Sunday, June 30, 2013

Afraiders of the Lost Ark

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 06/30/2013
video available July 1st at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

Raiders of the Lost Ark Trailer Re-Edit - Indiana Jones (2012) from Brock Chandler on Vimeo.

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Want to talk today about how human beings respond & relate to the presence of a living God among them. You might say this message is ultimately about something called “worship,” but it will take us a bit for that to emerge. Entitled: Afraiders of the Lost Ark. Which will makes sense, maybe, later.

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Imagine two circles. Circle one: the churchgoing world. Bumping up against it, circle two: the secular world. Presumably, God’s presence – if there is in fact a living, real-deal, divine person / force / something – God’s presence would be encountered and experienced in both of those circles from time to time, right? Perhaps, if churchgoing as a venture were doing what it’s supposed to do, that divine presence might be recognized more frequently and readily in the churchgoing circle. But certainly, that presence would sometimes be recognized in the other circle, too – maybe especially among those in the secular world that think just maybe there is something out there.

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Regardless of which circle you find yourself in, if you encounter or experience God’s presence – a living divinity at large and at work – you’ll have to relate and respond to it somehow. So that’s the big question today. How? How do we respond to and relate to the presence of God among us when we become aware of it?

Here’s the thing. Both the churchgoing world and the secular world make a set of common mistakes in relating to and responding to God’s presence.

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The churchgoing world has a tendency to religify God’s presence. To treat it as somehow magical and unapproachable. To stay at arm’s length, to keep it compartmentalized and set aside because of its troublesome, demanding, untamed nature. They have a certain kind of fear of it that they give religious language to – they understand its holiness, but use that holiness as a way of manipulating others into adjusting their behavior so that they can have access to the power of God’s presence. In the end, this amounts to a form of trying to control God’s presence, and so they come to see it as reduced in power and somehow needing their help. They come to see their own holiness as a function of the ways in which they help God. As if their God is fundamentally helpless and in need of their help.

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The secular world – at least that portion of it that thinks just maybe there is something out there – sees the churchgoing world’s God, and thinks to itself, well if God’s like that, that’s a weak God indeed who would relate to his followers that way, and require them to relate and respond to him that way. And so if they do encounter or experience something out there that just maybe is divine they don’t have anything to anchor their relationship or response to those divine encounters, and so they tend to respond to the divine among them a bit like a novelty or mystery that they have no hope of having personal engagement with, at least not beyond the way Luke or Obi-wan had personal engagement with the Force.

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But what if God were in fact a deeply personal God – in the sense of actually being a distinct person – not a force as typically perceived in the secular circles, and not a religified, diminished deity as typically perceived in churchgoing circles? And what if he was a particular kind of person, such that how we responded to and related to him made a difference to the kind of access we had to the transformative power of personal engagement with him?

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Let’s look at a somewhat obscure story from the book of 1 Chronicles (it’s told in a parallel fashion in 2 Samuel, also). It’s a story about the Ark of the Covenant and a guy named Uzzah and a king named David, and it has a lot to teach us about how the living God wants to relate to us, and how best to respond to him if we want to experience the full, abundant life Jesus tells us God desires to give us.

Background: David, a great warrior growing in leadership and stature in Israel, wants to have the presence of Israel’s God returned to the heart of their nation. And the ark of the covenant, which contains the Ten Commandments, and at that time, in some way both literal and mysteriously, the very presence of the living God, has been in a house in the countryside of Israel. So David wants to return it to Jerusalem. Eventually, it is in David’s heart to build a temple to God, where he can have a more permanent home in the capital city. As it says in the text, it seemed right to all the people.

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5So David assembled all Israel, from the Shihor River in Egypt to Lebo Hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath Jearim. 6David and all Israel went to Baalah of Judah (Kiriath Jearim) to bring up from there the ark of God the Lord, who is enthroned between the cherubim—the ark that is called by the Name.

7They moved the ark of God from Abinadab’s house on a new cart, with Uzzah and Ahio guiding it. 8David and all the Israelites were celebrating with all their might before God, with songs and with harps, lyres, timbrels, cymbals and trumpets.

9When they came to the threshing floor of Kidon, Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark, because the oxen stumbled. 10The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God.

This is a bit disturbing, isn’t it? I read this story, and something in me says – and maybe in you too – really?? God strikes him down? For reaching out to steady the ark? Surely there are worse things, with worse motivations, that human beings have done – heck, that I have done – and they’ve come away unscathed.

What is going on here? I mean, we know this story is written for an ancient audience, who wouldn’t have had the same level of shock we experience, the same sense of an injustice done, perhaps… but still. How are we to understand this?

I should mention that I’m indebted to Charles Park at the River Vineyard in Manhattan for his insights on this passage. Let’s dig into the story a bit, and let’s start by understanding a little history of how the ark ended up at Abinadab’s house.

Decades earlier, Israel’s main national enemy, the Philistines (you remember Goliath, right?), captured the Ark in a battle, because they noticed that Israel always seemed to have success when their God was present with them in the Ark.

However, they hadn’t accounted for the fact that whatever sort of presence was in the Ark wouldn’t be thrilled about being captured. And all kinds of problems developed wherever the Ark was held in Philistia. People were getting sick and dying of tumors, and rats would infest the cities.

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So the Philistines came up with a pretty brilliant plan to test their theory and solve the problem at the same time. They placed the ark on a cart pulled by two cows who had just given birth to calves. They separated the cows from their calves, placing the cows with their calves in one direction and Israel in the other direction, and set the cows free to go where they wanted. Their theory was that naturally the cows would return to their calves, since the calves were still nursing. But if there was a genuine deity present in this Ark thing who had some preferential connection to Israel, then it might direct the cows back to Israel, ridding the Philistines of this troublesome problem. And sure enough, the cows headed directly back to Israel, carrying the Ark and of course a large amount of gold to say we were very, very sorry. The townspeople who discovered it eventually settled on having Abinidab and his sons take care of it.

