The Christmas Story of 2012

Christmas season is a little bittersweet in my line of work.  It begins with a hurricane called Black Friday and ends with a tsunami on Christmas Eve.  The world of retail sales is not a friendly one in the holiday season.  But, in the midst of it all, I managed to have a beautiful Christmas.  I must say that I am a very blessed man.  I spent some time with the Remy Family, and they were gracious enough to feed me a tasty meal.  Emily always has a way of making every occasion memorable and special as well.  I believe that her and I formed some more wonderful memories this Christmas. 

It started with preparation.  My apartment is small, but so is our Christmas tree so it was a good pairing.  But with a few strands of Christmas lights and a little tree, we managed to make this tiny apartment a lovely little Christmas winter wonderland.

 

Our first celebration was on Christmas Eve.  After work I drove down to Richmond and we enjoyed some good snacks.  Then the Remy gift extravaganza began. Selfishly, I got Emily some hats. She looks beautiful in them but doesn't own any.  She suffers from a funny-hat-wearing fiance' problem so I figured it was time for her to become a hat-wearer herself.  Tell me that she doesn't look great in a hat!

 

I don't mean to get too focused on gifts.  We Christians all know that Jesus was the ultimate Christmas gift.  But Jesus doesn't look as good on me as the cool new coat that I got from Emily's parents.  Here are some of my favorites:

Not only did I get the new half-bend sand-blasted viking pipe that I wanted, but Emily sweetened the deal with a sweet little corn-cob pipe as a stocking stuffer as well. Emily got lots of neat sleepwear.

I can't say enough about the other gift offering from Emily.  She found me an old World War II typewriter at the flea market.  Apparently it was quite worn and grimy.  But she gave it a good clean-up, and even painted the casing.  It is an old Smith-Corona portable typewriter that was used by traveling war journalists. Hence, its' size is very convenient.  It types like a dream, every key and hammer working.  I'm not sure what direction it will inspire me, but it is honestly one of my favorite gifts I have ever received.

 We celebrated our Christmas morning free by taking Caspian out to the dog park, and I got to test drive my new pipe.

As Christmas 2012 winds down, I do want to thank my Heavenly Father for the amazing gift of a beautiful family. Although I did not get to see them this year, I trust that they also were blessed.  We all have so much in wealth of possessions, but mostly in love.   I know we all had to find our own way of making Christmas special this year, as we were all separated by circumstances.  But I trust that we will soon have Christmases together again.  Emily and I cannot wait to see all of you at the wedding in March. We love all of you! Merry Christmas and God bless!

And here is our favorite picture from Christmas.  See if you can figure out why. We didn't notice until after the shot was taken :) Let's just say that in Texas I might've made a prize for some hunter.

 

 

Being Like Jesus Part 2: Calling vs. Pursuit, The Quest for Perfection

Thoughts on Matthew 19:16-30:

How often has this poor fella been psycho-analyzed by our preachers?  So many offering fresh, new insights into his motives and feelings. I have some more of my own. But, in this familiar story, I want to focus more on the words of Jesus rather than those of the chap that our nicely edited Bibles usually refer to as The Rich Young Ruler. After all, despite the focus of most of our Biblical interpreters today, Matthew is telling us the story of Jesus, not the story of his audience.

Read the story first, otherwise this blog may be overwhelmingly enigmatic to you.  It's pretty short, shorter than this blog actually.  As a matter of fact, you may do better to just read the story in Matthew and come up with your own thoughts than read this blog.  But since you started and probably like to finish what you started, I'll go get some of the fresh french-pressed coffee that I have affectionately made this morning, and return to discuss with you shortly.

There is nothing like French Roast coffee made in a french press.

Now let us discuss.  First, the man in this story asks Jesus for eternal life.  What preacher in today's evangelical tradition wouldn't jump at the chance here to sit this guy down and go through the salvation prayer, or perhaps walk him down the "Romans Road"?  (If you're not familiar with the Romans Road then visit one of America's evangelical churches and ask. There should be about fifty in your town alone. I imagine you have noticed the profound impact they have made.)  But listen to what Jesus said in response to this guy.  He tells him, "Keep the commandments and you will have life."  Woah! Jesus must not have been taking his seminary classes very seriously.   If he had been paying attention in class I'm sure he would have noted that, in our good Christian theology, eternal life comes from a prayer that you pray, and the commandments are really options that you can deal with down the road in a program that we call "discipleship".  Now, if you happen to be one of my more Biblical scholarly readers, then you may already be preparing your counter-argument to my sarcastic implications by thinking that Jesus was working a mind-game on this guy.  Or, perhaps Jesus wanted to make the point that it is impossible to keep the commandments, thus, raising up a sense of despair in this young man so that he would never make the tragic error of pursuing a "works salvation" again.  Keep your cool, young arguer.  There is more to my point.  As their conversation continues, Jesus lists some of the commandments to the young man. Then, now pay attention here, the young man says that he has kept these commandments from his youth.  Jesus does not correct him.  So, my question for you:  If Jesus was making a point about the commandments being impossible to uphold, why does he not correct this man when told that these commandments have been kept?  I wager that this young man had indeed kept the commandments very faithfully.  Otherwise, why would Jesus' next challenge begin with, "...one thing you still lack"?  One thing!  If this young man was lying about his faithfulness to the commandments, wouldn't Jesus have called him on it instead of mentioning only one thing?  Perhaps he couldn't count?

