breathing room

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Easter 2012: Empty Tombs and Bobsleds

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 04/08/2012

video recording of the service at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21684804

Easter 2012: Empty Tombs and Bobsleds

Vineyard Church of Milan

04/07/2012

It’s Resurrection Sunday. The first day of a brand new week.

Today is the day that a story sweeps in and engulfs every event, every word, every action in human history. Because of the resurrection, our lives are caught up in a story. Lent is over. Good Friday now lives only in memory. Today, and every day from here on out, is Sunday and Sunday’s children, the days that Resurrection Sunday gives birth to, the days that share Resurrection Sunday’s DNA.

Today is the day the story sheds it tragic skin and emerges as a true comedy.

Today is the day our story becomes a good story.

Today is the day the story becomes epic.

24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶He is not here; he has risen!

Luke 24:1-6

Let’s be clear about a few things.

One. We’re not stupid. We know how things work. Dead people stay dead. A dead looking plant might perk up if you water it. Dead looking sick people might recover with enough care and willpower and medical attention. Mostly dead people might be revived by CPR or heroic intervention. Some have even reported out of body experiences in the midst of surgery or trauma, only to be “sent back” and suck in air again for years of new life afterwards. But truly dead people stay dead. Especially people who are killed dead by powerful empires and rulers vested interests in keeping dead people dead so they can’t start revolutions.

This story, the resurrection story, on the other hand, is crazy. It says a dead person, dead for more than a day, stopped being dead and started being alive. Fully alive. Alive and kicking alive, no worse for the wear alive.

And not metaphorically alive, like alive in our hearts or memories or even some disembodied existence, like a ghost or something. But pinch-me-I’m-not-dreaming alive.

Resurrection raises provocative questions, doesn’t it? Resurrection says we might not be stupid, but we maybe shouldn’t be as sure of things as we thought we were. Because if that can happen, what else is possible?

But this story is even crazier than just that:

¹³Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. ¹⁴They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; ¹⁶but they were kept from recognizing him…

³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

Luke 24:13-16,30-31

Which brings us to the second thing we need to be clear about. This story says this dead person, Jesus of Nazareth, after being dead, was so alive, filled with so much life, in such a new state of animated embodiedness, that people couldn’t quite recognize him at first. Like when someone you’ve only ever seen in blue jeans and a t-shirt shows up dressed to the 9s, hair all done up, pedicured and manicured, maybe even a little makeup. And you do a double take. But more than that – so much more alive, body and soul, that you could spend the day with them and think they were a stranger until something clicked, they said that thing in that particular way, they moved their hand and cocked their head in only the way they do that, and you realized – whoah! That was Jesus.

And then poof, he disappears.

Which is where it gets even crazier. Because it means his body is a whole different kind of alive then the kind of alive we know. It has a fully alive physicality in a dimension that surrounds this one, and is fully alive in this one as well. Some of us have had out of body experiences, and some of us have had out of this world experiences, but Jesus has out of this world experiences in his resurrected, flesh and blood body.

³⁶While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

³⁷They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. ³⁸He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

⁴⁰When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. ⁴¹And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” ⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³and he took it and ate it in their presence.

Luke 24:36-43

So again, just so we’re clear. We aren’t stupid. But our sense of what is possible just got blown out of the water. Something crazy incredible is happening on resurrection Sunday, and it’s happening right here on planet earth. With atoms and molecules and flesh and blood and bone and breath. It’s just that those atoms and molecules and flesh and blood and bone and breath are behaving as they’ve never behaved before.

Resurrection isn’t about somewhere else. It’s not about escape to angels and harps and clouds. Resurrection happens here. And that means everything about right here, right now has changed.

Resurrection is embodied, engaged, active life here.

It is the affirmation of here. The affirmation of work and embrace and laughter and forgiveness and sunshine and birds and working through conflict and horses and soccer and encouragement and struggle and trees and art and music and faithful persistence and dance and poetry and on and on…

It is the affirmation of breakfast.

Resurrection is about something new starting here, in the world we call home.

Resurrection is an announcement of new creation.

The story isn’t that someday we abandon this place.

The story is that God hasn’t abandoned this place, and he never will.

(you know how you leave something at someone’s house, in an attempt to ensure continued relationship…? this is place is now permanently connected to God, since he’s now embodied in a new creation version of it…)

God is starting a new creation, here, out of the tomb of the old. As the scriptures describe it, Jesus is the firstborn from the among the dead. Which means there will be all kinds of second and third and next-borns.

