulse to nurture anger at the agents of the pain he is experiencing. As he is arrested he says, “All this has taken place to fulfill the scriptures of the prophets…” On the cross he says, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing…”

Is it that we must welcome what seems to be the injustice of God before we can experience his true justice? Is there a purer faith than that? Isn’t that the faith of Abraham when he takes his son Isaac to the mountain to be sacrificed?

Both Mary and Jesus have God’s favor announced to them before enduring humiliation of the deepest kind. Mary the impregnated, unwed teen. Jesus the naked, crucified criminal. What a contrast between the announcement of favor and the experience in holy waiting! Holy waiting is filled with the kinds of doubts only that kind of experience can produce.

So what do you hold on to during the waiting?

The words the Lord has spoken to you. “…for no word from God will ever fail.”

All else may be taken from you. That’s part of the pain of being handed over. That’s part of the may it be done to me according to your word deal.

Do you trust that all the chaos swirling around you can be shaped into God’s good purposes while you fix your eyes on what it means to be handed over? While you allow it to be done to you according to God’s word? Do you trust that God can bring about his good purposes even though forces that God has chosen out of his mysterious purpose not to restrain are at work? That God can speak to whomever he needs to speak to?

In waiting, I imagine the doubts Mary must have experienced. Day after day after day. The drama and gossip and looks. Her previously imagined future slipping away. No wedding shower. No wedding celebration. No baby shower.

In waiting, I imagine the concentrated, birthed in pain joy that Mary experienced in hearing that an angel had spoken to Joseph. The joy at the encouragement from her cousin Elizabeth, the parallels with Elizabeth’s story. The wonder at the shepherds arriving. The way in which the words of Simeon and Anna must have landed at the temple.

She had heard the angel. It was being done to her according to the angel’s words. And yet, the waiting was not over. The pain had not yet completed its new creation work. Not even when Jesus was born. Not even when Jesus was doing miracles. No, not until the tomb was empty. Her waiting, in fact all of humanity’s waiting, was joined together with Jesus’ waiting – or perhaps, better said, Jesus’ waiting was joined to our waiting.

It is in the waiting of the tomb that we have our first true fellowship with Christ. It is in the fellowship of suffering that the work of waiting gives birth to new creation, so that we can share in the fellowship of the resurrection.

Because, in the end…

God’s true justice was worked. Every betrayal gathered up and redeemed. The hands into which the handing over happened finally revealed to be God’s hands.

Is there a more revered woman than Mary in the history of the world? Is there a more royally clothed, more fully alive Judge than Jesus? New creation has come through their “may it be done to me” and subsequent waiting.

Through holy waiting, Salvation has come.

Through holy waiting, Redemption has come.

Through holy waiting, Rescue has come.

Through holy waiting, Resurrection has come.

Behold, we are your bondslaves.

This advent, may it be done to us according to his word.

Practical Tips.

Next time you have to wait, do the following:

1. Practice the “May it be done to me according to your word..” prayer in line or in traffic this week. Let yourself be handed over to it. Don’t try to escape it. Don’t try to hurry it along. Choose to let it be what it’s going to be, whatever the cost.

2. Notice your pain and tell God. Instead of getting Zen – achieving some enlightened and peaceful state to coast through the waiting – or getting angry (at the cashier or other people in line or whomever), fix your attention on the pain you are experiencing and talk with God about it. “This is really ticking me off…” “this is really making me anxious…” “Please help this person get a move on…” “I can’t believe this always happens to me; this is my life…”

3. Find somebody to love. Find some way to love the person right in front of you. Even and especially if they are the one making you wait. If nothing else, pray for their blessing.

And then finally, for those who are in a season of holy waiting:

4. Remind yourself of the Lord’s words to you regularly. Daily even.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Advent 2011: Waiting & Growth

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 12/04/2011

2^nd week of advent, season of preparation to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Time in the Christian calendar when we reflect on the experience of the absence of God, on waiting, on anticipation, on longing, on making ourselves ready for God’s incarnational coming into the world.