I believe part of the solution to the mystery of this text comes in the young man's second question.  After being told about the commandments, the man asks a second question, "What do I still lack?"  Now, I don't know about you, but if Jesus had pretty much given me the qualifiers for eternal life, and I could feel confident that I had met those qualifiers, I don't know if I would keep pushing the issue with him.  I get the green light for heaven, I'm going to shuffle on in.  If my car has passed inspection, I'm not going to ask the guy writing up the license to check under the hood one more time because there is something he may have missed.  You know what I mean?  But this guy does. He seems to insist that Jesus find something that he can do, or improve, in order to earn eternal life.

Jesus obliges him.  He tells the man, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."  (ESV)

There is some very important things to notice here, again, about Jesus' response. The power of this story is in Jesus' response, not the young man's response.  Let's focus on this phrase, "If you would be perfect...".  Jesus doesn't say, "Okay, if you really want eternal life you persistent idiot...".  He changes the language from eternal life to perfection.  Why?  According to all of the qualifiers, this man had earned eternal life because he was a good man.  But he kept badgering Jesus, pushing the issue.  He wanted more, more to perform, more to earn.  Surely Jesus must be able to give him some task that he can accomplish.  So, the man wanted righteousness to the extreme.  He wanted perfection. So, Jesus challenges him on perfection.  "You want perfection, here is what you must do..."  And so he gives him a task of three: 1.) Sell your possessions.  2.) Give to the poor.  3.) Come, follow me.  Still no prayer of surrender required here. Jesus never tells him to invite him into his heart.  Instead, Jesus asks for action. Action.  Action.  Could it be that surrender is action?

I really do try to keep my blogs at a reasonable length.  It is really difficult for me.  If you know me personally, I write like I talk. And I can just keep going and going about this stuff.  But, for the sake of time, I'm going to cordially summarize and skip ahead a little bit.

The man walks away sad because he had a lot of possessions.

Jesus tells his disciples that it is very difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Nay, impossible.

The disciples are concerned then that nobody can be saved.

Jesus tells them that it is possible because of God. 

Peter seems concerned, and reminds Jesus that they (the disciples) have left everything to follow him.  This is a reminder to Jesus that they (the disciples) have done what Jesus asked the rich man to do. 

Jesus assures Peter and the disciples that they will have both treasure and prestige in heaven because of their sacrifice. 

Alright, slow the tape down now. Discussion time again.  Jesus assures the disciples that they have accomplished something that the rich young man was unable to accomplish.  They left everything.  The rich young man received the same invite. He didn't take it.  The disciples had received the invite. They took it.  Your Bible is probably like mine, and there is a page break at this point beginning a new section. Mine is labeled Laborers in the Vineyard.   I want you to pretend that page break is not there.  Read the story straight through. Jesus tells this next parable to explain the lesson he has just given them regarding sacrifice and reward. 

Read the parable now.  I need more coffee.

Now you are a scholar like me.  You know the basics: A vineyard owner goes out and hires workers at several times in the day, some earlier than others, all for the agreement of a denarius for wage.  At the end he pays them.  The men hired early in the day gripe because they felt they should be paid more since they worked longer.  Jesus sends these workers away and challenges them on their perception.  He still pays them, but sends them off with a little lesson that he is the one in charge, and not them.  This is where the full story of the Rich Young Ruler truly ends. 

What is the connection? The rich young ruler approaches Jesus.  The disciples were called by Jesus.  The rich young ruler has accomplished righteous keeping of the commandments.  We don't really know if the disciples were righteous or not.  The rich young ruler was finally invited to join the disciples after he pressed the issue.  The disciples were invited to join without pressing the issue. They were mostly just fishing.  The rich young ruler walked away sad, unwilling to follow Jesus. The disciples had left everything to follow Jesus, and they were promised great reward for their sacrifice.

