Dr. Howell's eSeries

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – introduction

eFavoriteBibleVerses has been fun – and now it’s over! The last 3 installments, on Deuteronomy 6:4-9, were really an introduction to our next series, eFaithInTheRealWorld. Between now and Thanksgiving we will be thinking together on various issues, like how faith plays at work, at home, in our “play” time, with our things and money… I’m excited about it.

I’m not fond of the term “real world” – which implies the realm of business, your house, and what you do outside Church is somehow “real” and maybe the spiritual real isn’t. The truth is, it’s all real, and God cares about it all, and is involved in it all, and our lives are richer and more focused if we discover God not merely at Church or during a devotional moment, but in the kitchen and the office, on the tarmac and the bike trail, while playing cards or visiting friends in the mountains, when you are alone or at a Panthers’ game.

We know this, because God made the world, everything and everybody in it. God came down in the flesh of a person, Jesus, who had a demanding carpentry job, whose father died and then he had to care for his mother; he went to parties, and took long journeys. He showed up in every kind of place – and he can for us. In fact, Jesus has already shown up – but do you notice? Do you benefit? Are you really there yourself?

As we move along, click “reply” to share questions and thoughts with me directly, pass the emails along to others – and most importantly, talk about them with family, friends, neighbors, coworkers. It will be, for me, a great privilege to share in this adventure with you!

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – the first worker made the real world

God said, ‘Let us make man in our image; let them have dominion… On the seventh day God finished his work, and he rested… The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to till it and keep it (Genesis 1:26; 2:2, 15).

How do we think about God in the real world? How do we connect God with our work, our career? Does God care about corporate life or the economy? Does God go to work with me in the morning? Is God with me as I fulfill my responsibilities in the real world?

The Bible begins by telling us that the first worker was God. The world is real because God worked! And it seems that part of what it means for us to be made “in the image of God” is that we have labor, tasks, responsibilities, and somehow when we fulfill that we mirror who God is.

Jesus, we may forget, was a worker, a craftsman with a skill, part of a small family business. The disciples were workers with jobs and families. Can we make sense of our work in the light of God’s will, find the hidden presence of God at work, and even fulfill God’s mission for us through our work, our daily routine? Can I be God’s representative as I work, an accurate reflection of God’s image? and not a faked or scrambled reflection of God?

Merely raising the question changes everything. God’s work, we might recall, began because God loved. God didn’t wish to remain alone, so God got busy producing something, and God is all about making the people and the world God made better. Can we be busy in the same way? Work is good, or at least work ought to be good. We will consider what poisons our work, and ourselves, and others, and to see if there are ways to be faithful at work, through our work, so that God is as tangible at work as my desk or the blackberry.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – blessings of work

In the same way that schoolchildren whine about cafeteria food, many of us gripe about work, the boss, the company, coworkers. While it’s perhaps healthy to thrash through real issues (and many work environments border on the demonic), we might recall the blessings of work, even if the conditions are less than optimal. It is good to be able to work. Consider the unemployed, or bright young people in countries with stagnant or plummeting economies. Through most of history, people have been grateful for even backbreaking labor.

Work gives us something to do. Work, most of the time, connects you with other people. They may be gracious, they may be difficult – and you may be encountering "angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2). Diversity may feel like some kind of “policy,” but actually diversity is, and always has been, a fact. At work you wind up with people who are different, and you can learn much from them; even friction, if we go with it, can polish and make us smooth.

At work, we can make an impact on God’s good world. Many people can sway policy that effects hundreds of workers; many have what the world views as menial jobs, but the guy bagging groceries has a great opportunity to brighten a sad shopper’s day. The bank president, the garbage collector, the realtor, the attorney, and the plumber have a choice every day: am I making money, coping with what’s smelly, moving a condo, making a deal, or replacing a pipe? Or am I fostering a healthy climate for a city, performing an essential function, helping a family find a home, serving as wise counselor, or helping a parent get water back in the kitchen? Can I learn to understand the hidden blessing in even the most daunting tasks and stressful hours?

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – who am I?

You are my beloved (Mark 1:11).

Am I somebody different at work from the person I am when I am not at work? Am I my true, authentic self at work? If there is dissonance, does it cause stress? and is my persona at work less (or more) connected to God than my home self or my church-going self?

Some people find a grand fit between who they are and what they fill their days doing in labor; others feel like square pegs in round holes. In the workplace, we are viewed by others through a curious set of lenses, aren’t we? Our “worth” hinges on productivity, or what you did for me yesterday – and there is worth to our work. But do I begin to understand my whole self based on the niche I have carved out in the market? Is it the case that Who I am = my value at work?

Many people work in degrading situations where you get belittled, pressured, outmaneuvered – and your identity shrinks, you feel less of the image of God in you. Our dream is that our sense of worth as a child of God, as someone beloved by God, can sustain us in the face of a withering critique, or being downsized, or coping with disappointment of being dwarfed in a competitive market. And we will rejoice in every overlap between my existence as God’s child and the way I am privileged to express that through my work.

I have a hidden identity; there is a subplot to my life that my boss or the blind forces of the market may never comprehend. I will not be overly flattered by success and the grand promotion, and I will not be deflated by frustration or criticism, because God has installed a gyroscope of grace inside me that keeps me pointed to true north, to Christ, my light and my salvation.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – career and calling

Jesus said to Simon and Andrew, ‘Follow me.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him (Matthew 4:19).

What is work about? Is it merely a means to an end – so I do what I do to make money so I can live my true life which is outside work? Is work an end in itself, something I enjoy, a way I express who I am, a means to execute skills and creativity God has installed in me?

What does God want me to do? There is a distinction between “career” and “calling.” In a career (or a job), I work in order to get something for myself, perhaps more money, bigger office, more plaudits. But a calling implies a function within the broader community. A calling has a moral purpose, and probably will be marked by sacrifice. A calling asks “Am I contributing to the good of the world? or serving God in some way?” - whereas a career is all about me, my family, getting ahead.

Of course, this distinction is too sharply drawn, isn’t it? Most of us want a good career, and we also want to make a difference, to serve God. When do these two fit together snugly enough? And when do they part ways so that I have to make a hard choice?

What does God want me to do? and how does God want me to do what I am doing? If I am under intense stress, if my work puts me at odds with my ethical compass, if my work yanks me from family, service, prayer, and health – then when is the time to make a change? God does not condemn us to the same job, no matter how elevated that position might be in the world’s eyes, forever. When is it finally time to trust God and make a change? Or can I fathom making changes where I am so I can somehow contribute to the good of the world and other people, and find some linkage between my days and God’s plan for my life?

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – do the right thing?

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20).

“Do the right thing.” “Don’t step over the line.” “The ethics review panel approved this.” In the corporate world we have ways of speaking of what is moral, and many companies expend diligent energy on insuring ethical standards.

What is incumbent upon the Christian in business? Do the “right thing”? Right in whose eyes? Is it enough simply to avoid breaking the law? Or sidestepping company policy? To very holy people, Jesus said their righteousness must “exceed” others. Shouldn’t the Christian hold to a higher than expected level of behavior? Aren’t there countless activities well within the law and even encouraged by corporate policy that the Christian would refrain from?

