Being and Doing

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

This week’s texts: James 1:17-27 and Mark 7:1-8

“Damn!”  That was the first word of the first line I had to say as Horace Vandergelder, the character I played in the musical, Hello, Dolly, during my sophomore year in high school.  It was a tough line for me, having grown up in church, the child of the pastor, the grandchild of pastors.  There was no swearing in the household I grew up in. None.  It took me awhile to pull off the first line convincingly, and I kind of needed my parent’s blessing to feel okay about it.

     A couple of years later, my brother and dad and I were hitching up our boat in order to go water skiing the next day.  I don’t remember exactly what happened, but somehow I got my finger pinched or something – nothing serious – and I blurted out “Damn it!” right in front of my brother and dad.  Everything went kind of quiet.  Nobody said anything.  Nobody knew what to do.  Apparently, I had gotten pretty comfortable with this particular word, but nobody else in my family was comfortable with it (even though I am sure my brother was, too, just not around family).  My parents are not swearers, and I am glad for that.  It’s just not who they are.  And swearing is still foreign in their home.  Years later, while visiting them in northern Michigan, we visited a town that had a dam near a harbor that led out to Lake Michigan.  The harbor was a tourist trap and featured a candy store – the Dam Candy Store.  My son and daughter were excited to get candy and take them home to grandma in bags that stated, “I bought these treats from the Dam Candy Store!”

     Living in the freedom of college where I could talk any way I wanted, I remember coming out of the Student Union, calling out to a friend who was ten yards ahead of me, using a fine selection of colorful language. Unfortunately, my choir director happened to be present right when I let those beauties fly.  I was so embarrassed and ashamed.  Shortly after, I sought her out to apologize for my unchristian behavior.  But my guilt was born from a legalism more than anything else, a “shouldn’t” echoing from my childhood.

     Is this what the Christian life is about?  Are we just supposed to follow a bunch of do’s and don’ts to keep ourselves in the good graces of God? Jesus seemed to challenge that idea that the Pharisees of his day apparently adopted. He flat out said they were missing the point.

     Jesus’ brother, James, encountered a problem on the other end of the spectrum.  His audience was so confident in the love and acceptance and grace of God that personal conduct and ethics apparently were not of much concern.  Given his instruction, these folks were terrible listeners, offered commentary too soon, let their unfiltered anger rule the day, and had no control over their speech. I think I spent a season of my life in this zone and was able to justify a lot of other behaviors because of my confidence in the love and acceptance and grace of God. I believed that my attitudes and behavior did not ultimately affect God’s love for me – or my afterlife address thanks to my acceptance of Jesus – so it really didn’t matter what I did, so long as it didn’t hurt anybody.  James challenged that logic and called his audience to think more deeply about what faith they practiced and why.

     Where are you on this subject?  How do you enter this discussion?  It gets at the character and nature of God – does God really care about what we do?  And it touches on the what and why of faith itself – is the point of faith for us to simply enjoy inner peace while at the same time giving into hedonistic impulses knowing God’s grace abounds? Why are you a person of faith?  What motivates you?

     Jesus told his disciples that the way of life and faith he was teaching and modeling led to an abundance of life.  Not an abundance of things, but life.  Even if circumstances were awful, life could still be abundant.  Paul discovered this to be true and wrote about how he learned to be content no matter what he was going through – poverty or wealth, freedom or imprisonment.  He discovered that the abundance thing was true.  I have witnessed this in the slum of Huruma outside of Nairobi, Kenya.  The United States does not have this type of extreme poverty to this degree, where hundreds of thousands are packed into very tight quarters, living on next to nothing in awful conditions.  I know people of faith there who are experiencing abundant life on $2/day.  I have seen many others there who are miserable.  Their faith is the difference.

     Thomas Kelly, who helped reintroduce spiritual contemplative practices to the Western world described in his book, A Testament of Devotion, the life of faith when we are deeply rooted in God: Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power.  It is simple.  It is serene.  It is amazing. It is triumphant.  It is radiant. It takes no time but occupies all our time. And it makes our life programs new and overcoming. We need not get frantic. God is at the helm. And when our little day is done, we lie down quietly in peace, for all is well. That sounds pretty good to me!  How about you?  So, what’s involved?

     James throws a curveball in his instruction to his audience.  Everything he was saying was focused on behavior that seemed to be mostly about interpersonal interactions – be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.  And watch your mouth!  But then he says that true religion is evidenced by our taking care of widows and orphans.  Wait, what?  How did we get from not swearing and getting too angry to that?  What is James getting at?

     James pulls us out of our navel-gazing-oriented spirituality to a larger picture.  Faith is not just about our inner peace.  Faith in God’s love for us and all people means that when we see others in need – especially those who are more vulnerable than others – our love compels us to act.  Not out of legalism, but out of love.  I remember a time when my son Noah was young.  I watched as an unlikely bully punched him in the stomach for no reason – just to do it, to exert his authority, for sport? My son didn’t know what to do.  I did.  I knew the kid well and stepped in with a lot of strength to advise him that his behavior was unacceptable, that he needed to apologize, and that if he dared to repeat his error, he would be dealing directly with me, not Noah.  There are times when parents need to let their kids stand up for themselves.  This was not one of those moments.  My kid needed a defender in the wake of being victimized.  I did not step in from a sense of carefully wrought moral obligation or sense of spiritual duty to please God. I stepped in because I love my son.

     When we fully embrace the love of God for ourselves and everyone else, when we see brothers and sisters in our shared human experience suffering injustice, we act. Mature spirituality would have us move from love of God and love of our fellow human beings.  If we don’t really care about the vulnerable among us – human beings and creatures and the environment – it calls into question the why behind the what of our faith, and at least suggests that we have some maturing to do.

   This stings a bit if we have mostly pursued faith for hedonistic purposes.  We want the real deal, and fast.  Yet we don’t get there without some tough work.  The poet Rumi once wrote, What sort of person says he wants to be polished and pure, then complains about being handled roughly? Love is a lawsuit where harsh evidence must be brought in.  Diamonds don’t come out of the ground ready to mount on a ring. They go through a really rough process to bring out the beauty within.

     Are you primarily a navel gazer?  Maybe it’s time for a new view.  Sometimes the new insight comes when we get ourselves into closer proximity with those who suffer injustice. Richard Rohr noted that we cannot think ourselves into a new way of living; rather, we must live ourselves into a new way of thinking.  That means getting outside of our comfort-zone bubbles, which makes us uncomfortable.  Sometimes the only way you can get close is to read from their experience, or watch, or listen.  Who are the ones around us crying out?  Will people of faith lend them an ear?

Homework.

1.     Why do you choose to be a person of faith?  What are your motivations?

2.     How do you determine whether or not you are following the faith fully?

3.     When you think of helping others in their need, what feelings bubble up?  What are your underlying motivations? Obligation?  Guilt? Love? Compassion?

4.     Who are the “widows and orphans”, the vulnerable people that most tug at your heartstrings currently?  How can you learn more about their experience so that you can listen, understand, and respond in helpful ways?

James 1:17-27 (NLT)

     Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.  He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession. Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

     But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.

     If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

Mark 7:1-8 (NLT)

     One day some Pharisees and teachers of religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They noticed that some of his disciples failed to follow the Jewish ritual of hand washing before eating. (The Jews, especially the Pharisees, do not eat until they have poured water over their cupped hands, as required by their ancient traditions. Similarly, they don’t eat anything from the market until they immerse their hands in water. This is but one of many traditions they have clung to—such as their ceremonial washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.”

     Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,

‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce,
    for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’

For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”

Psalm 15 (NLT) A psalm of David.

1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?
    Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?
2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,
    speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
3 Those who refuse to gossip
    or harm their neighbors
    or speak evil of their friends.
4 Those who despise flagrant sinners,
    and honor the faithful followers of the Lord,
    and keep their promises even when it hurts.
5 Those who lend money without charging interest,
    and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.
Such people will stand firm forever.

Geared Up for Battle: Defeat or Victory?

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Ephesians 6:10-20 (NRSV). Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

     Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.

     There is a lot going on here in these words wrapping up Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Some of what is shared here is rhetoric that borrows from the writings of Jewish prophets like Isaiah which were written centuries before and had no knowledge of such spiritual battles, but also grabs some contemporary (for Paul) paradigms of cosmology that would have been widely understood by (especially) non-Jewish Gentiles in the Roman world where Ephesus was firmly planted.  I’d like to nerd out just a moment on some hermeneutic principles, then offer some practical principles to consider for today.

     The Devil, etc.  What do we do with this?  Many Christians simply take this at face value as part of their conviction that if it’s in the Bible, it’s what God wanted us to believe.  Surely, for many who treat it as such, it works.  It must, otherwise they wouldn’t stay committed to it.  Many more people, however, are more likely to see this as yet another reason to not take the Bible seriously as it stems from an ancient cosmology that doesn’t seem to match contemporary ideologies.  The historical development of the Satan/devil figure in Judaism is quite interesting, but beyond the scope of this teaching (that I use the word development should indicate that there is a history here, a process, and that there isn’t simply one view of “evil” in the Bible).

     Hermeneutics refers to the approach we take to understand the ancient biblical text and how we apply it to our contemporary context.  Much of American Christian thought stems from schools which stick with Lower Criticism and largely reject Higher Criticism.  One simplified way to understand Lower Criticism is that the only voices allowed around the discussion table are those that agree that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. That means any voices that challenge the veracity of the scriptures are not part of the record used for deliberation.  Higher Criticism allows all relevant disciplines to offer their voice and perspective, even if it doesn’t care or even know about inerrancy or infallibility.  The Lower-Criticism-only camp grew over time, largely in reaction to scientific discovery and, in the United States in the early 1800’s, a largely Deist theological perspective held by most of the Founding Fathers that didn’t espouse the narrower view of the Bible.  I believe that the rabbinical tradition that informed Jesus welcomed more voices around the table, not less, and allowed their contributions to further shape their understanding of God and God’s involvement in creation.  This can be clearly witnessed in the Torah – the first five books in the Old Testament, where God’s will as expressed in the Law shifted over time.  Jewish thought on a lot of major areas of theology and life shifted over time, and they were okay’ish with it.  I say “ish” because we generally prefer certainty on a lot of things, and when our certainty get challenged, we often fight back instead of leaning in.  Sharing new insights got a lot of prophets killed, including Jesus.  It got me fired from a role within my denomination, and our church forced to leave our region.  Change usually comes as an unwelcome guest.  If you feel uneasy about what you read/hear as “new” theological perspectives, congratulations!  That means you are a human being. How will you determine what you believe?  What is your hermeneutical approach?

     Evil exists in the world.  There is no denying it.  People make decisions unwittingly or with malice aforethought to do things that serve themselves at the expense of others.  At times, at great expense to those others. In my view, such evil does not require an evil organization of fallen angels with Satan in command. We may talk about our demons, but I think those refer to the power of unaddressed wounds more than supernatural forces.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think a Satan figure or person exists.  If I am wrong, I am comforted by the fact that what I choose to do in response to evil, as evidenced in the life of Jesus as well as in this week’s passage to the Ephesians, is the exact same as if I believed in a literal devil.  I think it best for those who claim to be Christians – Jesus followers – to focus a lot more on the “following” of Jesus than the “arguing” about the source of evil.  If we get off the discussion of the source and look at the evil around us, perhaps we can address it more effectively?  By the way, I do believe that the writer of Ephesians believed in such a hierarchical evil Empire, and Jesus may have, too, given the rhetoric he used.  Rhetoric is powerful, yet tricky – in its use are they articulating their positions or simply leveraging the audiences’ or both?

     Gearing up for battle.  In recognition that there are forces at play beyond the naked eye, Paul advises his audience to put on the whole armor of God.  Here are some thoughts on the different pieces of gear:

·       The belt of truth is a good idea lest you find yourself caught with your pants down.  Starting the day stating that we choose to live according to the truth of God helps keep us focused on True North lest we be swayed by truth competitors.

·       The breastplate of righteousness is about living the right way, which, as Christians, is the choice to follow the example of Jesus.  We struggle with this because we tend to adopt “self-righteousness”, which is a completely different thing and, as it turns out, was diametrically opposed to the way of Jesus.

