Christianity Doesn't Exist Without Shalom

Colossians 3:15 tells us to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.

There was a time when farmers on the Great Plains would tie a rope from their porch to their barn on the first sign of a blizzard. They all knew the horror stories of friends and loved ones who froze to death after loosing sight of their barn or home and never left their backyard.

Parker Palmer says, “Today we still live in blizzard in which people are dying in their backyards. The blizzard hits us with economic injustice, ecological ruin, physical and spiritual violence, and their inevitable outcome, war. It swirls within us as fear and frenzy, greed and deceit, and indifference to the suffering of others.”

Truthfully, we all know people who have wandered off into this maddening world and have been separated from their own souls, they lose their moral bearing and sometimes their mortal lives.

What these people share in common is they attempt to leave home to find fulfillment but they get caught in a blizzard. And the ones caught are doing nothing more than looking for peace.

But this hidden peace is what Jesus promises.

In the Greek, Colossians says for us to carry with us the “Shalom of Christ.” I did some digging and this word, shalom, actually renders a weightier definition than peace. The more appropriate definition is wholeness.

Wholeness is the beauty of Advent. The coming of Jesus offers the potential for us to be whole. His birth and even his eventual return bring with them pieces of heaven, pieces of wholeness. It allows us to live in a secular world and still be touched by the divine. The Advent of Jesus, brings with it peace on earth and good will towards all people.

So if you are the one who is lost in the backyard and looking for home, then I tell you the presence of God is that rope tied from your backdoor to the barn. It is the guide that keeps you on track and in connected even when you have lost sight of where you are in life.

This rope is what our author tells the church of Colossians to grab. He says to have it with you wherever you go as if it is all you need.

Christianity doesn’t exist without peace. Christianity doesn’t exist without you holding that rope. For the rope is connected to God and your heart. To lose sight of the rope is to lose sight of your heart, to turn and walk away from your core self, your true self, and to also walk away from God. But to hold that rope, even when life gets hard, is to stay connected with the divine, the fullness of time, and the Prince of Peace.

Christianity Doesn't Exist Without Hope

Our hope is in Christ.

Hope that despite the fact that sin and death still rule the world, Jesus somehow conquers them. Hope that in him and through him all of us stand a chance of somehow conquering them too. Hope that at some unforeseeable time and in some unimaginable way Jesus will return with healing in his wings.

C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity says,

“We as humans carry a need that can’t be met in this world . . . me must therefore be made for another world."

I love this quote because it captures all that Advent and Christianity stands for. Christians’ hope is in a Christ that returns with heaven and healing in his wings.

But this is very hard for us because we are not trained to think of heaven as our ultimate resting place. We think of Sunday afternoon naps, the Tennessee Titans winning five games in a row, buying new electronics, watching the sunrise with a blanket and a cup of Joe, or eating ice cream on the beach. But heaven, well that is strange for us to think about. I guess it is because we are so removed from the notion that Jesus might actually come back – we look to meet our needs elsewhere.

But Frederick Buechner says,

“Christianity is wishful thinking. Even the part about judgment and Hell reflects the wish that somewhere the score is being kept. Dreams are wishful thinking. Children playing at being grown-ups is wishful thinking. Interplanetary travel is wishful thinking. Sometimes wishing is the wings that truth comes true on. Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it.”

So what am I talking about? I’m talking about hope.

Christian hope is hope in Christ, hope in the return of Christ, and the need for another life. Christianity does not exist without these hopes. The founding principle of Christianity is we will prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord.

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Shawshank Redemption.” I love it when Andy tells his best friend Red to go to a field, find a tree, dig up a box, and see what’s inside. Red goes to the field, finds the tree, finds the box and opens it. He reads a letter from Andy. In that letter Andy writes, “Hope is a good thing. Maybe even the best of things.”

For Christians, hope is just that. Christianity doesn’t exist without it. Hope for us is a good thing, and it may even be the best of things.

True Advent?