As Christians, for instance, we get interested in motivations, not merely the letter of the law, but the spirit inside. We also get interested in how people are treated, and especially the people everybody else is blithe to ignore or even step on. I can crush my competitor – but should I? I can whisper a rumor and do great damage – but should I? I can charge too much, there’s a sap born every minute who will pay – but should I? The guy who sweeps up after us will pick up the mess – but should I? Profits will increase if I revamp (that is, cut) benefits to the laborers – but should I?

When am I being wooed to what is unholy at work? Can I distinguish between voices that I should listen to, and those I should shun – even if it costs me and my company? Can we as Christians find ways to be supportive of each other in these dilemmas we face?

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – idolatry

You shall have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:3).

When does my work become idolatrous? Or adulterous? One woman I know declared that her husband was having an affair – and his mistress was his job. The wise Christian defines the limit on how much of my self I will give at work; I will strive for excellence and labor diligently, but my life belongs to Christ, I have family, Church and community commitments.

At the end of the day, my work is not my god, it will never be entirely satisfying, my labor will never be purged of all quandaries. Martin Luther was right: “Every earthly occupation has its cross to bear. Simply live as an earnest Christian, and fulfill your office faithfully and loyally.”

That was easier in the 16th century. Now we have technology, which was supposed to make us more efficient, and render life more livable. But at work, speed and accessibility mean I get more and more work to do, I am always available, work follows me when I am driving, on the plane, at the beach. What is the price we pay? Stress.

No wonder work is the source of much moral trouble. Pressured to produce, stretched, frayed, our elasticity about to pop, we falter, we compromise. Travel poses grave risks: Henri Nouwen once wrote that “when I travel, I eat too much, drink too much, and look around too much.” Weary, I cave in to the unthinkable, or even if I don’t, I charge ahead, like a hamster in a cage, faster and faster, there’s no getting off…

But am I really the victim I think I am? Don’t I decide, over and over in a thousand little ways, to live a frantic life, to climb higher, to stow away more cash, to commit to that larger house, a standard of living, a lust for position, one more party, one more business junket – and then I have wriggled into a straitjacket, I missed my daughter’s childhood, God seems very hazy or nonexistent, I am so absorbed in the “real world” that nothing that really matters seems very real… Don’t I have a choice? Or really thousands of little choices? Can I develop wiser habits of when to say No, when to say Yes, when to be still, when to work and then put it behind me, when to pray, when to rest?

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – balance

If you have a job, and if you also have a family (spouse or kids, or perhaps your own aging parents, or all the above), you can get to feeling like the rope in a raucous tug of war: pulled this way, pulled that way, not enough time or energy to do either work or family well enough… How do we strike a balance?

Is “balance” even the goal? If on the seesaw of life I very cleverly balance two sides that are both too heavy, won’t the whole contraption eventually collapse? In work, and in our personal lives, we frequently fall for the lie that more is better: I’ll work as if I have no other responsibilities, oh and also I’ll be supermom, dad of the year, coach a soccer team, visit grandma, take grand skiing vacations… But the freedom of life with Christ is that more isn’t better, that less may be more, that doing a few things well, and faithfully, is the secret to life, not cramming more in. We are not victims: I hear from people whose faith compels them to say No to some corporate requests, and even to say No to some family demands. None of us are superhuman. You do what God calls you to do.

The world wanted Sandy Koufax to pitch a World Series game in 1965, but he attended synagogue to observe Yom Kippur. We just have to decide what I will and won’t do, where my limits will be. In my job, I have had to demarcate evenings I would not be at church when people insisted I be there – because God was calling me to be father to my children. We have a choice, and if the choice costs us, then isn’t there a peculiar kind of glory in the sacrifice?

What is the price on your soul? How much success is enough? I must “provide” for my family: but what use is a huge house, and things, if you do not know those you love? How better to “provide” for your family than by exhibiting to them that you are the kind of person who is going to do what God wants you to do, no matter the cost? Do I get trapped in endeavors that feel urgent right now, but one after another they pile up until I am imprisoned in a life that cannot breathe or enjoy God’s good world or even find a minute to pray?

Your company may lure you with wooing, like “You are the only person who can seal this deal.” But the truth is you are the only one who can be husband to your wife, parent to your children, son or daughter to an aging parent, sister to your brother. You are the only one who can serve God, and find your way to heaven. At the end of life, people never say “I wish I had spent more time at the office” – but they do wish they had played with their children, prayed, and served.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – witness amidst diversity

How am I supposed to be a Christian at work? Do I wear my faith on my sleeve, talk about it, share with others? Has society shifted on its axis now so that it is simply improper to say anything about God?

Stephen L. Carter was right: “In our sensible zeal to keep religion from dominating our politics, we have created a culture that presses the religiously faithful to be other than themselves, to act publicly, and privately as well, as though their faith does not matter to them.” How can I be myself? and how might I speak as if my faith matters without steamrolling the sensibilities of others?

Our culture is diverse: we bump into people of many faiths (or people of no faith at all, or most importantly people who harbor belligerent attitudes toward faith). The days you could assume coworkers and neighbors were fine, upstanding Christians are over (if they ever really existed…).

Christianity was born and thrived in an astonishingly diverse world: many strong religions coexisted, the Church was a tiny minority – but the faith thrived! Think about it: if everybody’s a Christian, then is anybody a Christian? If being faithful isn’t the same thing as having a pulse, then you have to make a choice, you have to know what’s at stake – and you grow as you navigate how to be yourself out there where faith is negotiable. You have the opportunity to “witness.”

The answer to “How do I share my faith?” begins at the same place as “How do I deal with diversity?” We listen. Christians have a bad reputation for being smug know-it-alls who are swift to pass judgment on everybody else. But as best we can tell, Jesus was a good listener: he asked questions, he met people where they were, he didn’t shudder over doubt or questionable morals. If you meet somebody who is Jewish, ask “What’s that like?” If you meet a Muslim, ask “How many times do you pray during the day?” – and you might blush over your own infrequency in prayer. If you meet an atheist, listen to their questions, their cynicism – and you’ll learn something you need to know as a believer, you’ll test and even deepen your beliefs.

After you have listened, you can witness overtly – and in the next email we will explore some possibilities of just how…

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – the sermon of your life

The loudest proclamation of the Christian faith you make will be the constant sermon of your life. Even if we could marshal the words to speak the truth persuasively to coworkers, neighbors and family, our behavior can betray our talk, and invalidate the faith we say we treasure.

Be careful before you tell anybody you are a Christian, because there is an obligation tucked inside that bit of information. Not that we have to be perfect (we will never be) – and not that being a Christian is some syrupy sweetness of demeanor. The Christian life should be robust, in good humor, fully engaged out there, never plastic, smug or overbearing. But do you blow your stack over little things? Do you belittle others? Do you cut corners? Do you drool over money? Are you as kind to the custodian as you are to the CEO? Are you ruthless? Do you giggle over degraded humor with everybody else? Do you drink too much?

Do you exhibit in any way the “fruit of the Spirit” – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control (Galatians 5:22)? Do you ever say “I’m going home, I can’t make that meeting because I have this Church thing, I haven’t seen my daughter enough so I’ll forego that sale”?