·       Shoes promoting peace?  I am pretty sure the image here is not combat boots.  Maybe house slippers?  Or vans?  Or Converse All-Stars?  Certainly Birkenstocks!  What Paul seems to be saying is that, girded up with the truth of the Spirit, the righteousness-producing way of Jesus, our demeanor is to be peace, our goal is shalom.  Combat boots might elicit a temporary reprieve of violence, but true, lasting peace does not come from a forced agreement (are you listening, US Government?  Remember Vietnam and now Afghanistan?)

·       The shield of faith is not a small circular one like Captain America’s, but rather a body-length one, usually made of wood and wrapped in leather.  Attacking a city with flaming arrows was a common offensive military maneuver that was terrifying.  When we are under attack, Paul is saying to have faith that the attack itself is not evidence that we are wrong.  Have faith that the truth, righteousness, and peace you are literally wearing is the right attire for life, even if it doesn’t go well.

·       The helmet of salvation may be a reference to the covering over your head as well as what needs to be in your head: You are fully loved by God who is forever with you and for your True Self. God is for your best your whole life long, constantly nudging you toward it and encouraging the same in everyone and everything around you.  When this temporal life is over, there is a life beyond the flesh that awaits that will blow your mind, where you already have a reservation.

·       The sword of the Spirit isn’t an actual sword, it’s more likely your words.  Some contemporary folks call the Bible the Word of God and therefore, the sword, to them, is the Bible itself.  So, they memorize lots of verses to fire at people when the time is right.  Some folks are amazing at this. I’m a fan of memorizing scripture, by the way – drawing on verses can be really helpful at times. Yet the Word is much bigger than that – even bigger than the historical person of Jesus.  The Gospel of John speaks of the Word becoming flesh (in Jesus), a Word that is eternal.  It sure seems like the Word is more like what we might call the Spirit of God, which is Godself.  It seems Paul is reminding us that since the battle isn’t really one of flesh and bone, neither should be our weapon.  We call on God to fight the things we cannot even see, which is surely why he then immediately calls his audience to pray all the time in the Spirit for everything (including him).

     Defeat. Many modern scholars do not believe that Paul wrote Ephesians – at least not alone.  There are enough peculiarities in his language to suggest that his disciples wrote it in his stead, using his name to provide credibility with the Colossian and Ephesian audiences (both letters likely went out at the same time).  The reason they needed to pen the letter is because Paul was probably dead after spending a long time imprisoned in Rome. In other words, all of Paul’s work and the prayers for his release and the winning over of the people around him did not come to pass.  He was defeated, martyred.  How could this happen?  Paul lived his life so well, so committed to the Way of Jesus?  Isn’t this the exact wrong result we should expect from a saint?  No, not really.  Jesus is the one we’re following, who certainly wore the truth belt, the righteousness-done-right breastplate, definitely wore the Birkenstocks, took a ton of arrows that seemed to bounce off his shield of faith, proclaimed to everyone the salvation-wholeness of God, and allowed God to wield the sword through him all the time.  And he was beaten and crucified.  And neither Paul nor Jesus would have changed their mission if they could do it all over again.  Defeat wasn’t failure for them.  Defeat, in their cases, was actually a sign of their faithfulness and dedication.  They believed the message was so worth living for that it was also worth suffering for and even worth dying for.  For them, as Paul said, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  Have you understood Jesus’ message this way?  Does it have a similar effect on you?

     Victory.  Jesus went first.  He died, and then his disciples experienced an afterlife expression of him a few days after he died.  The impression was so strong that they shifted from cowardice to boldness in a heartbeat and went forward in their whole armor of God for the rest of their lives.  They knew that if they took a beating, that was normal and to be expected.  They also knew that if they died for the cause that it was not the end of the story. They believed as do I that there is more, and that we can build our lives on that “more” now.  In fact, the more that we build our lives on the “more”, the more we believe in the “more” and the “more” to come!  But wait, there’s more!  Paul never met Jesus, but he did meet Christ.  He became the most unlikely disciple given his self-righteous past.  Yet because his conversion began with a glimpse of the “more”, he moved quickly to proclaim to the public that there is more to this life than flesh and blood, and so much “more” to come.  

     This coming week, I invite you to simply read the passage from Paul at the start of each day, reminding yourself to choose the truth of God, the breastplate of living the right way of Jesus (which is to live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly), wear slippers all day to communicate peace, to shield yourself with faith, to cover your head with the loving wholeness offered by God, and to trust and call on the Spirit to fight the battles you cannot see.  See what difference it makes in your day.  You might catch some defeat, honestly, but remember that there is certain victory in the end.

Wisdom

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

This week we are looking at Solomon, the son of King David who became his unlikely successor.  He is heralded as the wisest man who ever lived, as a direct result of asking for wisdom from God when God offered to “grant” whatever request Solomon came up with.  There are some examples of his wisdom that are fitting with the time in which he lived; parallel examples with other cultures’ wisdom leaders are easily identified.  Indeed, in one sense, his leadership led to the development of the nation of Israel into its greatest season of power and wealth.

     What is so startling about Solomon for me is that, despite his wisdom, he made some incredibly unwise decisions that ended up setting the stage for the nation of Israel’s division and demise.  The political marriages led to the watering down and corruption of Israel’s capacity to maintain their covenant with God – the very thing that kept them strong!  Why did the wisest man ever find himself making such mistakes? As I think about Solomon, human nature in general, and my own similar experiences, a few things come to mind...

     Honesty about the voices that shaped him.  Solomon referred to his dad with incredibly glowing terms. Such remembrances are beautiful and appropriate to honor them as deserved.  Yet, we need to be honest about those who shaped us as well, doing our best to recognize how we were shaped in both positive and negative ways.  We see none such transparency or honesty from Solomon regarding David, who clearly was not as faithful and true as Solomon stated!  I have known some folks who hold their shaping characters in such high regard that they miss some of the very human aspects of these wonderful people that, if they noticed, would have helped them address the not-so-wonderful realities in their own lives.  It is not an act of dishonor to recognize the shortcomings of those who shaped us.  It is an act of self-love.  It can also be an important step toward healing and reconciling with those who shaped us.  In my experience having done this, while there are some painful steps to take on this walk, the outcome is one where I more fully appreciate those who shaped me, not less.  I hope my kids do this to me so that they can learn from my journey and see me as fully human, for better or worse.  The same approach would be wise to apply to all sources of wisdom we listen to – what are the biases of the sources we tap, and how are we accounting for them?

     Honesty about our internal forces.  Sometimes it is easier to recognize the humanity in other people than ourselves.  Knowing ourselves, as Aristotle noted, may be the beginning of wisdom, but actively monitoring what is driving our thoughts and behavior is what helps us to live wisely.  How do you keep track of what inner voices and forces are at play in your sense of self and your attitudes and behavior?  If you have no idea, that likely means that you are not much aware of such things and are probably missing some wisdom.  Most likely, you are tipped off to your humanity by others who make it known to you, sometimes, perhaps, with exasperation.  If you are married, there is a good chance your spouse is a mirror for you – sometimes reflecting very good things and other times not so much.

     I have benefitted much from personality inventories that help me appreciate how I’m wired.  The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is one of the most widely used inventories in the world, helping people discover which of 16 types most matches themselves.  The Enneagram is extremely popular and categorizes people a bit differently into nine basic types with lots of nuance.  I have found that discovering my Enneagram type and reading through the description has helped me grow a lot in self-understanding.  And, related to living wisely, the descriptions related to health have been very helpful – I can remember times when I have not been healthy, and can see why I wasn’t.  Knowing this stuff helps me be aware of what motivates me and what I need to look out for – so helpful!  If only Solomon could have had such a tool!  Of course, there is a difference between knowing a doing. Spending time on self-discovery is critical, however, to maturing through life and avoiding the repeat button.  As the proverb goes, as a dog returns to its vomit so a fool returns to his folly (Proverbs 26:11), unreflective persons are more likely to be fools.

     Please take some time this week – how about right now? – to invest in your self understanding.  Next week, we will look at very practical tools we can use to further ensure that we are not only filling ourselves with wisdom, but living wisely.

Questions to Consider…

1. What are the themes of your foolishness?

2. What are the themes of the root causes of your foolishness?

3. When are you most likely to act like a fool?

4. Who in your life lets you know when you are acting like a fool?

5. What is your response to being informed of your foolishness?

6. What have you found helpful in discovering the depth of your foolishness and the root causes?

7. What keeps you from maturing out of your foolishness?

Texts:

1 Kings 3:1-14 (MSG)

Solomon arranged a marriage contract with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He married Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her to the City of David until he had completed building his royal palace and God’s Temple and the wall around Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the people were worshiping at local shrines because at that time no temple had yet been built to the Name of God. Solomon loved God and continued to live in the God-honoring ways of David his father, except that he also worshiped at the local shrines, offering sacrifices and burning incense.

     The king went to Gibeon, the most prestigious of the local shrines, to worship. He sacrificed a thousand Whole-Burnt-Offerings on that altar. That night, there in Gibeon, God appeared to Solomon in a dream: God said, “What can I give you? Ask.”

     Solomon said, “You were extravagantly generous in love with David my father, and he lived faithfully in your presence, his relationships were just and his heart right. And you have persisted in this great and generous love by giving him—and this very day!—a son to sit on his throne.

     “And now here I am: God, my God, you have made me, your servant, ruler of the kingdom in place of David my father. I’m too young for this, a mere child! I don’t know the ropes, hardly know the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of this job. And here I am, set down in the middle of the people you’ve chosen, a great people—far too many to ever count.

     “Here’s what I want: Give me a God-listening heart so I can lead your people well, discerning the difference between good and evil. For who on their own is capable of leading your glorious people?”

     God, the Master, was delighted with Solomon’s response. And God said to him, “Because you have asked for this and haven’t grasped after a long life, or riches, or the doom of your enemies, but you have asked for the ability to lead and govern well, I’ll give you what you’ve asked for—I’m giving you a wise and mature heart. There’s never been one like you before; and there’ll be no one after. As a bonus, I’m giving you both the wealth and glory you didn’t ask for—there’s not a king anywhere who will come up to your mark. And if you stay on course, keeping your eye on the life-map and the God-signs as your father David did, I’ll also give you a long life.”

Ephesians 5:15-20 (MSG)

     Don’t waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are. It’s a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see. Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.

Wake up from your sleep,
Climb out of your coffins;
Christ will show you the light!

     So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!

     Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.

     Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge drafts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.

Quotes on Wisdom:

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” 
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It 

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” 
― Mark Twain 

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” 
― Aristotle 

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” 
― Socrates 

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” 
― Albert Einstein

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” 
― Oprah Winfrey

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” 
― Confucious

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” 
― Rumi

“Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

– Solomon, Proverbs 1:7; 9:10

Bread

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Here are some of my thoughts on this week’s passage, John 6:24-35 (see below):

     The Peoples’ Demand.  The people who wanted Jesus to perform a Moses-like sign were not among those who saw the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  Jesus certainly raised their curiosity – he was known for his healing power and provocative teachings.  But many in that time claimed to be God’s anointed.  For some of them, they simply wanted a proof of sorts.  They were all from Missouri, apparently. I wonder if wanting a particular sign from heaven was part of the problem Jesus wanted to address.  Beyond wanting to know Jesus was legitimate, I think this may speak to a larger human issue.  Is this a sign of them wanting to control things – I’ll only go so long as you deliver the goods?  Or is this akin to our current consumer orientation that will eventually result in their disdain when Jesus doesn’t deliver the goods that they want? Or is it a sign of them wanting to be assured of their right belief?  Or did they just want a free lunch? It sure seems like a “what are you going to do for me”, transactional orientation.  What else might it be?

     Jesus’ Response.  It is interesting that Jesus first called them to a higher way of thinking – free food is not the point (neither is health or wealth). Jesus also clarified for the people that Moses was not the source of the manna and quail, but rather God – I AM – was the provider.  The multiplication of the bread and fish miracle was a sign from God and not the point in and of itself.  The sign was the seal that God was working in Jesus.  Yet, the sign was also a metaphor that Jesus now took to a deeper place.  There is a bread that forever satisfies, and a drink that forever quenches our thirst. That bread is Godself whom Jesus embodied so fully.  The way we eat the bread is through belief in Jesus, what he was saying, what he was passionate about, and what he was doing.  

