I Could Have Coasted

 I Could Have Coasted

I could have given up long ago,
I could have bought the homeless corner
next to the stranded avenues.
I could have coasted.

In my head the days were always struggle,
the dead threw taunts at me,
the living were beyond my reach.
I could have toasted marshmallows and
hot dogs to attract a crowd;
but that is not where companions are found.

There was a wife and a husband and
two beloved young adult sons.
She was a church person,
but not churchy.
She was grace and Lutheran and
Scandinavian. Her husband never
attended; he felt he did not fit because
of his smoking habit.

Her husband died, cursed cancer,
and left her weeping for the man who was
better than the church people knew.

Within the year a son also died,
offensive tumor, and left her weeping for
the empty space in her house. She felt barren.
The nurse,
a pastor, and the mom were
with him until the final breath. He was
better than anyone you have ever met.

And she remembers the pastor who was
in over his head,
who took the train to Minneapolis to
sit with her during her son’s last surgery.
And she remembered, 30 years later,
and tracked him down, in a town 1500
miles
away.

I could have given up long ago,
I could have buried my face beneath the
fog that weeps over the hills. But she
would not let me forget that

Simple acts of presence may be
the sweetest moments we share.

Of Brides and Badges

Of Brides and Badges

“Then one of the seven angels…came and spoke with me, saying, ‘Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’” Revelation 21:9

A late-model black Ford Mustang drove past me on my walk earlier this week. It was a beautiful car, sleek and freshly polished. I waved at the driver and she waved back. (I wave at everybody on my walk, makes them scratch their head and say, “Do I know that guy?”)

The next day I took the same route and about 15 minutes into my walk saw the same black Mustang parked in the driveway of a house nearby. “That’s nice,” I thought. “The owner lives in the neighborhood.” Then, about 10 minutes later, passing another house I saw a second black Mustang. I thought, “Well, it is a nice car. But two in the same neighborhood?”

Today I took my walk, same route, same cars. But this time I looked closer at the second “Mustang”. Oh no, it had a Chevrolet badge on the front. It’s a Camaro!

That made me think of my early teens. I grew up in a very car-centric time and place. I turned 13 in 1968 living near East Los Angeles. Almost every friend I knew was into cars. We are also not far from some of the most famous drag strips in the country. I watched the Funny Cars more than once as the red to green countdown sent them roaring down the quarter-mile track. So, cars were a big part of our scene.

Sitting in the front yard with my friends, they would often identify the make and model of each car well before it drove by. Me? I had no idea. I couldn’t distinguish a Ford from a Chevy from a Dodge, let alone the model and year. But they could! I take that back. I knew what a Ford Fairlane was, our next-door neighbor owned one. I don’t think I even knew the difference between a sedan and a coupe. (Yes, if you are asking, I do know now. Four-door, two-door.)

I never asked those long-ago friends how they could tell the difference. For one thing, it would betray my ignorance. Whether they had read Car and Driver from front to back since they were ten or had glued models together of all the popular cars, they knew what they were talking about. On my walk, it was the Chevy insignia that identified my mistake.

How do we know what group or groups are the “church”? What insignia or badge can we identify? Does the church have modern fuel-injection, hemi engines, or gull fins? There are many pictures of the church throughout the New Testament. One of the most frequent is the “bride of Christ.”

I’ve performed over 100 weddings in my ministry. I’ve seen brides in glorious white and beaded dresses, in cowboy boots and in their favorite team’s jersey. No matter how they were dressed, there was no one more beautiful than the bride standing with her groom. (Sorry guys, nobody comes away from a wedding saying, “And wasn’t the groom beautiful?”)

Brides are radiant; they are effusive. They are like a firework display of protons brightening the world for the few moments of the ceremony. Their faces shine, their makeup runs, but even that is beautiful. It really doesn’t matter if they took all morning to pretty themselves up or went minimal for a simple exchange of vows. A bride is love and loveliness on visual display.

There is a reason she glows. (And you can thank me now, guys.) Brides do not stand alone. They beam because they are in love with their groom. She may have been “pretty” before the wedding but combine that with the depth of love the couple shares, and there are few moments like it.

I believe these two qualities, beauty and love, are the primary marks of the church. Whatever else we might say about any particular bride, she is beautiful. And so is the church.