Since the earliest days of church history, people have had different answers to the question, “When is the true ‘Advent’ going to take place?” Advent means ‘coming.’ This question is asking when Jesus will return to reign. Here is list of significant minds and their thoughts:

• 2nd century church historians Justin Martyr and Irenaeus both believed the events in Revelation are real and will happen in their lifetime.

• Late in the 2nd century comes Montanus, “The Mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit.” He starts a strand of Christianity that proclaims the world would end in a few months.

• In the 1200s Joachim of Fiore, an Italian monk who received a vision from God about the meanings of the visions in Revelation, found historical people to represent the monsters and demons in Revelation and put together a proposal that Jesus Christ would be returning in 1260.

• American 18th century Evangelist Jonathan Edwards believed humans were the hands and feet of Jesus, but Jesus would not return until all had heard about Jesus. So he started the Evangelical, conversion-seeking phenomenon known as the Revival.

• William Miller, a veteran of the 1812 war based his interpretation on Daniel 8:14 that says, “2300 days from the decree to restore Jerusalem.” He believed the accurate dating of Ezekiel 4:6 is year 457 BC which includes the decree to restore Jerusalem and so he believed the end of the world, the coming of Christ would be on March 21, 1843. He refined his search and said it would happen in 1844. This failure came to be known as the Great Disappointment.

• Charles Taze Russell believed WWI must mean something biblical. He found passages in Daniel and Revelation that said the end of the world would occur 2420 days following the time of the Gentiles (607 BC). He took that each day mentioned in Daniel to actually mean a calendar year and found the end of the world to be in 1914. Russell died before the war was over but his followers formed a group called the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

• David Koresh in 1981 gathered followers in Waco and convinced them that he was the true adversary of the evil city of Babylon.

Every single one of these people believes with all that they are that God will have dominion over this earth. “Look!” cries Revelation. “He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.”

But Jesus hasn’t come back yet. All of these Bible believing people are wrong.

What does this mean for us today?

I guess it means we should continue waiting despite the evidence, for the one unchanging doctrine since the creation of the church is the Doctrine of Hope. Hope that Jesus will in fact return to reign. Hope that despite evil and sin Jesus will have the power to stop them. Hope that in Christ we too may have the power to stop them. Hope that somehow on Jesus’ return there will be healing in his wings. I know I still believe it.

Nothing Lasts

In Mark 13 an unnamed disciple looks up at the Temple’s enormous stone wall and gasps, “This is huge!”

We can relate to this can’t we? Admiring humanity's dominance over it's environment.

Alan Culpepper says,

It is the essence of humanism to look at the flowering of our God-given potential and artistry and think that it is the highest good. We may easily look at our great cities and pride ourselves on our conquest of the environment. We may easily look at our technology and medical advances and think that we can now control our destinies. And we may look to our prosperity and material comforts and think that we can provide for our needs.

Yet in humanity’s great narrative Empires have come and gone. Every century presents a new world power and a new world order. Change is marked by war, laws, and architecture. And in every case – the present power falls. Even though we have gone from the country to the city, from tents to buildings, from camels to cars, from roads to airplanes, the constant in history is not power but the replacement of power.

I’m just wondering if in our endeavor to better ourselves if we miss something holy because Jesus snaps at the chance to tell the unnamed disciple that buildings don’t last – nothing lasts except him.

Culpepper continues, “Marveling the magnificence of our work, as though it can be lasting or transcend our mortality, marks the long history of human delusion that reaches from the tower of Babel to the tragic collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.”

Jesus is right, things don’t last and maybe in our endeavor to better ourselves we do miss something holy.

The goal for life is not conquering the environment so we can leave our mark on history. The goal is to become fully alive in the present, naked 'now.'

God Bless You

God bless you.

Frederick Buechner says,

The word blessing has come to mean more often than not a pious formality such as ministers are continually being roped into giving at dinner parties. But in the biblical sense, if you give me your blessing, you irreversibly convey into my life not just something of the beneficent power and vitality of who you are but something also of the life-giving power of God in whose name the blessing is given.

Yet the word blessing still falls deaf on most ears. It carries little to no depth or meaning.