     Here and now.  Since the 1800’s In the United States, hell avoidance and heaven assurance have been central in the loudest voice of Christianity. Evangelist Charles Finney mastered the art, using fear of death and eternal punishment in hell as a chief motivator to get people to cross the line of faith.  Certainly, Christianity does speak to hope after death.  But I think for many people it became the only message.  Fear became the primary underlying motive.  Getting rewarded with heaven for signing on with the right faith not only provided hope, it also created a new class of people.  True believers were in, and non-believers were out.  Life-after-death concerns – which were not primary for Jesus – eclipsed the much more relevant aspect of the Good News: Life!  Jesus taught an alternative way of living and being in the world, one intimately connected with God who loves us unconditionally, is always working in our lives and in the world toward well-being, who is as close as each breath, who is in us, around us, and beyond us.  Life after death is essentially an after-thought, not central.  Life after death is assumed, but not ever to be the primary focus of our lives.   Learning to live in this dynamic relationship is a process.  That process is the Way.

John 6:24-35 (NLT)

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went across to Capernaum to look for him. They found him on the other side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

     Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”

     They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”

     Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

     They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

     Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

     “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”

     Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Ephesians 4:1-6 (MSG)

In light of all this, here's what I want you to do. While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

     You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

Spirit of Peace Creed by Tim Tahtinen

I believe in God the creator, whose love is the life force of the universe:

Who believes in us, trusts us and empowers us;

Who lives in us and through us and fills us with wonder.  

I believe in Jesus, God’s own son;

Who showed, through his life, the heart and character of God;

Who lived to raise up the lowly, loved those unloved, 

fed those who hungered and healed those with sickness;

Who taught adults and laughed with children;

Who was crucified for speaking truth to power.

Who was raised by God to live forever; and 

Who inspires us to truly live.

I believe in God’s Spirit; Who brings the mystery of God Into our hearts;

Who guides us through a familiar whisper of truth;

Who sparks our creative passions;

Who comes to all in the bread and wine;

Who gathers us into one family; and sends us out to be the good news.   

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Deliver us from evil. Lead us not into temptation.

For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.

Lives Like Trees Planted by the Water

Enjoy this rich teaching by CrossWalk’s friend, Jenny Matheny, Ph. D.! Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Pain, Prayer, God, and Healing

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Healing

     The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.

     So, they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So, he began teaching them many things...

     After they had crossed the lake, they landed at Gennesaret. They brought the boat to shore and climbed out. The people recognized Jesus at once, and they ran throughout the whole area, carrying sick people on mats to wherever they heard he was. Wherever he went—in villages, cities, or the countryside—they brought the sick out to the marketplaces. They begged him to let the sick touch at least the fringe of his robe, and all who touched him were healed. – Mark 6:30-34; 53-56 (NLT)

     Here are some things that jumped out at me this week related to the above text:

     Jesus had compassion. When we look at Jesus, we see a whole lot of God reflected.  A dominant trait we see is love.  In this passage, we find Jesus and the disciples tired and needing rest, yet the crowds clamor for more.  We know that Jesus practiced balance and self-care, which he was attempting to achieve in this story.  It wasn’t going to happen quite yet.  What do we see in Jesus?  Not anger, not disdain, not indifference.  We see compassion.  The Greek word means to be deeply moved.  Not a surfacy, lightweight pity.  This came from his gut.  He felt them.  This is true of God. God is connected to everyone and everything in creation.  When we hurt, God feels it.  Because God loves us, God also acts in loving ways as much as possible.

     Jesus taught and healed.  Not only does Jesus feel compassion, but Jesus also does something in response.  The response was to love them right where they were.  I usually separate and differentiate his teaching ministry from his healing ministry.  I think that may be a mistake.  Sometimes our worldview – which is informed or at least includes our theology – can be very damaging, causing pain in ourselves and others.  I’ve known people who have done terrible things while feeling completely justified by their theological reasoning and biblical proof texting.  I’ve known people who have been crippled by a theology that left them feeling very alone, judged, and utterly hopeless. I’ve known people who have walked away from God because their theological framework couldn’t adequately handle life’s toughest questions, and ultimately led to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist or is such a fickle jerk that God is not worth knowing or following.  So, I wonder what heals more for longer, restoring sight to blind eyes or providing people with a new vision of God and life?

     People believed.  People believed that Jesus – and the Spirit of God at work in him – was loving and kind.  That is a big first step in faith.  What do you believe is the primary nature of God?  Is God truly loving?  The people apparently believed so.  I think this is a very important first thing to consider: do you believe God is primarily known by love and loves you?  Yet believing isn’t simply mental ascent.  The kind of belief that we see here is the same kind of belief we see in Jesus.  Jesus saw the needs of the people (intellectual understanding), had compassion (he was deeply, emotionally affected), and he responded with teaching and healing (action).  Similarly, the people recognized that Jesus offered liberating insight and healing capacity that they needed (intellectual clarity), were aware of their desperation for it (deeply, emotionally moved), and they got themselves where they needed to be (action).  God is always loving and always working in loving ways to bring shalom (well-being, deep peace and harmony) into the world.  Yet God cannot singlehandedly heal anybody – healing of all kinds requires cooperation on the part of all involved.  Sometimes our willingness is enough to tip the scales toward healing. Sometimes there are other variables out of our control – and God’s – that restrict healing.

Pain and Prayer. When we are in pain, prayer is effective.When we pray, we are opened up to God in powerful ways.Because we are more connected to everything than we can possibly imagine, we do not fully realize what that simple act of praying does to impact everything else, giving God more to work with.It minimum, our prayer serves our relationship with God who is our strength and source of love, life, and hope.And I believe myriad forms of healing follow.

The Death of John

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

The Death of John the Baptist. What a lovely story we’ve been provided by the Gospels!  Did you catch the Hallmark Channel movie about it?  How about the children’s books? No, because neither exist!  Yet this account is actually helpful to us in many ways – at least it is for me.  Here are a few of my thoughts:

     Bad things happen.  We can do everything right, in lockstep with God, and still experience the worst of life, the worst from others, etc. This flies in the face of popular, shallow, poorly founded renderings of the faith expressed by Prosperity Gospel voices that proclaim that if you just have enough faith, you will be healed, you’ll get that job, and you can become financially secure.  Jolly Ovalteen is perhaps the most popular mouthpiece for this perspective in the United States.  One thing is certain: he has certainly grown incredibly rich from this perspective – from the poor suckers who give him their money, assured that God’s tenfold blessing will follow. Unfortunately, pain and suffering come anyway.  The bad experience usually isn’t God’s will, unless, of course, the bad stuff is us rightfully losing some things that we were stingy with or inappropriate with: the consequences of greed, lust, cheating, etc.

     The Uncontrolling Love of God versus Omnipotent God.  Research regarding religious practices in the United States makes a strong case that most people – even those who claim to be devout adherents of their faith – haven’t really plunged the depths of their beliefs through simply reading the Bible, let alone reading what scholars have to say about it.  Most folks practice a faith with conflicting ideas that cannot really live together, creating some serious dissonance in their faith experience.  Thomas Jay Oord has written several books detailing this tension.  He rightly notes that we have to decide which characteristic of God is primary: that God is all loving, or that God is all powerful.  It makes a massive difference.  If God is truly all powerful, John the Baptist would not have been executed.  Neither would millions of Jews have been executed by Nazism’s holocaust.  For more information, read Oord’s latest book, Open and Relational Theology, a very accessible book for general readers – the academics are sound, but it doesn’t read like a textbook.

     Why Bother with Faith?  If faith doesn’t somehow guarantee some protections – or worse, execution(!) – then I think some folks may simply walk away from the whole thing.  Especially if you have a transactional theology operating under your hood whereby you do your part so God must do God’s part, John’s death story may be extremely unsettling.  I encourage you to take away whatever “benefits” we might expect from faith, including the promise of heaven.  With all of that off the table, we are left with some essential questions: who do we really want to be?  What do we really want for our lives?  What do we want for our loved one’s lives?  What do we want for humanity?  For the created world?  For our country and other countries?  When we start asking questions like these, we start getting at core issues that really matter, and we also recognize a variety of life paths available.  I believe that Jesus proclaimed the highest hopes for the world and the path to get there.  The hopes/ends and means are both rooted in the Spirit, the essence of God.  These dreamy ideals are worth living into and dying for.  I have experienced pain and suffering because I have leaned into them, and I am so glad I did!  I am confident that there is more beyond the grave, that I will be welcomed, and that it will be more wonderfully mind-blowing than we can possibly imagine.  Yet my heavenly hope is not what keeps me on the straight and narrow.  I choose the less traveled path because, in my experience, Jesus was absolutely correct when he said the Way he was teaching and modeling leads to life in abundance.  Not wealth or health necessarily, but true, deep, enduring abundance.  I hope you and all people discover this, too, for it is the hope of the world.

            Jim Elliott.  Jim Elliott wanted to be a missionary, went through all the proper training, and made his way to Ecuador to try and reach some indigenous people there with the message of Jesus.  After a few years on the ground trying to figure out how to make contact, he and three other missionaries (plus an airplane pilot) began dropping gifts for the local tribe and using a loudspeaker to communicate words of welcome and kindness.  The five eventually created a small basecamp from which they hoped to begin reaching out directly to the tribe.  Some tribe members came to visit them and, judging by the positive exchange, it seemed like the outlook was good.  On January 8, 1956, the missionaries were getting ready to leave their camp to seek out the tribe when a group of 10 tribal warriors met them at the camp first.  Jim Elliott went to greet them and was immediately killed with a warrior’s spear.  All five men were killed and thrown into a river. They were found downstream sometime later.  Think what you want about such missionary approaches, but also think about the level of conviction Elliott and his comrades had as well regarding the faith they embraced.  In his journal, he noted: "he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

     Bonus: Nerd Notes.  When we read this story, it feels like lore (as it should).  The ancient historian Josephus recorded John’s execution after imprisonment in a much less dramatic retelling: he was executed in a prison quite a distance away from Herod Antipas’ palace, with no mention of any surrounding drama.  From a Roman history perspective, this adds up.  John was another upstart causing problems.  The solution was very often imprisonment and death. Why do the Gospels give us such a detailed tale?  Because they want to connect some dots for the readers who will remember Jewish stories with similarities: Ahab, Jezebel, and Naaman; Elijah and Jezebel; and Esther’s winning a favor from her husband-king.  Whether or not the story happened as the Gospels portray is irrelevant by ancient standards. Our focus should rather be on John’s execution, the reason behind it, and the implications for how we think about faith.

Hometown Dustup

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Here are some things that jumped out at me from this week’s text, Mark 6:1-13 (NLT):

• Not all environments are conducive to health, healing, growth, and success.  Things just didn’t go well in Nazareth.  Jesus’ family and long-time friends had a difficult time making room for Jesus to be more than a carpenter.  Welcome to Family Systems Theory 101!  Our families of origin – even incredibly healthy ones – are a system that does not like to be tweaked.  When a part of that system gets out of order, the whole system sometimes moves to get everyone back in line.  Sometimes these systems restrain us from good, new things. Sometimes, however, not so much.

  • Have you ever been in a situation where the context made it difficult for you to be anything other than what you had always been, where becoming something more or different or better was somehow harder than in other spaces?  Have there been times when the system was helping you stay healthy? Have you ever been part of a system that allowed you to change and grow?  How long did it take?

• Being in Nazareth was likely difficult for Jesus to live into his anointing.  We do not live in a vacuum.  Like it or not, or believe it or not, we are connected more than we realize.  Our actions affect those around us, and their actions affect us, too.  As one who is in front of a crowd regularly, I can tell you that the energy and response of the crowd can significantly impact my energy.  There is a very real energy dynamic at work.  SF Giants Pitcher, Johnny Cuedo, feeds off the crowd’s energy, which is one reason that contributed to his good performance on June 25: it was the first large crowd he had pitched in front of since the pandemic began.  He pitched over a month earlier on Mother’s Day, and flopped – could this have been related to the fact that it was a severely limited crowd? On a deeper level, I think it takes enormous strength and energy to overcome the impact of a context that is inconducive to health, healing, growth, and success.  I believe Jesus’ capacity to perform was hindered by the effect of the crowd – the context messed with him, too.  If this anointed person struggled, is it possible other human beings might, too?  Perhaps it’s time to give ourselves a break?

  • Have you ever experienced the difference between a crowd of support being behind you versus one that is indifferent or against you? What must this be like for people with little or no support?

