Cherished Children and Straying Sheep

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.  

What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.

In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” (Matthew 18: 10-14, NIV)

In today’s Lectionary Gospel reading, Jesus talks about children and sheep. This particular passage is part of a larger conversation that He was having with His disciples about who would be considered great in the Kingdom of Heaven, and naturally Jesus called a child over and turned the disciples’ expectations upside-down. (Matt. 18: 1-7)

Children weren’t considered great in 1^st century culture, by any means; they were a financial burden, uneducated and inexperienced, and needed to be protected and cared for. Children were on the lowest rung of the social hierarchy ladder in Roman culture. Jesus is essentially telling his disciples that they need to become the lowest of the low, in order to be considered great in God’s kingdom.

Jesus reinforces that concept with an example of sheep. While sheep were common and provided a way to make a living (by selling wool, meat or milk) even by farmyard standards sheep certainly aren’t considered great or glamorous. They’re noisy, they smell, they’re not very bright, and they bite. However, in God’s kingdom, even one straying sheep is worth going after!

 

I’m sure that the disciples didn’t want to think of themselves as children or sheep. But once again, Jesus was trying to get the point across that those who follow Him have to humble themselves. Just asking the question of who would be greatest proves that the disciples didn’t get it yet.

I have always been of the opinion that children “get it” far more easily than adults. Kids just seem to have an innate sense of who God is; that He loves them, and that they are precious in His eyes. They are often talked out of it as they grow older, but a little child’s perception of - and faith in - God is often rock-solid.

When my son was about three, he came bounding into my bedroom one morning and announced, “Jesus was in my room! He had on a white bathrobe.” Very matter-of-fact; no doubt whatsoever. My son was certain that Jesus was physically in his bedroom that morning. And we both thought that was pretty cool.

So maybe that’s what Jesus was referring to. Maybe he was trying to let us know that having a rock-solid, unwavering faith is something that shouldn’t be looked down upon. It isn’t something to dismiss as cute. It isn’t something anyone should be talked out of. It’s something to be cultivated and encouraged – especially in children! After all, “their angels in heaven” are apparently keeping an eye on this kind of stuff, and Jesus shouldn’t have to go racing down the hill to find them, if they wander off.

Either way, this is Lent.  Lent has traditionally been the season for remembering to humble ourselves before God. (Of course, we ought to be humble everyday, not just during Lent, but bear with me here.) For the next couple of weeks, I challenge you to imagine yourself as a cherished child, and as a sheep with a tendency to stray.  Humble yourself before God. Get back in touch with your child-like faith, and cultivate it. Spend time with the Holy Spirit - through scripture and in prayer – and really listen for the voice of the Shepherd. What is He saying to you?

Love. No, really. Love.

It’s Valentine’s day! Because it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought it appropriate to write about love. However, this left me wondering exactly which angle to take. It would be WAY too easy to just spout out some drivel about romance, it being Valentine’s Day and all.  And the blogosphere has already been inundated with the love vs. sex debate, thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey. I’m not even tempted to go there. I want to go deeper; to really delve into what love is. What, I asked myself, does love really look like?

Being a pastor, I naturally went to the Bible for answers. The Apostle John seemed like the most obvious choice for answers on love, as he wrote about it a lot.  He used the word at least 57 times in his Gospel alone. Add to that his 3 letters and the book of Revelation, and....well, John wrote a lot about love.

In his first letter, John wrote, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (v. 4:8)

According to the Gospel of John, chapter 15, Jesus told his disciples:

·        As the Father has loved me, I have loved you. Now remain in my love. (v. 9)

·        My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (v.12)

·        Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (v.13)

·        This is my command: Love each other! (v.17)

Seems pretty clear. We’re supposed to love one another. In church camp we used to sing, “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love...” Of course, that still begs the question then – what does love look like?

I do not think love looks like what our culture insists it looks like – fabulously wealthy, sexy people with pouty lips having babies, then posing and selling the photos for millions of dollars to magazines.  (Sorry, Kim and Kanye.)

Love isn’t about candy hearts and chocolates and flowers – although those things are, indeed, lovely – nor is it about telling someone that they are “your valentine” on the one day a year that Hallmark has reserved for it.