Now, I do not mean, necessarily, the religious expression of Christianity. I am referring to the beauty of those who have kept their heart and eyes upon Jesus alone. They have learned there is no other like Him. They take the blush in their cheeks from the love He has for them.

Imagine the moments when you have seen someone carry out a selfless act. Perhaps, struggling financially themselves, a family decides to adopt a child from out of poverty. Or another, in retirement, decides to mentor a preteen child. Or think about former President Jimmy Carter, at 95 and still building houses with Habitat of Humanity. Recently he was back on site the day after falling at home and receiving 14 stitches.

There is beauty in all of these acts. I would venture to say that most people who give selflessly have been on the receiving end of great love and mercy at one time in their lives. Those who keep Christ in view have received the infinite grace of God. The more we realize that and experience it, the more beautiful the church becomes.

Which lead to the second attribute; brides are full of love. That is the source of their beauty, isn’t it? You see, we really do have a choice. Is our relationship with Christ about rules? Is it about some view that sees Him as a taskmaster who expects our slavish devotion? Or, are we like a bride who, knowing great love, can only give the same?

It is far too easy to replace these insignias with labored practices that wear us out. Or, we become political polarized, seeing every act of one party as “godless” and another as “God’s own will.” Never forget that during the American Civil War preachers were using the Bible to preach both slavery and emancipation. But which view was beautiful? Which was loving? Which looked like a beautiful bride?

I haven’t used the word “romance” yet but let me conclude with it. Men may have a difficult time with the concept because Jesus is male, and we are called the Bride. But I believe Jesus wants to romance us. If it helps, the Holy Spirit was often referred to as feminine in early church writings. Nonetheless, let the idea of romance inform your response to Christ. Allow the Divine Love that gave everything for you sweep you off your feet. Allow the Divine Love that asked nothing of you, but simply gives, transfix you. Let the thought that the entire universe if filled with the glory of Love invoke a tear, or even make you a bit giddy today.

Beauty and love; be the Bride.

Pay to Enter

Pay to Enter

(“And he ordered those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take them out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!’” John 2:16)

Pay to enter; the school, the church.
Pay to play; the immigrant, the poor.
How much money can you make,
What are your assets to insure your entrance?

Who retouched the photos of God with their own portraits?
Who erected the fence around the altar?
Who sold access to the highest bidder?
Who bartered the sun and the rain?

When did you ever receive a bill for your breath,
a charge for the breeze? When deposit did you pay
to see the dawn, what fee to enjoy the grass between your toes?

And now you auction the Painter’s works that you enjoy for free?
You save your glitter for the best of these and
ration your mud to the least.
You do as you please while the Artist opens the studio windows wide,
the cross-breeze brushing each cheek extravagantly.

Play upon the good earth; the rose, the dandelion.
Enter without pay; the festival, the fire.
How much money would it take
to buy the love that covers the world with
its own resemblance.

Paint on my eyeballs Your perfect image;
deeper than the canvas, higher than the circle of this earth,
broader than borders. Script upon my ears
the song that banishes walls, that is purer
and more fearsome than repeated phrases
shouted at rallies to keep the rabble away.

I will not raffle the Handiwork of the Beloved.

United in Love

United in Love

“I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself.” Colossians 2:2

I’ve always loved a good mystery. In fact, one summer during junior high I read one Hardy Boys Mystery book a day! Good mystery authors leave clues throughout their story but are not obvious about them. Hopefully, by the end of the story you look back at characters and plot twists and go, “Aha!”

What God has done in Christ is called a “mystery” by Paul. It is a term borrowed from surrounding religious language. At the time it referred to initiation scripts or rites that allowed only those who were specially trained to access the “hidden” things of their religion. So, people were always on a quest for more knowledge, more understanding and the deeper things of God. Of course, this created classes among the devotees; those who were new to the faith, those who were gaining knowledge, and those, at the top, who had gone to “the next level.”

It is important to note, there is no such language as “the next level” when it comes to Christ. There is no experience that initiates us into another stratosphere of acceptance in God. There is no deeper knowledge that puts us above less mature Christians. There is simply no level of attainment to boast about at all.

What Paul does, in hijacking the term “mystery”, is to turn it upside down and inside out. The “mystery” is what he has already freely proclaimed to them: “this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You see, there is no deeper level in Christ; he already dwells within you by faith.

