Getting Loose

No Substitute for Passion

I have a parishioner who has an absolute passion for a piece of ministry that she does extraordinarily well. It has to do with reaching out to some women who are in trouble with the law and have addiction issues. Basically they are in a program that is their last chance. If they fail this, their prospects are grim—they may well lose their children, and will be headed to jail.

That having been said, she spends an prodigious amount of energy in reaching out to these women through a program of "spirituality" that she leads an hour a week, twice, to two different audiences. It is fascinating to watch her perform. She has drive, energy, verve, enthusiasm, and inspires these women to consider different alternatives in a structured studied way, about how to transform their lives, dare I say, "work out their own salvation", taking into account God and God through Christ.

All of this is in a system in which these women are at this facility for only a short period of weeks, maybe months at the most.

Impressed? I surely am. Nevertheless, she was out of pocket this week, and I was asked to bring the program. I shuddered at that. I can’t hold a candle to what she does. So, I brought a program trying to answer questions that surface for these women whereof we have tried to keep track. Fool that I am, I attempted to answer questions like,

• "If I have decided to receive the sacrament of holy baptism, what does God expect of me now?" (Or substitute joining the church, or renewing the vows I made at baptism earlier in my life, etc.)
• How do I forgive someone who is dead? For that matter, how do I forgive?
• There was a fascinating conversation with a Muslim girl who was thinking about converting to Christianity, and had tons and tons of questions. It was absolutely fascinating.

I enjoyed my time there, but I am clear I am no substitute for the passion of this parishioner and her extraordinarily important helpers.

What Does Jesus Want Me to Do?

I was told in an urgent tone of voice that they needed me right away. I wasn’t sure what was up. There was a woman who was upset. They could not seem to calm her down. Could I come over?

I went not knowing what the situation was. And there she sat. Face red. Tears streaming down her face. Her long hair slightly disheveled. She had kept herself up well over the years. She had a look of desperation in her eyes. I suggested that maybe she’d like to come to my office.

The Church Lady intercepted me and suggested that she would take her to my office, and then one of the people who had initially been talking to her whispered, "She may be suicidal."

I arrived and took off my glasses. I asked her, "How can I help? What’s going on?"

"What does Jesus want me to do? Just tell me. Just tell me what to do . . ."

I thought, Ohhhhhh K . . . Ummm . . . yeah. What does Jesus want you to do? Doesn’t everyone want to know that? I said, "Tell me more of your story. What is upsetting you? Why are you so distraught?"

The look of desperation was more intense in her eyes and body affect, "What does Jesus want me to do? I love Jesus. I read the Bible every day . . . "

I felt so sorry for her. It was obvious that she was at her wit’s end. She had sort of snapped. I was trying to eke out clues. What was eating at her?

With several more exchanges I began to understand it was marital difficulties, and her husband was using one small part wrenched out of context from Paul about wives submitting to their husbands . . . you know, Ephesians 5:22-24.

I began to understand that her husband would get upset and then give her the silent treatment. And then she would commence asking for his forgiveness, that she was so sorry for what she had done. "But Pastor, what does Jesus want me to do? Where can I find some Scripture?"

One that immediately popped out to me was "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Do you remember that Jesus said that?

Yes, she remembered. I said, "Good. Hold on to that for a moment. When you start apologizing to your husband for what you did, what is it that you did that caused him to be so hateful to you?"

She said, "Nothing. I try to be the best wife I know how to be," and the tears were coming on even stronger. "What does Jesus want me to do?"

I said, "The first thing that Jesus wants you to do is to stop lying to your husband."

That got her attention. The faucet began to be turned off. "I am not lying to my husband. What do you mean?"

"When you start apologizing for something you have never done, you are lying to him, aren’t you? You are apologizing for something you have never done or said, with your words, you are asking him to buy into a reality that never occurred, isn’t that right?"

She got silent. Yes, it was right.

"Why would you lie to your husband like that, when you know that Jesus said that the truth will make you free?"

The tears were gone. I asked, do you have any siblings?

Yes, she did.

I said, "Are you the youngest?"

Yes, she was.

It was time to help her learn better coping mechanisms.

The rest of the time was spent helping her to some degree get loose from her anxieties about her relationship to her husband.

Predestination

"I’ve never heard that preached in a Methodist Church before!"