And while I’m on the subject, none of those things have anything even remotely in common with the original Saint Valentine, who was martyred in the year 269 AD, by the Emperor Claudius. Valentine, apparently, was a Christian priest in Rome who protected other Christians and hid them from the Emperor’s interrogators.  Since professing Christianity and aiding fellow Christians were crimes, Valentine was arrested, imprisoned, beaten with a club, stoned with rocks, and finally beheaded for his stubborn refusal to recant his faith.  Not very loving.

Valentine was canonized by the Catholic Church and (for reasons that elude me) was made the patron saint of love, marriage, engaged couples, epilepsy, and plague. (Yes, you read that correctly. Plague!)

What that has to do with chocolate, candy hearts and flowers, I don’t know, but I suppose it’s better than “Happy Valentine’s Day – have some plague.”

But I digress.

So, what does love look like? A researcher asked some children what love looks like. Their answers are rather thought-provoking.

·        "Love isn't always how you look.  Look at me.  I'm handsome like anything and I haven't got anybody to marry me yet."       - Brian, age 9

·        “When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you're scared they won't love you anymore, but then you get surprised cause not only do they still love you, they love you even more."   - Madison, age 7

·        “Love is when Momma goes bungee jumping and Daddy goes with her even though he screams bloody murder the whole time like a girl.”  - Sasha, age 8

·        "When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."     - Rebecca, age 8

·        "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth."   - Ashley, age 4

·        "Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."           - Jason, age 5

When I was a little girl, I insisted that I loved everyone in the entire world. I remember feeling very comfortable and happy about this. However, someone told me, “You can’t love everyone. That’s impossible.”

I was crushed.

I truly believe that’s what God wants for His children – that we will love everyone in the entire world, just as God does! Jesus was pretty clear when He said, “Love each other!”  

Every human being on the earth has value. Every human being is loved by God, and is worthy of being loved! To extend compassion and respect and kindness to everyone – regardless of where they live, what they do for a living, what language they speak, who they love, or what they believe – is commanded by God. “Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength... and love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matt 22: 37, 39)

It isn’t up to us to find a loophole.

Jesus prayed that his followers would be one, just as He and the Father are one (John 17:21-23) and that we would experience unity. If we are truly “one,” that infers that we ought to love others as God loves us.

We aren’t doing a very good job of that. Don’t believe me? Turn on the news. How many people have been killed or abused or gone hungry today? I rest my case.

I do think that it is still possible for Christians to love everyone as God does. Maybe I’m just a raging optimist, or maybe I’m certifiable, but I remember that huge feeling of warmth and goodness, compassion and peace, and...well, love...  that completely filled my heart for the people of the world back when I was little. And I still have that feeling.  Not necessarily all the time, but I still feel it.

I felt it when Malala Yousafzai demanded that girls have the right to go to school despite threats from the Taliban. The feeling intensified when Malala was shot in the head, and again when she not only recovered, but addressed the UN General Assembly.  I felt it when I heard about the earthquake in Haiti, and watched on TV as the dogs ran over the rubble, searching for survivors. I feel it whenever there is a hurricane, or typhoon, or flood, or tornado, and people race in to help. I feel it every time I see a photo of the teeming streets of Delhi, or Beijing, or Rio de Janeiro.

I feel it when I watch children playing. I feel it when I visit the residents of the nursing home. I feel it when I see strangers smile on the street. I feel it when I hear music from faraway places. I feel it as I watch the Olympic Games on TV this week. And when I feel that feeling, I just want to wrap my arms around the world.

So. What does love look like? The only way to really know for sure is to look in the mirror.

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Breathing Underwater and the Abundant Life

During my first Scuba diving lesson, my mind flew into a panic.

I had put on the mask, was fitted with a regulator, and attached it to the tank of air. I had practiced this thoroughly. All systems were a go, and I gave the OK sign to the instructor. Then I lowered myself into the pool, and allowed myself to slip under the water. And that's when my mind panicked.

The instructor had told me to take a deep breath, via the regulator. Breathe in, breathe out. Simple, right? But my mind was screaming, "NO! You are under water! You CANNOT breath underwater!"