I would argue “luck,” of all words, hits closer to home because when you have “luck” you really have something. Everybody knows about the magical nature of luck. It wins ballgames, escapes hard times, and jumps from one person to the next. A blessing, on the other hand, has come to sound like a Hallmark imitation.

But what if your luck was God actually blessing you?

I think of, in this instance, Ruth – a Gentile, Moabite woman whose Israelite husband died. A nobody. A meaningless person. I mean God doesn’t sign a covenant with Ruth or the Moabites. Ruth doesn’t save the planet from disease or rescue a baby from a burning building. She doesn’t, for any reason, merit being in the lineage of Jesus Christ. But “luckily” she is. She’s actually the great-grandmother of King David.

But how? She’s a Moabite. An outsider. For no reason whatsoever should God care about this person. She’s done nothing. She has nothing. She’s useless.

But that’s what God does -- isn't it? God takes the lowly, undeserving many and makes them holy.

This is called grace. And grace, well, that’s a blessing.

Our Saints

November 1 is All Saints Day in the Christian calendar. This day is the day we (the Church) remember all the saints throughout church history.

Frederick Buechner says,

“It’s in God’s holy flirtation with the world where we occasionally see God drop a pocket handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.”

Many people think of saints as plaster saints or moral exemplars, men and women of such paralyzing virtue that they never thought a nasty thought or did an evil deed their whole lives long. As far as I know, real saints never even come close to characterizing themselves that way. On the contrary, no less a saint than Saint Paul wrote to Timothy, “I am foremost among sinners.”

In other words, the feet of saints are as much of clay as everybody else’s, and their sainthood consists less of what they have done than of what God has for some reason chosen to do through them. Did you know Saint Mary Magdalene was possessed by seven demons at one point (so says Catholic tradition)? St. Augustine prayed, “God give me chastity and continence – but not now!” Saint Francis of Assisi, the founder of Franciscan monks, lived a high-rollers life the majority of his adult career before surrendering to God’s call on his life.

I guess if God can use these people then there is no one God can’t use as a means of grace.

What some people don’t realize is that All Saints Day also celebrates the lives of loved one’s who have passed away during our lifetime.

Memories can be vessels for God’s assurance. These cherished memories of loved ones that live on inside of us is God’s way of reminding us that God is in control.

I’m learning that no one earns their way into heaven. No one deserves to climb Mt. Zion to worship God in the temple. But in Psalm 24, in a moment of true confession and honesty, we hear the cries of the Israelites saying that for those who seek after God – God shows mercy. God shows favor. God gives salvation. In other words, we can carry with our memories of our loved ones assurance that God is taking care of them.

The story of our faith is that God looks out at all that God created and says – “this is good, I’m well pleased.”

I truly believe you can know that your loved ones are being taken care of by God, and they are resting with the one who makes all things new. God doesn’t destroy but instead -- redeems. God doesn’t condemn but instead -- saves. God doesn’t punish but instead -- shows grace. God loves. God forgives. God redeems. Especially those we have lost this day.

Here's What I'm Trying to Say

And in a soft whisper and almost tired breath, the preacher looks out from her notes and says –

Here is what I am trying to say . . .

From a seminary preaching professor's standpoint, this phrase may get you an C+.

But I've learned over the years this phrase can be the best part of the sermon for the listener. “Now that I have said all that – here is what I am trying to say!” It’s like a trigger. The sermon is almost over. She’s making her last point! It may or may not be a good one but it is almost over.

I have a memory of when I preached for one of the first times in a church that was not my home church. They were really sweet and they knew my New Testament professor and asked him to send someone good. Well, instead, he asked me to go. At twenty years old having the holy task of bringing forth a word from God that intervenes and intercepts the lives of believers and offers hope for a future is more or less missed. Instead, at twenty I saw this as an opportunity for them to listen to what I had to say.

36 minutes later . . . I said the magic phrase, “Here is what I am trying to say!” My brother in row four looked at me with exhaustion and smiled. That smile meant one thing, “Thank the Lord he’s done.” He could almost taste the lunch that was coming fifteen minutes later than it should.

