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Monday, April 30, 2007
Loving God's Family
Deuteronomy 6:6-9; 1 John 4:13-21
If God created every one of us so he could know and love us, then the most sensible thing to do is love God back with everything we've got. Call it worship. The logical next step is to know and love each other. Because God loves all of us, and we want above all else to love what God loves. And that's called fellowship. Which someone has defined as "two fellows in the same ship" -- We're all in this [good and wonderful] thing together!
Listen to the GODcast!
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The other day I read the spring newsletter of SafeHouse, a residential ministry in San Francisco for women leaving prostitution. My Presbyterian colleague, Rev. Glenda Hope, runs SafeHouse among scads of other street-level programs of Gospel grace and peace. Her letter reports on a recent gathering of "alums," celebrating the ways their lives have been transformed because of the tough love they experienced at SafeHouse.
One woman said she'd first shown up there only because she couldn't stand to be homeless again. "The last thing I ever expected to be was a college student but now I'm on the Dean's List." Now she's going on to study in a prestigious college to become a health professional.
Another, penniless and homeless back in the day, now holds down two jobs and has been promoted several times. She's also saved enough money to buy her own house.
A third woman recalled how she'd rebelled at the house's firm rules and worked hard at anger management in their program. Now she's the night supervisor at a boutique hotel in the city, where anger management probably comes in handy every once in a while.
On and on the stories went, one after another testifying to the sisterhood of redemption they were "baptized" into during their residency. They've been transformed body and soul, because somebody cared enough to welcome them just as they were, and loved them too much to let them stay that way. Tough love. Patient love. Hopeful love.
One of the women brought with her a hand-carved artifact reading "HOPE." Glenda says the woman herself is "the truest sign of hope there ever could be."
Several years ago, Glenda called me to see if our suburban church could help a new SafeHouse graduate get her footing. She and her two kids lived in a cheap apartment here, with virtually no furniture, appliances, or money to buy them with.
Our deacons mobilized to help the family stock up on the bare essentials for housekeeping, buy some groceries, and take care of practical odds and ends. Christmas was fast approaching, so they even helped with a tree and some presents.
The grateful family felt leery about coming to our church's activities, and we made it clear that wasn't a part of the deal. We were just glad to be of help, and we'd be praying for them.
Not long after that, Glenda informed me the family had moved several towns away and were getting a toehold on employment and schooling. A couple of years later, Glenda reported the mom was on the SafeHouse staff and doing wonderfully in every way. In another year or two, wedding bells were ringing and a brand new family was celebrating God's good surprises together.
SafeHouse, they call it. Sounds a lot like Sanctuary, doesn't it? That's another word for Church. Hmmm...
A few good people with a radical vision of redemption put together a compelling model of how authentic Fellowship does its stuff. "We're all in this [good and wonderful] thing together," they said. "And no one gets out of it unchanged!"
posted by Jack Buckley at
1:10 PM
Monday, April 23, 2007
Loving God Back
Psalm 139:1-6; Matthew 22:34-40
God didn't need to make the world, says the Bible. Creation happened because of desire. God wanted a worldful of good stuff. And God wanted good people, to know and to love and to trust in perfect harmony.
Well, take a good look around today's world. There goes the harmony thing all shot to pieces.
Even so, every time our hearts and minds line up with God's plan for the world, we discover we are indeed known and loved and even trusted -- by (gulp) the Governor of the Universe!
Soooo... How in heaven's name do you properly love God back? In a word: Worship.
No, I'm not talking about hymns or prayers or sermons and such. We're dealing with a whole way of life.
Listen to the GODcast!
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TALK ABOUT YOUR WORSHIP
I stood by her bed while she slept.
She was a member of our church family whose body was shutting down at the end of a good godly life. She could no longer sit up by herself. She couldn't even speak. Her time was almost up.