That was not a criticism.  It was a statement of thanks.

Today’s lectionary had, as one of its readings, St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.  And wouldn’t you know, it came from the 8^th chapter—a chapter that so many theologians and would be theologues have cut their teeth on.

I honed in on verses 29-30.  That’s the infamous passage about predestination.

I am convinced that so many in our culture (outside of the Reformed tradition which pretty much "gets" it) when they hear that word immediately jump to two variants of conclusions that center around either infralapsarian double predestination (and no, I am not going to explain that. You have the ability to double click any word in my blog to find out what it means), or the loss of free will.  Neither of which are true.

The aboriginal impulse of the doctrine of predestination is to assert that God is beyond our manipulation.  Period.  That’s the main point.  And honestly, most people miss that.  You cannot manipulate God (Now you can influence him and what he will do . . . but that is another post).

Being a man who has been heavily influenced by the thinking of that Anglican priest, John Wesley, I honed in on his viewpoint in the sermon. I’m not sure that I will try to go through that argument here.  But in some cursory fashion, predestination tends to swing around the nub of two things.

Number one, you do have free will 24/7. God never takes that away from you ev-er. Holy cow, there’s enough evil in this world to document that.

Number two.  For God, (even though Paul speaks of it in Romans) there is no such thing a "foreknowledge" or "after knowledge".  God is way beyond time and space.  So that to get a grasp of it, God has the ability to see the past, present, and future in one eternal "now."  He sees it all (Again, time is only one small part of eternity). And seeing it all, God knows in every tribe and nation, throughout time, those people who are going to be predisposed to believe (and that is still another post . . . or two . . . or three . . . or . . . ) and those are the people he predestines to salvation (still another post). And there you basically have it.

‘Nuf o’ dat.

Transformational Discovery

I remember some months ago reading about this wacko, weirdo guy who just "dove into things", a culture of immersion for a month or so to see what particular lifestyle phenomena were all about.  He works for Esquire Magazine.  I'd forgotten about him until Tim Keel turned me on to the TED web site.

While there, I just ran across a relatively short video where A. J. Jacobs talks about trying, for an entire year, to live as much as he could understand to do so literally by the proscriptions of the Bible. It is a fascinating talk. He went from being a Jewish agnostic to a reverent Jewish agnostic. He discovered that he had not come anywhere close to giving thanks for the many, many good things that go on everyday because he had been so focused on the 3-4 bad things that went wrong.

He also grew to understand the gift of resting on the Sabbath. That is a concept that is so very little understood in our culture in the 21st century. Although it is a topic for another post, rest does not equal sleep or napping. When God rested on the 7^th day, he was not tuning out.

At any rate, it’s a very interesting reflection on the part of A. J. Jacobs.

Time of Rest

I’m better than I used to be. It used to be that I was so caught up in trying to justify my existence, to always discern some kind of measurable progress, that I almost never took a day off.  After all, I reasoned, many of my parishioners don’t, and farmers can’t. Etc. Etc. Etc.

It wasn’t until I was appointed to my 5^th church, that already, before I ever even got to the campus, they had a legacy of being closed on Friday. I was shocked.  I could not believe that.  I thought, well, I’m coming in on Friday anyway, work without air conditioning if I have to, I don’t care what.  I’ll at least work half a day.  That will seem like a day off in part.

But early on at that appointment, when parishioners would catch me at the church they’d say things like, "What are you doing up here? This is supposed to be your day off!" "You need time for your family." Etc., etc., etc. Until finally I began to realize that the expectation was, unless there were some emergency, I, too, was entitled to a five day work week like everyone else.

Now, that’s a pretty difficult thing to swallow when you have spent enormous amounts of energy trying to justify your existence, your pay, show progress for the money and faith that people are investing into you, etc. But over the years, I have come to enjoy my time off. I don’t always do as good as I should, but I certainly do better than I did some 33 years ago!

So, I worked out today, went to Rotary, visited with a parishioner at his house and saw how beautifully it was laid out, took a nap, went out to eat at a neat Mexican restaurant, tried to go see a parishioner in a hospital (with my wife which is highly unusual) and the guy was already checked out, so we walked across the street and strolled through a mall that is gentrifying (which I virtually never do), and in essence had a very relaxing day.