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Saul was king at the time, and he had a troubled relationship with God, the Ark didn’t seem to have been that important to him, plus, there were all sorts of unpleasant things happening around the ark – it was hard to handle, you know? and so the Ark gets left there for at least 20 years or so, until King David comes to the throne, and David loves God. He’s called a man after God’s own heart. And he wants to bring the Ark to Jersualem, which brings us up to the point in the story where we see Uzzah struck down.

Now, some would say Uzzah died because he violated God’s command not to touch the Ark. Because the Ark is holy, and there should be reverence and awe about God’s presence. Which makes sense, I’m sure. But I’m not sure that’s the whole story.

Because it’s not like Uzzah didn’t have reverence for it; presumably that’s why he wanted to steady it in the first place, so it wouldn’t hit the muddy ground.

And surely the Philistines had to touch the Ark at some point to put it on the cart in the first place, and they didn’t die from that, as far as we know.

And it seems a little strange that the God who judges by the heart, not by external appearances, would be so harsh, doesn’t it? Uzzah was trying to help, not do something against the ark or something irreverent.

So what else could it be?

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Abinidab and his family, at least according to the ancient historian Josephus, were Levites, which meant that their whole job was taking care of the holy things in Israel, the holiest of which was the Ark. And there were some very particular rules about how the Ark was to be transported. Their whole family business was knowing how to take care of the Ark. They had it for 20 years, after all. Surely they talked about it. And the ark was designed to be carried by people, on poles that went through rings on it. It’s totally obvious from its design, even if you didn’t know the “rules” about it.

It’s understandable that the Philistines put it on a cart. They were deathly afraid of it. They just wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible, have nothing more to do with it. And it’s not like they could hand carry it back to Israel – they might have been killed when they set foot in Israel’s territory.

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But why should the people of God use the same method? Adopt the same attitude of the Philistines? Later, in fact, David himself says that was the reason. They didn’t carry it personally; they put it on a cart.

There’s a big difference between putting it on your shoulders and putting on a cart. On your shoulders, you might touch it. Even if you’re not meaning to. The method God wants is intimate, dangerous even. The cart speaks of distance, safety. Reverence yes, but no intimacy at all. Hands off.

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Think about what attitude Uzzah must have had about God’s presence in the ark, about God himself. On the one hand, God is so great, so powerful, so awesome that he must remain at a distance. Don’t go to near! Terrible things could happen. And on the other hand, his attitude is that God is so helpless. He might fall! That would be so embarrassing. We’ve got to help him out, make sure he’s OK.

But what had God demonstrated? He’d demonstrated his ability to free himself from the Philistines and make his way back to Israel, unassisted. In a wooden box. He can take care of himself, can’t he?

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What a weird combination of attitudes Uzzah must have had to do what he did! God is so powerful we can’t go near; God is so helpless, we have to help him out.

This is the most common mistake people make when it comes to responding to God’s presence in the world. It’s the difference between religion and faith. It’s a deadly mistake.

People have done this throughout history. We ourselves do it.

We keep God at a distance, in a mix of reverence, fear, and awe. We are anxious about our obedience to him. We think about him mainly when we think about if what we are doing is right or wrong, if what we are doing will keep us in his favor or not.

And from time to time, we help him out. We come to church. We give some money. We help out in a ministry. We defend his reputation on Facebook or something.

This is not a recipe for life in all its fullness. It’s easy to get there – God doesn’t answer a prayer, something bad happens to you even when you are in the right, there are all kinds of reasons to keep God at a distance, and still try to do what you can to help him from time to time. It even happens to David in this story, at least for a while.

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8Then David was angry because the Lord’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah.

9David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” 10He was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. 11The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed him and his entire household.

It’s understandable, and it’s the most common mistake we make with God. But it’s deadly because life in all its fullness comes from the presence of God. It’s deadly because distance chokes off the channel of life. It’s deadly because thinking God needs our help turns him into an idol of wood or stone that has no power and does need our help.

No, what we need is whatever the family of Obed-Edom had. They had the presence of God in their house and they were blessed.

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12Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, 15while he and the entire house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

David eventually figured it out. Somebody told him that the answer is to come close, like God invites us. So he had Levites put the ark on their shoulders. And they brought it into Jerusalem with singing and dancing. David himself danced the most, in such an undignified manner that, we find out later, his wife was embarrassed about it. Because when we come close to God, he fills us with such life that everything we do is a response to his life-giving presence and blessing.

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Yes, we end up serving him. Helping him. Joining with him in everything he is doing in the world. But not because he needs our help. No, because he lets us help. After all, isn’t that what the men carrying the ark on their shoulders teaches us? God lets us help! He could get wherever he wants to go on his own. But he wants us close. He wants us to carry his presence with us, wherever we go. He wants us to know his power and beauty and awesomeness, like a child in her Father’s arms knows it. As power that is for us.

There is no other life-giving way to relate and respond to him. Regardless of your spiritual upbringing or history or knowledge or experience. When you encounter God’s presence, his invitation is to come close, to be intimate with him. To bring him into the center of your life, and you into the center of his.

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The reality is that the living God’s presence is experienced and encountered in both circles. God is present everywhere, all the time. The genius of Jesus was his mission to open human beings’ eyes – regardless of their religious / spiritual backgrounds – to God’s presence among them. And to teach us a way to respond that would open the door to the life the living God desires to give us.

So he’d say: Good news! The Kingdom of God is here. Good news! The Kingdom of God is near. Good news! The Kingdom of God is coming. Good news! Are you in mourning? God is mourning with you. Are you a spiritual zero? God is with you. Are you desperate to see justice done? God is on the move, setting things right. And so on.