Everything about Scuba is counter-intuitive. Breathing underwater. Forcing your body to relax, when all your muscles want to tense up. Allowing yourself to slowly sink into "neutral buoyancy" while fighting the urge to kick. Calmly blowing bubbles when your lungs are screaming "we have no air in here!" Not wildly pointing at the barracuda that's right behind your scuba buddy. (Apparently that's bad form. They bite.) Did I mention breathing? Underwater!?

However, once I relaxed and ignored my mind's sense of panic, scuba diving was the most incredible experience! Diving a coral wall 50' under the turquoise Caribbean off the shore of Honduras, I saw thousands of fish, decked out in every imaginable color! There were towering coral in shades of pink, purple, orange and red; a 5' sting ray that was "hiding" under the sand, tiny yellow tangs that swam up to my mask to see what this giant creature might be; a variety of sea snails and nudibranchs, and yes, barracuda. The sheer variety and color of the creatures blew me away!

It occurred to me that God is the consummate artist.

It also occurred to me that the spiritual life is very much like scuba diving. It's counter-intuitive. Giving complete control of my life over to God was probably one of the scariest things I've ever done! Every fiber of my (very human) being was screaming, "No! You are supposed to control your own life!" yet my soul calmly surrendered to the Holy Spirit.

Jesus pointed out repeatedly to his followers that the spiritual life is counter-intuitive. It just doesn't make sense to a person who isn't spiritual! Jesus said,  "The last will be first, and the first will be last." (Matt. 20:16)  and  "Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:25) 

And yet, just like the reward of scuba diving, the reward of a life surrendered to God is incredibly vibrant, surprising and very colorful!  

Jesus reminds us, " I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."  (John 10:10)

God with us

Without getting into the debate over the choice of December 25^th as the designated birthday of Jesus, or the annual arguments of how Santa and flying reindeer enter the picture, or why we decorate dead trees inside our homes, or whether or not the wise men should be included in your Nativity crèche; today is the day we celebrate the birth of baby Jesus: the savior of the world, the Messiah, Immanuel - “God with us!”

For thousands of years prior to His incarnation, God reached out to human beings in love and tried to develop a relationship with us. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, as an angel He spoke to Abram and Sarai and sent them on a road trip, as fire He directed Moses, Aaron and Miriam to lead the Israelites on the protracted scenic route through the Sinai Peninsula, as the Holy Spirit She spoke through prophets from Huldah to Micah, and so on.

The fact that very few of these attempts resulted in human enlightenment says more about us than it does about God. We humans are notoriously stubborn and myopic. We seem to want our enlightenment handed to us. Now. On a silver platter.  And yes, we want fries with that. It didn’t occur to ANY of the people God so patiently worked with, that the journey – the very reality and experiences of their lives - was the most important way to develop a relationship with God.

God refers to Godself as “I am who I am” in Exodus 3:14. God uses the present tense, always, because God IS. Jesus did the same, when He said, “I’m telling you, before Abraham was even born, I am.” (John 8:58) and "The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near." (Mark 1:15)  Paul continued in this vein at Athens when he said, "God did this so people would seek Him and perhaps reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and exist!" (Acts 17:27-28) God is intricately entwined in everything. God is the ultimate reality. And that is what God had been trying to teach us from the beginning of time. We just didn’t get it.

We needed a concrete, flesh-and-blood example to follow. We needed to see, feel, hear, taste and touch God, because we are just a bit slow on the uptake.

So to clarify things for us, God came to earth dressed as a baby called Jesus.

And in His incarnation, Jesus proved to Mary – and the rest of humanity - that God is embedded in the messy, excruciating, miracle of birth. He showed us that God is visible in the child’s awestruck wonder at seeing clouds floating in the sky for the first time, as well as the terrifying panic of losing sight of that child in the crowd of Jerusalem or Target. 

God was in the sound of the Samaritan woman’s realization that she was really looking for God, not another boyfriend, when she spoke with Jesus by the well.  God was in the scent of the immense net full of fish that convinced Peter that Jesus might be onto something.  God was in the devastation, hopeless despair and skinned knee that Mary felt as she fell at the foot of the cross. God was the breath in Mary Magdalene's gasp when she realized Jesus was not the gardener, and her laugh of indescribable elation as she ran off to find the other disciples and tell them Jesus was alive.  And God lives in the words “I am with you always.”