Her husband faithfully attended to her day by day all through the months-long process. Their children and grandchildren who lived nearby came by as often as they could. I visited now and then to bring her news of the church and to pray with her.
This time I decided not to disturb her much-needed rest. I just stood alone by her side, taking her in and offering her up to God in silent prayer.
I noticed a note pad on the stand by her bed. Giving in to curiosity, I picked it up to peek at what was scribbled there. I hoped God wouldn't mind. And nobody else would ever know of my transgression.
Two lines jumped out at me.
"I love you." And... "I love you back."
I have no idea which was written by the husband and which by the wife. It really doesn't matter. What does matter is that they both signed off on the kind of love a marriage is all about.
One traditional form of Christian marriage vows, in outlining the contours of love includes the phrase, "With my body I will worship you"! Strong language, that.
Our modern culture invites and incites us to worship beautiful bodies. That vow reverses the order. The real beauty lies in dedicating yourself, body and soul, to "loving back" the one who first loves you.
St. Paul takes that fundamental fact of married life and dares to say that the relationship of husbands and wives is "a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church." (See Ephesians 5:32) And to every single Christian, too, if you ask me.
Jesus' words and works are prime evidence that God loves us to the nth degree. Our natural response is to love God back with all our hearts and minds and strength. In return, God loves us right back again. On and on the loving circle goes. World without end.
Now, that's worth singing and praying and preaching about -- on any given Sunday. And all week in between.
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:29 PM
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Loved Before Time
Ephesians 1:3-12
In time for the seasons of Holy Week and Passover, Newsweek featured a friendly argument between Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Community Church and Sam Harris, a best-selling author of atheistic essays. "Is God Real?" read the cover headline. Neither man persuaded the other to change his answer, but each laid out a lot of food for honest thought.
And while all that was going on, I prepared a message of my own on why in the world we exist in the first place. It's all about God.
Listen to the GODcast!
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AWESOME EVIDENCE
My friend Cedric has spent some thirty years in research on one particular birth defect, looking for the right genetic equation to eliminate or at least minimize the disorder's effects.
Over lunch several weeks ago, he explained for me in plain English what his scientific quest was all about. At one point he surprised me, and maybe himself, by exclaiming about an awesome mystery in the phenomena of his research. (What follows is the gist of what he said, complete with my liberal-arts brain's mixed up and mis-remembered details.)
After millions and millions of years since mice and humans had any genetic connection, one external marker of the disease's presence shows up in every lab animal used in his research. Any doctor or nurse familiar with the syndrome will spot it immediately on a newborn human baby's feet.
For some reason, a web of skin forms in utero between the second and third toes. Not the first and second, or third and fourth. Only in this one location. Every time.
And, for some reason, the absolute predictability of this one genetic flaw -- in humans and in mice -- inspires in my friend's scientific mind (and heart) a feeling of overwhelming awe.
Cedric does not practice Christianity. Nor any other religious tradition. But that agnostic doctor and this minister of the gospel might as well have sung Psalm 139:14 in unison that day in that classy cafe...
"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made! Wonderful are your works!"
The same week that Newsweek featured Rick Warren and Sam Harris discussing the question "Is God Real?" I received a timely e-mail from Cedric. In it he flagged me to a link with NPR's program "Fresh Air" hosted by Terry Gross. On two consecutive days, she interviewed two outstanding scientists who come to opposite conclusions on the God question.
Her first interview was with the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the atheist author of The God Delusion. The next day she spoke with the American genetic scientist Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, who is an evangelical Christian. Each one spoke with a quiet eloquence about his respective faith position. Each laid out a rich menu of food for serious thought.
I was fascinated that my scientist friend made sure I got to hear those contrary interviews on science and faith, God and the material world. As if he wanted to resume our own conversation about marvels and mysteries and where they might lead our hearts and minds to.
I think now of another man of science who made a famous bet on matters of the spirit.