Thus our task as followers of the resurrected Christ. To see and name and give ourselves to the good that resurrection will one day make really real, incorruptible and permanent, perfect and untainted.

Our task is to practice resurrection. To give ourselves to all that resurrection will resurrect, and push it in that direction like a bobsledder pushes the bobsled until gravity takes over. People... Justice... Business... Beauty... Creation itself… Celebration and gratitude… Worship of every sort... True love in every form...

Will the things you have given your life to go on when God’s good new world takes over the old, when Resurrection comes? When death is gone from it? When only the beautiful and true and redeemed remains?

As we practice resurrection, Resurrection has a few other things to announce along the way.

For example, Resurrection is the cancelling of every debt. Once and for all, buried, never to come out.

¹³When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Colossians 2:13-15

Everything that stood against us – our sins, the things we’ve given ourselves to that will not go on in God’s new world when resurrection comes – those debts we’ve incurred are cancelled. Nailed to the cross. There is nothing then to hold us back from practicing resurrection. From giving ourselves afresh.

Resurrection also says someone else is in charge. Someone good. Someone really, really, really good. Life is in charge, not death. Mercy has triumphed over judgment. The resurrected Jesus has disarmed those powers and authorities that previously ruled our world, he’s made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Affirmation is in charge, not accusation. Love rules over all.

Resurrection says nothing has to be the way it’s always been forever. No story has to end the way it looks like it’s going to end. No tomorrow has to have its feet stuck in today. Because Resurrection changes every story.

What we do, as followers of Jesus, is to learn to see the new creation that resurrection announces bursting forth right here among us. And then we move towards it, to embrace it with open arms, no matter how unlikely it seems.

In a community that is hurting from job losses and broken families and interrupted starts, as followers of Jesus, we learn to see the new creation that resurrection announces getting ready to burst forth, and we water it. We create breathing room for it. We welcome it. With faith rooted in the resurrection that’s already happened. We practice the kind of life that will one day take over this place as God’s good new world infuses this present reality.

In the life of a child who is hurting from brokenness beyond their control, we learn to see the new creation that resurrection announces getting ready to burst forth, and we name it and give ourselves to that good work God desires to bring to completion. We make space for them to practice resurrection along with us.

In the lives of everyone we meet, we keep our eyes peeled for resurrection – which seems to most often happen right where the dead are buried – and we look for ways to embrace it. To bless it. To roll away the stones. Until every tomb is empty.

And even in our own lives, full of death though they may be, we learn to look for resurrection. To look for Jesus, present even though we didn’t recognize him at first. And when he asks for breakfast, we offer him everything in our cupboards, and sit down with him to eat.

That’s what these who are getting baptized our doing. Choosing to give their lives to learning to see the new creation resurrection announces. Choosing to trust that the risen one has indeed triumphed over every other power and authority. Choosing to practice resurrection in relationships, in work, in play, in worship day after day after day until God’s good new world takes over the old.

Do you see this tomb they buried Jesus in? He isn’t here. He is risen!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Behold Thy Mother

mini-sermonette notes from the Community-Wide Good Friday Service at Marble Memorial United Methodist Church on Good Friday

But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

26 When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”

27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

John 19:25-27

Behold. See. Perceive.

At the foot of the cross, on Good Friday, we see one another differently. By the authority of the king of the Jews, soon to be crowned king of all creation, our relationships to one another are re-defined by his love.

Behold. See. Perceive.

Look at John, Mary. He is your son. See him in the light of my love, under the shadow of my cross.

Look at Mary, John. She is your mother. See her in the light of my love, under the shadow of my cross.

Mary, an older woman now. Perhaps 5-10 years beyond the normal life expectancy of 40 in that time. Free with the other women to come and go, no threat to the Romans or the antagonistic leaders in Israel persecuting the Jesus-movement rebels. There with the other women at the cross.

John, perhaps 15 or 16 years old. Was he more courageous than all the other disciples who had fled? Perhaps. But, more likely, still baby faced, not shaving yet. And therefore, like the women, under the radar, free to come and go, no threat to gather a band of rebels after the death of their messianic leader.

A widow woman. A baby faced boy. Made family by their relationship with Jesus.

This is the work of the cross. The love of God redefining, reestablishing relationships, making family where hundreds of generations of human history had broken family apart.

This good Friday, may we hear Jesus’ words on the cross.