And he’d act in revealing ways. He’d party with the low lifes and drop outs and outcasts, and demonstrate how God was present with them. He’d heal sick people, as a way of saying, see, God’s favor is with you even when you thought you were cursed. And so on.

And because he was in fact, God made flesh, he was the embodiment of God’s presence among us. So in his relationships with us, he was teaching us how to relate and respond to God’s presence. Listen to me. Follow me. Do what I’m doing – you can do it! Receive my embrace; embrace me in return. Bring me your doubts. Ask me for what you need. Receive what I have to give you. Join me. Let me wash your feet. Let me serve you. Serve others the way you experience me serving you. And so on.

God’s presence and God’s power are one and the same thing. Wherever you find the one, you find the other. Wherever you carry the one, you carry the other. Let’s not keep it at a distance; let’s shoulder it together, well aware of its awesomeness, and yet not afraid because he’s invited us to know him and be known by him.

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Practical Suggestions (for UnAfraiders of the Lost Ark):

1. Ready. Set. Hug. Before you come to church, or as you start to sing, or as you come for communion, or as you come forward for prayer, or as you give, or as you get ready to serve the poor, or care for kids, or run the computer – any of these things that are connected to God’s presence or joining in God’s mission, imagine you are about to meet God personally, that his presence is about to show up, and ready yourself to embrace him. Like you would if you saw a long lost friend and you were about to greet him with a hug, expecting one in return. There is a vulnerability in it – what if the hug isn’t returned; you’d like a fool, right? But it’s the openness God desires from us. See how you experience any of those activities differently as you prepare your posture.

2. Return God’s phone call. Think to the last time you had an awareness of what might have been an encounter or experience with a divine presence. Did you respond by opening yourself to intimacy with it? Or did you keep your distance? If you kept your distance, think of it like God was calling you on the phone to hang out, and you let the call go to voicemail. And he’s waiting for you to call back if you’re ready. So call him back. In prayer, say “God, sorry I missed your call. I’m free now. What did you want to do with me?”

Sunday, June 23, 2013

A Thrival Guide for Outward Focused People // Immunity

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 06/23/2013
video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

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A brief review, as we conclude our Thrival Guide for Outward Focused People: How to live outward focused lives and not get derailed or bogged down.

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Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant...

from Philippians 2:1-11

Paul (formerly Saul) of Tarsus

This of course, is easier said than done. And one of the reasons it can be so difficult is that even when we are inspired to pursue an outward focused life that really makes a difference in the world, the nature of the world in which we want to make a difference is such that, sometimes, it chews us up and spits us out.

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We talked last week about how chronically anxious our world is. You get enough anxiety in a system (a family, a congregation, a company, a country, for that matter) and pretty soon it will become emotionally regressive. By emotionally regressive, I mean that the system adapts towards the least emotionally mature people, so that over time, the least emotionally mature members of the group set the tone and agenda for the group. The group invests much of its energy in pacifying (or attempting to pacify) the anxious responses of the least emotionally mature members.

So we start off outward focused, with great intentions. We tune in to the needs of others, experience compassion, and set out to help. Which, if it worked out, would be life giving for everyone. Win, win, benefits multiplying. Only some anxiety or emotional immaturity on the part of the very people we are trying to help derails us, drags us down, and for the sake of our survival, makes us turn in on ourselves and give up on our dream. [examples…helping someone with a practical need, turning an organization around, maybe even loving a spouse or a friend through an addiction, signing up for a ministry team] That’s just what emotionally regressive systems do, everywhere there are broken people with needs and hurts.

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But we don’t just want to survive; we want to thrive. Which, it so happens, is Jesus’ desire for us as well. “I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.”

Abundant life, that’s what it means to thrive, not just survive.

So what’s an outward focused person to do?

Well, we begin by looking to Jesus. After all, he’s the example Paul gives us in that passage in Philippians. And after all, Jesus is the one who says he’s here so we can have life to the full. And after all, Jesus lived the ultimate outward focused life in the midst of broken people with needs and hurts. Because let’s not kid ourselves, our biggest problem isn’t others who are broken; it’s the fact that we, too, are broken.

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So on to the Thrival Guide, part 3: Immunity

Last week, we noted that Jesus did two things that allowed him to both make a difference, and to thrive, in the midst of chronically anxious, emotionally regressive systems.

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One, He self-differentiated.

To self-differentiate is to gain a clear sense of who you are and what your purpose is. To have a strong grip on what you and your life are all about. As a student of Jesus, you might describe it as knowing who God made you to be and what he made you to do.

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And he stayed connected.

He didn’t run for the hills; he remained present. (Well, I suppose he did go to the mountains from time to time, but only briefly, to recharge.) He didn’t get caught up in the drama, yet he still stayed in a loving posture towards the fitful toddlers in his life. He maintained a non-anxious presence in the anxious system.

Let’s look at a couple of examples from the gospel of Matthew.

In Matthew 12, Jesus has been getting flack from some of the local religious leaders (imagine, you’ve come, at great personal cost, specifically to accomplish everything these leaders have invested their lives in seeing happen, and all they do is get upset with you because you’re not doing it the way they would do it)…

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9Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

11He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

13Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

Notice: Jesus knows what he’s there for, and their critique doesn’t stop him from keeping on keeping on.

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15Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill. 16He warned them not to tell others about him.

Notice: Jesus isn’t ignorant of the threat these chronically anxious, emotionally regressive leaders pose (see, he makes adjustments to minimize their negative effects), but he also doesn’t get derailed by them.

He gets some more flack, which he responds to directly and firmly, and then…

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46While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

48He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”

49Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Now you read this how you want, but it seems to me that his mother and brothers are probably trying to interrupt him because they don’t want him stirring up such a fuss. They care about him; they don’t want him provoking something that will get him killed, right? It’s entirely reasonable. But it’s also rooted in anxiety and ultimately, emotionally regressive. They aren’t saying what they are saying with knowledge of who he is and what he’s there for. They are saying what they are saying because of their own unfortunately limited and misguided perspective.