Now, in the parable, there is not a single worker that approached the vineyard owner seeking work. In fact, the story uses the world "idle" twice and the word "standing" once to describe the men he recruits.  In other words, they were not being very ambitious about their quest for employment.  They were standing around wasting their day.  Only the first recruits are not described this way.  However, all are paid equally.

Now, I am going to ask you a question.  And I really am just asking a question here.  It makes me as uncomfortable as it will make you. Where in scripture does it go well for any person who approaches either Jesus or the disciples seeking salvation?  Where?  Nicodemus?  Anyone in the book of Acts?  The guy who was reminded by Jesus that you don't get a hotel room when you travel with him?  The guy who wants to bury his father first? 

Now, how does it go for the ones who were sought out by Jesus?  The disciples?  Tax collectors? Adulteresses?

There is a contrast here.  Many people were healed by Jesus. But, we have no reason to believe that they asked for eternal life.  Jesus healed them. In healing them, he forgave them.  They got healing, and they received forgiveness as a bonus prize.  Why?  Perhaps because they needed something.  They deeply longed for something.  They weren't after eternal life. They were after a working hand, or a seeing eyeball.  They wanted to make right the wrong they had caused.  In the case of the disciples, they wanted an opportunity to learn from an amazing teacher.  They wanted to travel with him and experience his life with him. 

That rich young man passionately wanted to earn something from Jesus more than most any character we read about in the gospels. He walked away sad.  Others got to experience the full journey of Jesus' ministry, and all they were doing was fishing.  Others wanted healing for a shriveled hand and received forgiveness and healing because of their faith. 

We sell eternal life in churches today as though it were a commodity.  Jesus was smarter than us. He sent those who wanted to purchase eternal life away empty handed. They weren't ready.  Try to get Jesus to affirm you, you may wind up sad.  Want to wind up in the thick of it all?  Go fishing.  Go to your job.  Provide for your family.  Live life, and live it well. Jesus may just show up and invite you into something bigger.  I have seen our ministers today offer eternal life on tragically simple grounds, to people who neither kept commandments nor had any desire to follow Jesus. But they said a prayer.  And then I have seen so many people who believed themselves Christians because they had prayed the prayer.  They were told by someone that they had become a disciple.  And yet they had nothing; no heart, no hope, no difference, and they left it and went back to living their lives in despair and empty pursuit.  Jesus told us this would happen.  Cheap gospel results in worthless Christians.  Don't believe we have a cheap gospel today?  Look at the worthlessness of our Christians.  Are they to blame because they didn't take their prayer seriously? Are we to blame because we promised them eternal life with so little cost?  I wager that Jesus was right when claiming the gate is narrow that leads to eternal life, and that many who claim to know Jesus will be surprised at how little they knew him when they meet him face to face. 

Jesus seems to like the kinds of crops that are ready to be plucked.  In story after story he reminds us that the path ahead  bottlenecks as we move forward.  More and more drop away and fade away.  I wager that there are more people who want to offer greater sacrifice if only our churches were bold enough to ask it of them.  Instead we write books and strategize how to make it easier for them.  "But Brent, don't you know that Jesus paid the sacrifice and the way really is made easy for them?"  Then why did Paul, our beloved hero, ask us to offer our soul and body as a living sacrifice back for him?  Read Paul's writings. It wasn't just a prayer. It was also leaving behind a lot of the old life behind, leaving the old and putting on the new. 

Yes, there is more to it than this.  Leaving behind the old and putting on the new, I truly believe requires the power of the Holy Spirit, a commodity that our evangelical churches do not sell at all.  As a matter of fact we do not even offer it most of the time.  Eternal life only requires a prayer.  But when it comes to the Holy Spirit, we leave that to you.  We hope that someday you find it yourself.  I don't know why the same pastors who lead us in the salvation prayers don't also pray with us to receive the Holy Spirit.  I imagine most of them don't have it to give.  You cannot give what you do not have.  This is why my number one passion in America's churches today would be for us to stop- just stop, and ask the Holy Spirit to return to us. Believing and receiving the Holy Spirit are NOT the same event. Don't believe me, read the book of Acts.  We are an empty church, and this is why we are dying.

Halloween Stuff

On a less serious note, I wanted to share some of the images and events from this years' Halloween festivities.  We didn't really get the chance to do much (Emily & I), and Emily doesn't really like the scary movies.  So, what did we do?  We got together at my place and carved our pumpkins together.  Emily got a bargain on last minute pumpkins at Evans' Orchard, which is an awesome place to visit by the way.

 Caspian didn't know what was going on...but he did snag a pumpkin seed to eat:

Here is our final product:

  

 On actual Halloween night we went to our friends, the Waynick's home to help them pass out candy to the neighborhood kids.  Then we all watched a movie together.  Last pics-

Chris Waynick, Me, and Dave Lyell (our officiant for our wedding in March)

 And the ladies...Stephanie Lyell (our wedding photographer, Emily, and Sara)

And finally, here are my Transformers. They are cool:

Oh ya, and I Work at Starbucks...