Blaise Pascal was a brilliant mathematician in 17th-century Paris. One night he had a mystical experience in which the presence of Christ in his room was palpable. He jotted ecstatic notes on a scrap of paper to memorialize the event, and he sewed it into his coat lining so it would always be with him. Pascal saw no contradiction between his faith and his science, even though he could not logically diagram their conherence. Instead, he proposed a wager.
A believer bets on God's reality, and lives accordingly, preparing to give account to God when this life ends. An unbeliever bets that God does not exist, and lives accordingly, as if this life is the only one that's real. There can be only two outcomes...
If God does not exist, a believer loses nothing by living the kind of life God would call for.
If God does exist, an unbeliever has lost everything by not taking into account what God requires.
Sam Harris. Rick Warren. Richard Dawkins. Francis Collins. My friend Cedric. You and I -- every last one of us faces the same fundamental decision.
Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.
posted by Jack Buckley at
1:50 PM
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Full Circle Faith
Psalm 118:1-2,14-24; Luke 24:1-12
They rose with the sun that Sunday morning. Made their way quietly to the garden tomb, hearts filled with grief and hands filled with what it would take to give his body at last a decent burial.
When they reached the tomb, though, their hearts leapt to their throats at what they saw...
The stone door was rolled bck from the entrance to the cave. The body was nowhere to be found. And there in front of them were two bright glowing angels -- who told them Jesus was alive again -- just as he'd promised he would be!
Pulling themselves together, the women circled back to the safe house where the disciples were hiding, and told them the great good news.
Except... Except they wouldn't believe them! They called the women's message an "idle tale." Empty talk... A silly story... A foolish yarn... Utter nonsense....
Do you suppose they doubted the story because it came from women?
What a shame that would be! To turn down God's Gospel because its preachers didn't measure up to their idea of who was worthy of the job.
Or maybe it was just too overwhelming for them to take in, break down, and trust.
I read about a young boy who absolutely loved both Mister Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. He watched their shows as often as he could, and one day it was announced that Mister Rogers would soon pay a visit to the Captain's neighborhood.
The boy was beside himself with excitement. Both his heroes together on one show! Every morning he would ask, "Is it today that Mister Rogers will be on Captain Kangaroo?"
Finally, the day came, and the whole family sat together in front of the television set. Just a couple of minutes into the show, though, the boy suddenly stood up and walked out of the room.
His worried father followed him. "What is it, son? Is something wrong?"
"It's too good," said the boy. "It's just too good."
Maybe that's how the disciples felt when they heard the news that Jesus had risen from the dead. "We can't take it in all at once. We don't know how to believe it just yet. It's too incredibly good to be true!"
In any case, Peter decided to go see for himself. So off he ran to the garden tomb, poked his head in, and -- of course -- he found no body. Then he circled back to the hideout, scratching his head at what he'd seen. Or, what he hadn't seen.
But finally, he and all the disciples got it right. They remembered at last what Jesus predicted about his death, his burial, and his resurrection from the dead. And what it all would mean -- for them, and for the whole wide world.
Several years later, the Apostle Paul put it this way:
Jesus Christ gave all humanity a brand new start with God, and with each other, for he was a kind of Second Adam. And by his perfectly consistent relationship with God he undid all the consequences of the first Adam's failure to stay true to God.
By that analogy, Paul creatively circled back himself -- from the Garden Tomb of Easter to the Garden of Eden.
Back there, God created the first man and woman to be his partners in taking care of everything else that was made. Adam and Eve were to do that in a spirit of mutual love and trust -- towards each other, and between themselves and God.
Maybe they felt like that little boy did -- that what they had was all just too good to handle.
For the day came when they started wondering what God was up to. With more than a little help from a certain talking snake.
God had told them they could enjoy the entire garden any way they wanted to -- except for one single tree -- the one whose fruit would give them the knowledge of good and evil. "Eat that, and you'll die!" God said.
So -- what sane person would want to eat it?
Except... Except, they got to wondering. Worrying. Whining, even, when you get right down to it.