Edwin Friedman, in his book, Failure of Nerve, says that an emotionally regressive system's only hope for growth into maturity is a leader who knows who he/she is, and who knows his/her purpose for being. Who has a firm enough grasp on those things that he/she won’t let go of them when the most emotionally immature people around him/her start acting out of their anxiety and immaturity. A leader who is, in other words, self-differentiated. And who stays connected – out of love – to the broken system. This is exactly what we see in Jesus here.

Jesus knows who he is. He knows what he’s there for. And instead of letting go of that to pacify his family, he invites everyone to become his true family, a family that joins him in the reality of who they are (his brothers and sisters and mother) and that joins him in their true purpose (doing the will of the Father in the heavens).

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This whole knowing who you are and what you’re here for is what boundaries are all about. Boundaries are just a way of talking about knowing where you end and where someone else begins. And being comfortable being you, and being comfortable letting others be others. Not feeling compelled to change who you are or what you’re about to please someone else. And not feeling compelled to override someone else’s boundaries in an attempt to change who they are or their sense of purpose.

Jesus is a master of boundaries. He is always fully himself. He cannot be coerced or seduced. And he never attempts to coerce or seduce anyone else. The three persons of the Trinity, as Christians understand it, have the same dynamic at work. They are one, in that their wills are perfectly aligned in Love. And yet they are three distinct, self-bounded persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Which is necessary for love. Love isn’t possible without boundaries. Love always draws us closer to the other. But without boundaries, it would be too dangerous to get close, both for us and for the other. A destructive fusion would happen. We would lose our selves, in every sense that that is possible. We see this happen in unhealthy relationships all the time, don’t we? Someone without a strong sense of themself gets overwhelmed and dis-integrates in relationship with someone else. Picture a young teenage girl dating an older guy. A recipe for disaster, right?

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Interestingly, biologists are discovering that everything we learn about the “self” applies to the immune system, and vice-versa. Because the immune system is very simply the body’s capacity to know what is itself and what is not itself.

[experiment with two organisms without an immune system…smaller organism completely abandoned itself and became part of the larger organism.]

Remember how everyone was concerned about Jesus hanging out with the sinners and the sick, as if he might somehow be corrupted by them? When in fact, it was he who ended up healing them? You might say his sense of self was so complete as to be a perfect immune system.

One final story, this time from Matthew 16…

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21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

23Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Once again, that same dynamic. Jesus, knowing who he is and what the purpose of his life is. Self-differentiated. Peter, anxious, trying to drag Jesus away from his purpose and into his anxiety. Taking him aside, even. Seems so well meaning, mature. Like his only concern is Jesus. “This shall never happen to you!”

What makes Peter think he knows what will or won’t happen to Jesus? What makes Peter think he knows more about Jesus’ life than Jesus does? Just a paragraph earlier, Peter made the incredible statement that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And now, he doesn’t trust Jesus to know how the plot of his life and mission plays out? This is exactly what chronically anxious systems do to people; they get wrapped up in their own anxieties and concerns but fool themselves into thinking they aren’t, fool themselves into thinking they are being thoughtful and helpful and wise and others focused. It’s the most dangerous kind of deception – self-deception in the guise of good intentions.

So Jesus resists it; calls it what it is – the devil at work. “Get behind me Satan!” And then he calls Peter to move in his direction, to let go of human concerns and take on God’s concerns. He’s inviting him into maturity as a human being.

This is the big picture story of what God is doing in the world, isn’t it?

We human beings traded shalom (peaceful, loving right relationship to one another, to God, and to all things) for an anxious, emotionally regressive existence because we believed the anxious urging of the serpent (Did God really say that…? You can’t trust him…).

So God himself comes among us, self-differentiated and deeply connected to us, with an announcement of Good News. God’s kingdom is here; you don’t have to worry. Forgiveness is here. God’s good. He’s trustworthy. He loves you. He knows your every need and is going to take care of you. You can be free to love. Good news! And he sets out to demonstrate it, model it, teach it, embody it, set us free from enslavement to everything that has bound us in anxiety, free us to join him in freedom.

He takes everything this chronically anxious, emotionally regressive system has to throw at him – death even! – and stays the course. Stays true to himself and his purposes until the very end. And we do what every emotionally regressive system tries to do to every nervy leader it encounters – we kill him. But even death doesn’t derail him, because he never lets go of his identity as a servant, and as a result, the script gets flipped. Instead of him being brought down, we are raised up with him.

Because every doctor knows that trying to defeat a disease by trying to wipe out the disease causing agent head-on is a losing battle. It’s far more effective to help people increase their own capacity resist the pathogen. To strengthen and develop their immune system. And Jesus is the great physician, come to us so that we might have life, and have it to the full. Teaching us and empowering us to be more fully who we are in him, discovering our true purpose as we seek first his kingdom, all the rest added to us.

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So, some practical suggestions:

1. Get clear on “you.” Write down your top five values and top five goals. (it’s ok if the list changes over time – self differentiation is the work of a lifetime, and it’s more of a process than a state of being.) Put them on your bathroom mirror and read them at the beginning and the end of the day every day this week. Notice if any environments or situations are challenging your ability to stay true to “you.” Ask God for help becoming more fully “you” in those environments or situations.