Did you ever work a second job?  Be warned, if you have never taken Financial Peace University (FPU to us insiders), then choose wisely before you do. Dave Ramsey's little short-term financial management course will convict you to take on some grueling, wee -hours-of-the-night, working-alongside-a-zit-faced-high-school-dropout, minimum-wage job in order to sort-of help you catch up on an overdue bill or two.  I did it for a little while.  I worked at Starbucks.  It was a weird year in my life.  I had a "regular" job that I liked, but it didn't pay me what I needed to survive.  So I took on a night job at Starbucks.  What was weird about it?  People would ask me where I worked, and I had to choose which job I was going to put in the forefront of the conversation.  Most of the time I would tell people I was a Mentor-recruiter.  That was my day job.  It sounded more prestigious.  But then sometimes I had to say, "oh ya, and I also work at Starbucks."  Sometimes I would tell people about Starbucks first. Because even though Starbucks doesn't pay enough of a salary to rival a good afternoon pan-handling downtown, Starbucks is kind of cool so you feel kind of cool when you work there. 

Yes, this blog is a continuation of my last blog regarding Being Like Jesus. 

This is my question to you, my faithful reader:  Which of these is more glorifying to God?  First scenario:  An expert cellist has been practicing cello fervidly for twenty years of his life.  He finally gets the opportunity to perform for an entire city as the guest solo cellist with the local philharmonic.  He plays a composition written by a famous composer. It is an instrumental piece with no lyrics. It is a Mass. This means that the composition is inspired by the church liturgy of Mass.  His performance is beautiful, bringing chills to his listeners because of his heart-felt musical interpretations.  Second scenario: Another cellist is equally skilled as the first. He also has given his heart and soul to practice.  He is a Christian. He also performs in front of a city an instrumental composition.  However, the composition he performs is a modern one, and it is inspired by a Hindu meditation ritual.  It is beautiful, and the audience is deeply moved.  Third scenario:  A young-lady works at Starbucks. She goes to work every day and smiles for every customer.  She makes every latte' as though it were for her own best friend. She converses with the customers and genuinely wishes to know about their lives, offering encouragement and positive support every chance she gets.  Fourth scenario:  A pastor stands in front of a church once a week and preaches ideas and interpretations of the scripture. During the weekdays he spends much of his time writing his next sermon, but also fulfills the duties of visiting the hospital, conducting weddings and funerals, counseling members of his church, and planning church events.  He is good at sharing Jesus with people when he goes out into public. Some people like it, and some are a little turned off, but they smile anyway in order to be nice.

Of these four scenarios, which one of these individuals is bringing more glory to God?  Tick-tock, tick-tock.  I know, some of you are saying that glorifying God is not a competition.  I know that.  But for the sake of argument, as you read the scenarios what stirs in your mind?  What scenario brings you a little emotional friction? Which one seems certain? 

If you get a handful of everyday church-going Christians into a room for some decent spiritual conversation, at some point the topic may come up for discussion regarding how we live our Christian lives among our workplace and out "in the world".  Inevitably some will say comments like, "I try to find some opportunities around the office to share with my coworkers a little about how God has made an impact on my life."  Or, "Cindy is really going through some hard stuff at work. She has been sharing her struggles with me at work and it is giving me some opportunity to share my faith with her."  When I hear folks say these kinds of statements, I must admit, an honest admiration comes over me as I recognize their warm and caring hearts.  I have even envied these dutiful Christians who are making such sincere effort to share their faith whenever they get those little open doors.  I have done it also.

We often think of our Christian efforts as a second job.  When I worked at Starbucks, that part-time job was my lower priority employment. So, I made sure that my work schedule at Starbucks was flexible enough to bend and compromise around my first priority job.  Similarly, we all know that we have to work to make a living. So we go to work and tolerate the non-Christian world a little bit. Many of us hope that we can bring a little bit of the Kingdom into these somewhat darker places.  Many of our pastors challenge us to do so.  Invite someone to our church.  Look, we will even create an event that is non-threatening so that the invite seems less like evangelism and more like a little non-drinking party.  Your work friends may just show up and then we can really begin to show them what we are all about.  In a sales job, they call this the Soft Close; closing the deal when the customer never really makes a deliberate decision.  Good strategy. It works sometimes. 

