Peggy Noonan's column in today's Wall Street Journal listed her "books of the year". She commented that she thought reading would be making a comeback in the new year. She figured that the economy might have something to do with it. I don't know about that but I hope she is right. There are a lot of good books out there and many people are getting pretty tired of television and other video selections. Karl Rove had a column about reading, too, in the Wall Street Journal this week. In it, he told about President Bush's reading for the year. The common thinking is that President Bush is a light weight intellect. But, Rove who enjoys a reading friendship with the President, shows how wrong that common view is. Bush read widely in history and fiction over the past year. He rarely watches tv preferring to read. And he read almost 100 books this past year. I didn't quite match his presidential efforts but I managed to read almost three a month and I dipped into many others which I never finished (promising myself I would come back to them). I reread some others, as well.
Like I said, there are a lot of really good books out there and I wish I had read more. I have been on an Adam Hochschild kick every since I read King Leopold's Ghost in 2006. In 2007 I read his Bury The Chains about the social movement in England that brought an end to the worldwide slave trade. This movement was led by evangelical Christians and Hochschild, who does not share their Christian commitment, tells a bracing story. So, continuing to follow Hochschild's lead, this year I read Half the Way Home which is a memoir about the relationship with his father (who was instrumental in saving much land in the Adirondack State Park in New York for public use and for the founding of the Adirondack Museum - which I visited several times when we lived in NY). I, also, read an earlier work of his: Mirror at Midnight, which offers his perspective on the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. It is full of insights into South African history.
I read some other authors whose previous works I enjoyed, as well. I read another Geraldine Brooks novel called People of the Book. In this book, she tells the story of a precious Jewish scroll as it made its journey through Europe in the middle ages. Fascinating history and excellent writing. I read Leif Enger's new book since I loved Peace Like a River. The new book is good but it would be hard to beat the power of his first one, one of my all time favorites. I picked up Marianne Robinson's new book called Home. In an earlier book called Gilead she wrote lovingly of a small town community and a friendship between two older pastors. In this new book she wrote in more detail about one of those pastors and his family. Now his wife is dead and all his children are grown and have moved on with lives and families of their own. Except for a daughter who had a failed relationship and returned home to look after her aging dad, and a son who was the prodigal of the family. In piercing detail she shows how hard it is for a prodigal to come home and find forgiveness, especially when offered poorly and accepted poorly.
A new novel and a leading candidate for my favorite fiction book of the year is by Misha Berlinski called Fieldwork. It is about an American anthropologist who does her fieldwork in some of the rural villages in Thailand. In the course of her work, she is found dead and it is supposed that she committed suicide. Later on a journalist in the country with his wife, who has a teaching job there, stumbles on this story. He follows the threads wherever they lead and it makes for a riveting account of the people who come to Thailand to live with the people and study their lives and the missionaries who come to live with the people so they can share Christ with them.
History is an interest of mine so I read John Adams by David McCullough who is the sort of historian who can also write really well. Too bad we do not read more writers like him and fewer history textbooks in our high school history classes. The DVD made from this book is excellent, as well. I read the new biography of John Newton by Jonathan Aitken which makes Newton's life and times come alive and presents a human portrait of this great and compassionate English church leader.
The year after Teddy Roosevelt lost a third party bid for the presidency in 1912, he took off on an adventure to explore an unexplored part of the Amazon River. He almost lost his life many times over. Candace Millard, a writer for National Geographic, tells the suspenseful story and lets us see the kind of man Roosevelt was. She also gives us a National Geographic look at the wildlife and human life living along the Amazon.
Alan Jacobs wrote an exploration of the life of C. S. Lewis a couple of years ago entitled The Narnian. His newest book is a study of the history of Original Sin called by that name. Jacobs is always well worth reading.
A lot of my reading is in theology and Biblical studies. This year a study of Esther produced a discovery of two fine commentaries on this overlooked book of the Bible that has many contemporary applications. Debra Reid in the Tyndale Commentary Series and Karen Jobes in the NIV Application Series are good recent studies that complement the fine, older commentary by Joyce Baldwin. A different sort of commentary is the work of Kenneth Bailey. Bailey has spent 40 years living and teaching New Testament in the Middle East and some of that knowledge can be found in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. His insights from Middle Eastern culture challenged and deepened my understanding of the life and teaching of Jesus. I have blogged about Bailey's take on the Nativity story.
I read anything Eugene Peterson writes. Currently, he is working on a spiritual theology series. The fourth volume in the series came out this year and it is titled Tell it Slant: a conversation on the language of Jesus in his stories and prayers. Peterson is as good a guide as we have today for the Jesus way.
I have already blogged about The Lost History of Christianity and Culture-Making, two of my favorite non-fiction books of the year. Kathleen Norris, the author of several best-selling and helpful books on the spiritual life, came out with a new one called Acedia and Me: a marriage, monks, and a writers life. Not only an interesting title but a fascinating read about her life, her marriage and her struggle with acedia. Acedia is not a word widely used today even in the church. It was used in much older spiritual classics to describe one of the seven (eight) deadly sins. It has sometimes been confused with sloth and today is often masked as depression. While it shares some common ground with depression, it is a spiritual malady all its own as described by Norris who understands it intimately. She reveals much about her own struggle with acedia and in the process helped me understand my struggle with it, as well.
I don't know how N. T. Wright writes so many books and so many of them are so good. He is the pre-eminent New Testament scholar of our day. While engaging the latest issues in New Testament scholarship, most of his books are accessible to non theologically trained church members. In fact, a reading program which concentrated on his books would provide a pretty sound Biblical and theological education. One of his latest (he seems to put out one a year) books is Surprised by Hope, a study of "the last things" or eschatology and their meaning for the mission of the church. In this book, he interacts with heaven, hell, purgatory, the second coming of Christ, and how our understanding or misunderstanding of these Biblical themes affects our sense of the church's mission. We will be studying this in Sunday School beginning in January 2009. I will be blogging about each class.