So really the phrase can go either way. It is rarely used by good preachers but when it is it triggers the meaning of the moment. It is used by bad preachers to wrap up a stumbling, incoherent, and usually too long diatribe.

But in truth preaching is an art. It really is an attempt for a preacher to say what she or he thinks God is saying. It is built around listening intently for a word from God and being bold enough to stand before peers and loved ones not as a political salesperson but as a humble servant of God Almighty.

Preachers are given the task to invite you into a holy moment in time. A time where all things stand still and you are left alone before God. Good preachers take you to the cross, the empty tomb, the center of your soul, and before the throne - simultaneously. They word things with such craft that with every word you feel the power of the spirit inside you. And it seems effortless when done right.

Good preaching changes lives. It triggers us to listen to God, ourselves, and life in a new way. A better way. Our heart, mind, and soul - for a moment - become one.

So if you ever get to preach - remember - it is a holy task. And if you say, "here's what I'm trying to say" after a less than abbreviated attempt don't beat yourself up - every preacher has crashed and burned more than she or he cares to share.

I know my congregation would agree!

Hopelessness Rationalizes "What Is"

Hopelessness rationalizes and adapts to ‘what is.’

A mother who lost her child has to adapt to a world without her son. A teenage pregnancy has to adapt to a world in which dreams are slowing down. A man laid off from work has to adapt to the precariousness of the economy. All of these situations sometimes feel like hope is gone and God is not responding.

Personally, I have never felt more hopeless in my life than the day after my college graduation party. I stopped the night before at a gas station to fill my car up with gas and placed my wallet on top of the car. Sure enough – I filled up with gas and drove away never realizing my wallet, full of hundreds of dollars, was missing. It dawned on me the next day what had happened.

I was forced to adapt to the situation. I was forced to rationalize it. I felt hopeless; I felt as if I messed up; I felt guilty.

Sometimes when we need Christ the most – it just seems like a fool’s hope that he will be there to respond. I mean, God has bigger things to do than to worry about my forgetfulness. It’s my fault, and why would God care anyway?

The Book of Hebrews answers this question by saying Jesus is our Great High Priest. (This may seem inconsequential to God not listening but hear me out)

Praying to Jesus, listening for Jesus to respond is not a fleeting task – it is a holy one. We are not praying to someone who died once upon a time and his stories live on, for Jesus turns toward God on our behalf and toward us on God’s. This conciliation is the role of the high priest.

So why is this important to us? If hopelessness rationalizes and adapts to ‘what is,’ then hope critiques and resists it.

We need to be reminded that Jesus is not just a man who walked the earth, but he is also the son of God who takes on our prayers and supplications and speaks them to God on our behalf. Jesus then listens to God and reports back to us what it is God wants us to do and be.

In short, Jesus is our hope. It’s the hope that allows us to critique and resist what is. Its hope that helps us keep faith, despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing.

Our brokenness, our hurt, our desperation to hear the voice of God subsides when we allow ourselves to engage in a relationship with Christ. God is speaking to us, listening to us, and responding to us. We must allow Jesus the time and room to speak on God’s behalf. If change in ‘what is’ is what we are looking for then we must listen to Jesus.

What good is a high priest if we never go and listen to him/her?

Parents: A Blessing or a Cursing

Moses descends from the back of Mt. Sinai to bring two tablets that outline the rules in which life will be governed. On that list is “honor” your father and mother. I have to be honest; it is extremely hard for me to believe such a commandment should be so universal.

I agree with Frederick Buechner in his book Wishful Thinking when he says,

“How do you honor them when, well-intentioned as they may be, they make terrible mistakes with you that have shadowed your life ever since?”

Or how about when they abandon you? Or they abuse you, either sexually, emotionally, or physically? Or what about the people who left home, went off to college and formed a faith that radically opposed that of their parents? These people find themselves disenchanted after questioning the faith that ‘mom and them’ gave ‘em. Or what about the females who accepted a call from God to go to seminary despite their parents said they were forbidden? What about the young men who discover they are homosexual and now are disbarred from their family trees? What about the young lady who never met her dad? Or the boy who was raised by unbelievers? What about the crack baby born into a hostile environment? Or the girl whose parents just give too little too late? Are these people required by God to “honor” their parents?