• We can assume that Jesus was sure he was all about promoting shalom with shalom.  When faced with a context that was not conducive and perhaps hostile, and aware that this dynamic was no doubt messing with him, he chose to pivot.  He moved forward in an expanded way to continue his mission.  He moved on. Sometimes that’s a way or the only way to live into your True Self.

  • Have you ever needed to fly the coup in some way?  Did you leave baggage behind or was it as clean as it could be?  What was that experience like for you?  What were among the benefits of leaving?  What was hard about it?

• The disciples were sent in pairs to the surrounding villages to carry out the mission of bringing more shalom into the world with shalom.  They were sent, which means the sender believed in them, yet they were also sent in Jesus’ name.  They were sent in the same power and the same way as Jesus.  They weren’t sent out as Lone Rangers – they had a model to follow.  I wonder how everything might be different if Jesus followers followed Jesus so carefully that the world would see the connection instead of the disparity?  This explains some of the instruction, by the way, about not taking too much stuff and staying with the first host, not the richest host: all of these were related to living in the Way of Jesus.

  • When have you been expected to represent something larger than your own ego?  What was good about it?  What was challenging? How has your understanding of Christianity included representing Jesus well?  How has that worked for you?  What areas in your life need work in that regard?

• Shaking the dust off your feet.  On the one hand, this is a clear statement toward the people whose dust you collected.  However, it is possible that when the disciples did this, nobody noticed.  Therefore, perhaps the practice was equally good for the disciples themselves – or even more so.  Assessment was required on the part of the disciples to determine whether they did all that they could do.  This took some time for reflection and honesty.  When they determined that it simply did not make sense to keep grinding away on something that simply was not going to budge, the act of shaking the dust off their feet must have been cathartic. “I’ve done as much as anybody could.  I can leave in peace.”

  • Have you ever been in a situation that you assessed needed to be in your rear-view mirror?  How did you mark the moment? What was it like?  Are you facing a similar situation now?  How are you feeling about it? What do you need in place to feel peace about shaking the dust off your feet?

• Not all of Nazareth remained in disbelief.  By the time Jesus was executed, his brothers had come around.  One, James, is even credited with a letter in the New Testament bearing his name.  It would be easy for Jesus to look at his time in his hometown as a waste of energy.  But there is a verse in Isaiah (55:11) where God states that God’s word will not come back void but will produce fruit.  Sometimes what we do is scatter seed.  We will not necessarily see the fruit, and that’s just the way it is.  It is not necessarily good, but it is true.  Benjamin Lay lived in the United States leading up to the American Revolution.  A widely traveled and well-read man, and husband to his wife, a Quaker pastor, he became an outspoken proponent of abolition.  He was convinced that slavery was completely inconsistent with Christian ethics.  One of the people had conversed with regularly was Benjamin Franklin who was himself a slave owner.  So respected was Lay by the Franklin household that a picture of Lay hung in their home!  So influential was Lay that in his will, Franklin granted freedom for his slaves upon his death.  He almost nailed it!  It would have been nice if he believed so strongly to grant their freedom immediately.  Sigh.  Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, whose signature can be found on the Declaration of Independence, wrote, “The success of Mr. Lay, in sowing seeds of... a revolution in morals, commerce, and government, and in the new and in the old world, should teach the benefactors of mankind not to despair, if they do not see the fruits of their benevolent propositions, or undertakings, during their lives. Some of these seeds produce their fruits in a short time, but the most valuable of them, like the venerable oak, are centuries in growing.”  Don’t lose hope if your good work didn’t pan out like you hoped – what God is about will produce one way or another.

  • Have you ever felt like you wasted a ton of time for nothing?  Have you ever worked hard and experienced the fruit of your labor?  How does knowing that Jesus’ family eventually came around affect your level of hope?

Take your spirituality deeper.  I strongly encourage spending time daily reading and reflecting on a particular text.  I am currently following the Lectionary, which you can use to review the texts I’ve taught or the ones coming up.  Make the most of it!

Healing on the Way

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

This Week’s Primary Text: (Mark 5:21-43)

I think the following questions will help you get a lot from this text this week.  I share some of my personal intersection with the text below. Tip: I get the most from each week’s text by making time to read it slowly every day, with plenty of time, solitude, and silence to sit with it, write down some thoughts, be still enough to give the Spirit a chance to nudge me, etc.  Give it a try!

Jairus

·       What courage was required to humble himself to go personally and beg Jesus for help?

·       What was he advocating for? Given Jesus’ response, how does this inform our prayer life?

·       What restraint was necessary when Jesus stopped to help the unclean woman?

·       What was Jairus’ process in this healing story beyond the initial request?  How does this inform our imagination going forward?

·       How did you think he felt about the private audience v. crowd?

·       How did he feel about interacting with an unclean woman?

Hemorrhaging Woman

·       How do you suppose the woman’s poverty shaped her vision of herself? How might that have impacted her courage to seek healing? 

·       What impact do you think being ostracized from the faith community had on her sense of self and over all wellbeing? 

·       What courage was required for her to risk offending such an anointed one as Jesus?  What do you suppose went through her head?

·       What was she advocating for?  How does that inform our prayer life?

·       Why didn’t Jesus take credit for the healing?  How do we understand it?

·       What courage was required for her to wait for what was next following her immediate healing?

·       Would healing have happened even if her physical issues continued?

·       What did Jesus’ addressing her as “Daughter” communicate to her, to the disciples, Jairus, the crowd, us?

Jesus

·       What do you suppose was the primary purpose of including these two healing stories in Mark’s Gospel?

·       Why did Jesus tell the crowd not to follow to Jairus’ home?

·       Why did Jesus use the phrase “rise up” among so many other options?

·       Why did Jesus tell the Jairus’ parents not to tell people what happened?

·       Jesus’ pause created another healing in restoring the relationship that had faded.

Me

·       Where am I too proud to pray for help? Where am I too self-loathing to pray for help?

·       Why is courage required in the asking as well as in the surrender to what’s next?

·       What else might be healed beyond the issue I am praying for?

Wow!  What a rich story!  So much here to chew on that helps me see humanity more clearly as well as the nature of God as it worked through Jesus.  I have been thinking a bit about barriers to asking for help.  Jairus’ pride certainly was an obstacle; his humility in asking Jesus for help likely raised some eyebrows and helped build the crowd.  The woman’s low self-esteem was equally challenging to overcome – how many of us do not feel worthy to ask for help in some way?  At least for myself, I recognize that I am both Jairus and the woman – there prideful parts of me and there are also parts of me that I am not proud of – both keep me from reaching out to others and God.  

            Another piece of this has to do with the timing and the length of the encounter between Jesus and the woman.  Imagine if Jesus and Jairus were just 100 yards from his home where his daughter lay dying – just a couple of minutes away.  Imagine Jairus’ impatience and frustration at being slowed down – I would be!  Imagine the emotion he felt when he got the news that they were too late – was he angry for a moment?  What if they had not stopped for the woman?  I would be beside myself with a huge, messy ball of emotion.  Post-resurrection of his daughter, I wonder if he circled back to that scene.  I wonder if it dawned on him that Jesus called her “daughter”, and that she was as valued as his own little girl.  I wonder how humbling that must have been, as well as eye opening, mind blowing and heartwarming.  I imagine the same must have been true for the healed woman.  Jesus took time for her, did not reject her, and even called her daughter.  What a radical shift in perspective.  They looked at themselves, God, and each other differently after that.  How could they not?

Some pretty good quotes...

“You are never really well, just less sick.” – 70-Something-Year-Old Man

One who does what the Friend wants done

will never need a friend.

There is a bankruptcy that is pure gain.

The moon stays bright

when it does not avoid the night.

A rose’s rarest essence

lives in the thorn. – Rumi

Our suffering in this life may be unspeakable; we may feel ourselves to be completely isolated and alone, but in truth God is with us.  Not assuaging or canceling the pain but inhabiting it – and thereby transforming it. – Deborah Smith Douglas, “Enclosed in Darkness,” Weavings

Psalm 130

1 From the depths of despair, O Lord,
    I call for your help.
2 Hear my cry, O Lord.
    Pay attention to my prayer.

3 Lord, if you kept a record of our sins,
    who, O Lord, could ever survive?
4 But you offer forgiveness,
    that we might learn to fear you.

5 I am counting on the Lord;
    yes, I am counting on him.
    I have put my hope in his word.
6 I long for the Lord
    more than sentries long for the dawn,
    yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord;
    for with the Lord there is unfailing love.
    His redemption overflows.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
    from every kind of sin.

Mark 5:21-43 (NLT)

21 Jesus got into the boat again and went back to the other side of the lake, where a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. 22 Then a leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, 23 pleading fervently with him. “My little daughter is dying,” he said. “Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.”

24 Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowding around him.25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”

35 While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. They told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.”

36 But Jesus overheard[a] them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”

37 Then Jesus stopped the crowd and wouldn’t let anyone go with him except Peter, James, and John (the brother of James). 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. 39 He went inside and asked, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.”

40 The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. 41 Holding her hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” 42 And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed.43 Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what had happened, and then he told them to give her something to eat.

Faith-Full Life

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Let the center brighten your sight. – Rumi

This week’s lectionary texts offered an abundance of fodder for spiritual/personal growth: the story of David and Goliath, Jesus calming the storm, and Paul’s testimony about his experience walking deeply with God through great hardship were especially meaningful to me.  The biggest thing that emerged for me has to do with the power of faith in the face of fear, and what is involved in living faithfully.  Here are some of my thoughts...

David and Goliath.  Israel’s army and king were trapped by their fear of the giant Goliath.  David, who wasn’t stuck in the trenches with them but came into the situation from a different space, saw with faith instead, and realized that he himself was able to take down the human redwood.  I think the miracle here is that David brought all his gifts, skills, and practice to bear on the situation.  He threw off Saul’s heavy armor – it wasn’t tailored for him.  He only needed what he already had – his sling and some good stones.  He was a sharpshooter.  Which miracle is more inspiring – that God somehow guided the stone to kill Goliath, or the one where everything in David came together to defeat the enemy using the very miracle of his life?  Steph Curry has miraculously battled giants hundreds of times.  How?  By honing his skill through relentless work and practice.  What are we capable of?  What are the giants you are facing?  What’s the tool you bring to the field?

Jesus Calms the Storm.  The disciples were freaking out while Jesus took a nap.  They were all in the same boat battling the storm, yet only one was calm.  What did Jesus do when the disciples woke him up?  He rebuked the stormy wind and sea and they went calm.  This is the language of exorcism.  There is power in naming our fear, and there is power in rebuking it, too.  Sometimes the rebuke itself has surprising impact on us mentally and physically.  It is a statement of refusing to be controlled by fear and instead choosing the reality of faith.  Try it out – yell into a pillow if you need to – and see what happens.  What harm can it do?

Paul’s Encouragement. What a fascinating thing Paul says to the Corinthians!  Today is the day of salvation – don’t miss it or waste it!  And by the way, living out my faith has put me through a lot of hardship, and yet joy was there all along.  It is more than worth it.  Paul is talking about living from a centered life here, a life that is motivated and shaped by his faith.  Hardship is unavoidable – that’s life.  Yet somehow Paul’s way of life – which was the way Jesus taught and modeled – allowed him to persevere.  He had faith-formed eyes that allowed him to appreciate all the good of God and life despite and in spite of hardship.  He saw each day as the day of salvation.  I’ve heard it said that each day is a gift – that’s why we call it the present.  Gag me.  Am I the only one who would like to return some of these gifts?  And yet, there is truth here.  I think, however, that we need to add a line: the more we are present, the more we are able to see the gifts each day brings.  This is why Paul could say the things he said – his outward circumstances did not shake his foundation of faith.  He did not allow is circumstantial reality to distract him from ultimate reality, which is eternal, which is Spirit, which is God. One way of life has us focus on things that are not really real.  The Way has us live from Reality.  Cultivating that perspective takes time and discipline, and if we don’t maintain it we can find ourselves right back into a paradigm of fear.  It will happen.  Get back to Reality as fast as you can.