Two Down—Two to Go

Well, a major milestone in the life of the church I serve in the village occurred tonight. Two major committees have now approved in principle the hiring of a full time Director of Ministry for Families with Youth. That is something that has been needed for a long time. There is a stepping out on faith to be sure, but I am excited, relieved, and anxious all at the same time.

Also, a major committee also approved in principle the hiring of a full time Director of Ministry to Families with Children. THAT IS HUGE. It has been needed for years. The villages are gentrifying (or some of them are . . . some never really declined!).

Nevertheless., it will be interesting to see where this new vision and path leads us . . . there’s lots of potential!

Sliding

Oh, I'm sure that I will get into trouble and that this is not politically correct, but I have long believed that children in today's world, and especially boys, have an increasingly more difficult time finding a way to do risky things (within reason) in order to be about the business of growing up.

I've seen boys paralyzed for life and who lost a limb on the football field.  I guess there is some risk there. 

But years ago, on the farm, there was time for all sorts of inventiveness and moderate risk--boys learning to plow on tractors, running combines, learning about the moods of animals at feeding time, skirting a sow with piglets or a cow with a calf, etc.

But here is a video that when I started watching it I smiled form ear to ear.  Risk?  yes.  Fun?  Absolutely.

Watch.  Enjoy. Watch out for the one bad word about 3 minutes into it.

26:27

Oh, man . . .  I'm really clear this can't continue, and I have a hard time believing it myself.  But today I did even better by basically running 3 miles at a 6.8 m.p.h. rate.  After I had finished the first 1/2 mile, I was amazed at how OK I felt.  I thought sure I was going to be fagged out.  But I wasn't.  I got to the end of a mile and was no worse for the wear.  I got to the end of two miles, and I could tell it was taking a toll, but I was amazed at how well I felt.  2 1/4 miles went by, and then I thought, "Man . . .  I have come this far . . . can I do it?"

At the end of 2.5 miles, I was beginning to feel the wear, but I thought, "Man, I've only got 1/2 mile to go . . . can I do this?"  I was shocked that I wasn't feeling any worse.

I got to the end of 11 laps--there was only one m0re to go, so I even went a little faster.  I did not know what I would do as far as time.  I could not believe that I would hit it in the 26 minute range.  And then I saw 3 miles.  I looked at the time:  26:27.  I couldn't believe it.  I felt great.

27:17

Genesis says, "And Rebekah gave the savory meat and the bread, which she had prepared into the hand of her son, Jacob."

Exodus says:  All the posts around the Courtyard are to be banded with silver, with hooks of silver and bases of bronze.

Leviticus says:  If he dedicates his field during the year of Jubilee, the set value stays.

Numbers says:  to show the way ahead and bring them back home so God's community will not be like sheep without a shepherd."

Deuteronomy says:  God's curse on anyone who moves his neighbor's boundary marker.
      All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

And I say that that's the best I have run 3 miles in years.

The 4th of July

Yesterday was the 4th of July. And we had a very pleasant time in the Villages.

We got down to the end of the parade site at about 9 a.m. Of course, it was about a half hour before we saw the first signs of the parade, but it was a lot of fun. Cop cars, fire engines, the school district’s band with honor players, elected officials—national, state, city—hamburgers, ice cream, watermelon, games for the kids, a makeshift stage, singing groups, old fashioned patriotism, etc.  It was like being in a small town of about 12,000 people right here in the middle of Houston, Texas no less! I feel so fortunate to live in one of the villages.  It really is a great place to be.

We had our Vizsla with us whom we have named Viktoria (Viki for short). Her breed is not that common. She looks somewhat like a Weimaraner, but she is reddish-brown. Thank heavens she is very mild mannered. All sorts of kids came up to her and petted her, and she seemed fine with it all.    I even know a veterinarian who saw all the traffic we were getting, and asked if we wouldn't mind passing out cards to his clinic as well!  Ha.  She growled a little at a couple of other dogs, but all in all she did very well.

Later in the day we went to eat at Goode’s Taqueria. My wife and I had their chicken salad which was excellent. I love their chocolate shakes with a hint of cinnamon in them. Then that night we watched Grizzly Man. My gosh, talk about a guy going goofball, crazy. It was a documentary of sorts, but sad.

All in all it was a great day. Seemed like a Saturday to me!