Behold. See. Perceive. This is your brother. This is your sister. This is your mother. This is your father. This is your son. This is your daughter.

Behold. See. Perceive. Look beyond the skin and the circumstances and the life history and the class and the culture and bank account balance and the religious background and the education and the clothing and the weathered facades we wear.

Behold. See. Perceive. This human being is your kin because of my love. Love them now, as you would love your own.

This is the work of the cross. This is our commission on Good Friday.

Palm Sunday 2012

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 04/01/2012

if you’d like to watch a recording of this message on ustream, use the following link:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21519902/highlight/253493

21 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

⁴This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

⁵“Say to Daughter Zion,

‘See, your king comes to you,

gentle and riding on a donkey,

and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”

⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. ⁷They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. ⁸A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

¹⁰When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

¹¹The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Some years ago, I received a call from the wife of a Presbyterian pastor, the pastor of a large church near Detroit. He was dying of cancer, and all treatment options had been exhausted. She had heard that our church believed in God’s power to heal, and that we prayed for the sick, and she asked if we would come pray for her husband.

A couple of ministry leaders and I took a road trip to the hospital he was at, and met her there in her husband’s hospital room. He was gaunt and weak and unconscious, while she was strong and vibrant, full of faith, and grieving at the same time.

We began to pray, inviting the Holy Spirit to come and show us what the Father was doing. Almost immediately, something like a holy electricity filled the room. His face began to flush, and his muscles seemed to visibly relax. We understood that to be a sign of God’s presence, and whenever God is present, his power is also present, because the two are one and the same.

And so we prayed with quickening faith. Announcing the authority of Jesus over the cancer that was wracking this man’s body, proclaiming the nearness and the hereness of the kingdom of God, joining with Jesus in his healing work on the earth. The air felt thick, and our hearts were moved with compassion. All of us began to weep as we prayed, sensing Jesus’ strong, powerful love for this man.

Something extraordinary was happening. His face became radiant. His wife’s eyes were filled with renewed hope and deep, deep love. We prayed. And we prayed. And the life of God was dancing among us. Until it became clear that we had prayed all that we were to pray in that day, in that moment.

We continued to intercede over the next couple of days, hoping, maybe even expecting to hear news of healing, of a miracle, of recovery. But instead, the news we got was that he had passed away.

It was a bitter disappointment. We knew God had been there. We knew he’d heard our prayers. We knew he loved this man, and his wife. We knew we had cooperated to the best of our abilities with his new creation purposes for this family. I knew God could heal him. I’ve seen God do extraordinary things in other circumstances, right before my eyes. Things that only a God who still does miraculous things could do. And yet. And yet.

When I read Matthew’s account of the triumphal entry, I think about that experience. And others like it. I think about other times in my life that I know God was at work – sometimes in ways that go beyond my comprehension – times when I know he was up to something good, but all the evidence I have to hold on to is failure. Results that taste bitter in my mouth, that make him at first glance seem cruel for getting my hopes up.

As a pastor following Jesus with and among you, I know some of your stories, the same kinds of encounters with God that have this unsavory mixture of extraordinary hope, anticipation and unfathomable let down.

Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Resurrection Sunday, so named because of the palms that were waved and spread out before Jesus as he entered Jerusalem before his eventual arrest and torture and crucifixion, Palm Sunday is a day to find ourselves in communion with the crowd that welcomed Jesus with such acclaim that day. A day to come before him with our deepest desires, and trust him to be the Savior he desires to be for us, even if along the way, he becomes less of who we hope he is, and more of who we truly need him to be.

Let’s dive in to this scene, and invite God’s Spirit to speak to us through it…

Matthew is reporting on two realities at once. The reality of what he knows now, in hindsight, and the reality of the at-the-moment expectations and hopes of the crowd, and probably the disciples, too. Fascinating interplay between those two realities in this story.

Let's start with the on the ground experience.

Cloaks on the donkey and on the ground. Most people would only have one cloak, so this is a way of celebrating and valuing a person as highly as you can. A way of saying, if you needed it, I'd give you anything else as well.

Sidenote: Jesus only asks of us what we have to give, and only wants from us what we give to him gladly, from the heart. A cloak, like our time, our money, our words, our energies; something we may have had other plans for when the day started, but in the presence of Jesus we give for another purpose. And in so doing, it becomes a pathway for God to enter our city.