The key word in faith sharing is “I.” In today’s world, the Christian shies away from pointing a finger and saying “You ought to believe, go to church, or change your ways.” When the opportunity arises, you make an “I”-statement: “I have found in my life that when I face that kind of ethical dilemma, I pray, I can say No, and feel okay about it,” or “When I am stressed or miserable, I find that my faith bolsters me,” or “I can’t let sales figures define me,” or “I have felt lonely and overwhelmed too, but for me Church really helps: if you were ever interested in coming with me I’d enjoy the time.” We find ways to say something humble but faithful about God. We witness.

As a footnote: in the same way that we are attentive to power in personal relationships at work (bosses don’t lean on interns for romantic favors…), we have to be careful about power in faith conversations. It is one thing for colleagues to chat about faith at the watercooler, quite another for the boss to imply that subordinates lower on the food chain might be marginalized for not thinking the way the boss thinks.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – bad theology in the real world

At work, school, or the neighborhood – wherever we find ourselves in the real world – we will hear talk about God or various spiritualities. Some of it will be interesting or helpful. Much of it will be just plain wrong, or even dangerous.

Just because somebody out there says “I read this groovy book about Jesus,” or “Hey, I’m in this neat Bible study” doesn’t guarantee that they are sharing what is faithful to the heart of Christianity. When we did our Will of God series, we noticed viewpoints out there that picture God as all-controlling, manipulating every event – and very religious people are quick to chalk all kinds of evil up to God. But God does not kill, God does not sponsor evil on this planet. People also chat as if they know every little thought God has, and God seems very pleased with them: they have a huge house or superb fitness or fabulous vacation junkets because God wills this for them. But God isn’t to be confused with the invisible hand of the market or sheer social luck, and there are plenty of unholy people with thick portfolios, and very holy people who barely scrape by.

Someone hands you a Christian book. Beware its contents! Lots of bestselling religious books transmute Christianity into something self-indulgent or just plain vapid. Christian books can be divided into two kinds: one group of books (which typically sell well and have great marketing behind them) have as their plot that God exists to serve me. The other books (not as glitzy but far truer) have as their plot that I exist to serve God. Throw the first books away, savor the second books.

Other religions are grossly misrepresented out in the real world. Some guy in the next office announces he picked up a copy of the Koran at Walmart and he now knows that all Muslims are trying to murder Americans, a neighbor describes a Jewish woman she once knew who illustrates how all Jews are wayward fools, a friend from high school has it on good authority that all Christian pastors are charlatans and you should really get into channeling or reincarnation (at least after you’ve died). Americans talk a lot about spiritual matters, and we listen respectfully – but a lot of what is said is nonsense.

Politics is a particularly troubling zone for bogus chatter about God. For all our insistence on the separation of Church and state, politicians garner votes by wearing their piety (however faked or recently discovered) on their sleeve; and many citizens are positive that the agenda they support must be the agenda of good Christian people, when in fact Christians are found on the right and on the left of a great many issues. We can learn from each other and ask better questions, and not mindlessly strap God onto some political preference or social bias.

We can distinguish faithful talk about God from what is crass lunacy by knowing more about God ourselves, by becoming superb students of the faith – as we will investigate next email.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – good theology in the real world

The person determined to be a Christian in the real world faces an inevitable discomfort, a dilemma that even the holiest among us will never resolve, a predicament that frankly causes well-meaning, very fine people to ignore what Jesus was about. The Christian will always be a bit of a misfit in the real world. If we glide too smoothly out there, then we are probably out of sync with the God.

Being a Christian is hard – which is why it is meaningful. Being a Christian is impossible in a way – which is what drives us to let ourselves be embraced by the mercy and power of God. And yet being a Christian can happen: you just have to brace yourself at the outset that there is a steep cost in following Jesus. The only thing more costly than the daunting struggle to live faithfully is the lazy path of just getting along, buying into a culture that is not of God, bouncing around like a pinball in the world’s flashy game, racking up points, but then finally rolling down into a dark hole. “If for this life only we have hoped, then we are among all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19).

Okay, this sounds ominous, too harsh – but if you read the Bible deeply, or even just sample a few verses, you discover that our faith is counter-cultural. Jesus didn’t come to establish corporate capitalism or to further its ambitions. Jesus declares that the poor are blessed, not the rich; Jesus praises meekness, not ruthless aggression; Jesus warns us against laying up treasure on earth (Matthew 5:5, 6:19). He chides those who build ever bigger barns (Luke 12:16-21). His scorn is reserved for the rich savoring sumptuous food while any hungry person is out in the street (Luke 16:19-26). His followers leaped from the secure career track: “Lord, we have given up everything to follow you” (Mark 10:28).

Our world is wonderful, fashioned by a loving God for his own glory and our benefit. But things have gotten a bit creaky; we sin, everybody sins, whole societies sin, and so to seek God is to differentiate yourself from the herd, to notice prickly conflict points and live into Flannery O’Connor’s witticism: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.”

We are supposed to feel a bit restless here; we weren’t ultimately put here by God to scale corporate heights or be invited to fantastic parties or maximize bodily pleasures. And yet, as we discover our true citizenship, we can never for one moment feel sanctimonious. The person who perceives the heart of God is always humble, loving, never judgmental, for we confess first of all our own sin, our own complicity in what’s wrong with the world, and so we hope in God, never erecting trusses of our own piety. We can cope with anything, we can deal with difficult people, because we are not on our own, and God has dealt with me as a difficult person. We love, and we pray for others, and find the opportunity to communicate with others the liberating, energizing joy of hoping in Christ.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – best practices

We recognize very real tensions between what life in the real world is like and what Jesus has in mind for us as the people of God. In the corporate climate, in the chaos of family life, in play time as it frequently happens in our culture, the Christian must recoil and become adept at saying No, even daring to go against the grain.

And yet… if God made the world and us, and if God wills goodness for us, might it be that if we live faithfully there might be a measure of success in the world, if we discover the highest way to love and play and work there will be a yield of stellar results? If we get ourselves in sync with God, could it be that business and pleasure and family will in surprising ways go better?

There should be overlaps between what we would think of as “best practices” in our working life and what God has mapped out for us as Christians. Treat everyone as noble, exercise mercy, look to the greater good, try to make a difference, strive for excellence, hospitality is huge, insist on a higher ethic: should we be stunned then if “success” ensues? And if more people of faith declare that there are things we will not do, and other behaviors we will most certainly engage in because of our faith, then doesn’t the culture begin to shift a little?

If each worker views her work from a divine perspective, if each actor in the drama of the real world views his activity as under a holy mandate, then isn’t there a contagious joy that could spread? If a realtor rises above “I do this to make money” to “I help families find a home,” if a news person shifts from “I will give them what they want” to “Let us tell the news and trust the people,” if a developer asks not “How can we maximize this deal?” but “What is the impact of this on the city and residents caught in the maelstrom?” … and we could go on and on… would we not then fulfill Christ’s command that we “go into all the world,” that we faithfully live “in the world, but not of the world”? Yes, sin still spreads like kudzu, but isn’t there a hope, an engagement relying on the power of God that could make significant changes in the way our world is arranged? not in this little decision or that faithful act, but in a lot of them, together, over time?

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – finding God in the real world

How can I find God out there when I am at work, at home, at play, in school, shopping? First: relax! God is already there! The presence of God is not something you have to fabricate, you need no secret incantation to lure God to materialize. God is there, before you get there, beside you, closer than your next breath, right at your fingertips even as you type into the computer.