2. Begin to take a Sabbath, a stop day, a period of true rest each week. This is the first boundary in scripture. God knew himself and his purpose, and so on the 7th day he rested. A Sabbath is a time you set aside (make holy) where you are tending to the needs and priorities of your self, and not letting the demands of others, not even of your work, establish your priorities for you. If you can learn this one boundary setting practice, and faithfully practice it, other boundaries will fall into place much more gracefully. And it will give you space to remember who you are and what God made you for, week after week after week.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

A Thrival Guide for Outward Focused People // Living the Dream (wide awake)

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 06/16/2013
video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

Ever catch a vision for making a difference in someone’s life, maybe you were moved by compassion, or inspired to give your life to a purpose…only to find yourself burned out later? Your passion gone. Jaded. Feeling like it was a waste of time. Feeling like it was just a black hole of need that sucked all of your life, resources, and enthusiasm out of you and left you feeling guilty and frustrated. Like you would have been better off maybe if you’d just stayed home, if you’d just gone about your life, tending to your own needs and helping out the people you really enjoyed and loved, who gave back to you as much as you gave to them.

Or maybe you’ve kept your head above water, haven’t gotten bitter or angry, but it just seems like your dreams about making a difference haven’t panned out nearly like you thought they would. Seems like you just keep doing the same inconsequential thing over and over, the people you’re trying to help don’t seem to appreciate it at all, and you’ve basically set your big picture dreams on the shelf, gathering dust. And you’re wrapped up in all sorts of petty drama and dissatisfactions, and you’re just not sure how in the world it ended up like this.

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A Thrival Guide for Outward Focused People: How to live outward focused lives and not get derailed or bogged down.

A 2 part companion to the outward focused lives series.

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Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant...

from Philippians 2:1-11

Paul (formerly Saul) of Tarsus

It's powerfully appealing to say yes to humility, compassion, a purpose beyond "It's all about me" etc. – because the truth is, this is the image of God in us; it’s how we’re wired at the most profound levels.

BUT

How do you "value others above yourselves, looking to the interests of the others” and maintain a clear sense of yourself, not become a doormat, remain faithful to your purposes when others make unreasonable demands, keep from being overwhelmed by others' needs, etc?

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We don’t just want to survive; we want to thrive. Which, it so happens, is Jesus’ desire for us as well. “I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.”

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So on to the Thrival Guide, part 2: LIVING THE DREAM (wide awake)

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Outward focused lives would be so easy, and so rewarding, if only everyone was living them. Can you imagine? Everyone looking to the interests of the other, generously and freely loving one another. Noticing, helping, experiencing compassion. Everyone “otherish”, selfishness nowhere to be found.

3 comments on that dream.

1. This is the dream of the kingdom of God. When Jesus talks about God’s rule and reign permeating the earth, that’s part of what it would like. And Jesus’ followers are called to live by faith in his announcement that the Kingdom of God is here, near, approaching, encroaching on our present broken world. We’re called to live in anticipation of what God has promised to do, as if the future coming kingdom is already here, and as we do, our faith is rewarded with the blessings of that future coming kingdom.

2. This is what our relationship with God through Jesus is actually like (at least so far as his end of the relationship is concerned). We seek first the kingdom of God, and he takes care of all of our needs. He lives an outward focused life towards us and we live one towards him. And joy and love abound in our relationship with him.

3. This is not at all, not even in the least, what life is actually like here and now in most of our lives. Sure, wherever God’s kingdom has gotten a foothold, we see signs of this kind of experience (when it’s working right, it’s supposed to be how we relate to one another in the church, right?). But let’s be honest, sometimes the dream of the kingdom of God feels more like a pipe dream than a prophetic dream.

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Let’s talk for a minute about what life is actually like here. Edwin Friedman, in his book “Failure of Nerve” says that many of our interactions with others take place in chronically anxious, emotionally regressive systems.

Everyone is anxious in our world. Anxious about perceived threats to their safety. Anxious about having enough in the midst of what feels like scarcity. Anxious about the trustworthiness of their connections to others in an increasingly fragmented and superficially connected world. Anxious about the trustworthiness of others in a world in which others are only reliably driven by their anxieties.

And our collective anxiety is chronic. Left unchecked, it isn’t going anywhere. Just the opposite, in fact. Everyone is made even more anxious by the consumer driven nature of our society, which plays on anxieties by using sophisticated anxiety enhancers (what we normally call “advertising”) to sell products and services. And, similarly, we are made more anxious still by political and religious systems that have learned to exploit anxieties to increase their power and the loyalty of their adherents. Whew, that much anxiety can make you a little anxious, can’t it? Which, it so happens, isn’t just ironically funny; it’s also profoundly true – anxiety can cause more anxiety; it’s a vicious, anxious cycle. [panic attacks…]

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You get enough anxiety in a system (a family, a congregation, a company, a country, for that matter) and pretty soon it will become emotionally regressive. By emotionally regressive, I mean that the system adapts towards the least emotionally mature, so that over time, the least emotionally mature members of the group set the tone and agenda for the group. The group invests much of its energy in pacifying (or attempting to pacify) the anxious responses of the least emotionally mature members.

Imagine a family of 5 with a temper tantrum throwing toddler. Mom & Dad (the most emotionally mature members, presumably) decide the family needs a walk to the park to get some fresh air and have some fun. 10 steps down the sidewalk, T4 (temper tantrum throwing toddler) realizes he doesn’t have his favourite red hat, and starts throwing a fit when Mom says he’ll just have to survive without it. So she sends big brother back in the house to find it. 5 minutes later, big brother comes back empty handed. T4 really starts to lose it now. Meanwhile, big sister has gotten bored with the waiting, and decides she has to go to the bathroom. Dad’s fed up with these kids, so he’s checked out, checking his Twitter feed on his smartphone as chaos erupts around him.

Mom, frustrated after spending the last 5 minutes trying to calm T4 down by telling him that she’s sure big brother will find it, and to just be patient, it’s coming, and look over there, it’s a plane in the sky woohoo, takes big sis back to the house for the bathroom, and to look for the hat herself. T4 calms down for a bit, knowing he’s got Mom on the case now, and big brother has taken on the role of pacifier, distracting T4 with funny faces. Back in the house, Big sis has used up the toilet paper and is yelling for Mom to bring her more, loudly enough that Dad can hear it outside. Mom, of course, is turning the house inside out for the red hat, and yelling back at Big Sis to calm down and be patient, or just use some Kleenex for heaven’s sake! She finally finds the hat, gets the toilet paper, and comes back out to give the hat to T4.