Two other books I thoroughly enjoyed this year were: The Long Walk by Slovomir Rawicz and another book about a long walk called The Places in Between: A walk across Afghanistan.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Lost History of Christianity
Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Turkey - all areas of the world we have become so familiar with in the past decade. We think of most of them as Muslim and for the most part they are. But do we know that for the first thirteen hundred years after Christ, they were the hotbed of Christian expansion. Lands of vibrant Christian growth. Churches in almost every village across the Middle East. Great libraries and magnificent church art and architecture. Thousands of monasteries which produced the leading Christian scholarship in the world. These centers of learning preserved some of the earliest manuscripts of the Bible. Some of the words to our modern liturgies are dated from this era. But, unfortunately, most of the evidence of such a dynamic Christianity is all but gone. The churches, the artwork, the libraries with most of their books and manuscripts, the monasteries as well as the Christians are no longer there. It is hard to find any trace that Christianity was ever a presence there and surely not an influential one.
What happened? That is the story Philip Jenkins tells in his highly readable new book called, The Lost History of Christianity. He looks for clues to discover the reasons behind the virtual elimination (extermination) of Christianity from it's birthplace. How could a Faith so entrenched for so long over so great an area simply vanish? He tells of wave after wave of persecution, from Mongols to Muslims, until the great mass and power of Islam crushed all Christian belief. He tells of climate change (yes, it was a factor then, too), and plagues that decimated populations. And the Christian infighting among the Orthodox, Catholic, and Nestorians in the East prevented Christianity from having a unified front. The periodic corruptions within the church itself led many but the truly committed to fall away from the Faith.
It's a fascinating story with a modern twist. The Middle East is very much in the daily news today and a lot of it directly impacts us. I bet a lot of us are far more "expert" in our understanding of the Middle East than we were ten years ago! But, Jenkins allows us to draw some connections from what happened in those early years of the Christian Church in the East to
today.
Where the early Christian church failed to put down deep roots especially among the poorer people who lived outside the great cities, it collapsed more quickly to outside pressures. By 700 the once vibrant Christianity of North Africa (St.Augustine's home) was gone while the Coptic Church in Egypt still survives to this day. The spread of Christianity in Egypt was widespread among the ordinary people of the day and it had deep roots.
As Christianity spread eastward it institutionalized. It built great church buildings and monasteries with large collections of books and manuscripts. It amassed a lot of properties. It organized itself into a hierarchy of clergy leadership. All of which made it a sitting duck for those who wanted to attack it and bring it down. Where it survived the longest is where it was more decentralized and the power was spread out among the laypeople. Church life there depended less on the institution and more on the fellowship of the Word.
Geography played a role too in the vanishing churches of the East. Invasions and wars were commonplace at that time. Some communities were prone to decline simply because they were located in the wrong place at the wrong time. The great Muslim warlord Timor wreaked massive destruction all over Asia where he exterminated whole cities in his path but he never made it to Egypt because it was out of the way.
Churches became too attached to a ruling political regime and when the regime changed so did the fortunes of the Church in that place.
But perhaps the best lesson to be learned from the collapse of Eastern Christianity is that nothing is forever. That can be taken two ways. Our successes in ministry and mission may be short lived. Congregational life is cyclical. Over a long time span. Lots of conditions conspire together to cause decline or growth in a congregation. And where Christianity has burned out or been burned out, a spark remains in the embers. Christianity in China has had four starts; the first three failed. The fourth looked like a failure too when the Communists took over in 1949. Since that date, Christianity has flourished, growing from 5 million believers to as many as 90 million today! In the tenth century, a Christian observer, noted that on a recent visit to China he could not find one Christian believer.
We can assume too much control for "our" churches and take too much credit for their successes and growth. We think all we need to do is get the right pastor, or worship leader or new technology and we can grow this thing called a church. Or, we take too much blame for the decline of a church. If only, we had done this or that.... God is still in control of this thing. His ways are mysterious and all our expertise is not all that valuable but what is - is a long obedience in the right direction - to use a title from one of Eugene Peterson's books.
What happened? That is the story Philip Jenkins tells in his highly readable new book called, The Lost History of Christianity. He looks for clues to discover the reasons behind the virtual elimination (extermination) of Christianity from it's birthplace. How could a Faith so entrenched for so long over so great an area simply vanish? He tells of wave after wave of persecution, from Mongols to Muslims, until the great mass and power of Islam crushed all Christian belief. He tells of climate change (yes, it was a factor then, too), and plagues that decimated populations. And the Christian infighting among the Orthodox, Catholic, and Nestorians in the East prevented Christianity from having a unified front. The periodic corruptions within the church itself led many but the truly committed to fall away from the Faith.
It's a fascinating story with a modern twist. The Middle East is very much in the daily news today and a lot of it directly impacts us. I bet a lot of us are far more "expert" in our understanding of the Middle East than we were ten years ago! But, Jenkins allows us to draw some connections from what happened in those early years of the Christian Church in the East to
today.
Where the early Christian church failed to put down deep roots especially among the poorer people who lived outside the great cities, it collapsed more quickly to outside pressures. By 700 the once vibrant Christianity of North Africa (St.Augustine's home) was gone while the Coptic Church in Egypt still survives to this day. The spread of Christianity in Egypt was widespread among the ordinary people of the day and it had deep roots.
As Christianity spread eastward it institutionalized. It built great church buildings and monasteries with large collections of books and manuscripts. It amassed a lot of properties. It organized itself into a hierarchy of clergy leadership. All of which made it a sitting duck for those who wanted to attack it and bring it down. Where it survived the longest is where it was more decentralized and the power was spread out among the laypeople. Church life there depended less on the institution and more on the fellowship of the Word.