C.S. Lewis loved the concept of story.  He believed that you could sometimes reach people with a stronger message if you could tell them a story that generated the feelings of a message, rather than the blatant message itself.  In other words, a person could read The Chronicles of Narnia and say to themselves, "Aslan seems really amazing, I wish I could meet Aslan."  Since Aslan represents a Christ-figure in that series of books, a person finds themselves hungering for Christ without Christ ever being mentioned.  Story inspires people.  When people are inspired they journey and seek.  God likes when people journey and seek. 

Scripture tells us that, if there is no praise for God, even the rocks will cry out to praise Him.  The New Testament also tells us that Christ could raise up followers out of inanimate objects if needed.  What the heck is this all about?  Admittedly, I have read these versus and taken them as a sort of threat.  If you don't praise God enough, God might start making a bunch of noise and hullabaloo from these rocks and trees.  Nobody wants that!  I read it a little differently today.  Here is what I think it really means:  God doesn't need our praise.  God will be praised.  Everything that He creates brings Him praise.  EVERYTHING.  He created it, it brings Him glory.  He is reminding us to keep ourselves in our proper perspective.  If you go around shouting the name of Jesus all day, great.  But be careful, you may start thinking too much of yourself.  Remember, you're not really accomplishing more than a rock or a tree in the hands of God. 

Incidentally, God created atheists.  I'm not saying that He likes atheism, but he definitely made the atheist, and he definitely gave the atheist the freedom to believe that God does not exist.  Want to annoy an atheist?  Tell him or her that you really like the way that he or she is glorifying God by working out truth and attempting to help others with their belief, or lack of belief.  That will really get under their skin.  I read this morning in the book of Matthew that the Ninevites and the Queen of the South (both groups represent non-Jewish folk, or non-believers) will judge that generation of Jews because they recognized truth when they sought it.  Seriously, Jesus said that.  I'm not making this stuff up.  How do we Christians feel about the fact that Jesus tells us that some non-Christians may judge us in the next life because they knew how to live and we do not? 

Like many of my writings, I raise these questions in order to raise your questions. 

What am I getting at in all of this? I think my main concern is that we compartmentalize our time spent glorifying God as though it were a part time job among our full time efforts.  In other words, we do not think of our career, our hobbies, our goals, our investments, and our business conversations as the stuff of God-glorification.  They are simply jobs that we must do, and we hope to do them morally well.  And in the midst of them we hope we can insert some God-glorification on the side in a way that doesn't interfere too much with office time.  I'm not saying that we should be more vocal about our faith around the office.  In fact the opposite.  I'm saying that your career brings glory to God.  Your hobbies bring glory to God.  Your goals bring glory to God.  Your investments bring glory to God.  If you feel that they don't, don't worry about it so much. Just don't be surprised when the rocks and the trees start living a more fulfilling life than you. 

In regards to my four scenarios at the beginning of this blog:  I think you probably know what I was getting at.  I personally would rather hear a beautiful cello sonata than a preacher.  That's just me. I really like my lattes too.  As for the preacher, I know he might be working hard.  But he isn't really telling me anything that I couldn't find for myself if I wanted; just a little Bible-reading and some prayer perhaps.  But I don't know how to make a good pumpkin spice latte' on my own.  And I certainly can't play a cello sonata like that person who glorified God with all of those years of practice and that awe-inspiring performance.  Given the choice on who I would rather spend more time with, I think I know. 

Being Like Jesus: Calling vs.Sent Away

The other day I was in a coffee shop and one of the workers approached my table wearing a WWJD bracelet. I had not seen one in a while.  I guess you can still buy them.  Or maybe they get handed down now like a family relic from your grandfather. Or perhaps from Toby Mac.  You just don't see them like you used to. 

In a Bible Study last night our crew engaged in a conversation about the meaning of being Christ-like.  There were some interesting points raised.  I spent most of my time listening and not speaking. But since I did all of that listening my brain has been doing a lot of speaking to itself.  We also read John 2 at the Bible study, which includes the story of Jesus driving vendors out of the temple.

Here is my encouragement to all of you believers attempting to be Christ-like: Walk into your favorite Christian bookstore.  Buy yourself a WWJD bracelet.  Sit down in the corner and forge yourself a whip out of whatever supplies you can find.  Use your whip to drive the people that sold you the WWJD bracelet out of the store. Do this while wearing the WWJD bracelet.  If the workers at the Christian bookstore protest, merely tell them that you wanted to do what Jesus did.  Show them the bracelet to prove your case.