Like our mission as a church to create breathing room. Our task is a simple one, but matters no less for its simplicity, because God comes in the space we create and fills it with life.

The cloaks are probably also reference to 2 Kings 9:13 (Jehu anointed by Elisha)...

A statement about their expectations as to what is really going on. A New king being proclaimed in defiance of the existing king. This crowd, these disciples, are giddy with excitement, long-pent up anticipation and dissatisfaction. The emperor may have us under his thumb, Herod may be his lackey, but here before us is the King we acknowledge.

Sidenote: We know that feeling. Something bigger than us has us at its mercy. Sickness, the threat of death, death, economic realities, a dysfunctional family system, a broken past, a new and unwelcome normal not likely to change, etc. But then we see Jesus approach, and we know none of it stands a chance before him. And so we see him coming and we feel emboldened to rage against the machine, to thumb our noses at the things that have us down, and put our hopes in him.

The palm branches have a similar significance. When Maccabees had arrived in Jerusalem 200 years earlier, after conquering the pagan armies oppressing Israel, the people had done the same thing. It was the start of a 100 year royal dynasty.

Combine that with the royal chants "son of David" and "hosanna" (which means save us) the picture comes into focus. This crowd, and surely the disciples, too, expect that Jesus is the kind of king, of Messiah, that they had been hoping and praying for. A king like David has come again to save them from oppression! He will raise up an army, defeat Rome as David defeated the Philistines, restore glory to Israel, rule with justice, establish peace.

But Matthew knows that this isn't exactly what is going on. Matthew knows what awaits Jesus in Jerusalem (and so does Jesus!), and it isn’t a glorious enthronement. Not yet. Thus the reference to Zechariah 9:9, lowly and gentle. This isn't a military victory march. This is the God of the universe subverting power with humility, undoing evil's self-serving power with self-giving love. The path Jesus must walk, to accomplish what really needs to be accomplished, leads over the cloaks and palm branches of the crowd, yes, but it also leads to him being stripped naked and hung on a branchless tree.

"The people wanted a prophet, but this prophet would tell them that their city was under God's infinite judgment. They wanted the Messiah, but this king was going to be enthroned on a cross. They wanted to be rescued from evil and oppression, but Jesus was going to rescue them from evil in its full depths, not just the surface evil of Roman occupation and the exploitation by the rich." N.T. Wright, For Everyone

Nonetheless, fully aware of the gap between the heartfelt desires of these hurting people and the path that he must take – and the pain and disillusionment they would experience as he did - Jesus receives their hopes and expectations, he embraces their embrace. He doesn’t correct them, chastise them, redirect them, dismiss them. (after all, he set the stage for all of this with his instructions to the disciples) He says, in essence, you are right to come to me, and you are right to come to me just as you are, with everything on your hearts, and all your hope placed in me. You are right to come with celebration of God and defiance of evil on your lips. I know that your enthusiasm may fade just days from now, and you may think I or evil itself made you look a fool. But I hear you more deeply than you know, and more deeply even than you hear yourselves, and my answer, the answer that has been on my lips from before creation itself ever drew its first breath, is Yes. Always Yes. Forever, Yes. And so I give my yes to you, even though you cannot understand it now.

He relates to us the same way. Jesus doesn't always correct our requests as we bring them to him; instead he listens to our hearts and is gentle with our hopes, because he knows they are well placed. He will answer every prayer.

But he will always answer in his own way, because he is Lord. And because he is good, through and through, and only his way is faithful to his goodness.

And here is contained some of the mystery of God. Some of his Yeses are to us, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, cruel and bitter disappointments. The cruelest and the bitterest. Some of his Yeses make us think we were wrong about him all along. Some of his Yeses cast a dark shadow over the future and the present and the past.

Yet, is in those very dark hours that he is at work like a kernel of wheat that has fallen to the ground, dying our death with us and for us, so that death itself might tremble at his Yes, and never be able to speak again.

And so our task is to continue to lay down our cloaks. Over and over. And our palm branches. And let our lips continue to be filled with praise and cry’s of hosanna. Until Easter dawns. And the resurrection Yes of our gentle king riding on the donkey shakes the earth, rolling away every obstacle, emptying the tombs.

Practical Tips:

Write your deepest hope down, desire, longing down and bring it forward during communion to place in this prayer box (share story of box…). After we celebrate communion, we’ll offer these expressions of our hearts to Jesus, and acknowledge him as king together.

After communion, pray psalm 118 together…

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…