Yet, if God is there, why do I feel like that Kathy Mattea country song lyric – “Standin’ knee-deep in a river, and dyin’ of thirst”? We need to bend down periodically during the day and take a drink, even if it’s just a sip here or there. Muslims pray at appointed times during the day, no matter where they might be. Devise a reasonable schedule for three to five points during the day when you might be alone and able to say a prayer, read a prayer or devotional piece, even this email – and put down the blackberry, excuse yourself from a meeting, whatever it takes. If no time is sacred in your day, then nothing is sacred during your day.

Plant little reminders in your cubicle to jog your memory, to jostle you out of the amnesia that forgets about God, who you really are, and your true destiny. In my top desk drawer is a little prayer, in my pocket is a little image of St. Francis, dangle a cross from your rearview mirror, hang something holy in your den, or bookmark a Bible online in your computer: something, anything will do.

When your alarm sounds in the morning, take your first breath, and recite Psalm 118:24: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” When things get tense at work, back up, and whisper Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.” If you’re out shopping, pick up one item each time for somebody in need. Say a quick prayer when you start your car.

Join a Bible study or prayer group, and make it as important as using your opera or Panthers tickets or that foursome tee time. Get the knack of the rhythm between work and worship, immersion in the world and withdrawal from the world. If you never seek God or let yourself be dangled calmly in the divine presence when you aren’t at school, play, family or work, you have no chance to slake your thirst for God when you are in the thick of the frantic schedule.

Embrace solitude; be with God, with yourself, reflect – and remember: how was God involved in what I did today? If you can remember, and notice what you’d missed, then your antennae are up the next day and you sense what is holy. You’re knee deep in a river at all times, and you need not be thirsty.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – the secret of the seventh

The secret to finding God (or being found by God) in the real world is what you do with precisely one-seventh of your life. If God feels like an absentee at work, or at play, or at home, maybe it’s because you never don’t work, your motto is “work hard, play hard” – or you’re never at home. You may be in your house from time to time. But do you ever come home to the God who made you to need a much-needed rest?

God made the world, working pretty hard for six days; then on the seventh God (who’s better than you at being Atlas, carrying the world on his shoulders, or Sisyphus, pushing heavy loads uphill) rested. When God crafted you and me, he issued a user’s manual that says mercifully, “Six days you shall work, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord” (Exodus 20:9).

Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). We think we know better than God, so we cram in a business preparation on Sunday, purchase groceries and new shoes, fly from one diversion to another party. God foresaw that we would strangle our calendars full and grow weary, so God lovingly permits us to rest one day out of seven.

Rest is not the same as laziness. Laziness is me being self-indulgent; rest is about God. The Sabbath isn’t God frowning on you if you feel the urge to enjoy yourself; the Sabbath is God smiling on you, eager to have some quiet time with you. To observe the Sabbath is to say not everything depends on me and my feverish activity; on the Sabbath we say “God matters; nothing is so alluring that it could crowd out my special day with God. And I really could use some rest.”

If no time is sacred, if every day, every hour is up for grabs, then nothing is sacred, and we get frazzled by a frantic, frivolous frenzy. If we could just sit down, turn gadgets off, calm our minds, and just be – with ourselves, with each other, with God – for just one day in seven… then, the way yeast causes bread to rise – we would discover a fullness to the entire week, maybe even a lifetime.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – a banquet of time

 Walter Brueggemann rather wonderfully said that Jesus was using his “Sabbath voice” when he said, “Come to me, all of you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus played a little bit loose with the rules the pious Pharisees applied to the Sabbath, and they were annoyed that he “worked” and let his disciples “work” on the week’s holy day. But what was that “work”? Jesus didn’t open his carpentry shop, and he didn’t dash off to Sepphoris to pick up some fabric and detergent for his mother. He healed people who were sick, and he permitted his disciples to eat when they were desperately hungry. His rationale? “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

Indeed. The elderly remember when nothing but Church was open on Sunday, when frivolity was frowned upon. The Sabbath isn’t a prison of rules; the Sabbath is “a banquet of time… the dessert we leave on the table” (Christopher Ringwald). It is a day of restoration, a day for healing, a day for your inner hunger to be satisfied.

Growing up in his boyhood home that doubled as his family’s business, Jesus would have learned this verse from his parents: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). To know God, we have to stop, to rest, to listen. Do you detect the not-so-subtle hint in that verse? “Be still, and know that I am God” – which clearly implies “and you aren’t!” I am not God, and neither are you. You and I cannot be masters of our own fate. The world says “It’s all up to you, so hurry, cram, grab, load it up.” But as Maggie Ross gently suggests, “When you feel empty, it’s not because you are empty; rather, the problem is, you are full of the wrong stuff.”

On the Sabbath I declare my true identity. I am not ultimately determined by my productivity, my busy-ness, all the round of diversions, what gets scribbled onto my calendar. I am God’s child, I have a destiny far grander than this world’s most soaring dream. To realize that destiny, I just have to be still.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – the sanctuary within

The Sabbath is for rest, and the Sabbath is for worship. Society calls Monday the first day of the week. But Christians have (ever since Jesus’ tomb turned up empty) counted Sunday as the first day. It is in worship, rest, trust and solitude that I get anchored for the week about to landslide all over me. The first thing is my relationship with God; I do not leave it to the last, I do not let it get squeezed out.

The various actions we do in worship are called the “liturgy,” a word that in its origins means “the work of the people.” In worship, we work, and the work of worship is the key to unlocking the presence of God when we are not in worship but in the so-called “real world.” We notice that what is most “real” isn’t this or that passing fancy, or what seemed so urgent just six hours ago. What is “real,” substantive, lasting? Only God, the love and stunning adventure God sets before us.

The constancy of weekly worship and rest restores the image of God the world chips away at all week long. Annie Dillard once heard a minister, while leading worship, look up to the ceiling and say, “Lord, we say these same prayers every week!” Indeed. Every week, we gather for worship, resting, not doing anything much – except just being together, thinking and conversing about God, reflecting on life; we drink deeply from the water, store it up, and launch out into the week like a camel.

A classic definition of worship is to glorify God, and to sanctify humanity. Regular worship excavates a place in the core of our being, shoveling out the accumulated trash that is not of God, leaving an open space – a sanctuary within. We can visit that sanctuary, then, through the rest of the week, by day or night, and worship God at work, in the den, while driving, as we fall asleep. If we neglect that sanctuary, it becomes overgrown and chocked with dust.

But when we worship in the Church, and build a bridge between those weekly encounters by inhabiting the sanctuary built inside us, we are sanctified, made holy. We rub our eyes and begin to see what God sees, and to understand with a new heart, and then we love as God loves, not smugly distant from the world, but more zealous than ever to engage the world as God’s hands and feet.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – play school

The beauty of children at play, the fleeting efforts of over-busy adults to become once again children at play: how might God be connected to hopscotch, bridge, or football, a walk on the beach or climbing a mountain, lingering over dessert with friends or passing popcorn at a movie?

The Latin word for “play,” ludus, is also the word for “school.” What do we learn about God when we play? We do we need to learn in order to play? Play is a gift of God, related to the Sabbath. When you play, you don’t work, you aren’t productive, you put the world and its pressures down for a while. Play delights in the sheer joy of being alive. Play relishes our God-given capacity to laugh, to taste, to feel, to enjoy.