God is in all the little details of our lives – giving a glass of water to the guy who mows the lawn, cuddling up next to our spouse, riding the subway to work and smiling with that homeless guy, driving the soccer carpool and listening to “What Does the Fox Say” 50 times because it makes the kids laugh hysterically, feeling that tingly warmth spread through your body as you pray, shoveling snow from both your own and your neighbor’s driveway, hearing the diagnosis and bravely holding Dad’s hand, planning a wedding and a baby shower at the same time for the same girl, and sobbing on the shoulder of a friend because the cat was hit by a car. God is in every single detail of living this life. We must experience this life in order to see how God is involved, because we learn by experience. God is with us.

That was just one of the myriad of things Jesus revealed to us by being born in a dusty manger, in a tiny town called Bethlehem, in a unimportant Roman outpost, on a small blue planet, oh so many years ago. He is God with us.

Love On Display

(Originally posted on That Reformed Blog) 

Advent: n. An arrival, or coming into being; the coming or arrival of something extremely important. (with capital A, in Christianity) the coming of Christ; in the church calendar Advent is the four week period prior to Christmas. [From Latin adventus, meaning arrival.]

The 2003 British Christmas film, Love Actually, takes place during Advent. The first scene of the movie features a voiceover from Hugh Grant’s character saying, “Whenever I get a bit gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow.” He explains that the arrivals terminal is where love is unselfconsciously on display.

For American Christians in the 21^st century, Advent has become one of two things. It is either:

·        Irrelevant and forgotten, as in: “Advent? Never heard of it”; or

·        Relegated to a “season” of frantic, mind-numbing, holiday busy-ness (preparing, decorating, shopping, partying, wrapping, shipping, baking, and overeating) that drives our stress levels into the stratosphere.

Many people think of Advent as a time of waiting and preparation, similar to the waiting and preparation that happens before a baby is born. In some respects this is true, as that singular event which occurred more than two thousand years ago is re-enacted by Sunday School children in Christmas Pageants across the globe. Christians need to remember and relive the journey of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. It grounds us and reminds us that God did, in fact, come to earth as an infant and that His birth was announced by both the lowly shepherds and the glorious angels alike.

Remembering Jesus’ humble arrival in the midst of the chaotic Roman Empire comforts us and lends our lives meaning in the cold, impersonal, technological world we live in (which is not unlike the Palestine of Jesus’ day). It was the ultimate juxtaposition of Godly and worldly power.

But we need to remember that Advent means Arrival, not waiting or remembering. Advent is like the Arrivals Terminal at Heathrow.

Advent is “Love unselfconsciously on display” for everyone to see. God showed His unconditional love for humanity by arriving on earth in the form of an infant in a cow shed. God didn’t care what anyone else thought about it – Jesus’ arrival was God’s love on display. And when we live in God’s love for us in Jesus, we are free to display our love for God and others unselfconsciously.

May you have a blessed Advent.

Holiday Traditions

Winter is upon us, and the Holiday Season is in full swing! Between the shopping and the parties and the joyful chaos of families gathering together, take a moment for yourself.

Find a quiet spot, and relax. Take a deep breath, and try to remember the personal meaning behind the various holiday traditions that you practice. Think about why you light a candle each evening; or recall the story behind a certain recipe you pull out only in December. Maybe there is a reason that particular ornament is placed at the top of your Christmas tree; or perhaps you recall your grandfather who told funny stories whenever you hear a certain holiday song.

Think back to where you were when you first heard the story of Jesus' birth - do you still hear it being read by Linus in "A Charlie Brown Christmas?" Does your great-grandmother's menorah - the one that was carefully hidden in her steamer trunk - still gracefully display the candles each year in your home? Are there elves on your shelves? 

Next, look for the larger meaning in the celebrations of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or New Year's Eve. Many of the traditions we practice connect us not only with our immediate families and generations past, but also with the world! Think about how many millions of people around the globe are doing the exact same thing you are, because you share a faith and a practice!

Recalling the origins and the intentions of our holiday traditions can be very powerful. Allow yourself some time to ponder these traditions, and perhaps journal about a special memory or insight.

"Holidays" is a shorted form of "Holy Days" and no matter which cultural or religious traditions you hold to, in the waning days of December we all pause to take notice of the Holy in our lives.

Our wish for you this season is that your days be filled with holy moments!