All Around and Upside Down

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

We – all of us everywhere – are spiritual people.  This is simply true, right alongside saying that we are also physical people who have bodies and breath.  Our culture is very aware of how to care for and develop our physicality, with lots of agreement on what we need to be healthy and growing.  We know we need to eat right and get some exercise most days, and we need to avoid eating and drinking some things in excess (or not at all) that will harm us.  When it comes to developing our spirituality, there is not the same level of widespread agreement. Sometimes it seems that there are so many books, podcasts, and voices that we don’t know where to start and, in the overwhelm, stall out.  I would like to offer a simple process which hails from the Judeo-Christian tradition that might provide a foundation from which we can develop a healthy, growing spirituality.

            The Jewish and Christian traditions organized a variety of scripture passages to be read throughout the year.  The Christian tradition expanded on the idea and developed three different years’ worth of passages to expose the Church to the fullness of scripture while being relevant to major events in the Christian calendar, like the birth of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and the birth of the Church.  This organized collection is called the Lectionary. Most churches who follow this use the Revised Common Lectionary.  We are currently in Year B.  Most Catholic and many Protestant churches around the world follow the schedule to guide and inform their worship services.  Baptists, being the renegades that we are, aren’t as likely to use it given our bent toward the free church tradition. Yet there is great value in using the Lectionary to keep us in touch with sacred text as a catalyst for understanding and growth.

            Here is my recommendation.  Carve out time daily – preferably the same time every day to help you build the habitual rhythm (I prefer this to be the first thing in the morning).  To center yourself, do a short breathing meditation to get in touch with your full self – body, mind, emotions, spirit – and get to a place where you are genuinely open.  Finish the time with The Lord’s Prayer, reading/saying it slowly, line by line, ingesting each movement’s meaning.  Then, read the select passages.  After reading them, sit in still silence for a while.  Jot down what impressions you have after reading and sitting with it, and perhaps even a prayer in response.  In my experience, when I have done this daily, I have new insights nearly every day even though I am reading the same daily verses.  Perhaps choose to wrap up your time by speaking St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer?

            Why do I think this works?  Reading sacred text roots us with our spiritual ancestors within our tradition – we are somehow joined with them in the conversation around the same ideas.  Exposing ourselves to the texts provides a catalyst for the Spirit of God to move in us.  When we do this in community, we potentially find ourselves growing in shared meaning, encouraging each other along the way.  As I will teach each week (unless I dart off into a series for a bit), you can use what I bring to help further your understanding.  Or, you could work ahead and have the Sunday service help bring the whole experience home.  Let’s give it a whirl...

Readings for the coming week: 1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13; Psalm 20; Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17; Mark 4:26-34

My takeaways...

The primary passage that caught my attention this week was Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom of God – one about the farmer scattering seed, and the other about the small size of the mustard seed and the eventual large size of the plant. The following bubbled up for me:

·      There is way more happening than meets our eye, understanding, and imagination. Sometimes I dupe myself into thinking that I’m all alone in the world and it’s all up to me and what I do.  This drives me at times, but it can also be destructive as it can lead to me doing too much, and trying to control what I can which might exclude others, including God!  Like Elijah on the mountaintop, I need to be reminded that the Spirit is everywhere, good, and constantly doing good in the world.

·      The seeds planted had a purpose: to develop, grow, and then feed or seed perpetually.  The Kingdom of God is a collective, a presence, yet it includes people.  As sentient beings, we have more agency than most other beings in our world to decide what we do with our lives.  The process of the seed serves as a reminder that we are meant to grow and flourish, and not just for ourselves, but to provide nourishment for others as well as seed for more of the Spirit to flourish as well.

·      The Spirit of God does not consult much with our cultural values, but rather operates from a different center.  King Saul fit the cultural bill – tall, dark, and handsome – and yet he was not a good pick because he couldn’t stay in the obedience zone with God.  David wasn’t the likely choice to be anointed by Samuel – he was actually the last choice – yet he became the favorite King of Israel and called “a man after God’s own heart” even though he failed many times.  How do we evaluate people?  Do we see primarily through a culturally fashioned lens or the Spirit?  It’s always both.  My goal is to be aware that it’s both and do my best to see through the Spirit more than our culture.

·      The mustard plant is a biblical paradox. We are not talking about an obviously glorious tree like the cedars or Lebanon or a California redwood.  We’re not even talking about a tree!  Jesus shifts from the ancient prophets here with his choice of metaphor.  A mustard plant may provide shelter for some birds and shade as well, but it would otherwise go unnoticed, and certainly would not be associated with strength.  This is important for us to understand as those who live in one of the world’s most powerful countries that celebrates its strength of businesses and military.  Like the lens issue before, how are we holding the tension between Kingdom of God sensibilities and those that are culturally derived?

·      Do what we know to do toward shalom with shalom, knowing that there is more going on that we are somehow a part of, and that the outcome will be good even though it might not even register on cultural scales.  Alabama football coach Nick Saban is known for implementing an approach to the game he calls “The Process”.  Simply put, he encourages his players to not think about anything except the play at hand, the next best move.  How distracted we can become, and how helpful this reminder is to just do the next best thing. The Star Wars movie, Rogue One, is based on one small but important scene from Episode IV where Princess Leah delivers a message through R2D2.  The entire movie is about how that message got in that droid.  Spoiler alert: at the end of the movie, the message is successfully delivered, but the key characters responsible for the delivery die.  Their deaths were not in vain, however.  When we choose to sail by the winds of the Spirit, we can live, rest, and die confident of the same.

What about you?  After spending time reflecting on these passages, what is stirring in you?

Skeleton Valley

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Note: Scroll to the end to see tips on how to use this text to grow throughout the week.

What would it feel like to wake up one day and be told at gunpoint that you had to leave every possession behind except what would fit into a suitcase, and be removed from your home and placed in an entirely different, foreign, inhospitable environment?  Our thoughts go to the Jewish people who endured the Holocaust.  Or to Africans ripped from their home continent to become the slaves that enriched and enabled our country to stand on its own two feet.  Or to the Indigenous People who were killed or moved out of their homes to make room for colonization.  Most of us in the United States today can only imagine the horror, loss, grief, and despair of such a thing.  The Jewish people, however, experienced this roughly six centuries before Jesus was born as their nation crumbled before the Babylonian Empire.  Most of the key people were ripped from their homes in Israel and displaced hundreds of miles away to present day Iraq under the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar II.  Ezekiel and his family were among those taken into exile.  Fifteen years (!) into exile, the Jewish people received word that their beloved city, Jerusalem, had been completely leveled.  All hope seemed lost.  It was during this deep despair that Ezekiel had a vision (Ezekiel 37:1-14 | NLT).

The LORD took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the LORD to a valley filled with bones. He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”

“O Sovereign LORD,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.”

Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”

So I spoke this message, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’”

So I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’ Therefore, prophesy to them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the LORD. I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the LORD has spoken!’”

Remains.  The vision begins with an up-close view of a terrible scene: a valley where a horrible battle was waged a long time before, with the war dead’s bones scattered about.  Ezekiel didn’t view this from a Vista Point; he was led into the valley so as not to miss the details of how many remains there were, how dry the bones were and how scattered they were.  I think our self-preservation systems keep us at the Vista Point where we don’t have to see things as clearly.  Yet I believe that if we want to really heal through the painful times in our lives, we need to take a close look.  Ezekiel had the Lord as a guide – we always do, too. Sometimes we need a counselor, or authors, or speakers, or friends who really listen well to help us see what we are dealing with.  If we don’t, sometimes our problems are simply big, tightly wound knots that are difficult to deal with.  Closer inspection helps us untangle our pain so that we can deal with it more manageably and pursue healing sooner.  Sometimes time heals wounds, but the amount of healing and the time is takes is aided when we take a slow walk through Skeleton Valley. What are the unexamined areas of your life that you have preferred to keep at a distance? What is keeping you from taking a closer look?  Who can you invite to walk with you? 

Religioned.  The Lord asks Ezekiel if the bones can live.  Like Jesus’ disciples, Ezekiel had learned by now not to make assumptions and rightly responded, “God only knows”.  By the power of God, the bones reassembled, and flesh even returned. These were now bodies capable of life. What dawned on me is that there was a process involved.  So it is with us.  We don’t just go from broken to whole in an instant, whether we are talking about physical or emotional pain.  There are steps that can’t be skipped that take time.  In my experience, I need to get to one level of healing or insight before I am able to receive the next, sort of like working through an escape room whereby solving one puzzle leads you to a new puzzle leading you to more puzzles until the last one is solved that opens the door to freedom.  Life is like that.  Religion is supposed to help people do just that, to re-ligament their broken lives so that people can become whole again. Where are you in your process of becoming whole?  What might your next step be in your lifelong journey of becoming?

Resurrected.  In the vision, the bodies were back together, but there was no breath in them.  The Lord instructed Ezekiel to call on the Wind to make the difference.  This scene reminds the readers that we are more than flesh and bones.  Our underlying essence is born of the Spirit.  Neglecting this reality likely will leave us as lifeless lumps. In my experience, the world around us doesn’t encourage such things, which means we have to be intentional about it, which takes time and discipline.  In my experience, my connection to the Spirit is fostered through regular time for prayer, sacred reading, solitude, silence, listening, and journaling.  It serves as a vision reset.  God is always present for the meeting, but I must get myself there. What are you doing to intentionally foster your connection to the Spirit of God?

Revisiting Context.  I have focused mostly on how to apply this vision to our personal lives.  We must remember, however, that the original recipient was a nation.  The same principles apply.  If we want genuine healing in our nation, we have to be willing to really examine Skeleton Valley up close and personal, with the aid of others to help us see what is there.  We need to go through each necessary stage of healing.  And, to keep us from finding ourselves in the same mess, we need to have our hearts molded by the Spirit so that we will see each other and all of creation more clearly.  In our overly politicized culture, how might we encourage these steps?

Deepen your experience: Try Divine Reading.  This is a time-tested practice that allows time and space for the Spirit of God to speak to us as we engage biblical passages.  Use this week’s text this week.  Carve out at least 20 minutes or so in your schedule when and where you can be alone, still, and silent.  Take some deep breaths before you begin to help you get centered.  Read the text slowly.  Pause for a few moments.  Read it again slowly.  Pause again.  Read it a third and final time.  Sit silently, choosing to be open to listening, and see if anything bubbles up.  Perhaps a word or phrase jumped out at you.  Maybe an idea came to mind related to the text.  Right about it in a journal (trust me – it helps).  Over time I believe you will learn more and more to discern the voice of God and the movement of the Spirit in your interaction, which will lead you to Life itself.

Sikhism

Zen Buddhist Priest and former university religion professor Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Ph. D., provides us an overview of this ancient religious tradition. Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Hinduism

Zen Buddhist Priest and former university religion professor Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Ph.D., gives us an overview of this ancient religious tradition. Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Islam

Zen Buddhist Priest and former university religion professor Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Ph.D., teaches us about this ancient religious tradition. Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Buddhism

Zen Buddhist Priest and former university professor Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Ph.D, gives us an overview of this ancient religious tradition. Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Pizza Be With You!

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

John 20:19-23 (NLT)

That [Easter] Sunday evening the [broader community of followers, not just the 11,] were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again, he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Pizza, Baby!  Many friends and family members can readily tell you that one of my favorite foods is pizza.  When my family visited my uncle’s home when I was 4 or 5 years old, they served pizza.  It was during that dinner that my family realized they had a legit progeny on their hands: nobody they had ever seen ate pizza with the same passion, skill level, and appetite as me.  My Uncle Jack nick-named me Pizza Baby.  My oldest sister still calls me that to this day.  Why pizza?  WHY NOT PIZZA!!!?  It is one of God’s perfect foods. Our elected officials in Washington a few years back even recognized pizza as a vegetable.  Note: this may have had more to do with large pizza companies with massive school-lunch contracts than science, but I think we’ve all learned by now that we can completely trust government officials to trust science over all else.  So, there you have it, pizza is a vegetable!  Praise God!

Tasty Heresy.  I like biblical research.  I take the Bible very seriously (yet not literally), not because God wrote it (God did not write it), but because it is a library of material representing the faith experience of mainly Jewish people from around 2000 BCE’ish through 100 CE’ish.  There is a lot there. One of the things the Bible says not to do is alter the text.  Nonsense!  For today’s purpose, I wonder if we might benefit some by trading out “Peace” for “Pizza”.  I can sense you nodding your head in complete agreement.  No explanation required, really. Yet I will anyway, if only to give me another opportunity to talk more about this food of the gods.