Did you ever notice in the scriptures how often the people of God are waiting? Noah waits for the floodwaters to recede…

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. ²Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. ³The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, ⁴and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

⁶After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark ⁷and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. ⁸Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. ⁹But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. ¹⁰He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. ¹¹When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. ¹²He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

¹³By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. ¹⁴By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

Genesis 8

The king waits as Daniel waits through the night in a den of lions…

¹⁷A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel’s situation might not be changed. ¹⁸Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him. And he could not sleep.

¹⁹At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den. ²⁰When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?”

Daniel 6

Sarah remains barren for decade after decade, waiting for a child.

Jacob waits 14 years to marry Rebecca.

The Israelites wait 400 years in Egypt, then 40 more years in the desert.

Jonah waits in the belly of a fish.

Simeon waits to see the Messiah.

The disciples wait for Pentecost.

Paul waits in prison.

So this advent, we are going to spend this week and next reflecting on waiting, and the role it plays in new creation being birthed in our world.

We begin our reflection with Luke’s account of Mary and Elizabeth, two cousins who become pregnant in extraordinary circumstances.

The story takes place in Israel, a small nation under Roman occupation and oppression. Israel itself has been enduring a long period of waiting and pain and uncertainty. It has been 400 years since the last prophet, Malachi, has spoken. Listen for the threads of waiting woven through this account…

⁵In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. ⁶Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. ⁷But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both well advanced in years.

⁸Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, ⁹he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. ¹⁰And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

¹¹Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. ¹²When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear.

¹³But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. ¹⁴He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, ¹⁵for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. ¹⁶Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. ¹⁷And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

¹⁸Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

¹⁹The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. ²⁰And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

²¹Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. ²²When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

²³When his time of service was completed, he returned home. ²⁴After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. ²⁵“The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

²⁶In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

³⁴“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

³⁵The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. ³⁷For no word from God will ever fail.”

³⁸“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.

Luke 1

It is significant that when God is ready to act to deliver his people, after years and years of waiting, he chooses to begin with pregnancy.

Elizabeth’s and Mary’s pregnancies show us that before the kingdom of God comes to the world out there, it must first come to the world inside of us. And that as it comes, we experience periods of deliberate waiting, in which we learn to embrace uncertainty and pain as companions in our waiting.

“To group up spiritually means having growing pains in the darkest part of the night. Some Christians and even some churches have responded to this difficult truth by trying to create shortcuts – promises of easy grace, push button answers to complicated problems, illusions that we can go to church and work to bring in the kingdom out there in the world without entering the fiery process of bringing it into our own soul.”

Sue Monk Kidd, “When the Heart Waits” pg. 25

Pregnancy is a patient unfolding. It requires endurance. Lots of uncertainty. Deliberate waiting. Pain that embraced and incubated for sake of the new person who will be born. [Colin and I playing foosball…]

This is important to us as a centered-set church. Because our faith is defined by our movement towards Jesus, what matters to us is the process of new creation that happens as we take each new step of discipleship towards Jesus. And new creation – although it has many moments that are dramatic and eventful like birth, like the birth of Jesus, or the resurrection from the tomb – also has long periods of waiting where the growth is much more difficult to see from the outside. Periods like Mary’s pregnancy. Or like Jesus’ time on trial and on the cross and in the tomb.

“No aspect of thinking on conversion is more foreign to the American Evangelical experience than this stress on conversion as a process…Evangelicals emphasize emotion and an initial movement. This moment is celebrated, recalled, and when the experience fades, recaptured. But Christian tradition does not agree…Conversion is a continuous and lifelong process. Conversions proceed layer by layer, relationship by relationship, here a little, there a little – until the whole personality, intellect, feeling, and will have been recreated by God.”

John H. Westerhoff, the Spiritual Life, pages 75, 76

Sometimes in our pain, God is a rescuer. But sometimes he is also a midwife.

We have longings for growth. We have deep desires for transformation. For things to fundamentally change in our world, and in our soul, our minds, our hearts, our bodies. Some of those longings come from good visions God gives us of what is possible. Some of those longings come from the pain we know in our current state. The witness of the incarnation of Jesus is that God does desire to rescue us.

But that before the rescue comes, as part of the rescue, God wants to do something deep inside of us that requires patience and waiting and probably pain as well.

And we must not allow our distaste for pain to get in the way of that growth or transformation. Otherwise, things will stay the same.

