2009: Black Belt in klutziness

The week between Christmas and New Years is filled with all manner of "Year In Review" lists. Biggest news stories, worst movies, best books, that sort of thing.

My own 2009 list is a little more...uh...specific. When I think of this year, the list that's easiest for me to make is that I managed to experience regular doses of high degree klutziness in almost every arena:

(1) February - Got lost alone in Jerusalem, wandering like an Altzheimer's patient for nearly an hour while trying to find someone to give me directions en Ingles.
(2) March - Epic fail, Facebook edition. Hit "reply" with an emotional response to a friend's message before I realized it was being sent to many, many people - not just to the friend.
(3) May - Jerusalem again, the klutziness manifested itself when I rolled my ankle in a gutter in the Old City and ended up sprawled on the stone streets. The sprain took nearly 2 months to heal.
(4) July - As I approached my dreaded 50th birthday, I decided to go proactive and invite some friends to breakfast to thank them for sticking with me in spite of my klutzy ways. Learned later I'd hurt someone from my past by not inviting her to the gathering.
(5) October - Took dog out for my caregiving client. The dog sensed a sub, and bolted as I was reaching for the leash. I ended up flat on my face in a pile of wet leaves and dog poo. Bruises galore.
(6) Throughout the year - My dad always used to say that what was on my mind was on my mouth. This year, some of what was on my mind was the hydrogen perioxide + baking soda combo of wanting to sell this house and/or connect beyond shallow coffee hour chat with a passionate spiritual community. At regular intervals, my mouth erupted this brew of concerns all over innocent bystanders. Awkward to the nth degree.

The great gift of middle age is that I know I am not alone in these klutzy moments, though, as my very patient husband notes, I do have a knack for sharing my best klutzy moments with others. They are growing pains, the messy moments of a not-yet-formed piece of clay in the hands of the Master Potter.

And so, if you, too have had a year of Black Belt Klutziness, join me in the prophet Isaiah's surrender to God:

"Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people." - Is. 64:8-9

As we look ahead to calendar year 2010, may all of us klutzes rejoice that we are safe in God's gracious hands. Happy New Year!

A look at the people Jesus loves - Part 4

Click here to read Part 1, here for Part 2 and here for Part 3 of this series.
At this time of year, the focus is on the Baby. If you focus on the incarnation long enough, you might also find yourself drawn to meditate on the Child's future - and your own. The longing and waiting that characterize this season have more to do with the mystery of the end of all things than most of us see at first glance. The trees and tinsel obscure a clear view. But if we take the time to look, we can see glimpses of the love story. Here are the people Jesus loves:

“I say, ‘give me clarity’, you say, ‘will you marry me?’ With all due respect, Jesus, I don’t think you were cut out for religion.” – Jude Simpson

The Bible begins with images of a type of wedding – that of Adam and Eve. It ends with images of a wedding (see Revelation 21-22). The Bible leaves us with a very different picture of the church than the way most of us skeptics have known her:

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." – Rev. 21:2-4
This “New Jerusalem” is the entire community of believers from across the earth who have remained faithful to God to the end, through life’s temptations, hellish trials and his cleansing discipline. Like a pure, innocent, trusting bride longing for her wedding day, the deepest desire within each person in this community is for intimate relationship with the Son.

This powerful imagery is found in Paul’s instructions to husbands and wives (Ephesians 5:22-32). Paul tells husbands they’re to love their wives well in order to most fully express a deeper reality: “…just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (vs.25-27).

It is beyond my comprehension how God can transform the church from a weary, jaded and frequently unfaithful renegade with a kaleidoscope of personalities and addictions into a pure, innocent partner with eyes only for the Son. But that is Scripture’s story. The author of that story tells us that he sees something in the church that we don’t see in ourselves.

And though it is usually not a pretty picture, every once in a while, if I press my nose up against the glass, I think I can catch a glimpse of who the church will be…
…in the victorious spirit in the eyes of a Chinese Christians who has been imprisoned for his faith
…in the simplicity of a child reaching for my hand and asking to pray
…in the words “I’m sorry. Will you please forgive me?”
…in a piece of artwork that prisms eternity into my soul
…in an ancient hymn sung by a stranger at the bedside of a dying 82 year-old woman in a filthy, forgotten nursing home
…on Sunday morning when a tangible, bigger-than-us desire for God invites His presence among a desperate congregation
…in a conversation with a friend

Jesus loves you. May this reality permeate your worship this week as you experience the longing that no gift-wrapped box can ever satisfy.

A look at the people Jesus loves - Part 3

Click here to read Part 1 , and here to read Part 2.