“Pizza be with you.”  Who wouldn’t want to be welcomed with such a lovely, generous greeting? We all know what it implies – the one offering the greeting wishes us to be fed with the most important delicacies known to humanity.  It is a statement wishing us to be well fed with a particular entrée, one that will delight any and all who taste it.  The peace Jesus speaks is like that.  Shalom is the Jewish word for peace, and is a rich, deep word that communicates to its hearers the sense of being satisfied, at rest, content, nourished, joyful, satiated, and more.  Shalom has always been the agenda of what/who we call God.  Shalom has also been the means to that end.  Shalom is so central to our understanding of the Jewish faith that you could nearly say that one of the primary characteristics of God is shalom, because it encompasses so much.  Love, grace, mercy, justice and more all are included in every slice of pizza.

Pizza Delivery.  Early in the Gospel of John, we are told – from Jesus’ mouth, no less – that “God loved the world so much that he sent his only son into the world so that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life.  God did not send him into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16-17).”  Jesus wasn’t talking about getting to heaven one day.  Jesus was talking about living in the presence heaven that is already here and extends forever, everywhere.  He was saying that there is a way to live that is sourced in deep life for those who want it.  He also made it clear that the method of his ministry was not condemnation, but love.  You know what Jesus is talking about here, right?  Pizza!  Jesus came to bring pizza to the world!  Which means, obviously, that at the end of the day, Jesus was simply a pizza delivery guy.

Pizza for everybody.  Jesus was the ultimate pizza delivery guy.  He was willing to deliver pizza anywhere and to anyone who wanted a slice.  Some people traveled great distances to get some pizza.  Jesus himself traveled great distances to deliver pizza where there was none.  Sometimes Jesus even showed up in front of people who knew they needed to eat something new but had not been introduced to pizza yet.  Oh, what joy to be able to introduce people to pizza!  Can you imagine!  The look on their faces as their taste buds are resurrected from the dead with a savory mixture of ingredients that will surely overwhelm them.  There were some, of course, that turned their noses up at the pizza Jesus was delivering, thinking they had the real pizza.  They called what they were delivering pizza, yet a lot of people weren’t really evidencing the impact of eating great pizza.

Cardboard with sauce.  I made a terrible mistake awhile back.  My daughter went to visit her brother in SoCal earlier this year, which meant Lynne and I could indulge on something Laiken was just okay with (only because we ate it a lot).  Cauliflower crust pizza.  Two for $8.00. Pretty tasty.  Throw some chicken and extra cheese are you’ve got a completely healthy dinner.  Costco let me down, however – they were all out of our desired pizza!  So, I took a major risk. There before me was a box of four frozen margherita pizzas.  Four!  For $5.00!  Could this be a new heaven-sent revelation of incredible proportions? No, it was not.  Lynne and I ate one of the pizzas for dinner and looked at each other.  Sometimes you don’t need words.  We both knew that we would not eat this pizza again.  It looked like pizza, but it was so devoid of flavor that we are convinced that it was actually post-consumer recycled cardboard with red-colored motor oil and red and green rubber chips made to look like tomatoes and green pepper.  This was technically pizza, but so awful it was hard to really call it pizza.  Many people in Jesus’ day were hungry for good pizza and were given this.  Not satisfying.  Distasteful.  An offense to good pizza everywhere.  And overpriced. There was deep corruption on the part of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day that resulted in terrible abuse on the part of the leaders toward those they were supposed to serve.  Perhaps the grossest exaggerated example of their corruption was that they were so threatened by the pizza Jesus was delivering that they got rid of him.  They killed the pizza delivery guy. Yet the pizza was still being made. And it needed to be delivered.

Cool uniforms included.  When Jesus told the disciples that they were being sent by God as he was sent, you understand what was happening, right?  The disciples were done with their training phase.  Despite their fear and lack of experience, they were given the cool hat, shirt, and car badging: ready or not, it was time to get some pizza delivered. Up to that point, the disciples knew they were in training.  They had some ideas about what might be ahead for them, but not really. Recognize how he framed it, though.  You are being sent as I was sent.  In the same way, for the same purpose, with the same approach.  The end goal: get delicious pizza delivered in a such a way that the recipients can’t wait to take a bite.  Their new job involved them, of course, but it was not about them.  It was about the pizza and delivering the pizza. 

Keys, car, gas.  When Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” it was Jesus telling the new pizza deliverers that they had everything that Jesus had to deliver pizza well.  They knew they were delivering pizza, and now they were given the keys to the delivery car, plus a card to buy gas.  This was a really big deal.  The book of Acts paints it quite differently, tying the moment to the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, which celebrated, in a sense, the giving of the pizza in a profound way to Israel.  The end result was the same: the sheepish disciples turned into shepherds.  People who were once simply fans of pizza were to now go deliver pizza to the masses.  The disciples probably questioned whether or not this was okay.  After all, to become a legit card-carrying rabbi in Jesus’ day required years and years of intense training.  Jesus was essentially telling them that they had acquired enough training.  The Spirit, which they likely thought was meant for only very few prophet-types, was now there’s as well.  They had a perpetually full tank of gas. Time to get some pizza to the world!

Pizza Variants.  The new pizza deliverers would discover that there would be challenges ahead.  They knew already that the pizza they had been served by the religious leaders from Jerusalem was technically pizza but had lost something along the way.  Jesus helped them recognize that great pizza comes from lots of different recipes reflecting all sorts of creativity and speaking to all sorts of different kinds of people.  I have grown to appreciate this reality as I have continued to learn more and more about pizza.  Growing up, there were very few options.  It was basic. Pepperoni, maybe some olives, thin crust.  Then Pizza Hut made deep dish popular.  The heavens opened up!  Over time I became conversant with a range of classic pizzas made in different styles.  Chicago, Detroit, and New York all boast great classic pizza, but made differently.  All delicious.  At some point when I was working on my Masters in the Chicago area, I ate at a California Pizza Kitchen and found myself in the middle of a crisis of belief. On the menu, daringly under the heading of “Pizzas”, they boldly included their Thai Chicken Pizza.  What?!  What are they thinking?  This is blasphemous!  Further down they also had BBQ Chicken!  Eventually they had the audacity to add all sorts of pizzas boasting flavors from many cultures.  Was this still pizza?  Yes, it was. New ways of expressing pizza from different influences are actually delicious.  It’s still pizza. One of the things I am really excited about is the upcoming series at CrossWalk which will feature Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Ph.D., who is a Zen Buddhist Priest and Chaplain.  She will be teaching us about four different religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam.  You’ll be learning how these different cultures got their pizza.  Sounds like a very tasty series.

Pizza Police?  At the close of this scene with the disciples-now-apostles, Jesus gives them an incredibly powerful instruction: whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, whatever you do not loose on earth will not be loosed in heaven.  The word forgive is often used instead of loosed.  This was a massive statement of power and responsibility.  Remember that Jesus told the disciples that they were sent as he was, and the same Spirit that empowered him was empowering them.  They were to mimic Jesus’s pizza delivering style going forward.  It was all about the pizza.  There were times when Jesus delivered pizza to some folks who the religious authorities said were not allowed to eat pizza.  Nonsense!  Jesus made sure everyone he met had the opportunity to eat pizza if they so desired. It was always available.  Pizza be with you is an ongoing reality, after all.  The Church, historically, got off track many times in their role as pizza deliverers. Enormous untold millions of people have suffered because of it. People were refused pizza because they wanted Thai Chicken instead of Margherita.  People were refused because of their gender.  Or because of their nationality.  Or culture.  Or skin tone. Or language. Or marital status.  Or sexual orientation. Or social status. Or education level. Or political power.  It is a very, very, very long and horrific list.  The Church in these instances offered a semblance of pizza, but they also allowed some other things to slip onto the menu that were not pizza at all.  There are all sorts of pizzas for all sorts of occasions and even types of meals.  Dessert pizza is delicious, and often has fruit or chocolate, or both!  Breakfast pizza might have fruit, or bacon and eggs. Sometimes a fried egg is thrown on a pizza just to mix things up.  But you still know you’re eating pizza.  You know the difference between a bowl of soup and a slice of pizza.  I’m pushing the limits of my metaphor a bit but let me simply remind us that we are about delivering pizza. Pizza is our thing.  The pizza should be delicious.  The pizza should be delivered to whoever wants a slice, just like Jesus.

Refused.  Some of you have been refused pizza for some of the reasons I mentioned.  I am so sorry.  There is no excuse.  Somehow those deliverers forgot about being sent like Jesus, with the same Spirit empowering and informing.  I hope you know you can have a slice anytime you want, with no conditions attached.  Pizza be with you.

Refusing.  Jesus’ mandate, however, begs some really important questions for us to consider as we think about what it means to be representatives and deliverers of pizza.  There are some things that are not on the menu.  Ideas, actions, and policies that turn a blind eye toward justice, that abuse certain people but not others, or in negligence allows suffering to continue toward others or creation itself are not pizza.  I think it’s okay to state what is pizza and what is not.  The challenge for us who are deliverers is to be very cognizant of how we define pizza, and how we chose to come to our rubric for defining pizza in the first place. We are all biased.  We are all married to our paradigms.  What a horrible tragedy when we are more wed to our way of seeing the world than we are the pizza we are called to deliver.

Pizza Chef.  We are not the pizza creators, even though sometimes we think we are. When we mistake ourselves for the creators of the pizza, we can cause some real damage.  Some of you have been told that since you are a single mother, or LGBTQ, or divorced, or fill in the blank, you are in sin.  Sometimes we say things that we are not authorized to say about the pizza.  You aren’t changing heaven for that person, but you are severely limiting it.  When we restrict God from people because they don’t fit our understanding, we are keeping them from God.  That is why Jesus’ statement is so powerful and why it must be treated with incredible care.  We already do this quite naturally and often terribly.  Don’t ask yourself “if” you do this, ask yourself “how” you do this, because if you are human, you are very likely restricting pizza from people who are really starving for it.  Similarly, when we see something in front of us that is clearly not pizza and we allow it, we are also perpetuating the horrible problems that plague us.  Massive problems around race, immigration, economic disparity, education, health – all of the whoppers – will not change if those who see what is happening remain silent.  It takes great courage to call things “not pizza” when they are actually soup.  Sometimes other well-meaning pizza deliverers are delivering pizza, but they’re also including “not pizza” and we get confused.  Call pizza and “not pizza” thoughtfully and courageously.  Real lives depend on it.  Indigenous Americans were brutalized by “not pizza”.  Africans were taken from their homeland and sold like cattle because of “not pizza”, and African Americans today still are a long way from equality and equity because we who do not look like them can’t see the “not pizza,” let alone call it out. It’s a long list, and it is complicated and messy, and it is also part of our role as pizza deliverers.

Pizza Piggies.  Some of you were told that being a Christian is mainly about eating pizza.  You were told wrong.  You are certainly invited to become growing aficionados of pizza, no doubt!  Keep exploring and learning about pizza!  Yet you were not called to simply sit on the couch and enjoy pizza while the world around you starves.  Please don’t see this as a reprimand but rather as an invitation.  You get to be pizza deliverers.  Not in a force-it-down-peoples-throats kind of way – that’s not reflective of being sent like Jesus.  Like Jesus, however, we can enjoy the pizza and let the joy of pizza permeate our entire being so that pizza just wonderfully and naturally comes out of our pores.  Those early pizza deliverers captured the attention of those around them because they were such fans of pizza and were willing to share pizza with everyone.  The world would surely be a better place if we did.  This is your wonderful, life-changing and world improving invitation.  

May you fully embrace the pizza that is freely offered you without condition.

May the pizza bring you deep satisfaction.

May you hear the wonderful invitation to become a pizza deliverer like Jesus, fully equipped.

May you have the humility and courage to recognize “not pizza” in yourself.

May you have the humility and courage to call out “not pizza” in the world.

May you relish and celebrate as you see hunger satisfied by Great Pizza, energy restored, the smell of great pizza wafting through the air as worship to God, for that is precisely what we are called to do.

Pizza be with you.