Geography played a role too in the vanishing churches of the East. Invasions and wars were commonplace at that time. Some communities were prone to decline simply because they were located in the wrong place at the wrong time. The great Muslim warlord Timor wreaked massive destruction all over Asia where he exterminated whole cities in his path but he never made it to Egypt because it was out of the way.
Churches became too attached to a ruling political regime and when the regime changed so did the fortunes of the Church in that place.
But perhaps the best lesson to be learned from the collapse of Eastern Christianity is that nothing is forever. That can be taken two ways. Our successes in ministry and mission may be short lived. Congregational life is cyclical. Over a long time span. Lots of conditions conspire together to cause decline or growth in a congregation. And where Christianity has burned out or been burned out, a spark remains in the embers. Christianity in China has had four starts; the first three failed. The fourth looked like a failure too when the Communists took over in 1949. Since that date, Christianity has flourished, growing from 5 million believers to as many as 90 million today! In the tenth century, a Christian observer, noted that on a recent visit to China he could not find one Christian believer.
We can assume too much control for "our" churches and take too much credit for their successes and growth. We think all we need to do is get the right pastor, or worship leader or new technology and we can grow this thing called a church. Or, we take too much blame for the decline of a church. If only, we had done this or that.... God is still in control of this thing. His ways are mysterious and all our expertise is not all that valuable but what is - is a long obedience in the right direction - to use a title from one of Eugene Peterson's books.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
How Did the Innkeeper Get Into the Christmas Story?
How did the innkeeper get into the Christmas story? It's time to celebrate Christmas again and it gets harder and harder to separate what really happened when Jesus was born from the layers of storytelling we have added to the Biblical account. For some of us Santa and the reindeer and all the rest of That Story are just fun, and for others annoying, but we don't attach any significance to it. It is more of a distraction to our celebration of Christmas than a meaningful part of it ( for some people that is ALL there is to Christmas but that is for another blog). But, how much of our traditional celebration of Christmas is more fantasy than reality. We have all seen our share of Christmas pageants and we know the parts better than we know the Bible. How does a cruel innkeeper get into the Christmas story? Was Jesus born in a cave, a stable, or a home? Why couldn't Joseph find any place in Bethlehem, his home town, to stay for the census? Was Jesus born the same night his parents arrived in Bethlehem? In a cold, inhospitable, stable surrounded only by animals? Why did the shepherds come?And if they found Jesus and his family shivering around a manger in a stable, why didn't they think to help out this poor family?
Kenneth Bailey, who lived and taught New Testament for forty years in the Middle East, sheds light on our traditional misinterpretations of the Nativity story and when we look at these blessed events from a Middle Eastern perspective they look a little different from what we may be used to.
Joseph was going to his ancestral home when he journeyed to Bethlehem. He was taking his betrothed wife who was pregnant with their first child. There may have been some family talk about how all this came about but he surely had family and friends in town he could call on. He had time to arrange a place to stay, too. Our idea of the holy family making a long trip and finding no place to stay, including being turned away cruelly from the local inn, so baby Jesus had to be born in a cold stable welcomed by no other people, only animals, is not true to the customs and culture of the world into which he was born. Mary had family close by too (Luke 1:39) so if Joseph's relations did not come through, certainly, Mary's would have. Besides, Joseph was from a royal family. He was descended from the great King David. Bethlehem was known as the "city of David". Another good reason why he would have found little difficulty locating a place to stay.
Nearly all village homes in that day were two room dwellings. One was the family living space and the other was a guest room. The family stayed together and at night the family's valued animals were brought inside for warmth (the family's warmth!) and protection. Usually, the animals were separated by a makeshift wall from the family sleeping area. The "inn" in town was actually a guest room in the home Joseph was going to stay at. The presence of a cruel innkeeper and the tradition that Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room for his family in the inn (Luke 2:7) can be attributed to the English translation of a word that simply means "a space". In our Western reading of the English text our minds naturally think of a large hotel with plenty of rooms and by the time Mary and Joseph got there the no vacancy sign was already out. There is another Greek word Luke uses in the Good Samaritan story that means a commercial inn but the word he uses here is "katalyma" which means "a place to stay." Luke uses that word to describe the upper room where Jesus ate the last supper with his disciples (Luke 22:10-12). It commonly meant a guest room in a family home. So, is Luke telling us that Jesus was placed in a manger in the living area of a village home because their guest room was already occupied? Because the animals were kept in the house at night, there was a manger dug out in the floor at one end of the room. When Jesus was born, he was laid in the manger. Given the obligation of hospitality in this part of the world, the birth of Jesus makes more sense when we know he was welcomed into the world as any other baby would have been.
Jesus was born in the style of most of the people in his world. He was welcomed by the common people of the village. The obligation of hospitality in that part of the world ensured that any baby would be welcomed. Jesus was welcomed before anyone knew who he was. He was named Jesus which was a common Palestinian name (Hebrew = Joshua) which means "he saves". Many mothers hoped their newborn son would be the God sent Savior of their people.
Since God could have had his son born into any family he chose, it is significant that he was born into a poor family of which there were many. Jesus was not born to privilege or power. To take this theme of common people one step further, there was no group more common than shepherds. Because of their dirty jobs and low reputation, they were looked down on by everyone. How ironic that they were the ones to witness the full angelic chorus and get the first invitation to the birth day. The 'sign" to them was that the baby was "one of them", poor and common, since he was wrapped in "cloths" and lying in a "manger"! Certainly not a birth with rich or royal trappings. One the shepherds felt comfortable attending! So they did. But they were not uncaring rubes and if they had felt that Jesus and family were not properly cared for, they would have offered to take them in! Finding them adequately provided for, they went on their way,praising and glorifying God for all they had seen and heard.