That leaves us free to do exactly what Christ would do: love. Paul says he wants our hearts to be encouraged and united (or knit together) in love. That is the true nature of the church. The greatest mysteries are the simplest ones.

Martin Sheen tells a story about a conversation with a priest. “I was traveling and went to confession in this very remote place, and suddenly he said, ‘Well, we don’t know what God is, do we?’ …Every time we try to identify God, we are sure to identify what she is certainly not. And the genius of God is that he dwells where we would least likely look, within the depths of our own being, our own shallowness, our own darkness, our own humanity.”

The relentless presence of Christ is to be found within each of us! That is why being “united in love” is our highest value. Every time we complain bitterly about another brother, we are complaining about someone within whom Christ dwells. Every time we tell a sister how wrong she is, and insist she change to our expectations, we are mistreating the very temple of God.

That is why I urge people to stay in fellowship where they may have a disagreement or conflict with someone. If the highest value is love, and you feel others are not loving, then you be the loving one! What if, every time our ego got knocked around a bit, we responded with the love of Christ? What if, every time someone challenged us about our abilities, our intelligence or the depth of our commitment, we responded with the love that God showed the world in Christ?

The church is united in this love. That is why so many churches are dying. We have turned love for Christ into rules to follow. We have turned His grace into legislation we want to enforce. We have turned the wonder of worship into a popularity contest for good music. I’ve seen people divorce themselves from fellowship over female ushers, greeters not dressed nice enough, children being too noisy (oh that more churches had that “problem”), not enough “hell” being preached, a “sugar coated” gospel. You can add to the list I’m sure.

What if every group of believers made a six week covenant to be “united in love.” And, what if that was ignited by the simple realization that Christ Himself dwells in each of us? Going further, what if, instead of “helping” those on the margins, we began to actually identify with them in love?

I can tell you what will happen; we will experience “the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself.” In other words, the spiritual experience you crave, the “next level” you keep hoping to attain, the “higher knowledge” you think you need will be richer than you can imagine.

So, though there is no “deep mystery” for those who follow Christ, if you truly want a next-level experience; love. It is then that you and I will truly experience God’s mystery, Christ himself. Do you understand? We experience the riches of Christ to the extent that we are being and acting united in love! It is that simple. No deep symbolism. No higher knowledge. Just the hard, day-to-day work of loving your neighbor as yourself. Oh, and Christ is in your neighbor.

A Mumbled Lunch

A Mumbled Lunch

(“Then he prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.” 1 Kings 6:19)

They turned the dial and hoped it would stem the tide,
Instead they found the show was over, and cried
when the jokers turned around, and joined the clowns who frowned
at the way the whole operation went down.

The prophets and politicians raised their hopes and expectations
with fire and ice, avalanche and imprecise references to
the Day of the Lord, Armageddon, or the Flaming Horse of Red,
or the poet without his hat on. They all missed the boat,
and never bothered to vote upon the gentle waters of northern lakes.

They faked the news, and made up more,
They repay the rich for every endorsement,
While the guests and the poor suffer strict enforcement
of every line in the book,
every book, line and baited, still dangling
from the fisherman’s hand, still tangling.
No one waited to see if
the fish were jumping. The stumps were free
but the stamps prevented the letter from arriving.

I’ve seen you smile like a Christian lad in church,
and follow it, hollow and shallow, with a mumbled lunch
of sandwiches, sandals, and offers to identify the demons
behind the scandals that only happened
once the newspapers lost their business.

Leave the old man neatly dead. I mean fully rotted,
breathless, pulseless and abrupt.
The new wardrobe fits better instead. I mean fully hand-sewn,
tailored, perfect and ageless.

The dial will not fit your hand, the tide will ebb and flow
as it did yesterday, last week, last month, a century ago.
So when you raise your voice, raise it loud; be certain
(oh proud and curtained breath), that all you know
is less than all that is.

Since we must take the taxi (we called ahead)
let us share the seat, spare the chatter and,
turn by turn, ask the driver what is the matter,
and why the widespread gossip has
pulled our planet so far from its orbit.

Church Return (this is not about gun control)

Church Return

(“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 2:1)

“They are taking our guns,”
“They will confiscate our defenses,”
“We cannot wait,” “no time to sit on fences.”