2021 Annual Report

May 2021

Pastor’s Annual Report

Dear CrossWalkers,

What a year! What an understatement.  At our Board of Stewards meeting in April 2020, we prepared ourselves for a dismal year, not knowing how long we would remain closed, or how many CrossWalkers would be directly impacted in their health or employment or housing or all of the above.  We took a conservative, wait-and-see stance, putting in place some immediate financial controls to limit our exposure, while taking advantage of the resources made available.  All the while, we provided the same amount of ongoing direct ministry to CrossWalkers as when we were on campus, except everything was virtual. Services saw good and steady attendance across Zoom, YouTube, and our podcast.  New people found us and engaged with us. With the campus empty, we made a wide range of improvements using Capital Improvement funds created for that purpose over many years.  Lots of areas have been refreshed, new flooring has been installed, some rooms reconfigured, others totally redone (HUGE thanks for Loren Haas, Jim Della Santa, Ted Valencia, and Lynne Shaw).  The gym is still on its way as the kitchen, locker rooms, lobby and lobby bathrooms are getting renovated.  A range of grants have come in from outside CrossWalk to help with these projects – isn’t that great? Thanks to your generosity, CrossWalk has come through the past year with flying colors.  We are stronger now than we were then.  We are better equipped to serve than we were before.  We have felt the sting of death, yet we have also experienced hope and are choosing to lean into it.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Annual Meeting Items and Information.  As our Annual Meeting approaches, I wanted to give you some information so that when you attend the meeting on May 23rd, you are prepared to vote or ask any questions you may have.

When: May 23, 2021 @ 11:00. As has been our practice for many years, the Annual Business Meeting will open before our 11:00 service begins, with the first agenda item being worship!  CrossWalk Active Members will be mailed a ballot to cast their vote. You can return it in person or mail it in.  If you did not receive a ballot, we may have made an error.  Please contact Dar for assistance.

• Church Officer Election.  The Board of Stewards has once again nominated Linda Smetzer to remain as our Church Clerk, and we newly recommend Stephen Corley as Treasurer.  Stephen Corley was appointed to the Treasurer role by the Stewards last June after Michele Corley resigned from the position.  While a Steward, Stephen sat on the Finance Team as the appointed liaison for the Board.  He was an obvious choice and has done a great job.

• Stewards Nominees. The Stewards asked a range of CrossWalk Active Members to consider running for these three-year terms.  The three nominees we present today are outstanding.  CJ Prutch is just finishing a year filling a vacant space on the Board and is eligible to run again.  Karen Kenny has served on the Board as well and will continue to be an excellent Steward.  Becky Peterson is recently retired from her career largely on the Executive level of critical Non-Profit Organizations.  While in retirement, she will continue to consult with NPOs.  What a gift to have her skillset onboard! We thank Beth Cortez, Bruno Bardet, and CJ Prutch for their service as their terms come to an end.

• 2021-2022 Proposed Budget.  The Stewards are recommending a modest increase to the budget, from $382,354 to $388,690.  There is one big, exciting change in the budget that deserves celebration.  We will no longer be squirreling away funds each month to eventually pay off our solar energy system because we have now saved $50,000 to pay the contract off when it comes due in 2023!  This means we are ahead of schedule!  Yay!  It also means we can allocate funds toward ministry, in this case, a half time Children’s Ministry Director.  Our search will be methodical, informed by the feedback of CrossWalk parents of younger children as well as from a few community members.  Yay!  Also, know that the budget reflects a 2% COLA increase to keep up with inflation, which is roughly the same amount.  Even though it is a little more money, it is not a raise – it simply keeps us current.  To not provide COLA would essentially be a pay cut.

  • Payroll Protection Programs.  CrossWalk qualified for and pursued both rounds of the Payroll Protection Program and was awarded both.  The first round funded nearly a year ago and provided a protective buffer for our uncertain economic future (as it was designed).  We kept all staff throughout the past year.  Recently we received a letter stating that the first round has been completely forgiven – the loan became a grant.  We received a second round in March and anticipate that it will be completely forgiven as well since we are abiding by its terms.  These funds were extremely helpful and greatly appreciated!

  • Restricted Funds.  The biggest news to share about what we were able to do here has to do with our Reserve Fund and another, newly created Children’s Ministry Director Fund.  We were able to double our Reserve Fund and establish the Children’s Ministry Director Fund. The Reserve Fund is tapped when our contributions do not meet our contracted needs, which happens from time to time.  The newly increased amount provides a more adequate buffer given the size of our budget.  The Children’s Ministry Director Fund was created because in years past, we have not been able to sustain the position due to lack of funding.  While the compensation for this role will come from the General Fund, this dedicated reserve fund provides an extra cushion to guarantee the role’s sustainability.  Also, if we believe we have found a candidate that requires us to offer more compensation, this fund could be used for that, too.  The fact that we never needed to touch our Reserve Fund during the past year is amazing. The fact that we were able to double it and create a new fund is truly incredible and is why we can feel confident going forward with a new hire.

• Inclusive Church. Recently, the Board of Stewards adopted the following statement of inclusivity and asks you to formally affirm it as well:

  • We, Crosswalk’s Board of Stewards and Leadership, believe in inclusive faith community. A faith community which celebrates and affirms every person and does not discriminate. We will continue to challenge discrimination against people on grounds of disability, economic power, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity, or sexuality. We believe in a faith community which welcomes and serves all people in the name of Jesus Christ; which is scripturally faithful; which seeks to proclaim the Gospel afresh for each generation; and which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, allows all people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Jesus Christ.

CrossWalk Goals. When considering how effective we are as a church, we use the life and ministry of Jesus as our primary reference point.  One word is associated with Jesus more than any other figure in world history: resurrection.  More than just life after death, this word also refers to Jesus’ work in the world, bringing life to dead places, bringing the renewal that comes with shalom, restoring people with the very Good News that God is love and that all people are loved.  Embracing this quality and experience of eternal life is a choice that falls into five major areas that we pursue with significant intentionality: embodying grace that stands for justice while helping the broken rise, kneeling in service to others, stretching in our understanding, connecting with God to foster deepening spirituality, and incarnating the Spirit of Christ with each other in community.  Here are some highlights from the past year:

• Grace: Justice, Mercy, with Humility.  How did we embody Good News?

  • We reached a growing number of people over the past twelve months.  Every Sunday we held virtual services on Zoom, YouTube, and also on our podcast.  On Zoom, we welcomed roughly 30 homes onto the screen each week (between two services) to watch together and discuss afterward.  Our YouTube channel followers increased from not much over 100 to 477.  That doesn’t mean they watch every week, but it does mean they are watching us.  Our Facebook followers also increased from 1,116 to 1322.  The meaningfulness of these numbers has more to do with our “reach capacity” more than anything else.  The numbers on YouTube and Facebook represent interested people who will hear what we say.

  • Stories.  There has been a recurring theme in the stories that come our way.  They almost always refer to people who didn’t realize there was a way to embrace faith like we do.  They are finding acceptance, inspiration, and despite our virtual approach, they are also finding community.  Amazing.  One really cool thing was that I received the Excellence in Leadership Award from the Center for Volunteer and Non-profit Leadership (CVNL).  Most Napa NPO’s are aware of it.  It was such a great honor to be recognized outside of the church world.  Of course, a leader who has no followers is just a person taking a walk, so the award really represents Team CrossWalk – I just got to receive it – thank you for being awesome!

  • Solidarity. CrossWalk, either through her pastors, or signage, or campus, or in the community, has taken stands for greater inclusivity in Napa. Last June, I helped organize a Healing and Grieving Vigil with Napa clergy to honor George Floyd’s murder, which went well.  In the Fall we officially joined Common Ground, the local affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), which is a community organizing group that works to effect important social change. Recently, the Board of Stewards unanimously voted to affirm legislation, The Equality Act, which is aimed at providing and protecting rights for the LGBTQ community.  Stephen Corley has been engaged with the Evergreen Association in a training program designed to help us increase our understanding and influence regarding racial equality and equity, with the hopes of bringing the training to CrossWalk. 

• Kneeling in Service.  We weren’t able to kneel in the same ways as we did prior to the pandemic, but we still did a lot!

  • Food Pantry.  The heavenly crowns for Karie Nuccio and Linda Smetzer are getting so loaded with jewels they are going to need neck braces when they arrive!  These two put in multiple days each week collecting, organizing, and distributing food to those who would otherwise fall through the cracks!  We expanded their space this year, too, which meant they had to help make that shift happen.  Thanks to Ben Neuman, Jim Della Santa, Ted Valencia, and others (sorry if I missed you) who helped expand their space!

  • Sanctuary Childcare Center. In the summer our campus was used by the Boys and Girls Club for childcare for essential workers.  It all happened quite safely.

  • Evacuation Center and Charging Center.  We were called on twice to open up as a shelter.  During the LNU Fire, we had very few guests. The Glass Fire, however, brought hundreds to be processed into hotels, while we housed around 30 for a week or so.  We also opened during the Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events as one of PG&E’s designated charging stations in Napa.  At PG&E’s expense, a generator and automatic switch was put in place during fire season.  We have contracted with them for the next four years regarding this role.

  • Emergency Pet Pantry.  We welcomed this important partnership with Jamieson Animal Rescue in the summer, which now provides pet essentials to those in need every week.

  • COAD.  Dar and I both gave (and give) an enormous amount of time to help lead different areas of the COAD (Community Organizations Active in Disaster).  Dar is the Co-Chair of the Food Services Sub-Committee.  I am the Co-Chair of the Mental Health and Faith Leaders Sub-Committee and am currently the Vice Chair of the Executive Committee.  The first three months of the pandemic were absolutely grueling but tapered off some since.  It is very important work, bringing the immense resources of Napa’s NPO’s together to meet the need the County cannot meet alone.  Napa County’s COAD is the envy of all CA counties!

  • CrossWalk Campus Feasibility Study.  We are in the middle of a feasibility study in partnership with Human Good that will give us some ideas of how we might leverage our property to do even more to serve Napa in the area of affordable housing.  Nothing to share yet, but we will once the study is complete.  Could be very exciting, or terrifying, or both, and neither!

• Stretching our Understanding.  We are a church that takes learning seriously.  Even though we have been virtual for a year, I have tried to bring in some voices that offer fresh perspectives.  A year ago, I offered a resource featuring Richard Rohr, followed by a teaching series on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians.  In the Fall I did a series called Go Be Jesus, which examined what Jesus was really about in his ministry (hint: social justice was a HUGE piece).  I probably did something about Christmas in December – can anybody remember?  In January I offered a different voice, Barbara Crafton, on the subject of Forgiveness.  Very powerful series and incredible follow-up discussions. In February I focused my teaching on racism which likely made everyone uncomfortable.  In March we focused on Grief with the Spring Cleaning series, to help us take stock, deal with our grief, and move forward.  In May we will feature Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Ph. D., who will teach us about Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhi.  Do you feel stretched?

• Connecting with God, Deepening our Spirituality.  Honestly, this year has been tough for measuring this one, except that we tried hard to encourage meditation as a means to reduce pandemic-related stress.  We did receive feedback that it was helpful.

• Incarnating Christ in Community. Like the above, this was not easy given COVID-19.  I celebrate something I also kind of hate: Zoom.  Zoom worked reasonably effectively to keep our relationships intact, and still does.  As much as we would prefer to see each other beyond a tiny square on our devices, can you imagine how much worse it would have been without it?

  • In Remembrance. We grieve the loss of Bill Swanson, Dot Hoover, Roger Langley, Larry McCart, Max Proteau, and Kenn Vigoda.  Wonderful people who are dearly missed.

  • New Members!  This past year we welcomed Colleen Chappellet, Ed Edwards, and Keith Ridenhour into our membership!  Hurray!

In conclusion, it has been quite a year.  If asked a year ago what I would be happy with by this time, I would have said “survival.”  Literally and figuratively.  Despite the challenges, we have prevailed over the past year.  Thank God.  Thank God.  Thank God.

Let’s keep moving forward.

In this glorious journey together,

 Pete Shaw, Pastor

COVID Safety Precautions

We look forward to welcoming you on campus at CrossWalk! Whether inside or outside, we believe we can host a limited number of guests safely. When we are outside, we can obviously accommodate many more than when inside.

• Please reserve your space! Get tickets here. Ticketed guests are guaranteed to get a seat. Those without a ticket will be seated as space is available. Please note that the tickets are identified as Fully Vaccinated and Not Fully Vaccinated. This helps us know how many people we can accommodate. No extra points or special treatment for overachievers who somehow managed to get vaccinated with all three of the vaccines available.

• Entry will only be allowed through the main entrance into to the sanctuary. Don’t even think about parachuting into the courtyard from a hot air balloon.