But T4 is nowhere to be found. He wandered off while Dad composed an ironic tweet about their “fun” family outing underway, and Big Bro was distracted trying to whistle with a blade of grass, repeatedly asking Dad to show him how, but of course Dad just kept saying “in a minute, in a minute!” Mom now, seeing T4 across the street playing with a worm on the sidewalk, is ticked off at Dad for not paying attention and endangering T4’s life. She pulls herself together though, determined to make the best of it, yells at Big Bro and Big Sis to shut up, because they’ve started bickering about who gets the biggest blade of grass, and runs over to show T4 the hat she has found. T4 of course, doesn’t care anymore, and instead starts to scream bloody murder because Mom is taking him away from this worm that is now fascinating him. A well intentioned neighbour, whose sidewalk T4 happens to have been making friends with the worm on, gently suggests, with a pointed look, that maybe T4 needs some discipline, not a worm or a hat.

The nerve! Mom reaches down and grabs the worm, snatches T4, brings him back to Dad, whispering under her breath what the neighbour just said. Dad, offended, consoles his wife, and begins a new tweet condemning high and mighty people with holier than thou attitudes offering unsolicited parenting advice, while Mom, fed up, hauls the kids back to the house for an early bed time. Which, of course, turns into Mom passing out on the couch while the kids watch America’s Funniest Home videos and raiding the snack cupboard for Cheetos.

Exhausted yet? Not as exhausted as that family.

Those parents started off outward focused, didn’t they? Good parents, tuned in to the needs of their family, heading out with the best intentions (which, if they’d worked out, would have been life giving for everyone, right? Win, win, benefits multiplying, exactly like we’d talked about in our outward focused lives series). Only some anxiety or emotional immaturity on the part of the very people they were trying to help derailed them, dragged them down, made them turn in on themselves and give up on their dream. That’s what emotionally regressive systems do.

All these same dynamics, of course, don’t just happen in families with toddlers. They happen with adult siblings and parents, they happen in congregations, in small groups, in neighbourhood associations, in workplaces, everywhere there are broken people with needs and hurts.

So what’s an outward focused person to do?

An outward focused person who wants to thrive, and make a difference, must do two things.

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Self-differentiate.

And stay connected.

Let’s break those two things down, briefly.

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To self-differentiate is to gain a clear sense of who you are and what your purpose is. To have a strong grip on what you and your life are all about. As a student of Jesus, you might describe it as knowing who God made you to be and what he made you to do.

Those parents didn’t have a clear sense of themselves and their purpose did they? If they did, they lost themselves very quickly. Their purpose became what the anxious system needed it to become in order for the anxious system to thrive: pacifiers of the emotionally immature demands of T4. As for who they were at some essential level, the anxious system dis-integrated them; all their unique gifts, talents, personalities, passions smushed down and overwhelmed. They weren’t distinctly anybody anymore, except frazzled.

That will happen eventually to any insufficiently self-differentiated person who pursues an outward focused life in the midst of all these chronically anxious systems.

But it didn’t happen to Jesus.

One story for now (there are several where he illustrates this same dynamic; we’ll look at this one and a couple of others in more depth next week).

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1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."

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8 "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?"

9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world's light. 10 It is when people walk at night that they stumble, for they have no light."

11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."

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12 His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

14 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

John 11

First, do you notice what a non-anxious presence Jesus is? He waits 2 days to go, even though his good friend is dying (and does, in fact, die), and even though Lazarus’s sisters are wanting him to come right away. And he goes despite the death threats and the discouragement of his disciples.

What allows him to maintain such a non-anxious presence? He knows who he is, and what he’s about.

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Which leads to the second key: staying connected. Don’t get wrapped up; do remain present. [junior high boys camp; supernanny sleep separation technique]

One of the temptations when you’re self-differentiated and you encounter an emotionally regressive, anxious system is to totally disengage from it. To stay far, far away. Which is fine, but it’s not an option for the outward focused person who has compassion on the people stuck in it. Like Jesus is and does.

Which is why we see Jesus staying connected. He doesn’t get wrapped up in their anxiety; he doesn’t let it stop him from being himself or from going after his purposes. In part because his purposes involve them.

He’s training his disciples to be a non-anxious, healing presence like he is. He’s going to be raising Lazarus from the dead to bless Lazarus’ sisters and bring glory to his Father and teach the world something profound about the reality of the kingdom of God. So he stays connected. He stays with his disciples, inviting them to join him in his purpose. Reassuring them that although everything may look dark to them, he sees light on the landscape. Reassuring them that God has a good purpose in all of this, that things are going to turn out OK. And he stays connected to Lazarus, and Mary and Martha. Because he loves all of them, in spite of their anxiety and emotional immaturity.

We can learn to be the same way. To be, like Jesus, outward focused people who serve others wholeheartedly and generously, while maintaining a clear sense of who we are and what we are about. And God’s power will be with us along the way, filling us and this world with the life of the heavens. More on how we can do that next week. For now, some practical suggestions.

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Practical Suggestions:

1. Read John 11 this week, and take notes. Note the different examples of anxiety present in the systems Jesus is involved with. Note the ways you see Jesus keeping a firm grip on his clear sense of himself and his purpose. Notice the ways and instances where you see Jesus not keeping his distance, but staying connected. Ask yourself if there are any parallels to the groups of people you find yourself in. Write it all down; email me what you discover, if you’d like. If you find anything interesting, I might just include it in the message next week.