And we arm our hearers with every alarm bell, call presidents poison,
government brazen and the rest of humanity, (the ones unaffiliated with
you and me)
will be frozen by ray-guns spraying icebergs on the deserts and churches.
It’s no wonder no one listens to us anymore.

“They only want to revel in sin,”
“They are redefining all our favorite definitions,”
“We must fire first,” “pound our admonitions.”

And we, who needed an arm on our shoulder, now arm much bolder
the askers with worlds of questions. We flinch, or disdain the
honest refrains of image-bearers who can’t understand our fatal divisions
of sin. We legislate some, ignore our own, inflame hell for others and
excuse our favorites. 

But grace. but Grace. One syllable. It should linger an entire stanza
upon the final “s” that sounds like the breeze erasing our burned out
efforts to please. And, having missed the mark so entirely, missing the
target completely, we minimize it for all others (the ones unaffiliated with
you and me)
making them miss by far what we missed by nature.

Church return. Church, lay down every earned privilege, every pillaged soul
who hears our famous word (whispers “g r a c e”) and waits to see the
love-of-enemy preachers and blessing-for-cursing teachers and 
second-mile business who ask no questions about the sins of its customers.

Church return, armed with grace. Church, lay down your fire and arms,
last and first, invite the scarred and scary into a new way, patient family;
Church return with the fires of love and, Church arise with the waters of mercy, and
Church sing out the songs of joy and, Church receive the bathing of the Spirit

And walk, and run, delightly undisguised; forgiveness the frontgaurd;
grace disallowing any retreat.

No More Shut Doors

(“And they say, ‘The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.’” Psalm 94:7)

I wonder how many Christians actually live like this; going about our life as if God doesn’t actually see or perceive what we are doing. Oh, I don’t mean the usual drinking, smoking, drug addiction and other illicit activity we like to shake our fingers at. I do remember, though, from both parents and preachers, the “eyes of the Lord” being a big incentive to refrain from diving headlong into uncharted sins.

What Will it Take?

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another.” John 13:34

I know it is quite fashionable for Christian writers to point out the failings of the modern “First World” church. The failings are not easy to miss. We are easily attracted to big buildings, flashy productions of worship, political rhetoric and self-indulgent prayer. We measure success by numbers. We attract the world with Broadway-style flash. We stack our literature tables with booklets telling exactly who is “in” and who is “out” in every election.

Holy Week

Holy Week
(this month's newsletter article for our local church)

(“He [Jesus] is the head of his body, the church.” Colossian 1:18a)

A friend of mine recently tagged me in a Facebook post called “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.” If I had the space I would quote the entire spoken word recording for you. Suffice it to say, there are more and more people who are discouraged with church, who may even have been harmed by religion, but still deeply love Jesus. I am not talking about the type who simply add Jesus to a long list of happy philosophers, hand picked and place on a shelf along with other favorites of literature, movies and music. The people I hope read this are those who truly do love Jesus Himself, but are very weary of an institution called “The Church” which seems to represent Him so poorly.

Church as Family

(“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Colossians 3:13)

If you are I are to know joy and freedom there are six words that must be part of our regular vocabulary: “I am sorry” and “I forgive you”. Simple ideas and nothing new, but revolutionary when we determine to practice them.

First Love

“But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!” Revelation 2:4

It was a great organization, full of people who worked hard and never gave up. Even when money nearly ran out and people told them they were foolish, they kept working toward their goal. They wouldn’t put up with evil people. They held the line in regards to moral behavior. Committed to the rules of their founder, they knew that a little leaven can destroy an entire batch of dough.

Celebrate: You are Invited!

Celebrate: You are Invited!

(from our church's monthly newsletter)

“But we should be glad and celebrate! Your brother was dead, but he is now alive. He was lost and has now been found.” Luke 15:32

Our young people were gathered in the parking lot preparing to leave together for Youth Convention. I like to meet with them and pray for the group before they leave. After praying that they would all have a fresh encounter with God, meet new friends and be kept safe as they traveled, their leader explained the rules.

God's Got Your Back

“Find Jeremiah and keep him safe. Take good care of him and do whatever he asks.” Jeremiah 29:12

It’s nice when God protects His prophets. As a matter of fact, it’s greatly appreciated. When someone puts out the effort to speak for God, especially when God asks you to let people know His is unhappy with their behavior, well, it is just nice to know that God has your back!