There is a kind of virtue to play. Watch kids try to organize a game, and pretty soon they have to settle on some rules and procedures. Play requires give and take, a consideration of the other guy: yes, we compete, but the wish to win is tempered by care for the other person, for the enjoyment of the game.

There is a morality to play. We urge children to share their toys, and never to cheat. Adults meander into a thicket of ethical quandaries in their time off, as leisure becomes decadent very quickly, corrupted by society’s crude self-indulgence, by temptations that sure look fun but are abhorrent to God. People drink too much, tell jokes that degrade, play with inappropriate partners. During our play time, we need to be attentive to God, to the image of God in us, to remember that even while having raucous fun my body is still a temple of the Holy Spirit; there are fun things Christians simply don’t do.

With whom do we play? Playing alone can be refreshing, a much needed solitude to get you in touch with the child inside. Playing alone can be sad – and so sometimes during our leisure time we ask, “Who’s not included? Who doesn’t have three partners for golf or spades? Who’s strolling alone but needs some company? How much richer would my life be if I shared leisure time with somebody who doesn’t look just like me?” After all, that’s what Jesus did: he was accused of going to too many parties with people his closest friends didn’t know or like. But play is ludus, a school. What would God teach me during my play time?

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – humor

Who ever said a Christian is supposed to be a solemn stick in the mud? We laugh – if anything, more boisterously than others. We have deep reasons to be joyful, we are safe with God, we’re in on the secret of God’s adventure; you can’t help but grin and chuckle over the joy of it all. Jesus’ teachings (if we’d loosen up when we read!) are full of humor, and great heroes of the faith like St. Francis were really comedians at heart.

God wired us in a way that a clever word, a catchy story, a bodily movement strikes a playful chord in us somewhere; the corners of the mouth involuntarily turn upward, your mouth opens in glee, sound tumbles out. Laughter: one of God’s most beneficial inventions. Laughter has a purging effect; we let go of tension and hurts. Laughter has a healing effect; patients who find cause to laugh get a little better.

And yet, humor can be seedy, opening a trap door for evil to sneak into your soul. What kind of humor do I find to be funny? What kinds of jokes do I tell? Some lightheartedness is crude, or demeaning. Unwittingly we can hurt others in our joking. The Christian avoids humor that degrades anybody.

…except ourselves, that is! We revel in humor that is self-deprecating. Reinhold Niebuhr suggested that sin is taking yourself too seriously. Think of the dark weight of the heavy ego that cannot see the levity in life. The joke is on us! Grace, God’s unmerited love for a bumbler like me, has a kookiness about it; God must have a sense of humor to put up with us! My valiant vaunting of myself as grand or holy ought to leave me and everybody else snickering. “Angels can fly, because they take themselves so lightly” (G.K. Chesterton).

Why do we kid around as much as we do? Are we chasing the loneliness away? Can fun and joking block a more personal engagement with others? Do I keep someone – perhaps even myself? – at arms’ distance with humor?

What if, every time we laughed, we thought of God – maybe the way a football player points to the sky after a touchdown? Laughter is an anticipation of our eternal life with God. When Tolkien wrote of the climactic reunion of the hobbits in the Fellowship of the Ring, he imagined them laughing together: “the sound was like music, or water in a parched land, the pure sound of merriment, like the echo of all the joys ever known” – and then they burst into tears. The laughter among friends is a sure echo of what heaven will sound like.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – travel

Christopher Lasch wrote that “Children need to learn about faraway times and places in order to make sense of their immediate surroundings.” Being far from home enlightens your sense of home. And isn’t it the case that all of our moving about – coming, going, driving, riding, flying – reveals much about our pursuit of meaning and happiness?

Where have you gone? And where are you going? And why? For centuries, Christians latched onto the metaphor of a “journey” when they thought about their life with God. We are wanderers, passing through, on our way to a better place, on an extended pilgrimage seeking God and our true home.

We have vacations, weekend getaways, “destination weddings.” Where do we go? Is God there? Any new place we see gives us the chance to notice another part of the great world God created for God’s glory. To see a barrier reef or a glacier, to peer into a canyon or listen to waves crashing against rock, to spy a species of bird or to drive on a bumpy road and pass an ostrich… Is my faith not stretched and amplified by seeing God’s work?

We may see great things, we may walk where Jesus or Francis walked; we may share in a special family hike to a waterfall. But we may also be escaping, fleeing, desperate for some diversion to fill up the hollow place inside. Why am I so itchy to go, to keep moving? Can I just be at home? Can we just be together? Can our flitting about be an index to an unsettled self? Do I see the way my going inhibits the community I seek by going? Recently a guy complained to me that he was losing his sense of what’s going on in our church. I reminded him he runs off to the beach or mountains every weekend…
When we go where we go, unless we put blinders on, we see people. Whom do we visit? Do we intentionally go places where we will see people who are different, who challenge our sheltered biases? Go to the third world: at first we may shudder over the poverty, but then we find ourselves dumbfounded by the buoyant, exuberant faith of people whom we’d pitied before we met and worshipped with them. Listen to foreigners and what they think about America. Drive across town and find out why things are the way they are in our city.

Maybe we discover a connection between God and our going, or our staying… perhaps using St. Augustine’s prayer as our measure: “O Lord, you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.”

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – money

In the real world, the most real thing has got to be money. Money wields immense power, with the bright potential for good hugged closely by sinister possibilities of corruption. Money is sneaky, intoxicating, seductive. Thomas Merton warned us that money tries to usurp the role the Holy Spirit is supposed to play in your life: is it the Spirit or money that motivates, inspires, comforts?

In our culture, my money is mine; I dispose of it as I wish. My “worth” is defined by how much money I have. But in God’s family, my worth is defined by my faith, by God’s saving love. So we need not be duped by money, however tantalizing its allure; by God’s grace, money need not wield power over me, for all that I am and have is God’s.

In God’s family, my money isn’t mine: it belongs to God – not just some percentage I nobly bestow upon the Church, but all of it. This means not only that I must get deadly serious about giving to the Church; I also begin to inventory all my spending, asking if it makes sense in light of God’s claim. How much of my spending is frivolous? self-indulgent? If an archaeologist dug up my checkbook in a thousand years, what kind of person would she assume me to be? How much money is enough? and am I learning the sheer delight of generosity?

Martin Luther was right: to be a Christian, three conversions are required: the conversion of the heart, of the mind, and of the purse. Is my purse converted? and do I honor God with the way I dole it out? Is there evidence that I treat all my money as belonging to God?

Be generous; dare something bold for God. Christians should experience some perpetual discomfort over money and God, for this uneasiness will prompt you to draw closer to God, to discover new ways to make a difference, even to relish the deep wisdom of Merton’s words: “If you have money, consider that perhaps the only reason God allowed it to fall into your hands was in order that you might find joy and perfection by giving it away.”

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – shopping

When Tammy Faye Baker Messner was dying, she imagined heaven as a huge shopping mall, and she would have a credit card with no limit. Heaven might not be a mall, but in the real world, shopping is huge; the mall has crept into the computer you’re looking at right now so you can shop anywhere, any time, for any thing. Does God care about shopping?

Was Jesus just being a Scrooge when he said “Do not worry about what you eat or drink, or what you will wear. Is not life more than food, the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25), or “Do not lay up treasures on earth” (Matthew 6:19)? Was Paul uninterested in stimulating the economy when he wrote “Godliness is contentment” (1 Timothy 6:6)? Is it troubling that 93% of teenage girls in America rank “shopping” as their favorite activity?