"Does God really have the best in mind for us?" (Meaning, maybe God doesn't love us!)
"If God does love us, then why can't we have anything we want whenver we want it?" (God is mean to us!)
"Maybe God's afraid we'll become as wise and strong as he is?" (God is jealous!)
"Well, let's just see about that!" (God can't stop us!)
So they ate the forbidden fruit. And, guess what -- they didn't die!
At least not physically, not right then. But they did die spiritually, their souls shriveling up from that moment on.
Adam and Eve's story is a case study of how every one of us goes through temptation. And I'm convinced their experience afterwards demonstrates the ways each of us suffers in our own heart and mind as the result of sin.
Now they were at odds within themselves. They saw that they were naked, and they blushed with shame. And for each one of us it's frightening to be known transparently, for who we really are -- even, or especially, by the people we care about the most.
They also were alienated from God. The next time God stopped by to visit, they ducked behind the bushes in hopes he wouldn't find them. Good luck! Ever since, it's in our human nature to hesitate at the idea of meeting God face to face. (I invited a friend to join us in worship on Easter. He answered, "Only if your insurance is paid up. No way will I be responsible for the ceiling falling in!") It's always an awesome thing to find yourself in the presence of God's holiness.
And now they were divided against each other, too. Answering God, they pointed the finger and said, "She did it!" "No, he did it!" And so do you and I all too easily find someone else to blame for our fears and failures, for our problems both real and imagined. It's so much easier to flail about defensively than to admit we might be afraid of getting hurt. It's just too hard to trust in each other's good intentions.
Finally, all of life now became a huge struggle. The garden sprouted thistles and thorns. Adam's work became tedious and tiring. And Eve discovered labor pains. For you and me it's: cuts and bruises... flus and fevers... OSHA, outsourcing, and job security... spare the air days, paper or plastic, and global climate change... And finally, for every one of us sooner or later, our bodies die.
But Paul says that, in Jesus, God has closed the circle on all of that!
Because Jesus never once did what Adam and Eve had done. He was the one man among all of us who stayed true to God's intentions of perfect love and trust. His constant life-long prayer was simply "Not my will, but yours be done" -- even in that other garden on the night one of his own disciples turned him in.
Having no sin of his own, he became the innocent sacrifice to take away the penalty for the sins of all the rest of us together.
What looked for all the world on Good Friday like a victory for God's greatest enemies -- sin and death and the devil -- turned out on Easter morning to be the death of death itself when Jesus came out of the grave!
And so the circle is complete.
Outside the church, Easter is a day for bunnies and bonnets and colored eggs, for bright new clothes, white lilies and forty shades of green glistening in the sunlight. And why not? They're all nature's silent echoes of the Bible's story of Resurrection Life. Which is...
There is not one thing in all the world -- not in heaven and not on earth, not even sin and death itself -- that can finally separate us from the love of God, which we've received once and for all in our risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Alive with Christ in resurrection life, you and I are able to experience a little bit of heaven right here on earth. God's will is being done, here and there, now and then, the same way it's always done in heaven. By ordinary people like you and me, committed to live for Jesus. To live like Jesus, as God makes us able.
It can be as simple as giving people a reason to smile, or doing the right thing when it needs most to be done. By being kind or helpful or strong in an hour of trial. Such small investments these are, when measured on the scale of world events.
But who can predict what dividends God may choose to pay on them, when all is said and done?
The current film "Amazing Grace" tells the story of two men in 19th century England, whose faith in Christ transformed their own lives and ultimately changed the world.
John Newton had been a slave ship captain, transporting African men and women to be sold for cheap labor. A day came when he realized God loved each one of those people he treated like so many cattle and pieces of property, just as much as God loved any preacher in "civilized" England. Filled with guilt and remorse, John Newton gave his life to Christ if Christ would have it.