My point is simply this:  Most of us do not really want to do what Jesus did.  There are certain things that we want to do.  But we are pretty selective about it.  For example, generally speaking, we as Christians don't want to walk up to a total stranger and pray for their lame foot to be healed.  This is something that the gospel writers seem intent on telling us that Jesus did quite a lot.  However, we as Christians really like the idea that we should share Jesus with our friends around the workplace on occasion, something that the gospel writers never  mentioned Jesus doing.  Now I'm a smart enough guy to know that is somewhat circumstantial.  Jesus can't just go around telling people about himself right?  But there is another occasion when he sent the twelve disciples out for the afternoon to work without him. And what did he send them to do?  He sent them to heal and cast out demons, not to go out and tell people about him.  So when you're sitting around guilting yourself about not living up to your Christian duties, add that to your list; "how much time today did I spend healing people and casting out demons?"  And then despair.

My lovely fiance', Emily, raised this point last night in our discussion. There is a lot of conversational potential in this topic.  And I'm just the guy to raise it for you.  Are we really called to be like Jesus?  Think about it. Why do you feel like you need to be like Jesus?  Who told you to be like Jesus?  I'm honestly asking. Did you read it in scripture? Did a Bible verse tell you that you should act like Jesus? Or was it a preacher? A Christian friend? A bracelet? A song by Toby Mac?  Who told you?

I have a handful of blogs to write about this topic because there are a few sub-topics that would make this piece way too long.  But I wanted to poke the issue.  I like poking. Those who know me know this.  I may as well have titled this blog website ADeadManPoking.

I went to seminary. You wouldn't know it now unless you hang out in my kitchen where my Master of Divinity degree hangs above my kitchen sink.  Seminary is a weird place because everybody is "called" to something.  We are all there because we were called.  If you weren't called then someone who IS called will probably approach you at some point telling you that they were called to tell you that you shouldn't be in seminary anymore.  Calling is a big deal in our Christian culture today, and yes I use the word culture deliberately.  If we do manage to "share Christ" with our friends, we usually will say that we felt called to do it.  We definitely had better use the words when choosing a job or a career, God-forbid (literally) that we should accidentally take a job that we were not called to do. It would probably be doomed to utter failure. At least so the culture tells us.

But how many people in scripture were called? Calling was pretty common among the prophets of the Old Testament. They were rogues. They lived these weird lives of wandering around like hermits.  People must have been kind of uncomfortable around them because they would only go find them when they needed someone to tell them that God was telling them to do something.  Weird. It's a confusing sentence I just typed because it is kind of a confusing system.  In the New Testament Jesus called twelve people.  He did actually call them.  For example, the most familiar is Peter and Andrew. They are fishing. Jesus hollers at them from the shore, "Hey guys! Come follow me!"  They were called.  I think this was deliberate on Jesus' part.  He needed twelve apostles, twelve patriarchs to re-launch the kingdom of the Old Testament into the new kingdom that he was bringing.  This would have been a powerful metaphor for the Jews;  Twelve disciples to revive a kingdom that was begun by twelve patriarchs who started twelve tribes.  In other words, Jesus called twelve people because he needed twelve people.  Later on, after Jesus died and then rose again,  people like Paul and Stephen were called to be replacement apostles, so to speak.  Both of them had pretty supernatural callings. Paul was on his way to get a little rowdy killing some Christians, and Jesus shows up as a beam of light that blinds him.  After such an experience he probably felt pretty certain that he was called, because he was either called or he was in need of a brain scan.

So, we talk about being called a lot as believers. Why? I'm not sure, but I think part of it is because we all want to be like Paul. Well, I mean we want to be like Jesus too, but mostly we want to be like Paul.  He is, after all, the most popular idol in our churches today.

But here is another story of which you may have some familiarity.  A rich guy, who is also somewhat young, approaches Jesus.  He approaches Jesus because he wants to become a disciple.  Sound familiar?  Do you also have feelings of wanting to be what Jesus seems to want you to be?  He asks about the qualifications. Sound familiar?  Even though we are told that Jesus' gift of salvation was free, we are also told that we have to say this prayer and do some repenting, and then there may be some stuff asked of us after the deal too. But let's not talk about that right now because then you might not say the prayer.  Jesus tells him an interesting answer. The qualification has nothing to do with a prayer or repentance. His qualification has to do with obeying the basic Old Testament laws.  In other words, doing the right thing. The young seeker says that he has met these qualifications.  But then Jesus does something very interesting...very interesting. He sends the man away.  He tells him, "GO, give all that you have to the poor."  The guy winds up going away, but he isn't happy.  Why? Because when it came down to it, he did not really want to do what Jesus was doing.

I wound up not ever becoming a career minister.  The reasons are humbling.  I had too many screwed up things in my life to really be much good at ministry.  Because of sin, I would have most likely really injured some people and caused a lot of unnecessary hurt.  But I do not regret that path now.  I am very grateful that I was saved from the path of career ministry.  I know very few happy career ministers. And those that seem happy only seem happy in the same way that a gigolo seems happy.  Only most pastors aren't addicted to sex (although many are), but rather to themselves and their own importance.  It is not completely their fault.  They belong to a system that puts them on a stage like the main event, the headlining act, and treats them like the super star of the show.  That would be rough for any human being.  I'm just glad it didn't go that way for me, because I really like that kind of attention. I don't think I could have handled it.