Kenneth Bailey, who lived and taught New Testament for forty years in the Middle East, sheds light on our traditional misinterpretations of the Nativity story and when we look at these blessed events from a Middle Eastern perspective they look a little different from what we may be used to.
Joseph was going to his ancestral home when he journeyed to Bethlehem. He was taking his betrothed wife who was pregnant with their first child. There may have been some family talk about how all this came about but he surely had family and friends in town he could call on. He had time to arrange a place to stay, too. Our idea of the holy family making a long trip and finding no place to stay, including being turned away cruelly from the local inn, so baby Jesus had to be born in a cold stable welcomed by no other people, only animals, is not true to the customs and culture of the world into which he was born. Mary had family close by too (Luke 1:39) so if Joseph's relations did not come through, certainly, Mary's would have. Besides, Joseph was from a royal family. He was descended from the great King David. Bethlehem was known as the "city of David". Another good reason why he would have found little difficulty locating a place to stay.
Nearly all village homes in that day were two room dwellings. One was the family living space and the other was a guest room. The family stayed together and at night the family's valued animals were brought inside for warmth (the family's warmth!) and protection. Usually, the animals were separated by a makeshift wall from the family sleeping area. The "inn" in town was actually a guest room in the home Joseph was going to stay at. The presence of a cruel innkeeper and the tradition that Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room for his family in the inn (Luke 2:7) can be attributed to the English translation of a word that simply means "a space". In our Western reading of the English text our minds naturally think of a large hotel with plenty of rooms and by the time Mary and Joseph got there the no vacancy sign was already out. There is another Greek word Luke uses in the Good Samaritan story that means a commercial inn but the word he uses here is "katalyma" which means "a place to stay." Luke uses that word to describe the upper room where Jesus ate the last supper with his disciples (Luke 22:10-12). It commonly meant a guest room in a family home. So, is Luke telling us that Jesus was placed in a manger in the living area of a village home because their guest room was already occupied? Because the animals were kept in the house at night, there was a manger dug out in the floor at one end of the room. When Jesus was born, he was laid in the manger. Given the obligation of hospitality in this part of the world, the birth of Jesus makes more sense when we know he was welcomed into the world as any other baby would have been.
Jesus was born in the style of most of the people in his world. He was welcomed by the common people of the village. The obligation of hospitality in that part of the world ensured that any baby would be welcomed. Jesus was welcomed before anyone knew who he was. He was named Jesus which was a common Palestinian name (Hebrew = Joshua) which means "he saves". Many mothers hoped their newborn son would be the God sent Savior of their people.
Since God could have had his son born into any family he chose, it is significant that he was born into a poor family of which there were many. Jesus was not born to privilege or power. To take this theme of common people one step further, there was no group more common than shepherds. Because of their dirty jobs and low reputation, they were looked down on by everyone. How ironic that they were the ones to witness the full angelic chorus and get the first invitation to the birth day. The 'sign" to them was that the baby was "one of them", poor and common, since he was wrapped in "cloths" and lying in a "manger"! Certainly not a birth with rich or royal trappings. One the shepherds felt comfortable attending! So they did. But they were not uncaring rubes and if they had felt that Jesus and family were not properly cared for, they would have offered to take them in! Finding them adequately provided for, they went on their way,praising and glorifying God for all they had seen and heard.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Holiday Stress
Most of us look forward to the holidays. Maybe that is part of the problem. We have expectations that will most likely go unfulfilled. Holidays amplify the tensions that are already present in our lives, our stressed lives. If you are having relationship problems, work problems or financial problems, you can bet holidays will add to the stress. It's no secret life these days is stressful. Add to the normal stress of life our current national problems and this holiday time has the potential to be one we might want to reschedule. Of course, we can't. So what can we do to deal with the stress. Here are some ideas I have found helpful.
Keep it simple. No big plans. Perhaps stay home and keep some time free to do nothing. If you do have guests over or special holiday activities planned, think: what is the minimum I have to do to carry this off. It is good to get together with people you enjoy over the holidays so plan to do that but keep those gatherings simple: a pot of soup, or just coffee or tea. Since holidays often involve gatherings with people we are not getting along with very well, keep your expectations low. Relationship miracles are good for holiday TV but they rarely happen in real life. Plan accordingly. As football coach Bill Parcells used to say when he was questioned about the poor performance of his team: "It is what it is." At times some of the primary relationships in our lives are performing poorly, too. If this is one of those times, repeat the mantra, " it is what it is", and make the best of it.
Keep your eating under control. There are different and special foods during the holidays and we are more tempted to indulge ourselves. Don't. You know how it makes you feel afterward. It only adds stress. Keep your meal plans similar to the way you usually eat. Don't eat out often. Don't go to parties hungry. Fill up on salads (watch the dressings) and water. If you have to have a dessert, try stopping at a bite or two. Wait a few minutes. It satisfies your need for a sweet the same as if you gulped down the whole thing.
Watch your budget if you have one and make one if you don't. There is very little that is worth buying if it will put you into more debt. Figure out how much you can afford to spend without charging more than you can pay off by the end of the year. Live within that amount. If someone will be miffed because you didn't spend more on them, they will get over it. More importantly, you will have avoided the huge stressor of debt. Don't let the holidays add to your family debt.
Exercise. Get a walk in as often as you can. Join a gym over the holidays. Treat yourself to a couple weeks with a personal exercise trainer. What a great Christmas present. Exercise is a proven stress reliever.