Life is not worth living in fear, denial, or guilt because of an out-of-date commandment.

I think a big reason why we struggle to see a need to honor our parents is because we long for a well overdue blessing.

I’m blessed to be raised by Christian parents. They are good people. My mom has taught special needs kids for 33 years. My dad has pastored the same church my entire life. They have sacrificed more for me and my brothers than any parent probably should.

But I lived the majority of my childhood radically smart-aleck. And over time the smart comments turned into disdain. As a teenager I was kind of mean. Probably because I am the younger of two highly successful brothers. I spent the majority of middle school and high school years parading around ballparks watching my brother play baseball. I quickly grew a thick callus and tried not to show it but I was longing and in desperate need of my parents’ blessing. I tried every way to find it. I acted up. I intentionally broke rules. I even attempted to accomplish all the things my other brothers accomplished – president of afterschool clubs, high GPA, play four sports. But nothing seemed to bring to me what it looked like my brothers were getting from mom and dad. I longed for a blessing.

It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college, I was preaching at a summer camp for LifeWay called Crosspoint. I remember my parents came to West Alabama University to hear me preach. After the worship service mom and dad looked at me with tears in their eyes and for the first time in my life I heard them bless me. All it took was to hear them say, “We are so proud of you!” All the pain, all the resentment, all the emotional energy – was released. I was finally somebody’s son. They had told me countless times before and in many fashions that they were proud of me but this was the first time I believed it. It wasn’t because I achieved something or earned a grade or received an award. I was just finally becoming me. I was at a place where I was comfortable enough to accept their blessing as well as their shortcomings and honor them for it.

Becoming who God made you to be might be the best way you could ever honor your parents.

God Speaks

God speaks.

But God is not an all-night radio talk show of unbroken chatter. God, rather, speaks in episodes that punctuate seasons of silence. Think about the story of Samuel in the temple – he spoke to God but God is said to have spoken -- rarely. Or how about the Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her dying daughter. Jesus seemed to include unnecessary moments of silence in the healing of the little girl.

There is no reason that we can see that explains why God speaks episodically. I too wonder why in some instances we hear God crystal clear and in other instances God is as opaque as the Hebrew alphabet. We only know that there is a mysterious rhythm to the speech and silence of God that uncoils from the wild and wise freedom of God.

If you are in period of your life where you are dying to hear the voice of God but you can’t seem to do it, I implore you – hold on – God does speak. It just comes in fragments.

Martin Luther King, Jr. tells a story in one of his books that in the middle of the Montgomery bus boycott, he was facing a personal crisis of confidence. With negotiations with the city bogging down and resistance from the white community strengthening, he was growing not only weary but frightened as well. He had received over forty telephone calls threatening his life and the well being of his family. Late one night, he returned home from a meeting only to receive yet another call warning him to leave town soon if he wanted to stay alive.

Unable to sleep after this disturbing threat, he sat at the kitchen table and worried. In the midst of his anxiety something told him that he could no longer call on anyone for help but God. So he prayed, confessing his weakness and his loss of courage. “At that moment,” he said later, “I could hear an inner voice saying to me ‘Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for the truth. And lo, I will be with you, even until the end of the world.’” It was, realized King, the voice of Jesus speaking a word of promise, a word of reassurance, a timely word of comfort and strength.

When you most need to hear God – you can bet God will be there. God may speak in fragments but they are timely. The trick is slowing yourself down to listen.

Revelation is what we call God speaking. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a revelation. God spoke.

But revelation is not us bringing ourselves to the awareness that we can see God. Revelation is rather God bringing us into an awareness that the heavens are preaching a word we could not know unless we gazed upon God. Revelation is not merely patterns to a fractioned speech, awaiting a science sophisticated enough to map it, but a shout in the street crying a news we could not have anticipated, news that God is at work in creation, providing and saving, reconciling and judging, nurturing and healing.

God speaks. You just have to learn to listen for it.