But for those of us Christians who struggle with our sense of calling, I challenge you with these considerations.  Are you really called?  Do you really need to be called? Do you really want to be called?  Or is it simply okay that you have accepted the fact that you need Jesus to heal you, and a Heavenly Father to provide for you?  This is going to stem into my next blog; a thought piece about how we compartmentalize God's will from our will on a daily basis. When in fact they are often the same thing, at least they should be.  And I also challenge you with this thought: It is okay to be sent away.  The rich young guy went away sad. That is a good thing, not a bad thing!  Sadness is the appropriate feeling.  Jesus immediately told his disciples that, because of God, saving that man's life was very possible.  I would contend that being sent away was exactly the salvation that the man needed.  Oh what a different church we would have today if more of us accepted being sent away!  But these days, our churches are all too eager to hire and recruit rich young rulers.  They are the qualified in our non-Christ-like understanding.

A very few of us are called.  Many of us are sent away, we just don't know it. Most of us are sent to go deal with something in our lives that is blocking the way to grace.  We are sent so that we can be saved.  But our churches tell us to just come on in. Don't worry about what needs to be dealt with.  Don't worry about all of the misguided priority in your heart.  Just say the prayer, close the deal, seal the salvation.  Is it any wonder that most people who "say the prayer" never find any change in their lives?  How do you know if you are being sent away?  One indicator may be that you feel really strongly about being called.  It is that type of ambition and drive that seemed to cause Jesus some concern in this guy's case.  Should we be concerned?

Was I called to write this post?  No, I don't believe so. But God made me with a desire to write. And God gave me a desire to share.  And God gave me at least a little bit of brains. So, in a way, I wasn't called to write this post, but rather made to write this post.   See, scriptures doesn't need me to be a good listener in order to be called. I don't need to be silent, spiritual, righteous, smart, skilled, or any other qualifier.  God has a voice, and He can use it if He wants to.  I don't have to pretend that I heard Him.  Scripture teaches me that, if God wants my attention, He knows how to get it.  He is not incompetent in getting attention.  So I will let God be God, and I will just write this blog. 

Thoughts on the Ministry of Healing

Recently a friend and fellow believer mentioned to me that he was "ready to see the good stuff of the Holy Spirit."  He went on to say that he was ready to see the withered hand become restored, the blind to regain sight, the lame be made to walk; this kind of awe-inspiring miracle stuff that so many of us believers have wished to see.  It was an interesting comment to me.  And first of all, I can honestly say that I can relate.  Countless times have I asked God to show me some kind of miracle that would wipe away any doubt that I would have of His power.  I usually say these little prayers quietly in my head, lest I look like a failure, or a doubting Christian if God were not to perform my bidding.  Still, miracles have remained an area of theological confusion for me almost since the day that I first embraced being a follower of Jesus Christ.  It seems to be sort of common sense that most of the churches that most of us go to don't look like the church that most of us don't read about in the New Testament of the Bible.

But I did think about the scriptures quite a bit after my friend made his comment. And I am no Biblical Studies scholar.  I don't sit here at my laptop on a Monday morning with a head full of Hebraic vocabulary.  But I do read a lot of Bible.  These days I tend to read it more like a story. So when I meditate on it I think of it much as one might recall the scenes from a movie; sort of scrolling through the chronology of all of the familiar books and considering the thematic landmarks along the way.  In this case, the thematic landmark was New Testament miracles.

Jesus comes first.  He did a lot of miracle stuff.  But I honestly can't think that he did a whole lot of miracles for the twelve crazy guys that were following him around full-time.  In other words, we don't have any scriptural evidence of Peter having a tummy ache, Jesus spitting on his stomach and saying, "go forth and eat enchiladas no more".  The gospel writers record a lot of stories where Jesus performed miracles for people who just happened to be along the way from point A to point B.  He is walking down to the watering hole and someone just happens to be there who needs a little help. Or on the way into town some guy interrupts the disciples conversations by crying out for a little mercy.  In other words, Jesus seemed to do most of his miracles for the outsiders, the people who weren't entirely sure about what He was all about.  I can only think of two instances where this rule may not apply.  At some point Jesus helped out Peter's mother who was sick.  And later on, I believe, He resurrected Lazarus from the grave.  One can assume that Lazarus was a follower of Jesus' teachings, but even then, we don't really know for sure.  He certainly was a friend of Jesus.  This we do know. But I have had friends who didn't like the things I said.  So who knows?