He became a pastor, and one of his parishioners was William Wilberforce. That man felt called by God to serve in the Parliament, and his career in national politics spanned decades of faithful service. His greatest achievement, spurred on by Newton's encouragement, was persuading Parliament to outlaw slavery in England and all its colonies. Forever. Eventually, our own nation saw the light and did the same right thing.
And that's the way the light of God's grace and truth extends in ever-widening circles to bring more and more of heaven into this world of ours. Because of Easter. Because Jesus lives... and he dares to work his will in the world... through ordinary people just like you and just like me.
Amen. And hallelujah!
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:45 PM
Monday, April 02, 2007
What the World Needs Now
Psalm 118:1-2,19-29; Luke 19:29-40
The scene vibrates and hums with excited energy.
Jesus and his disciples approach the holy city of Jerusalem to participate in the holy festival of Passover. Riding a borrowed donkey, he's the not so grand marshal of a ragtag parade. The crowd sings and shouts and dances with joy, waves palm branches and lays down tunics in his path, offering up their best shot at a royal welcome.
Each Gospel writer tells the story a little differently. Luke is the only one who tells us all this commotion has something to do with peace. Well, a lot, actually. That caught my eye and gave me a timely message.
Listen to the GODcast!
_______________
Mention "peace" in the pulpit and some people in the pews start to fidget.
Uh oh, here comes the political speech... I thought we were supposed to keep church and state separate around here... Etc. etc. etc.
We know that political parties, international alliances and coalitions, radically disagree on how and why to find peace in our embattled world.
Most nations work intensively to achieve it through diplomatic channels. Many back up those efforts at negotiation with overwhelming arsenals.
In one Cold War strategy, Western and Soviet powers scared each other silly with the threat of nuclear annihilation -- "mutual assured destruction" they called it, MAD for short. Thankfully, it worked. But what a weird world, living each new day in fear of one nation finally calling the other's military bluff.
But, all things considered, I believe that no sane person or nation wants anything more than a true and lasting peace.
That's what the world needs now, more than anything else in all the world.
I think of all this now because Luke brings it up in chapter 24, verse 38. The enthusiastic crowd accompanying Jesus into Jerusalem sings out,
"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" That echoes the angels' song in Luke's Christmas story (chapter 2) -- "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" But how interesting that here, as he counts down the days to the Friday when Jesus died on a cross, it's peace in heaven that catches Luke's attention.
I think Luke is saying our earthly peace can only be achieved by God's initiative. By God creating peace on earth through people who've first found their peace with heaven.
Good Friday's horrible death was "the Lamb of God" taking away the sins of the world. Easter's glorious resurrection was "the Lion of the Tribe of Judah" proving God has finally conquered all his enemies -- death and its cause, sin; sin and its source, the devil. In three short days God made peace with every creature and opened up to all creation a peaceable way of life.
If we really believe that, we have the makings of genuine peace -- with anyone, but especially with others who've dedicated their lives to its truth.
Here's how it works:
+If I believe I've been forgiven by the holy God, then I have no choice but to find ways to forgive you for any offense you've committed against me.
+If I believe God is forever patient with me in all my imperfection, then I have to learn how to bear with you, even, or especially, when you fall short of what you could and should be doing.
+If I believe God is still working on me towards all I'm meant to be, then I can do no less than keep experimenting with you... Negotiating... Encouraging your efforts... Trying and re-trying with you -- to finally get things right.
Imagine what this world would look and feel like if enough people approached every relationship that way. Family... Friendship... Business... Public policy... International affairs.
Some would say I'm confusing what one person can and should do, with the much more complex world of social dynamics. That's good food for serious thought.
Even so, all I know is Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." One life at a time, we all do our part to spread around heaven's peace on God's good earth.
Change enough individual minds and whole societies are transformed. Walls have fallen down... Prison doors have opened... Enemies have become partners.
God help us, it's still not too late to join in Jesus' peace parade.
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:22 PM
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