The natural gradient in us is toward growth. Whatever we use repeatedly and compulsively to stop that growth is our addiction.

Marion Woodman

In our modern world, quick, easy-fix solutions are one of our addictions. We are, many of us, quickaholics and easaholics. [The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking…]

What if Mary had said, Well, I love the idea of the Son of the Most high and all that, but I’m just not sure I have the time and energy for a pregnancy right now. I’m engaged, I’ve got a wedding to plan. Plus, doesn’t that hurt a lot?

At a deeper level, our addiction to quick, easy-fix solutions keep us unaware of what is going on inside of us. It keeps us from growth. As soon as we have pain, our first instinct is to find a way to get rid of it. Preferably with an easy to swallow pill. Worst case, an injection.

How often do we recognize pain as an opportunity to discover some place in us that God might want to bring about new creation? And then trust him with a time and energy-consuming process like a pregnancy to give birth to it?

Perhaps if we could use this advent season to recognize and begin to break our addiction to quick, easy-fix solutions, we could begin to welcome the Kingdom of God within us in new ways, as Mary did.

Sue Monk Kidd identifies 3 rules of our addicted culture that we need to recognize and resist.

1. All lines must keep moving.

To resist entrainment, we must become still.

Pregnancy forces us to become still. Everything else becomes less important than that which is growing within us, preparing to be born.

2. Make life happen.

Mark 4:26 - ...the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain.

Parable of yeast.

Pregnancy reminds us that life is happening all on its own, and our main job is to support it, watch and wait, receive. “Let it be to me as you have said…”

3. Eat Dessert first.

Scott Peck: “Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.”

Death always precedes resurrection. You can’t have resurrection life without death.

Pregnancy gives us none of what we’re longing for until the waiting and pain are done. Nothing, that is, except a deep, loving connection with the new life growing within us.

In waiting, it may look like nothing is happening. Like we are doing nothing. The temptation will be to get out of line. To abandon the line. Or to try to rush to the front to make things happen.

Pregnancy won’t let us do either.

Waiting is an essential part of following Jesus. He waits in the womb. He waits in the wilderness. He waits in the garden. He waits in the tomb. Sometimes the next step of discipleship doesn’t look like a step at all. It looks like continuing to face him, not changing course, not rushing forward without permission, even though it seems no movement is happening at all.

Waiting is the most persistently active forms of trust, isn’t it? You can take other steps of trust, and once the step begins it has a momentum all its own. But waiting is constant, moment by moment trust.

Sometimes our job as brothers and sisters to one another is to help each other wait while the Lord does deep and transformative work of spiritual growth. Not to get frustrated with one another, but to give each other breathing room to wait.

This isn’t easy; it requires knowing one another deeply to discern if it is hesitation or avoidance of the next step, or if the next step is in fact a step of waiting.

Holy pain is often the key. Is the lack of movement an avoidance of some holy pain? Or is the lack of movement a form of remaining in some holy pain until a holy work is done?

[Circles of communication/intimacy: cliché, facts, ideas, feelings, needs…you can’t move past ideas until you are willing to accept the pain of conflict…but you can’t have any of the deepest benefits of relationship until you move into those last two circles, either…this has application for our relationship with God. Have you been stuck outside of intimate relationship with God because of your avoidance of pain? It’s time to take a step of trust…]

Practical Tips:

1. Pay attention to your addictions. What pain is it helping you avoid? (If you’re not sure, resist your addiction once; instead, stop, sit down, and ask God to reveal your pain to you.) That pain is centered in the place God wants to bring new creation in your life.

“The assumption of spirituality is that always God is doing something before I know it. So the task is not to get God to do something I think needs to be done, but to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate in it and delight in it.”

Eugene Peterson

2. Make a Christmas list. List three things from which you have been waiting for God’s rescue. Pray this prayer each day of Advent: “God, I want your rescue. While I’m waiting, I welcome whatever new life you want to birth in me. Teach me how to wait well.”

3. Find someone else to wait with. (Mary and Elizabeth waiting together…) Sometimes waiting is very lonely, especially when everyone around us is go, go, go. If you are involved in some holy waiting, find someone else who is, too, and do some of your waiting together. If you’re not, find someone who is, and ask if you can join them as a support in their waiting.