Pray. In the busyness of the holiday season, we tend to put off the most important things to make time for least important things. Get up a little earlier so you have time to pray. Read through some of the Psalms, or the early chapters of the Gospels that focus on the birth of Jesus. See your pastor for ideas about devotional readings for this time of year. Better yet, make an appointment to see your pastor for a spiritual checkup! Don't miss worship. Holiday worship services pull us away from so much that is shallow and superficial about the holidays and point us to the meaningful and significant.
Rest. Make sure you get to bed early to get enough sleep. Experts tell us that we need 8 hours a night although most of us get by with far less. "Get by" barely and others notice our irritability. Holiday stress is much easier to handle if we are rested.
Spend time with people that you enjoy being with. There are people that drain us and people that energize us. Often the demands and obligations of life make it impossible to avoid the people that drain us and we are too tired to plan time to be with those people that energize us. Make the time. Meet for a lunch or coffee (although watch the caffeine - too much is a stressor too!).
Laugh. Does anything reduce stress like laughter? Often the people who energize us are people we can laugh with. But even in the hardest circumstances we face, we can find something to laugh at. Like the popular book says: don't sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff.
One last thought. Each of us has a lot of control over the way we feel. People can only make us feel bad if we let them have that kind of control over us. Situations can make us feel sad if we dwell on them. Life is not usually the way we want it to be or think we want it to be. It is much less stressful to live life the way it is and not romanticize about how much better it could be. And how bad things are because it is not turning out the way we hoped it would. Let go of the "if onlys". It is what it is. And we can thank God in, not for, but in all circumstances.
Keep it simple. No big plans. Perhaps stay home and keep some time free to do nothing. If you do have guests over or special holiday activities planned, think: what is the minimum I have to do to carry this off. It is good to get together with people you enjoy over the holidays so plan to do that but keep those gatherings simple: a pot of soup, or just coffee or tea. Since holidays often involve gatherings with people we are not getting along with very well, keep your expectations low. Relationship miracles are good for holiday TV but they rarely happen in real life. Plan accordingly. As football coach Bill Parcells used to say when he was questioned about the poor performance of his team: "It is what it is." At times some of the primary relationships in our lives are performing poorly, too. If this is one of those times, repeat the mantra, " it is what it is", and make the best of it.
Keep your eating under control. There are different and special foods during the holidays and we are more tempted to indulge ourselves. Don't. You know how it makes you feel afterward. It only adds stress. Keep your meal plans similar to the way you usually eat. Don't eat out often. Don't go to parties hungry. Fill up on salads (watch the dressings) and water. If you have to have a dessert, try stopping at a bite or two. Wait a few minutes. It satisfies your need for a sweet the same as if you gulped down the whole thing.
Watch your budget if you have one and make one if you don't. There is very little that is worth buying if it will put you into more debt. Figure out how much you can afford to spend without charging more than you can pay off by the end of the year. Live within that amount. If someone will be miffed because you didn't spend more on them, they will get over it. More importantly, you will have avoided the huge stressor of debt. Don't let the holidays add to your family debt.
Exercise. Get a walk in as often as you can. Join a gym over the holidays. Treat yourself to a couple weeks with a personal exercise trainer. What a great Christmas present. Exercise is a proven stress reliever.
Pray. In the busyness of the holiday season, we tend to put off the most important things to make time for least important things. Get up a little earlier so you have time to pray. Read through some of the Psalms, or the early chapters of the Gospels that focus on the birth of Jesus. See your pastor for ideas about devotional readings for this time of year. Better yet, make an appointment to see your pastor for a spiritual checkup! Don't miss worship. Holiday worship services pull us away from so much that is shallow and superficial about the holidays and point us to the meaningful and significant.
Rest. Make sure you get to bed early to get enough sleep. Experts tell us that we need 8 hours a night although most of us get by with far less. "Get by" barely and others notice our irritability. Holiday stress is much easier to handle if we are rested.
Spend time with people that you enjoy being with. There are people that drain us and people that energize us. Often the demands and obligations of life make it impossible to avoid the people that drain us and we are too tired to plan time to be with those people that energize us. Make the time. Meet for a lunch or coffee (although watch the caffeine - too much is a stressor too!).
Laugh. Does anything reduce stress like laughter? Often the people who energize us are people we can laugh with. But even in the hardest circumstances we face, we can find something to laugh at. Like the popular book says: don't sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff.
One last thought. Each of us has a lot of control over the way we feel. People can only make us feel bad if we let them have that kind of control over us. Situations can make us feel sad if we dwell on them. Life is not usually the way we want it to be or think we want it to be. It is much less stressful to live life the way it is and not romanticize about how much better it could be. And how bad things are because it is not turning out the way we hoped it would. Let go of the "if onlys". It is what it is. And we can thank God in, not for, but in all circumstances.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Fred
I'll call him Fred. No one really knew his name or cared to know him. He was homeless even though he had a small room in an old building that had at one time been Secretary of State William Seward's property. Now it was home to several bums as the locals referred to them. I can't remember how our family got hooked up with Fred but we did and he came over for meals and even for Thanksgiving dinner one year. He mumbled a lot and he smelled and he never talked about himself or stayed long. I would visit him from time to time in his room. That was how I found him dead. One day I knocked and knocked and not getting any response I went to get the building caretaker who opened his door. We found him on his bed. Dead for a week was the best guess but no one spent much time investigating. The city paid for a pauper's grave and I gathered a few people from our church to attend a graveside service and we buried him with dignity and the gospel. I never had any idea where he came from, or what his life had been like, or who his family was.