The other most useful book in the Bible is the book of Acts, or the Acts of the Apostles.  This book is also full of miracles of healing and various signs and wonders.  Again, most of the miracles that take place in this book seem to be for the crowds, and the unbelievers.  Saul was made to be a believer through a miraculous physical sign by being made blind for a short time.  A stranger on the sidewalk was made to walk despite being lame when all he really asked to receive was some spare change. The only miracle that really comes to my mind in the book of Acts where Christians are involved is when two believers who were dishonest with some financial matters were basically struck dead on the spot by the Holy Spirit.  I guess God saves the rougher miracles for the believers.

In Paul's letters he often speaks about "signs and wonders".  Paul talks about these things as evidence of his apostleship. In other words, the signs and wonders that he and the other apostles performed contribute to their credibility as true disciples of Christ.  These miracles helped the non-believers to embrace the message that came alongside these acts of healing.  We don't ever see Paul asking for healing. Except at one point in the book of 2 Corinthians. Paul shares a story where he asked God to remove a thorn from his flesh.  But then he shares with us that God didn't perform this task.  Instead, God's lesson about grace trumped Paul's desire for comfort.

I better get to my point here before you, the reader, start to snooze.  I have spent most of my Christian experience in certain kinds of churches. So I don't mean to generalize on the comments I'm about to make. However, I do believe that the types of churches I have generally attended have been the most popular types of churches in our culture today.  These churches have not been the type  where you see very many signs and wonders. At least not the kinds of signs and wonders where withered body parts restore and paralyzed people get up and walk.  Now, we have spent a lot of time justifying the little tiny miracles that take place in our churches and calling them signs and wonders so that we feel like the Holy Spirit is at least doing a little something for us.  But, for the most part, we ignore the fact that not a lot of really miraculous stuff happens during our church services. 

I have also seen a lot of Christians pray for miracles.  I've been in a lot of prayer circles where we politely ask God to heal some friend of ours who is laid sick in a hospital.  Or we might lay our hands on one of our Christian brothers or sisters and ask that God remove their back pain, or take away their cancer.  I believe these are good prayers to make, and I believe our Father wants us to ask Him for these things.  But, what I mainly want to point out today is an imbalance that seems obvious to me now.  We spend most of our time asking for miracles for our own kind.  The New Testament believers spent most of their miracle prayer time asking for healing for the non-believers so that they might begin to believe.  Why the difference?  I think mainly, at least for me, it's simply more comfortable.  If I ask God to heal up my Christian friend who has a bad knee, and I say the prayer around a few other Christian friends, I'm pretty confident about a few things.  One, I'm pretty confident that God probably won't heal my friends' knee.  Two, I'm pretty confident that when He doesn't heal my friends knee, all of my other Christian friends around me know the polite theological things to say. Things like, "It must not be God's timing right now."  Or, "perhaps there is something God wants us to learn in this experience."

Let me be so bold as to make a strong proposition of which many of you may not agree.  Perhaps God is curious why we are always asking Him to remove the pain in our knees when He has given us the keys to his treasure room.  Don't the New Testament scriptures tell us that everything that belongs to God is also now ours?  Doesn't Paul tell us that we are now heirs of the Kingdom of God, made sons of God through adoption?

We, as Christians, gave our lives to the service of Christ.  Paul even uses the language of slavery, mentioning that we are now slaves of Christ.  Our freedom is given to us through this willing slavery.  But this also means that the outcome of our lives is completely up to God.  I've always been baffled at the believers who so quickly doubt when God allows them a little pain and suffering.  Isn't my body God's to injure if He wishes to injure, and to heal if He wishes to heal?  If it is injured, which prayer should I say more quickly; "God please heal this injury?"  Or, "God, please use this injury?"

The ministry of healing in the Christian church of my culture seems to be very self-obsessed.  My charismatic brothers would brag to me that miracles of healing take place in their congregations on a daily basis.  Amen!  So show me, my brothers and sisters, where your miracles of healing are taking place then on the sidewalks of downtown?  If your churches are havens for such great power, then why do you keep it within your walls?   Why do you save it for your own spiritual families?

I will be the first to admit that I do not consider myself qualified.  I ask for healing for others willingly when around my own church family.  But ask me to pray for some guy I have never met, and I will do all that I can to avoid the issue.  Why? Lack of faith I think, both in myself and in my God.  I feel that I am not alone here.

What would happen if we turned our prayers outward? What would occur if we stopped praying for ourselves and started sharing the treasures of God with those around us who do not have them?  After all, it is us who carry the keys to the treasure room.  I wonder.