Monthly Archives: May 2008

Its’ getting harder to keep a Sabbath.  Busyness and agendas keep creeping in.  I can feel the threads of my spirit fraying a bit as I try to keep certain energies going.  I have five major presentations to give before Sunday evening, and on the quiet morning walk I just returned from, I heard in my heart once again that none of this is up to me.  It’s so odd to think of success in Kingdom terms.  In the end, the gathered people of God are there to worship Him and seek Him out, and it is His work to move in us to provide welcome and respite to the seekers who He is calling.  All that sounds like so much religious hoo-haa, but in practical terms, there is always a gut-check to make.   In the gospels, Jesus works hard in getting the word out about the Kingdom, but he doesn’t try to overcome objections.  In other words, his means of persuasion is not with fancy words or arguments.  He loves people, enters fully into his moments with them, helps them if he can, then states the truth and walks away.  But in Acts 2, Peter warns them (that’s a verb you can use for Jesus, too), and pleads with them.  Paul later says he demolishes arguments, and his ministry usually begins by contending with people in the synagogues.

Here’s the point.  In the mysterious moments of decision making, in those exchanges where a preacher or pastor is inviting people to be a part of God’s work, His Kingdom, and His salvation life, what part of the work belongs to the human, and what part belongs to God?  “Work like it depends on you, pray like it depends on God” is an old saw that speaks to this some, but we live in a culture of celebrity and CEO pastors, where stories are spun with polish and grace, and tears supplement nearly every message.  I can tell you that the tears makes sense to me: I’ve told enough pulpit stories now to know that flesh and blood folks are listening, and if you care about the intersection of their lives with God’s, and if you are bringing your own deep heart to each message, you’d have to a brick to not tear-up.  Lives hanging in the balance of change is plenty to be moved by.

All this to say we give up Sabbath solitude and rest far too easily.  I say “we”: in this moment, I just mean me.  The spiritual journey–I’m beginning to believe this more and more–is out of step with the culture, and to walk with God will challenge you and cost you in every waking moment.  Sacrifice is real, except it’s really not much sacrifice, especially considering what people are facing in Kisumu, Kenya, and other parts of a cruel, unjust, and impoverished world.

Ignoring Sabbath is, at its heart, a breach of trust.

Going back to Sabbath…

So I’ve had my head under a rock, I suppose, so I didn’t know that American Idol had done a show that included a group sing rendition of “Shout to the Lord” on two consecutive nights on their “American Idol Gives Back” show.  Great song, but my first reaction on watching the YouTube piece was, “Wow…this is weird.”  Talk about wrong context.  Was I offended?  Not in the least, but I just kept thinking, “This is so odd.”  If you haven’t seen it, watch and see what you think.

It came at the end of a day in which I’d been thinking about the whole notion of worship and what it means.  In churches of Christ, there have been the battles over instrumental music (vs. a cappella), discussions over whether worship is just the “singing part” of the Sunday service or whether its a broader concept including all our energies and lives, and how to navigate the competing values of participation and musical excellence.  Mostly what I wonder is what happens in the mind of the worshipper.

Worship is inevitably connected with awe, beauty, wonder, and identity.  Awe is an event that has both intellectual and emotional aspects.  The dance of rational understanding and emotional connection is ongoing as we ponder, meditate on, and seek out, God.  The very idea of God bends the mind, though we bandy the word “God” about like it’s not much different than the name of our favorite ice cream.  Familiarity and the buddy-Jesus is far more culturally relevant than the Holy standing-outside-of-time God and the King of bloody robe.  Through our lens of suffering, we question God as if the clay does indeed question the potter, and we cry out in pain as the wheel turns again and pressure and cutting comes again.  “Though you slay me, yet will I trust you” always swings through my mind as I think about this, because we simply don’t understand.  I often tell people my walk with God begins with the notion that we talk about things we cannot possibly get our heads around, glorious though our created minds may be.

I do wonder what God does with our raised voices and scattered minds as we come to him singing words declaring His wonder and power and worth, how our hearts impact Him as we come to Him.  Love would suggest He cherishes the thoughts of the ones He loves. The Psalmist in Psalm 139 claims the thoughts of God are precious to him, and John tells us in Revelation that the prayers of the saints are golden bowls of incense.