Jesus began his ministry with a very audacious-sounding statement of purpose torn right from the sacred scrolls before him:

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:16-21)

The four gospel accounts tell us what this ministry looked like:

• He touched untouchables, laying his hands on a man whose rotting body had been ravaged by leprosy (Matthew 8:2-4, Luke 17:11-17)
• He exercised authority over demons that left their victims mentally and spiritually imprisoned and unable to function in society (Matthew 8:28-33, Matthew 17:18-14, Mark 7:26-30)
• He fed the hungry (Matthew 13:13-21, Matthew 15:29-38)
• He embraced those without importance or moral worth in their society – children (Matthew 19:13-14), widows (Mark 12:41-43, Luke 7:11-15), prostitutes (Luke 7:36-50), adulterers (John 8:1-11), tax collectors (Matthew 9:9-12), the disabled (Matthew 9:27-34)
• He healed sick people (dozens of examples in the gospels), and raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11)
• He taught spiritual revolution, not religion throughout his ministry (captured in concentrated form in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7)
• He always told the truth about sin no matter who his audience was
• After being executed for crimes he didn’t commit, he rose from the dead (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20)

These supernatural stories about Jesus show us how he related to spiritual outsiders.

The grace-gifts of healing and deliverance that marked Jesus’ ministry were meant to be signs of and invitations to this kingdom he described in story (parable) and sermon. The miracles weren’t Jesus’ ultimate goal, but an expression of the lifeblood and currency of his kingdom – God’s compassion. Though throngs of people gravitated to him for the amazing gifts he gave them, Jesus’ purpose in giving these gifts was to reconnect people to the Giver of these gifts. Right living before God, Jesus asserted, would flow out of a grateful, connected life. This was wildly different than the righteousness-from-the-outside-in fenced lives of the Pharisees and other religious elites, or the capricious spirituality of the Roman culture’s pagan gods.

Jesus said as much when he stated, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13).

Sick people. Sinners. And spiritual outsiders in need of compassion, not religion.

Religion condemns. Compassion marches right into the mess and touches, heals and transforms.

This is how Jesus loves us, if only we can expose our brokenness to Him.

A look at the people Jesus loves - Part 2

Click here to read part one of the series.

Jesus and religious insiders

The Pharisees' motto: We do life right! You don’t!
Color in the lines.

Drive 55 miles per hour.

Obey the rules.

Be an Eagle Scout. President of the Student Council. And while you’re at it, prom queen.

It feels good to be good. But it feels even better to have people recognize how good you are.

The Pharisees began as a renewal movement within Judaism. These were people who took God seriously. They wanted it to do their lives right. They believed that they had the rulebooks that would allow them to do their lives right:

They had rules, and then they had fences around the rules with more rules posted on them. The rule-posted fences were meant to keep people far, far away from ever violating God’s rules. After all, if you broke a rule posted on the fence, that violation (and its consequences) would keep you away from sinning big time by breaking the Laws prescribed by the Almighty Himself in the first five books of the Bible.

The Pharisees rose to prominence in the troubled centuries prior to Jesus’ birth. Though they were relatively few in number, they were the taste-makers and influencers in their society, defining what a holy life looked like. They were initially a lay-led renewal movement, but a handful of them became a part of the Jewish power structure in first century Roman society.

Professor and author Dr. Scot McKnight describes the Pharisees as “a Torah movement (group) deeply devoted to knowing, interpreting, and applying the whole Torah to the life of Israel in order to restore the fortunes of Israel.”

Jesus referenced the righteous rep of the Pharisees early in His ministry, noting that their belief system told an important piece of his story:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” – Matt. 5:17-20

Winning the Moral Life Competition with the Pharisees wasn’t Jesus’ goal for himself or anyone else. In fact, Jesus focused his ministry on interacting with spiritual outsiders, and unbending the pretzel logic that kept people away from the God the Pharisees claimed to represent to the rest of society. Many of these revered teachers of the Law turned out to be very poor students when it came to examining their own motivations.

Jesus’ most critical words were targeted at these “righteous” men who were cruel, cold and loveless. He demonstrated that this arrogant, self-satisfied form of religiosity had the kind of consequences that people had normally associated only with the behavior of extortionist tax collectors and world-weary hookers.

Though Jesus consistently showed and told the Pharisees that they were nothing more than “whited sepulchres” (a Bible way of saying that they were like rotting corpses in designer packaging), his interactions with them were always characterized by his desire for them to lose their dependence on their religious performance, and to humbly turn to God himself.

And a few of them actually did. Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council and a Pharisee, came to see Jesus one night. Many commentators have pointed out that the timing of this man’s visit says a lot about what was motivating him at this point. Nicodemus used the cover of the night to cloak his solo visit to Jesus. John 3 records their famous nocturnal conversation. Nicodemus queries Jesus about what he and his Pharisee posse have seen Jesus doing, and then asks Jesus to explain what he means when he tells Nicodemus that he must be born again.