The psychologist Barry Schwartz has demonstrated the way shopping, and the endless arrays of choices we have (kinds of shampoo, auto accessories, etc.) ironically breed anxiety, boredom and depression instead of the delight, control and happiness they promise. We never get enough, there is always something better – and in the glut of advertising and buying isn’t there some risk we might lose or souls? or at least be gradually transformed into somebody who is superficial?

Ad gurus on Madison Avenue are working overtime, not to help me feel grateful and contented, but dissatisfied. Cock your antennae and deconstruct ads you see on TV or billboards: I frankly feel a bit insulted when peppered with appeals to my base nature. Am I no more than an omnivorous consumer, eager for the next gadget or outfit? Does our consumer culture inflate the sinful notion that it’s all about me and my desires being met?

Shopping: what lures me, and why? Is God honored by what I purchase? How much of my mental energy is drawn into wanting things? that hard to find zinfandel? or just the right window treatments? How does the time I spend looking, trying on, purchasing, returning and replacing what I have compare to the time I spend thinking about God, praying, reading the Bible, serving?

Think about J.R.R. Tolkien’s hobbits: on their birthdays, instead of receiving gifts, they give gifts. When I shop, do I buy for others? If so, whom? Sometimes I buy a new coat for me, and give my old coat to the needy – which is an excellent thought. I have a friend who committed to a different discipline: when he buys a new coat for his son, his simultaneously buys a new coat for a child who can’t afford even an old coat. I know several families whose Christmas shopping tab is always matched by a special donation to the poor. Do I leave my faith at home, or take it with me, when I shop?

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – alcohol

You may have heard the old joke: somebody asks, “Can Methodists drink?” …and the answer is the same as to the question, “Can Methodists dance?”: “Some can, some can’t.”

All biblical people drank wine, including Jesus, Mary, Moses, Abraham. Vineyards and the production of wine are used in some of Jesus’ best stories, and by the prophets describing our life with God (Luke 5:37, Matthew 20, Isaiah 5, John 2).

Frederick Buechner cleverly explained why he prefers wine over grape juice in the Lord’s Supper: “Unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink. But it is a ghastly symbol of the blood of Jesus Christ. Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one.”

Many Christians drink too much, or for vexing reasons. Does booze become the secret elixir without which we cannot have fun? After a hard day do you “really need a drink”? Can you get to sleep without a glass of wine? If your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, does what you pour into it contribute to the body thriving? or to its demise? Isn’t there all kinds of freight our society piles on top of alcohol, like being hip, or a chic entertainer, or a business mogul? Marriages and families crash and burn – and doesn’t alcohol too often fuel the explosion? How devastating is the damage to victims of drinking and driving accidents – and why don’t we stand up and say “Enough!” or “God help us”?

Alcohol seems to be this lovely gift, yet one replete with peril. Can we consecrate our drinking, or our lack of drinking, to God in some meaningful way? Am I willing to engage in some probing diagnosis of why I buy, drink, or serve what I do? Is some regular practice of fasting – just to prove I am not dependent – in order?

And can’t the organization that meets in many Churches, Alcoholics Anonymous, teach us much about how to be the Church? People who are broken, who know they are lost without each other and the power of God, meet, share, bolster, encourage, lift up, are brutally honest… Sounds like what Church was supposed to be.

Wine and its effects are a grand symbol of what our life with God can be. By the power of God we can become virtually another person, we laugh and surprise ourselves with our courage, we are not a bunch of lone grapes but a fluid blend together. To discover the this truth, we might need a season of not drinking the real world’s wine so we can be filled with “new wine,” as the first Christians were portrayed on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:13), so we might pray the way Hannah prayed, so absorbed that Eli thought she was drunk (1 Samuel 1:13).

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – s-x

In our society we suffer a terrible confusion about s-x. We can’t even spell the word out, since email filters treat it as too tawdry for your sensitive computer. Surprising, too, since a crass s-xuality pervades all we see on TV and the streets. Sadly too, since s-x is one of God’s most precious gifts to humanity.
Given the way s-x has been debased, it is hard to recall that s-x is God’s wise and gracious plan to keep us alive on earth. Tragically, s-x has been trivialized into a merely recreational activity. The focus is on body parts instead of the image of God that resides in the body; s-x is all about technique instead of the tender, awkward sharing of intimacy.

Once upon a time, a sense of shame was attached to being undressed. There were adult secrets that children quite rightly were sheltered from. Only the mature, only those ready to make a lifelong commitment, could harbor such astounding knowledge about another person. Only someone who would be ready to rear children with you, and to love you forever no matter how athletic or inept you might be could handle what you offer when you give yourself to one another in deep intimacy.

Aren’t we all insulted when we are titillated with advertising loaded with s-xual innuendo? Don’t we shrink the grandeur of humanity when females seem to be valued for the curve of their bodies instead of what is in their brains? and aren’t males demeaned as animalistic? Aren’t relationships – not merely with a spouse but with coworkers and friends – poisoned because of thoughts we harbor in our minds? How devastating has the ready availability of seedy images on the internet been, not just for solid relationships, but for the God-given soul?

As Christians, we need not be fuddy-duddies or antiseptically as-xual. We have good cause to delight in the body and a robust s-xuality. But if we cannot distinguish ourselves from the rampaging herd, and learn again the more exciting adventure of chastity and a holy use of our bodies, then perhaps we have nothing to say to a hedonistic world that reduces bodies to little more than superficial instruments of self-indulgence.

In the Church we have an ethic that would discourage premarital sex (and extramarital sex), not so that the unmarried must miss out on the fun, but because there is a fragility in our intimacy. Even within marriage, sex can be manipulative or degrading. God calls us to the highest conceivable s-xual ethic.
Restrictions are liberating, and ennobling. God wired us and the universe so we might revel in the raucous delights of the body while still being holy, drawing appropriate lines than honor me, the other person, and God.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – green?

Must Christians be “green”? Some pundits trash the environmental movement, as if it’s some newfangled, softheaded notion. But Christians have, through history, grasped in humility that nature is something you cannot manage; there is power out there larger than us, both wonderful and perilous. Christians have also, though history, had this determination to notice and protect God’s good world, making faithful use of it, but caring about it.

Consider St. Francis of Assisi. If he lived today instead of the twelfth century, we imagine he might join protest lines against nukes and global warming, that he would drive a hybrid (or a bike), that he would stand in front of a bulldozer to protect an animal habitat, that he would recycle, that he would hug a few trees before breakfast each day. Francis would have called himself a “conservative,” wanting to conserve nature – but not merely to cordon off a secure place for yourself and your grandchildren to live.

For Francis, nature isn’t about us, or political policy; it’s about God. The sun isn’t something we hope will come out so we can enjoy the ballgame; the sun is my brother. The moon isn’t something to ignore most nights like the rest of God’s starry host; the moon is my sister, precious, fair. Like my children when they were two and three years old, we glance out the window toward the shimmering light, close the book and say “Goodnight, moon.” We are siblings, the sun, moon, trees, animals – and God is our Father. This personal relationship, this sense of kinship, is what we have lost over many centuries of building, paving over paradise, stringing up things electric.