His story came to mind as I was preparing a sermon on Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats. It has always been a favorite yet unsettling text. The interpretation of it hinges on how you understand two phrases. The first is "all the nations" in verse 32 and the second is "the least of these" in verse 40. If "all the nations"refers to everyone except Christians and if "the least of these"refers to needy Christians, then this parable of judgment is easier to swallow because it's not about us, Christians. However, if the first phrase includes Christians and the second phrase includes anyone who is hungry, naked, sick, in prison or a stranger, then we need to sit up and take it more seriously. I have always believed the proper interpretation was the latter one. I don' think Jesus' intent was to put us at ease. He is the one who also said, " If you are going to follow me, die to yourself and take up your cross and then follow me."
This story seems to me to be about Following Christ. What it means to follow Christ. That was, after all, one of the main themes of his teaching. This story fits into his End of the World, the End Times, and the Last Judgment teaching. It seems pretty plain that he intended to say that all people will be judged based on whether we follow Him or not. Following Christ is not an optional activity for human beings. So here in his story - it is his Ministry to the Least, the Lost and the Left Out - that we are expected to follow.
Fred fit all those categories. No doubt Jesus would have made time for Fred. It is not too surprising that Jesus tells us to make time for the Freds of the world. What is surprising is that he tells us that when we do - we run right smack dab into him. Jesus. We find Jesus already there.
"Come", he says in verse 34, "Come into the Kingdom of God." He is not talking about some pie in the sky place where we go when we die. It is a place we can go to here. It is the Most Real Place we can go to here. It is more real than most of what we call the real world. You enter it like C.S.Lewis's Land of Narnia, which serves as a metaphor for the Kingdom of God in his tales, through a door that we find by following Christ.
It is clear that Jesus is talking to Christians here in verse 34 but the next couple verses are Unlike our usual descriptions of the Christian life. Nothing about going to church, singing hymns, teaching Sunday School or playing on the church softball team. What we do In Church is Important but it is not the most Important thing. It is not as Important as what we do out there in the world. That is where we witness to the Reality of what Really Is. The Kingdom of God. There is nothing too radical in America about going to church. In fact, in some parts of the country it is still the expected thing to do on Sunday morning. But Who the Church is and What it does - now that's radical. And it can cause people to wonder, What are you doing? Why? Who are you Following? Who do you Belong to? Then, they have a chance to make a choice, too. It is a critical choice because as the story says, there will be a great separation at the end of history and which side we are on will be based on that choice.
So back to Fred and Jesus. Jesus never says Come to Church and you will find me there. I think you can find Jesus there. I pray that is so. We expect Jesus to be there. He is in the preaching of the word, the praises of the people, the celebration of the Lord's Supper and the fellowship of the Body of Christ. It's just that he never says Follow me to church. He never says when you visit the church you visit me. But he does say that about visiting the prisoner or the sick. He does say when you feed the hungry or clothe the naked... I am there. It's not just that we do these things for Jesus, for his sake, but he says as we do these things for the Least, the Lost and the Left Out we are doing them to him.
What he says in these verses is clear as a bell and very surprising. Note: Jesus does not say, "I was sick and you healed me... or I was in prison and you set me free... or I was all messed up and you fixed me". The thing I like about what he says here is that it is something we all can do! These are Small Ministries for All of Us. Small ministries of visiting, clothing, hospitality and feeding. Nothing spectacular and showy. In fact, they are almost mundane. But it is through these small ministries that the Miracle of Jesus' presence occurs.
Dr Henrietta Mears taught that "every person we meet is dying for a drop of love." There are as many human needs as there are human beings. Basic needs NEED small deeds of Basic help. That's what the gospels show us Jesus did. That's what Following Him means.
That's what Fred taught me.
His story came to mind as I was preparing a sermon on Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats. It has always been a favorite yet unsettling text. The interpretation of it hinges on how you understand two phrases. The first is "all the nations" in verse 32 and the second is "the least of these" in verse 40. If "all the nations"refers to everyone except Christians and if "the least of these"refers to needy Christians, then this parable of judgment is easier to swallow because it's not about us, Christians. However, if the first phrase includes Christians and the second phrase includes anyone who is hungry, naked, sick, in prison or a stranger, then we need to sit up and take it more seriously. I have always believed the proper interpretation was the latter one. I don' think Jesus' intent was to put us at ease. He is the one who also said, " If you are going to follow me, die to yourself and take up your cross and then follow me."
This story seems to me to be about Following Christ. What it means to follow Christ. That was, after all, one of the main themes of his teaching. This story fits into his End of the World, the End Times, and the Last Judgment teaching. It seems pretty plain that he intended to say that all people will be judged based on whether we follow Him or not. Following Christ is not an optional activity for human beings. So here in his story - it is his Ministry to the Least, the Lost and the Left Out - that we are expected to follow.
Fred fit all those categories. No doubt Jesus would have made time for Fred. It is not too surprising that Jesus tells us to make time for the Freds of the world. What is surprising is that he tells us that when we do - we run right smack dab into him. Jesus. We find Jesus already there.
"Come", he says in verse 34, "Come into the Kingdom of God." He is not talking about some pie in the sky place where we go when we die. It is a place we can go to here. It is the Most Real Place we can go to here. It is more real than most of what we call the real world. You enter it like C.S.Lewis's Land of Narnia, which serves as a metaphor for the Kingdom of God in his tales, through a door that we find by following Christ.
It is clear that Jesus is talking to Christians here in verse 34 but the next couple verses are Unlike our usual descriptions of the Christian life. Nothing about going to church, singing hymns, teaching Sunday School or playing on the church softball team. What we do In Church is Important but it is not the most Important thing. It is not as Important as what we do out there in the world. That is where we witness to the Reality of what Really Is. The Kingdom of God. There is nothing too radical in America about going to church. In fact, in some parts of the country it is still the expected thing to do on Sunday morning. But Who the Church is and What it does - now that's radical. And it can cause people to wonder, What are you doing? Why? Who are you Following? Who do you Belong to? Then, they have a chance to make a choice, too. It is a critical choice because as the story says, there will be a great separation at the end of history and which side we are on will be based on that choice.