Though Nicodemus isn’t mentioned again in the Gospels until after Jesus’ death (see John 19:38-42), it’s interesting to note that Nicodemus paid for the 75 pounds of spices that would be used to ready Jesus’ body for proper Jewish burial. He and another man named Joseph of Arimathea took the body and placed it an unused garden tomb.

The two men expected to return after the Sabbath to finish the burial preparations. It says something about Nicodemus’ changing values that he was willing to become ritually unclean by handling a dead body – compounding his sin in the eyes of the Pharisees by doing these acts for someone the Pharisees had long-ago branded as an enemy of the Law.

To be continued...

A look at the people Jesus loves - Part 1

We focus on a little Baby during this season. That little Baby came to us on a mission of love: "...the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." (Luke 19:10)

I've had the opportunity to meditate deeply on just who it is that Jesus loves. Today is part one of a series that explores this topic. Read on. Some of these thoughts may surprise you:

When a graffiti artist is responsible for the writing on the wall

In recent years, there’s been a mini-torrent of books with very provocative titles written by young evangelicals:

• Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
• My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion
• Plastic Jesus: Exposing the Hollowness of Comfortable Christianity
• Jesus Has Left The Building
• Tired of do-list Christianity?
• They Like Jesus But Not The Church

Evangelicals aren’t the only ones expressing this kind of spiritual fatigue. Throughout Christendom, these sorts of sentiments are the anthem of those who are tired of institutionalized religion that rewards hypocrisy, wounds the hurting, and insists that serving the purposes of their particular organization is the best (or only!) way to serve God.

The organized church didn’t woo me to faith in Christ when I was a teen. Other than a couple of visits to church services (including one memorable Midnight Mass when my very drunk friend puked all over my coat), I had little exposure to the church prior to my "conversion". What happened first in my life was seeking and being found by Jesus. Participation in church life came much, much later. That particular order of events continues to be a push back for some of the negative things I’ve experienced when it comes to the church. It’s kept me from getting completely consumed by bitterness by all the weirdness I've witnessed in the church...

...Especially when I’m honest with myself, and remember that I’m a part of the church. Gulp. Even though I want to be different more than anything, the truth is that I’ve screwed up and hurt people in some of the same dumb ways I’ve been wounded by the church. Even though I don’t want to be a part of the problem, I am part of the problem.

My perspective changes when I crouch next to Jesus so I can try to see what he sees when he looks at the church. His church. It’s not too hard to know that there’s anger and sorrow at the dunderheaded, piggish and even evil done so frequently and by so many in his name. I understand that this anger and sorrow aren’t meant to crush and shame, but to redeem and transform.

The thing is, it’s not all anger and sorrow in his eyes when he looks at his church. The Bible explains that he perceives something else there in her – something pure and true, beyond the ick - and he sees it with the unblinking certainty of someone who already knows the end of her story.

(to be continued)

Book review: Start-Up Nation

We climbed into a cab in Jerusalem early one morning and after asking where we were headed, our driver launched into an impassioned monologue about the wrong-headed thinking of some low-level bureaucrat to send the street cleaners off to work at 8 a.m. on a work day.

"They should be cleaning the streets in the middle of the night," he yelled. "They don't know what they're doing in this government. They're doing this street clenaing all wrong!"

I chalked his insistent tirade up to the chutzpah that permeates Israeli society. But Dan Senor and Saul Singer, the authors of Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle, would see his insistence on voicing a better way to do things as key to what has made this 61-year old state become a major player on the world economic stage. Israel has more companies on the NASDAQ than all of Europe, Korea, Japan, Singapore, China and India COMBINED.

Senor and Singer explore the unique culture created by persecution, mandatory military service, the melting pot of immigration, lack of shame for business failures, cross-pollination of ideas and people, and the urgent need to learn how to survive when surrounded (and occasionally attacked) by enemies. Israel's business successes seem nonsensical - impossible, even. Start-up Nation explores the cultural, educational, social, emotional, and commercial factors that have allowed this beleagured nation to bloom in the desert. One small beef: the authors omitted the place of faith in the mix in their study of Israeli business/culture. Because faith is foundational to Israeli existence, even secular Jews are shaped by the faith culture all around them.

This highly readable, well-researched 300-page hardcover book should be mandatory reading for anyone involved in a non-profit organization or for-profit business. It is possible to foster a culture of innovation within an organization if those in charge have the chutzpah to flatten hierarchy and fight institutionalism. Recommended.

*Note: I received this book as a review copy from the publisher.