2. Do a self-inventory. Have you lost a grip on yourself and your purpose in any important settings? In your family? In your workplace? Especially in any role where you might be looked to as a leader? Have you stopped being connected to any of those people or groups as a result of your inability to maintain a non-anxious presence among them? In prayer, just tell God what you see about yourself and ask him to show you if the real problem is the system you’re in or if the problem is how you’ve responded to it.

3. Get help. If the story about T4 and the red hat hit a little bit too close to home, find some parents you respect and ask for help. It doesn’t have to stay that way forever.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

A Thrival Guide for Outward Focused People // Dos and Don’ts

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 06/09/2013
video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

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A Thrival Guide for Outward Focused People: How to live outward focused lives without burning out or being burned (unnecessarily).

A 2 part companion to the outward focused lives series.

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Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant...

from Philippians 2:1-11

Paul (formerly Saul) of Tarsus

It's powerfully appealing to say yes to humility, compassion, a purpose beyond "It's all about me" etc. – because the truth is, this is the image of God in us; it’s how we’re wired at the most profound levels.

BUT

How do you "value others above yourselves, looking to the interests of the others” and maintain a clear sense of yourself, not become a doormat, remain faithful to your purposes when others make unreasonable demands, keep from being overwhelmed by others' needs, etc?

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We don’t just want to survive; we want to thrive. Which, it so happens, is Jesus’ desire for us as well. “I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.”

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So on to the Thrival Guide.

Today we’ll talk about some dos and don’ts. Let’s start with the don’ts.

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Don’t De-Value or Under-Value your self in order to value others above yourself.

Valuing others above yourself does not mean de-valuing or undervaluing one’s self. Valuing others above yourselves well, requires an awareness of your own value. The more highly you value yourself, the greater the value you are called to give to others.

If the outward focused approach to life is, in fact, the attitude of God himself – who surely knows his own value – think how highly he must therefore value us. The value he places on you and me is staggering. According to the witness of Jesus’ first followers, God values us so much that he was willing to personally endure extraordinary pain – physical, emotional, social, you name it – so that we could be rescued from a world of hurt.

The only healthy outward focused life starts from that foundation. Remember when we talked about the three basic postures towards others from Adam Grant’s book, Give & Take? Givers, Takers, and Matchers. One can only be a giver if one realizes that one has something of value to give.

Paul’s encouragement is to have the attitude of Christ – who did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. In other words, Jesus was aware of his own equality with God, but decided not to use it for his own advantage. Do you see what that means? He had an extraordinarily high view of his own value. And from that place, he valued us even more highly. This is the attitude we are to adopt if we want to thrive.

One who has equality with God values me more highly than even himself. I’ll accept that. But I won’t use it to my own advantage. No, I’ll lower myself and take the position of a servant.

This isn’t always easy. It wasn’t for Jesus’ disciples. But it’s a necessary starting point. There’s this story about this in the book of John, chapter 13:

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[Jesus] got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

We might be able to identify with Peter’s reluctance. We don’t always feel deserving of that kind of value. But Jesus’ response is pretty firm, isn’t it? Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.

Unless we begin by receiving the value God assigns to us, we can’t begin to be involved in the transformational work he’s doing in the world.

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Don’t ignore or dismiss your own interests in order to look to the interests of others.

When Paul says that we should not look to our own interests, but rather to the interests of the others, he does not mean ignoring or dismissing our own interests. Remember, the Greek word translated “looking to” is skopeo, meaning: notice carefully, watch out for, keep thinking about, ponder, fix attention toward.

It is unhealthy to skopeo one’s self, that is surely true. And skopeo-ing the interests of others leads to much life, both for the self, and for the others. However, one must still be mindful of one’s own interests while skopeo-ing the interests of others.

It’s similar to what we do when driving a car or playing a sport or doing our work. Let’s take driving for example. Your driving instructor probably told you to keep your eyes on the road and the traffic around you while driving, right? To skopeo the road, we might say. Because if you’re skopeo-ing your car while driving, you’re going to crash. But that doesn’t mean you ignore your car while you’re driving. You check your speed from time to time. Your fuel level. If it starts to sound funny, you pay attention. Maybe you pull over to check it out if something seems to be amiss. You make sure it’s well maintained on a regular basis. Because if something goes wrong with your car, and it can’t drive well, keeping your eyes on the road and the traffic around you is sort of a waste of time, isn’t it? If your body fails you, all the keeping your eye on the goal won’t help you much. If you don’t get enough rest, all the focus on your work objectives won’t pay off. And so on and so forth.

No, the wise person realizes that in most normal circumstances, others are in fact best served by the healthy care and nurturing of one’s self. If what others need is you, and you don't care for your self, your ability to help is short-lived.

Consider Jesus in Matthew 14 & 15:

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When Jesus heard what had happened…

grieving cousin, withdraws...meets needs, feeds 5000,

immediately withdraws again

After he had dismissed them, he went up to a mountainside to pray…

meets needs again, withdraws yet again, heals, withdraws to the mountain, a crowd gathers again, again compassion and feeding (4000),

After Jesus had sent the crowd away…

then he gets in a boat yet again.

If Jesus doesn’t ignore his own needs, where do we get off thinking it’s an option for us?

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Do be otherish (which is very different than selfless)

You may remember in the book Give & Take, research that showed that over time, Givers (not Matchers or Takers) tended to finish at the top of the success ladder, for a variety of reasons. But you may also remember that some givers finished at the bottom. Many givers were champs. But some were chumps. In other words, some who were outward focused really thrived. But some didn’t. Some became door mats. Some were taken advantage of. Some burned out. Some got burned.

What made the difference?

Adam Grant says that the difference comes down to learning to be otherish, not selfless. Chumps make the well-intentioned mistake of trying to be selfless, when they should instead be otherish.

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No one wants to be selfish, right? Right. But what should we be instead? Selfless? No. Otherish.