Worship and praise (at least in moments of directly addressing God) is about what is in “the life of the mind” about our Triune God.  Which leads me back to American Idol.   What was in the mind of the singers, and how does it work as the song moves out into the world?   Surely, we can be thankful that the name of Jesus was held up for attention and praise (though the first night “Jesus” was edited out so that the song started with “My Shepherd, My Savior”).  But given that post-modern thought is all about context, what does it say that now evangelical praise songs are being used for entertainment on American Idol?   The weird mixture in America of commerce and entertainment and idea (no matter how lofty) ends up making me lean toward cynicism, believing that somewhere in the backroom decision-making, there are Christians honorably working to get the Word out, and that right beside them are the producers who see things only in terms of market share and bottom lines.   That said, God works together in all things, and who knows what was sparked in some lonely living room somewhere as America tuned in to see a show and got a bit of praise instead.

What’s on your mind when you worship?

I didn’t have a chance to watch Friday NIght Lights this past season, so when I heard the DVD of the second season had been released, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.  Blockbuster had it, so last night, I sat and watched the first few episodes.  My initial fear was that I wouldn’t like it nearly as much as the previous year, but as each episode progressed, I couldn’t help but marvel.  Am I just being snookered by the fact that this is West Texas, not far from my home, and the fact that they get the rhythm of that part of the country so perfect?  Is it just because I like football?  Because I am frankly astonished that this show had not gotten the critical acclaim on a broad scale that it so obviously deserves.  These performances are uncanny in their depth and evenness.  From character to character, there are rarely any false notes.  Even Lila, the former cheerleader who has become a born again Christian, is getting better.  If there’s any stumbling in the writing, its the slightly over-the-top treatment of Lila’s witnessing, but her interaction with the other characters makes it all work far better than you expect.

Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor) and Connie Britton (Tami Taylor) make marriage look real, easily the most honest treatment of the difficult and beautiful process by which most people have to work to make marriages last on TV.  Britton plays the emotional rollercoaster of a woman struggling to hold  a family together with such range and plasticity…she is heartbreakingly real, holding her newborn while fighting for a relationship with her rebel teenager daughter.  The subtleties of relationship that pass between the younger characters astound me over and over.  Zach Gilford, the quarterback of the Dillon Panthers, nails the halting, stumbling speech of young West Texans with jaw-dropping perfection, and his world crumbles both on and off the field, he reacts with painful beauty.  I could go on an on.

Maybe its just me and football and West Texas.  But someone explain to me why this show hasn’t won major awards?  But I just don’t understand… I mean, House is awesome, but Friday Night Lights is sublime.

Can’t wait to see what happens next…

I don’t know what I was expecting.  In the end, by the time I got to the pulpit, I had left the expectations behind.  Pentecost was here, and we were talking about the Holy Spirit, what had happened in Jerusalem all those many years ago.  I suppose I was secretly hoping for something amazing, something like what Peter and John saw in Acts 3, when the were vessels of healing for a man who had been crippled for 40 years.  Now that I know what its like to live through 40 years, I can only say, wow.  There were no real “wows”, though–at least not like that.  Two people were baptized, and their journey into faith is an amazing thing in itself, a “wow” of a different kind.  And people wanting to “come home” who want a deeper faith and walk with God, who want to know He loves them, want to be obedient, all these people gathered around each other praying for the Holy Spirit to touch their lives in a new way.

I’m one of those.  My disciplines are all aimed, in the end, in hearing Him speak more clearly, trying to follow more closely.  Sometimes I think I get it, most times I think I’m fairly clueless.  But I keep following, reading, studying, serving, trying to do as best I can with what I understand and hear at this moment.  He is faithful, and I have no doubt there are “wows” still to come.  Maybe they’re happening all around me even now, and I just don’t yet seem them.

Change is good, don’t you think?  I have always loved variety, new ways of doing things, new adventures to be on.  It seems that growth is a synonym for change, and while people are saying they want to grow all the time, they rarely want change.   Not me.  I want to grow, and I want change.  So this is the year, especially as I think of rolling into my 50th birthday next year.  It’s a time for new life, new energy, new brain-maps, and new who knows what else.  I’ve thought of journaling it all pretty carefully, just seeing where it leads, where He leads.  We’ll see.  It made a difference in that way I got out of bed this morning.

It’s a start…

My sweet sister sent me a new lens for my birthday.  Nikon AF Micro Nikkor 60mm.  Fun, fun.   It’ll take me a while to figure it out, but I love the possibilities.  Just a few shots from around the house…

Thanks, Jody…