• Face coverings are required on campus at all times regardless of vaccination or the pod you are sitting with. This increases safety for all, and also means you really don’t need to brush your teeth.

• No food or beverages will be provided. Cigarettes, cigars, and joints will also not be provided.

• There will be singing (if you want to join in) – keep your face covering on. Only the people on stage are allowed to take their face coverings off – they will be socially distanced as well according to state guidelines. Masked singing means you won’t be heard much, so if you’re a terrible singer, this is your chance to really let it out!

• Tables are arranged to provide social distancing. Please do not move them as it will disturb The Force.

• Hand sanitizer will be readily available for your use. Do not ingest (unless it’s on a corn chip).

• We will have prepared kid boxes with stuff for them to do during service (Pre-K-6). Please take all of the contents home but leave the box at church to be sanitized and refilled for next week.

• Before and after service, continue to respect social distancing. The state strongly discourages lingering conversations before and after the service. If someone is a long talker or a close talker, blame the state and walk away!

• When outside, if you are attending as an individual to be seated alone, we will have two areas of chair sections available – one area shaded and closer to the stage, the other sunny toward the back. Chairs are socially distanced. Please don’t move them as they are carefully positioned to keep the church afloat.

• We will set fully vaccinated folks together as much as possible. Fully vaccinated people do not need to be socially distanced when seated together, which means we can put more of you around a table. If you can’t stand those people, know that we will pray for you.

• For not-yet-fully-vaccinated guests: if you are seated at a rectangular table with others not in your pod, know that our intention was for you to sit at opposite ends of the table to ensure the prescribed six feet of social distancing, and to make sure they can’t hear you complain about my teaching.

• When we meet outside, come prepared for shade or sun. If you’re seated in a spot that is sometimes sunny and sometimes shaded, we will surely focus on your discomfort for our livestream via YouTube for all to enjoy.

• When meeting inside, know that we have really good ventilation, so feel free to wear an abundance of cologne.

• Any questions or concerns? Email us back and we’ll do our best to help! Oh, wait, that’s not a joke.

Peace Be With You

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

John 20:19-23 (NLT)

That [Easter] Sunday evening the [broader community of followers, not just the 11,] were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again, he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Green Screen. One of the industries everyone wished they bought stock in prior to the pandemic was one related to virtual meetings: green screens.  Green screens have been used in broadcasting for decades to allow producers to superimpose whatever backdrop they desire behind local weather forecasters and news anchors.  Over the last year, green screens have made it possible for us to hide our messy homes while transporting ourselves into any scene or video.  I regularly used a picture of my office and sanctuary when I would host church-related stuff.  Or sometimes I might be at Bodega Head, or Yosemite, or the High Sierra, or just down the street.  Nobody really knows where you are when you’re virtual.  The disciples knew where they were.  They had locked themselves inside a large upper room for fear of being arrested and potentially executed like Jesus.  There was no green screen for them – this was their reality.

Peace in Hiding. Somehow, in the midst of their cowering, they all experienced Jesus there with them even though the doors were locked.  Note that there is no attempt to explain how this happened.  They are simply conveying their experience.  In their sorrowful terror, Jesus showed up in such a way that the entire group of them experienced it.  His common greeting took on deeper meaning: Peace be with you.  When God comes, it is always with this greeting because peace reflects the character and nature of God and also God’s goal in the world – to bring a sense of wholeness, healing to the world.  There is no rebuke here – only love. How does this jibe with your default belief about the character and nature of God?  How does approaching God as loving and peace-oriented affect our openness to God as well as our desire?  How have you experienced this shift?  How’s the level of peace for you right now?

            Peace in Context.  I don’t know about you, but I have discovered that I am at peace at some times more than others.  For instance, when I am in deep sleep in the middle of the night, I am so peaceful I don’t think about a thing – I am completely at rest.  When I watch the news, not so much.  My hunch is that the last year has challenged your sense of being at peace given the pandemic, the election, the ongoing racial tension in our country, the economy, our natural disasters, etc.  I would not be surprised if you elicited symptoms of the lack of peace: irritability, angst, fear, tightness in your body, perhaps stomach issues, strained relationships, impatience.  Peace is easy enough to experience when things are good, and easy to wish for those in a good space.  “Peace be with you” at a wedding ceremony is easy; at a funeral it is not.  Jesus showed up in the midst of terrified followers with the more-than-casual greeting, “Peace be with you.” Knowing that peace is core to God’s character and goal, I wonder what might be involved in actualizing the peace that is called forth in such a greeting. Did they experience such peace?  If so, how?

            Alignment Matters. My first car was a piece of junk.  The front wheels were so out of alignment that driving was in itself a workout.  I’m not kidding, everywhere I went it sounded like someone was taking a corner too fast.  Take your hands off the wheel and you would find yourself making a sharp right turn!  If I had not taken care of the alignment issue, not only would I be exhausted from driving (and a little embarrassed), but I would also find myself buying new tires very often as they would be worn down prematurely.  So it is with our walk with God.  When we get out of alignment, we find ourselves struggling against the flow, the peace disturbed by screeching tires and tired arms.  It shows up in our lives as exhaustion and damaged equipment. Once aligned, the car drove easy.  How aligned are we with the Spirit of God that is (and brings) peace?

Pushed to the Max. I confess that I don’t always practice what I preach.  When the pandemic hit, my workload increased significantly. Producing our virtual services added a full day a week all things considered.  At the same time, in the early months, my volunteer leadership with the COAD commanded two days a week of extra work.  As a pastor-leader, this meant that I tried to help shoulder the stress of those I was helping to lead, hoping to bring some calm amidst the storm.  Of course, I was also leading CrossWalk into an incredibly intense season of unknown and angst.  There were times, of course, when CrossWalkers needed their pastor to pastor them, which I treat as a holy privilege and honor.  Simultaneously, I was a dad to my kids as best as I could be, wanting to be strong for them.  I was also a husband to my wife who lost her job and went through all of the complex emotions associated with it: grieving the loss of a job she really liked and the fading relationships associated with it, the angst of not knowing what would be next for her, money concerns, etc.  On top of that, the stress of the actual virus took its toll on everyone – none of us were operating at 100% (more like 70% tops).  Racial tension around George Floyd’s death, the increased politicization of everything due to the election just made the last year overwhelming.  

Out of Alignment. When the pandemic hit, I was already running on empty from extra work to prepare for a three-month sabbatical rest after 20 years as CrossWalk’s pastor.  I did an okay job treading water, but I could not slow down for very long, and it caught up with me.  Jesus built balance into his life – time to break away and recharge, distancing himself from others for solitude, silence, and stillness.  I have not done a good job with that.  I have been operating out of alignment for over a year, my tires are worn, and my arms are tired.  My personality wires me to constantly perform and drive forward.  I will be taking a sabbatical a year from now, but I simply cannot keep doing for the next year what I’ve been doing for the last year.  I will burn out long before then and have nothing to offer anyone, especially my wife and kids.  I know that the greeting is always the same, “Peace be with you,” yet I do not think I have done much to actualize it, rest in it, float in it, enter into it. I apologize for not modeling this better to my wife and kids, and to you.  You would be the last to know because with you I am always in performance mode.  But my wife especially knows as she has seen me become more of a shell of a person than a whole human being. If you hear about me stepping away for retreat, for prayer, for vacation, know that I am simply trying to reenter the Peace.

Suck it up. Some who hear or read this might want to say out loud or in their heads, “Suck it up, Pete!  Good grief!  So, your work life was really hard.  You didn’t lose a house, or a spouse, or your favorite pet mouse, you louse!”  Dr. Suess has always been a vocal critic of mine.  I have just one thing to say in response to such a reaction: I beat you to it. Many times over the last year I have told myself the very same types of things.  Sometimes it helps as it forces my attention to all the things that I am grateful for, which is always a good practice.  But sometimes things can’t be fixed by a positivity booster shot.  I discovered that telling myself to suck it up was in no way redemptive or restorative, and only served to encourage me to dismiss my very real pain and struggle, which means it gets pushed aside and left unaddressed.  Maybe you’ve been dismissive of your real pain and struggle because you’ve minimized it in contrast to others’ pain. Maybe today you stop doing that and instead take a real look at things.  And if you are a suck-it-up-soothsayer while your intent may be good, let me just say that your words suck, are destructive, and add to the problem. Not everybody talking about their pain is a narcissist inviting you to their pity party. There is a place for KCCO, for having a stiff upper lip, for soldiering on.  Yet we also must encourage the courage-required inner work, too, which is, in my experience, much harder than just making it through the day.  Emotional and mental health matters.  When we discourage health, we really don’t know how much damage we do.  Again, I do this to myself – I don’t have sucky people telling me to suck it up.

Remove the Green Screen. We all live with green screens, projecting an image to the world we want to be seen, hiding our dirty laundry, or cluttered closets, or ugly couches from those with whom we interact. What is your current reality regarding experiencing the peace of Christ?  Not your virtual reality that you project to the world, but your actual reality.  What would your closest friend say about your reality? What do you suppose God might say about your reality?

How to hope.  How do we go forward when we are stuck in such muck and mire?  For me, this is where faith comes in.  In faith, I am going to build back into my life the things I have neglected, believing that doing so will help me become more present to the Peace that is always present.  This is the power of Easter at work.  I have been in this space before for similar reasons.  At other times, usually when the pain got unbearable, I realized that I was out of alignment, and took myself in for service.  Sometimes that required counseling.  Sometimes friends helped me see things.  Sometimes books spoke into my life.  Sometimes it has been my wife.  Sometimes getting into nature has instructed me. Sometimes a combination of some or all of those things.  Invariably, when I get back into alignment, slowly and surely, I am able to tap back into the Peace that has always been there.  It takes time.  It took time to get out of alignment.  It takes time to correct out-of-alignment behavior and attitudes. With a car, your alignment is corrected in a single visit and you’re back on the road.  Sometimes, however, even with a car, there are contributing mechanical factors that can cause your car to get out of alignment again, soon. Sometimes it’s because you keep hitting potholes instead of avoiding them. Sometimes you get blindsided and that messes up your alignment.  Alignment isn’t always a quick fix. I know that I can trust that I will return to Peace because I’ve done it before, and the Peace is a constant I can trust to be there.  Maybe you don’t have the experience from which to hope.  For you, the Easter story itself may be cause for hope.  These disciples were in absolute despair and had to be completely exhausted.  They discovered the constant of the Peace that the presence of God brings in time.  Their Easter evening epiphany wasn’t because they were all smoking the same stuff at the same time and then went away.  Instead, they all increasingly discovered that there really was (and is) a “there” there.  There really, really is.  I hope that today the Spirit of God may be nudging you to trust such truth and take a step forward in faith, that you may find Peace once again.

Letting Christ In. There is a story about King Edward vii of England. He and his queen were out walking late one afternoon when suddenly she stumbled and sprained an ankle. In great pain, and with considerable difficulty, she limped along, holding to her husband’s shoulder. At dusk, they approached the home of a humble man. The king knocked on the door. “Who’s there?” came the query.

“It is Edward. It is the king. Let me in.”

The man on the inside shouted back, “Enough of your pranks now. Be off.…”

The king, not being accustomed to such language, was shocked. He hardly knew what to do, but he knocked a second time. The cottager inquired, “What do you want?”

“I tell you it is the king! It is Edward, your king. Let me in.”

In anger the man shouted, “I’ll teach you to torment an honest man trying to get his sleep.” He threw open the door in disgust, only to see that indeed it was his king! With profuse apologies the laborer invited the royal visitors in and sent for help to attend his queen.

Years later, when the Britisher was too old to work, he would spend much time rocking on the porch and visiting with neighbors. He took great delight in reviewing that experience, always concluding with the same words: “And to think, to think, I almost didn’t let him in! To think I almost didn’t let him in!”

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20). In truth, Christ is already in the room with us, waiting for us to open our eyes, our minds, our hearts, and our full lives to the Spirit.  It is an act that requires something of us – a getting over our perceptions of reality to entertain something new, a repositioning of ourselves to get up and open the door.  The Christ is here, now, with you and me, saying, “Peace be with you!”  What might you need to do to experience it? 

Some helpful related verses...

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. 

8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. – Philippians. 4:6-9 (NLT)

27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” – John 14:27 (NLT)