When walking, Francis would address stalks of corn, birds, hilly meadows, cows, a running brook, and even the wind rustling through the trees, exhorting them to serve and praise God joyfully. The modern discovery that the chimpanzee is my close cousin would have tickled Francis’s fancy.

Thomas Merton wrote, “A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. If it tried to be like something else which it was never intended to be, it would be less like God and therefore it would give Him less glory.”
If a tree glorifies God more effortlessly than I do, then perhaps I might just want to save a tree or two, or conserve water without being required to, maybe use up a little less gasoline. If we raze a forest and replace it with a shopping mall, would anyone ever say “A mall gives glory to God by being a mall”?
Francis would ask us to weep with him when any species is declared extinct, for that is one less voice in the great chorus of praise to God the Creator of every species. Christians yearn to protect plants and animals and the good of all creation, not for our sake, or even for the sake of the world, but for the glory of God.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – politics!

While some people have been taught that religion and politics must never mingle, clearly God stakes a claim in and cares about everything that goes on down here on God's good earth, including what governments and their citizens do. To vote, and the way we vote, to engage as a citizen, is an act of faith.

Under many repressive regimes around the world, people of faith are not free to express their passionately held beliefs. The United States Constitution forbids the establishment of any single religion, but it never declares that government and religion never speak to one another! In 1970, the Supreme Court clarified that churches, just as much as secular bodies or private citizens, have a right to vigorous advocacy of political positions. The conservative scholar Stephen L. Carter is right: "In our sensible zeal to keep religion from dominating our politics, we have created a culture that presses the religiously faithful to be other than themselves, to act publicly, and privately as well, as though their faith does not matter to them."

But our faith does matter. We recognize that every policy, budget, and legislation has some kind of morality (or shortage thereof) tucked inside. What we as a people do collectively exhibits faith in something - and we are called by God to pay attention, to throw whatever slender weight we may have in the direction of what we feel best mirrors what Jesus was about. To do so requires considerable thought, prayer, reflection - and conversation! Prayerfully and openly we weigh issues for their impact not merely upon me but all of God's children. We help each other to answer vital questions: How do I think about the world and politics as a Christian? How do I vote? and get involved? Is God glorified by how I am engaged? or not engaged?

Many fret that our country is polarized; others are a bit calmer. Christians bear a special calling to find, not "common ground" between those who disagree, but "higher ground." God is not a Democrat, and God is not Republican, either - and the Church dare not let itself get co-opted by either party. "The best contribution of religion is precisely not to be ideologically predictable nor loyally partisan" (Jim Wallis). We never presume God is on my side or our side; instead we worry whether we are on God's side or not (as Abraham Lincoln wisely taught us). In humility we pray, seek God's face, yearn for solutions to the world's problems that require the insights and energies of both conservatives, liberals, and that growing numbers of "others."

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – the choice

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).

We turn now to several emails on friendships, Church “family,” relationships… and Joshua is a good place to begin: after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, God’s people finally arrive in the Promised land. Joshua calls them together at Shechem, nestled between the twin peaks of Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim, at the absolute center of Israel. From the pinnacle of Mt. Ebal, you can see all the way to Jerusalem in the south, snow-capped Mt. Hermon in the north, and the ridge of Mt. Carmel to the west, the Jordan river to the east.

From this stunning vista, Joshua issues an extraordinary challenge: now that the land has been given, now that God’s blessings are out in the open, how will we live? Set free by God, can we stay free? or will we squander God’s gifts? Joshua speaks for himself, and even dares to lead and speak for those he loves: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Every day, in hundreds of small ways, we make a choice – whether we realize it or not. Will we serve God? or other, false gods? When it comes to God, we assume it’s just one big choice: do I believe or not believe? But really it’s the thousand little choices, the everydayness, a purchase, pressing the remote control, where to eat dinner, what to do Saturday afternoon, a thought, a word: all of it together is your life. Am I serving God? or a crowd of bogus gods?

What do we mean by a god? Martin Luther said, “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is really your god.” The gods of our society are many: success, pleasure, money, being cool or popular – whatever it is that dominates our mindset, motivates us, gets our blood rushing, elicits my passion. What really is my god? What is today going to be about? How will I live my life? What will we do together today? What will your choice be? “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

James
james@mpumc.org

To see photos of Shechem (which today is called Nablus, a dangerous place in the West Bank).
This verse is the title of a great book (my personal favorite) on marriage by Walter Wangerin.

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – Church “family”

How intriguing: we speak of the Church, not merely as a building, institution, club or agency, but as a family. Old-timey southern Christians used to address each other as “brother Jones” or “sister Smith.” You might be “Dr. Brown” out in the world, but in church you would be “sister Brown.” It’s better than a title of respect; it’s about love.

Who thought up the adage, “Blood is thicker than water”? In the Church, we are united by water and blood – baptized into the Body of Christ, saved by the blood of Christ. Jesus becomes our brother, and we discover our true home in his family: “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50).

Tolstoy began Anna Karennina: “Happy families are all alike; unhappy families are unhappy in their own ways.” A Church family can be – or is! – just as dysfunctional, loony, and codependent as any other family. And yet, a family loves, a family sticks with you; you’re stuck with each other, and the friction polishes us so we can more brilliantly reflect the love of Christ to the world. A Church family knows how to deliver a casserole, join a prayer chain, or to show up when needed; a family is exhilarated over the arrival of a new family member, and we are unusually attentive to the elderly, or anybody who is sick.

In fact, you can be sick, or hurting, or miserable, and a family continues to love. Why do we have this bizarre need to plaster on a pleasant façade and confidently reply “Fine!” when asked “How are you?” How fine can we be? Life is hard, we carry secrets inside, fears that riddle our souls, wounds. Our Church family is a safe haven to share – or it should be, it can be.

Recently I heard a group of parents giddily swapping stories about how Fine! their children are doing: high grades, sports achievements, gifted and creative, grand friends, funny and gracious. One parent rather hesitantly told the truth - that his son is battling depression and is in the struggle of a lifetime. At first no one knew quite what to say – but then they rallied, asked to hear more, pledged prayers and love, and even owned up to the fact that their kids, boasted about just moments before, have some titanic battles as well. The Church family embraces both halves of Paul’s wisdom: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld - friendship

I wonder if high school students think when they read what Anne Frank wrote at the beginning of her famous Diary: “No one will believe that a girl of thirteen feels herself quite alone in the world. I have strings of friends, I have relations, a good home - no, I don’t seem to lack anything. But it’s the same with all my friends, just fun and joking, nothing more. The root of the problem is this: I have no real friend.”

In Christianity, friendship is the most important relationship to develop – and why? For us, the Church is a family of friends, and we believe that a marriage isn’t primarily about red hot lovers but friendship. Like the word “love,” the term “friend” has fallen on hard times. In our society, a "friend" is someone with whom you have fun, someone who likes the same things, someone I agree with, someone who mirrors my self back to me in a way that makes me feel good about myself.

How alien to ancient notions of friendship. Socrates saw friendship as a "school of virtue." Friends help each other to become good, to gain wisdom. For Aristotle, "the opposite of a friend is a flatterer." Flattery feeds my narcissism. We need friends who care about the truth, wisdom, the good. "To love someone is to help that person to love God; to be loved is to be helped toward God" (Kierkegaard). What is the Church? "God has given us company so that we will know how rightly to worship" - and live (Stanley Hauerwas).