So back to Fred and Jesus. Jesus never says Come to Church and you will find me there. I think you can find Jesus there. I pray that is so. We expect Jesus to be there. He is in the preaching of the word, the praises of the people, the celebration of the Lord's Supper and the fellowship of the Body of Christ. It's just that he never says Follow me to church. He never says when you visit the church you visit me. But he does say that about visiting the prisoner or the sick. He does say when you feed the hungry or clothe the naked... I am there. It's not just that we do these things for Jesus, for his sake, but he says as we do these things for the Least, the Lost and the Left Out we are doing them to him.
What he says in these verses is clear as a bell and very surprising. Note: Jesus does not say, "I was sick and you healed me... or I was in prison and you set me free... or I was all messed up and you fixed me". The thing I like about what he says here is that it is something we all can do! These are Small Ministries for All of Us. Small ministries of visiting, clothing, hospitality and feeding. Nothing spectacular and showy. In fact, they are almost mundane. But it is through these small ministries that the Miracle of Jesus' presence occurs.
Dr Henrietta Mears taught that "every person we meet is dying for a drop of love." There are as many human needs as there are human beings. Basic needs NEED small deeds of Basic help. That's what the gospels show us Jesus did. That's what Following Him means.
That's what Fred taught me.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Expelled
Ben Stein is best known as a comic and an actor (Ferris Bueller). He is also on TV with economic commentary and an occasional commercial pitch. To some he would seem an unlikely choice to host a documentary on the conflict between science and religion. Or, more particularly, evolutionism and intelligent design. ID (intelligent design) is the theory that human life is so complex it points to an intelligence greater than our own as "creator". It's a plausible idea for many people. Except among certain scientists. It bucks the scientific political correctness that only allows one theory to explain human origins and that is Darwin's theory of evolution. The scientific community is so closed to other possibilities that the mere hint of a thought of intelligent design in a scientist's head can get him or her fired from the university where he or she teaches or the scientific organisation for which he or she works. That is the situation that got Stein interested in looking into ID and why it is so threatening to the scientific community.
Why, exactly? Stein interviews scientists who have been fired for their heretical statements regarding ID and scientists who ridicule those statements. He asks what is ID and why is it so threatening. Is it a right wing Christian conspiracy? Is it creationism trying to sneak in the back door? Stein, who is Jewish, doesn't think so. In fact, Stein is equally interested in Darwin and the evolutionary theory he came up with. He visits Darwin's home/museum and follows the train of this thought to Hitler and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. In one hospital used by the Nazis to exterminate "inferior human beings", he finds traces of the doctrine of natural selection and the survival of the fittest. It was a laboratory for Hitler's new race of superior human beings. Darwin's theories were fleshed out in America during the eugenics craze after WW2 when thousands of "inferior" human beings were sterilized.
As Stein follows the evolutionary thread that started with the denial of academic freedom to some scientists who harbor heretical thoughts of ID, he winds up face to face with some of the most prominent atheists of our day. Here is where Stein answers his question about why ID is so threatening. It threatens the scientific orthodoxy that says God can have no place in scientific inquiry. This is a new orthodoxy for older scientific greats labored from a faith foundation summed up in the expression," thinking God's thoughts after him." Today, that is heresy. ID is so threatening that every hint of it must be extinguished because it could be a way for God to sneak back into science. This is untenable for many of the leading scientist/atheists of the day. One leading scientist from Cornell tells Stein that if one follows Darwinism out to all its implications, one of those is atheism. There is no God, no afterlife, no meaning or purpose to our lives. As someone who was raised in a religious home, he accepts this as the consequence of his quest for scientific truth. It is one of the most chilling moments of the film.
As Stein sat in the field where once there had been a Nazi concentration camp, he posed a question to another one of the experts he was interviewing. Do you think Hitler was insane, he asked. No, the expert said, I think in his own mind Hitler thought he was doing good. In their own minds, I am sure the scientific establishment thinks it is doing good, too, as it shuts down dialogue about ID. But as Stein posits in the film, if science is the quest for truth, what are they afraid of?
Why, exactly? Stein interviews scientists who have been fired for their heretical statements regarding ID and scientists who ridicule those statements. He asks what is ID and why is it so threatening. Is it a right wing Christian conspiracy? Is it creationism trying to sneak in the back door? Stein, who is Jewish, doesn't think so. In fact, Stein is equally interested in Darwin and the evolutionary theory he came up with. He visits Darwin's home/museum and follows the train of this thought to Hitler and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. In one hospital used by the Nazis to exterminate "inferior human beings", he finds traces of the doctrine of natural selection and the survival of the fittest. It was a laboratory for Hitler's new race of superior human beings. Darwin's theories were fleshed out in America during the eugenics craze after WW2 when thousands of "inferior" human beings were sterilized.
As Stein follows the evolutionary thread that started with the denial of academic freedom to some scientists who harbor heretical thoughts of ID, he winds up face to face with some of the most prominent atheists of our day. Here is where Stein answers his question about why ID is so threatening. It threatens the scientific orthodoxy that says God can have no place in scientific inquiry. This is a new orthodoxy for older scientific greats labored from a faith foundation summed up in the expression," thinking God's thoughts after him." Today, that is heresy. ID is so threatening that every hint of it must be extinguished because it could be a way for God to sneak back into science. This is untenable for many of the leading scientist/atheists of the day. One leading scientist from Cornell tells Stein that if one follows Darwinism out to all its implications, one of those is atheism. There is no God, no afterlife, no meaning or purpose to our lives. As someone who was raised in a religious home, he accepts this as the consequence of his quest for scientific truth. It is one of the most chilling moments of the film.