Which may sound a little like a game of semantics, but the truth is we tend to have a really conflicted relationship with the word “self,” don’t we?

We have words like self-centered, self-justified, self-congratulatory, self-conscious, self-seeking, self-appointed, self-absorbed, self-serving, etc. All seem to suggest that the “self” is prideful, egotistical, maybe even immoral.

But then we’ve got self-assertive, self-possessed, self-assured, self-made, self-control, self-starter, self-supported, etc. These suggest the “self” is good, praiseworthy, noble even.

So while we don't want want to be selfish, sometimes we think that means we need to be selfless. Which can be a little confusing, right? Does selfless mean we are "less" the good self or less the bad "self"? Or both? We'd be better off realizing that the opposite of selfish isn't selfless, but otherish.

Semantics aside, being otherish is something very concrete and practical. It comes down to three basic skills or strategies.

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The first is Sincerity Screening.

There are 4 possible kinds of people we encounter. Some people are agreeable givers: nice people who sincerely desire the best for others. And there are disagreeable takers: unpleasant people who are really only looking out for themselves. But there are also disagreeable givers: grumpy people with hearts of gold. And there are agreeable takers: charming, nice seeming people aiming to get much more than they give. What we might call fakers.

Outward focused people have some natural advantages in doing sincerity screening, and over time they get better and better at it. For outward focused people to thrive, they need to be able to spot fakers in order to avoid being burned.

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We see this in John 6, when Jesus feeds the 5000. A huge crowd has come to hear him teach and heal their sick. They are on a mountainside, far from town, and getting hungry. Jesus has compassion on them, multiplies some fishes and loaves, and feeds them. He sees that they are sincere in their hunger, in other words – both their hunger for him, and their natural hunger. But later in the day, they begin to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Then, in verse 15, we see something very interesting…

Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

He hears their words – which sound very agreeable, indeed, don’t they? Full of praise. And true, at that. But he knows that they want to make him king by force, for their own purposes, out of their own selfish desires. They are fakers. And he’s having none of it, so he withdraws by himself.

Which leads us to the second strategy or skill of being otherish.

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Generous Tit for Tat.

This basically means outward focused people thrive when they adapt their relational approach from situation to situation. They are givers to other givers, and to matchers. But when they encounter takers, they act like matchers most of the time, and givers once in a while, to give the taker a chance to rise above themselves and become givers themselves.

In other words, they tend to try to help others who are being helpful themselves, but they are fine with saying no to someone who is trying to take advantage of them. And occasionally, they act generously even towards proven takers, just to create some breathing room and see if their generosity might inspire a new leaf being turned over. (Because remember, research shows that giving is proven to be contagious.)

Jesus, it seems, used this approach too. Generally, he went out of his way to find the hurting, the hungry, the helpless, the outcast and serve them. And he made the powers that be, the oppressors, prove themselves to him before he would give his time and attention to them. Sometimes, though, he would surprise everyone and change things up.

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

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

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

8 But 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.”

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

Luke 19:1-9

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A final skill in being otherish, vs. selfless, is

Assertiveness as an Advocate on behalf of others.

Outward focused people sometimes have difficulty being assertive simply because they are sensitive to the needs and perspectives of others, and don’t want to make someone else feel uncomfortable. They want to make others happy.

Because of this, research shows that givers, on average, earn 14% less annually than takers or matchers, mostly because of making less requests for salary increases. It’s very selfless of them, isn’t it?

But as soon as an outward focused person shifts to an otherish perspective, things change. What do I mean? I mean, they begin to see themselves as advocating for the interests of their family, or even as being an agent or coach for someone else (who just happened to be themselves.)

This was Jesus’ approach. No one was more assertive. He made huge asks of others – “Pick up your cross.” “Go and sin no more.” “Leave the dead to bury their own. You, come and follow me.” He stood his ground against the most extraordinary opposition. Even against his mother, his siblings, his closest friends, when necessary. Why? Not for his own gain. But because he was here on behalf of the lost. On behalf of the oppressed. On behalf of his Father in the heavens.

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You add all these dos and don’ts up: valuing yourself, taking you own true interests seriously, and being otherish – practicing sincerity screening, generous tit for tat, and assertiveness as an advocate for others – and you have a recipe for turning chumps into champs. You have a picture of Jesus, the firstborn of a new creation.

Jesus is the embodiment of love itself. He is the model of considering the needs of others before his own. And yet he has a very clear sense of himself. He doesn’t get pushed around, at all, not once, never ever. He’s not a sucker. He’s never played for a fool. He doesn’t wear himself out. He isn’t helpless. He always chooses. Even in his arrest, trial, and death, one gets the sense that he is in full control of himself, and that these circumstances are in some way only possible because he has chosen – out of a clear sense of who he is and what his purpose is – to give himself over to them.

So there you have it, Part One of a Thrival Guide for Outward Focused People.

Now, there’s an important piece of the puzzle we haven’t talked about yet – the bit that has to do with boundaries and self-differentiation. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that next week. But this should give us enough to work on for a few days.

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Practical Suggestions:

1. Take your self in for an oil change (and 14 point inspection)

Ask yourself: Have you been getting enough sleep? Time alone with God? Connections with people who bring you life? Engagement with activities that bring you life? Taking a sabbath rest every week? Eating well? Exercising?

Ask someone close enough to know: seen any check engine lights or low fuel indicators on me recently?

2. Make a list of losers.

Determine who loses out if you lose out. If you get taken advantage of by a faker, or because you aren't assertive, who does it affect? In Jesus case it was every single one of us; maybe that's why he was so assertive! Who is it for you? Your kids? Your friends? The people on your team? In your company? Your customers? Your church? The people God has called you to serve in mission? Write down their names on a list and put that list in your wallet or purse and review it from time to time to remind yourself to be otherish. Your best interests are their best interests too.