In the same way that you cannot square dance or play bridge by yourself, you have little chance of growing spiritually without a friend or two. Whether I “like” this kind of friend is not as important as whether we share what C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien shared when they were young and then aging men at Oxford: being passionate about questions – not the “answers,” but the big questions, the deep zones in each other’s souls.

Jesus did not marry, and Jesus had no sons or daughters. But he had close friends – and somehow his coming to earth and drawing together a circle of friends is the secret to our purpose and fulfillment here. Dorothy Day said, "We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other... We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community."

Do you have a real friend? Can you be a real friend? Some risk is required, some time. The good news is not just that you need a real friend; so does that other person.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – the family test

Peril and delight, stability and weirdness, joy and pain, understanding and confusion: family provides it all, whether you are a child, teenager, single adult, newlywed, new parents, battling infertility, dealing with aging parents, divorced, widowed, a grandparent. How we function as Christians within the context of whatever our family configuration may be, in the teeth of whatever our current family challenge may be, is the test of faith, isn’t it?

What is the purpose of family? In the world, it is something like “happiness” – but in the Church we talk about “faithfulness.” As Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 7, whether I am single or married, child or parent, am I anxious about the affairs of the world? or am I all about pleasing the Lord?

How we structure our lives betrays who we are, and also shapes who we become. Is going to Church normal, just part of the routine? Are decisions made after prayer and asking about what would please the Lord? Is my time about us getting ahead and having fun, or is God and serving God’s people prominent, or even dominant?

Is worldly success a hidden danger for families? A book well worth reading is The Price of Privilege, by Dr. Madeline Levine, who has studied the lives of bright, affluent teenagers in superb families and has deciphered a disturbing pattern of depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity – rates higher than other socioeconomic groups. Is it pressure to achieve? Perfectionism? Simply having too many choices? Stress? Too little time to chill? Anxious parents? In what dramatic but subtle ways does affluence erode what family relationships of all kinds ought to be?

Jesus didn’t seem to show up on earth to bolster society’s values or to boost us toward what everybody else is trying to achieve. Mother Teresa said, “Whatever you do in your family, for your children, for your husband, for your wife, for your parents, you do for Jesus.” More on Jesus and family tomorrow…

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – family’s social function

Jesus came so we could become the Body of Christ – to be Christ to each other. To be Christ to my son, my sister, my spouse, my parent, and even to my self, I consider his pattern: prayer, humility, always reaching out to the person nobody else wanted, forgiving, combining personal striving for excellence with overwhelming mercy toward others, joining hands with others to care for the lost, simply to be, to love, to be with. It is never a competition, never a tumultuous rush, never a thicket of harbored resentment, always open, tender, strong, pointed toward God.

Family, with all its quirky lunacy and simple pleasure, really is the laboratory of faith. As Mother Teresa put it, “Love begins at home. If we do not love one another whom we see 24 hours, how can we love those we see only once? We show love by thoughtfulness, kindness, sharing joy, sharing a smile, through the little things.”

Consider this stirring admonition from Oscar Romero, former bishop of El Salvador: “I call on all of you, makers of families, builders of homes: let each family not be a hindrance to the urgent changes that society needs. Let no family isolate itself from society as a whole because it is well off. No one marries just so the two of them can be happy; marriage has a great social function. It must be the torch that lights up the way for other marriages around it. From the home must come the man or woman able to promote the changes needed in politics, in society, in the ways of justice: changes that will not come about as long as home life opposes them.”

“But it will be so easy once boys and girls are trained in the heart of each family to aspire not to have more but to be more, not to grab everything but to give abundantly to others. They must be educated for love. Loving is what the family is all about, and loving means giving oneself, surrendering oneself to the well-being of all and working for the common happiness.”

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – marriage and singleness

Even though in our society, men and women prove over and over how inept they are at marriage, we still seem to harbor some vain hope that, if I just get married, life will be good. The Bible, for all its wise support of matrimony, seems biased toward those who are single. After all, Jesus was single, and the majority of our greatest saints through history, like St. Francis, were single.

But it’s not really about whether you are single or not. The Bible’s agenda is our devotion to God, our service of our Lord. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul praises the single life – why? Because he believes (rightly or wrongly) that the single person doesn’t get distracted by the urgent demands of family life, and can focus on God. But single people can get distracted by the urgent demands of being single…

The question is To what life has God called me? How best can I serve God? If I am to marry, or to stay (or become) single, what does that decision imply for my pursuit of God?

Henri Nouwen painted a pair of vivid images for us about the reasons for marriage – and perhaps any relationship: “Two people cling to each other as two hands interlocked in fear. They connect because they cannot survive individually. But as they interlock they also realize that they cannot take away each other’s loneliness. And it is then that friction arises and tension increases. Often a breakup is the final result.

“But God calls man and woman into a different relationship. It is a relationship that looks like two hands that fold in an act of prayer. The fingertips touch, but the hands can create a space, like a little tent. Such a space is the space created by love, not fear. Marriage is creating a new, open space where God’s love can be revealed to the ‘stranger’: the child, the friend, the visitor.”

A book that I strongly recommend is As For Me and My House, by Walter Wangerin – the most readable, moving, funny, and faithful account of Christian marriage I’ve ever seen. What he says about marriage applies to all family relationships: it’s all about values, trustworthiness, and serving.

James
james@mpumc.org

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eFaithInTheRealWorld – thankfulness

“O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good” (Psalm 118:1).

Perhaps the most important but elusive spiritual disposition to be developed out in the real world is gratitude. Everything conspires against us feeling thankful to God, and to others. Advertisers breed dissatisfaction, and fuel our coveting what we don’t have – the antithesis of sensing gratitude for where and who we are.

A sense of entitlement, and the braggadocio of “me” and “all I have achieved for myself” are both fierce enemies of gratitude. And then somewhere along the line we were taught that saying “Thanks” is simply good manners. But gratitude is the heart’s realization of the profound truth that we are dependent upon God’s goodness, and spontaneously we want to love and express our deep joy.

When the Psalm speaks of “giving thanks,” more than mere words are at stake. The Hebrew for “thanks” is todah – which is a sacrifice, a burnt offering, giving something precious to God you’ll never get back. If you were a Bible person, you would take your best male sheep, the one you need for the future of your flock, and you give that one, not the sickly runt, to God; or you take the first ripened grain of wheat, which you’d love to bake into a loaf of bread for your weary, hungry family, and you give it to God, trusting God will bring more in its wake, as a sign you know it all belongs to God anyhow.

Gratitude for us isn’t cheap, and it isn’t self-congratulation (“Wow, man, haven’t I achieved incredible things!”). The thankful are humble, and gratitude gives birth to generosity. We give thanks to God for God’s goodness, for our salvation, not for our stuff but for the love; like the wise with some age on them, we don’t devise a list of things we want for Christmas, for all we really want is to be with those we love, and to reminisce for a little while. We give thanks for the treasury of memory that is our life, and for opportunities to give other people cause to give thanks for God’s goodness. The grateful know the value of an open hand, and so they excel in giving.

Happy Thanksgiving! – and remember it’s about God, and others, not you.

James
james@mpumc.org

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Series PDF

View the eFaith in the Real World series pdf.