As Stein sat in the field where once there had been a Nazi concentration camp, he posed a question to another one of the experts he was interviewing. Do you think Hitler was insane, he asked. No, the expert said, I think in his own mind Hitler thought he was doing good. In their own minds, I am sure the scientific establishment thinks it is doing good, too, as it shuts down dialogue about ID. But as Stein posits in the film, if science is the quest for truth, what are they afraid of?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Small Churches
Small churches don't get a lot of credit in our country. Bigger is better here, always. Big box stores get way more press than mom and pop operations, if you can even find them anymore (we are fortunate to have a few in Kodiak). We have small churches here, too. People in Kodiak are kinda stuck with them because if they are going to go to church they can't drive somewhere else where there is a big church. Big churches are all the rage in the lower 48. They have the latest audio and video technology, cushy stadium seating, entertaining speakers and music, state of the art childcare, parking attendants, cafeterias, bookstores, and cool websites with their own pod casts. Small church facilities often have a worn out look; they depend on volunteers for everything from childcare to youth ministry to worship leading to lawn care, the preaching is enthusiastic (at best) to boring (at worst) and more often than not, unpolished. Budgets are bare bones so a lot of things that need replacing just get reused. Schedules are flexible and you can't really depend on things running on time, if they run at all. I can see why so many people are attracted to big. Big stores where choice is high and price is low and big churches where choice is supreme, too, and it seems like you get a lot more for your money.
Funny thing though is that most big churches know that the life of their big church is found in the small groups in the church. Big churches are really made up of lots of very small churches. Which makes sense. If small churches in small places like Kodiak "teamed" up more we could share a lot of resources and provide more for our people. Unfortunately, there is usually more competition than cooperation among small churches in small places.
However, the good news for small churches is that usually good things come in small packages. MySpace, the first enormously popular social network site, had 200 million users worldwide in 2007. Yet, the average number of "friends" for a user is a small number: 67. Given the generous definition of 'friend" as anyone from a good friend to someone you might recognize on the street but might not, this number constitutes an average person's social network. And it is pretty small. In fact, MySpace and other social network sites are "collections of small networks of people." ( Culture Making by Andy Crouch, 242). So are big churches. So are small churches. Crouch makes the point that people making a difference in culture are small groups of people. He says: "every cultural innovation no matter how far-reaching its consequences is based on personal relationships and personal commitments." A small group of people is almost always enough! Jesus had his core group of 3; his larger group of disciples numbered 12; at Pentecost 120 were gathered waiting for the Holy Spirit to come. That's good news. In small churches we often feel overwhelmed and under resourced. If only we were bigger then God could use us to accomplish big things. Yet, Crouch illustrates that many of our greatest innovations started from a small group: Google began with 3 people.
We all have our 3 and probably our 12 and we may even go to a church of around 120. Here is how Crouch puts it: "your 3 are the people you know and trust and you share a passion and commitment with. Your 12 is the larger circle of good friends you could call on in a time of need. Your 120 are contacts who would respond to something compelling and worthwhile if you put out the word. In the small church, your 3 could be your prayer group, your 12 your small group or a church committee on which you serve and the 120 could be the whole church!
So who are your 3? Crouch says that is the most important question for your calling. Who are the few people you trust enough to risk creating something together?
"The quest for 3, the recognition that all culture making is local, the willingness to start and end small, all seem to me to be the only approaches to culture making that do justice to the improbable story of God....Christian culture making ...is a matter of community" - and I would add small communities. Small communities can do a lot. They can do what is necessary in the places God has put them. They can make a difference where they are.
Funny thing though is that most big churches know that the life of their big church is found in the small groups in the church. Big churches are really made up of lots of very small churches. Which makes sense. If small churches in small places like Kodiak "teamed" up more we could share a lot of resources and provide more for our people. Unfortunately, there is usually more competition than cooperation among small churches in small places.
However, the good news for small churches is that usually good things come in small packages. MySpace, the first enormously popular social network site, had 200 million users worldwide in 2007. Yet, the average number of "friends" for a user is a small number: 67. Given the generous definition of 'friend" as anyone from a good friend to someone you might recognize on the street but might not, this number constitutes an average person's social network. And it is pretty small. In fact, MySpace and other social network sites are "collections of small networks of people." ( Culture Making by Andy Crouch, 242). So are big churches. So are small churches. Crouch makes the point that people making a difference in culture are small groups of people. He says: "every cultural innovation no matter how far-reaching its consequences is based on personal relationships and personal commitments." A small group of people is almost always enough! Jesus had his core group of 3; his larger group of disciples numbered 12; at Pentecost 120 were gathered waiting for the Holy Spirit to come. That's good news. In small churches we often feel overwhelmed and under resourced. If only we were bigger then God could use us to accomplish big things. Yet, Crouch illustrates that many of our greatest innovations started from a small group: Google began with 3 people.
We all have our 3 and probably our 12 and we may even go to a church of around 120. Here is how Crouch puts it: "your 3 are the people you know and trust and you share a passion and commitment with. Your 12 is the larger circle of good friends you could call on in a time of need. Your 120 are contacts who would respond to something compelling and worthwhile if you put out the word. In the small church, your 3 could be your prayer group, your 12 your small group or a church committee on which you serve and the 120 could be the whole church!
So who are your 3? Crouch says that is the most important question for your calling. Who are the few people you trust enough to risk creating something together?
"The quest for 3, the recognition that all culture making is local, the willingness to start and end small, all seem to me to be the only approaches to culture making that do justice to the improbable story of God....Christian culture making ...is a matter of community" - and I would add small communities. Small communities can do a lot. They can do what is necessary in the places God has put them. They can make a difference where they are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)