Sunday School Jesus

 You guys that have taught kids in Sunday school... You know how you invest so much time in studying; in imagining ways to tell the story that will reach their little hearts and show them how it can be effective in their lives today; verbally paint them a picture of the beauty of Jesus; creating a craft that will reinforce the lesson and it's application? Maybe even creative reenactments, songs, art? Remember that? 

Now do you remember how at the end of class you would ask a few questions to see what they kept from all that investment in their little hearts and minds? Think back -- what was, no matter the question, the most oft given answer?

"Jesus." 

I'm not kidding. 90 times out of 100, "Jesus." Of the 10% remaining, most of those are either what? ..."Sin" or "The Bible."

Was that frustrating? All that time. All the truth they could walk away with. All the lessons. All the ways that lesson could bring life changing truth. 

"Jesus." 

Why, do you think that is? 

Here's my thought:

Jesus is the BIG answer. Always. We know that and we taught them that. It's true. But it's also often the lazy answer.

There are a million different ways we can creatively apply the wisdom of our scriptures, of following Jesus, being a good citizen and a loving neighbor. We can almost 100% know that when we keep falling back on our answer to everything being, "Jesus" or "The Bible," or "sin," we've chosen the lazy way rather than the creative way, the deeper way.

This is what I feel like I'm seeing among entirely too many Christians around racial justice, justice reform, gun control, equal rights. We are given so much beauty and creativity and depth in scripture and in the life and ways of Jesus. So much truth in how to walk out justice and mercy and peace. Detailed accounts in the Sermon on the Mount of what it could look like. Right here. Right now. Not just in the sweet by and by.

All of that, and we reduce everything to, "Jesus."

Yes. JESUS. But how? Where? Toward who? What does it look like - right. now? We've lost all creativity and imagination. "Just Jesus" is the lazy way out. Both are truth. Which one will take us to deeper change that brings His Kingdom? That allows all to flourish? That allows us to live in abundance rather than scarcity?

When it's ten year-olds in Sunday school, we've got some time, the stakes aren't so high. But now? Losing our spiritual imagination has much graver consequences. It's brought us innocent people languishing in prison, dead kids with Skittles in their pockets or a violin in their backpack, scores of dead school kids, LGBTQ kids with astronomical suicide rates. We cannot afford lazy answers.

We must do better. Sunday School Jesus is true. But He means for us to go so much deeper.

Eighteen

Eighteen. 

Eighteen of our babies ate their cereal, maybe complained it wasn't the right one.

Eighteen of our babies rubbed sleep from their eyes, rushed and laughed and whined and played. They likely tested their parents' patience getting out the door.

Then eighteen of our babies hugged their Mamas and Daddys before heading into their classrooms.

And they will never see them again. 

Eighteen.

My kids' babies will be in an elementary school this Fall.

My daughter is in a classroom every. day.

Many of my friends spend every single day in a classroom. Their kids are in a classroom. Every. Single. Day.

I'm honestly sick of our thoughts and prayers. As if God cares to hear our prayers when we care nothing for peace and justice and mercy.

I'm sick of legislators that do absolutely nothing. That flatly refuse to step across the aisle and have real conversations. Too busy posturing and spewing hate, creating chaos rather than working toward peace. No time for actual problems, we've got imaginary ones to keep in the spotlight.

I'm sick of lobbyists more concerned about profits than our babies. Than our elders.

I'm sick of us.

It's not my church. 

It's not my fault.

Not my neighborhood grocery store. 

Not my kids' school. 

Not my son.

Not my daughter.

Not my movie theater. 

Not my problem.

But it is my right!

And, by God, it's my gun!

When will it matter enough to DO. SOMETHING?

What is the magic number? I pray to God that number is eighteen.

The Slippery Slope

I just finished the second of two books by the same title: The Politics of Jesus. One by Obery Hendricks and the other by John Howard Yoder.

I keep a running Want To Read list, and it's not unusual for me to forget who recommended, when, or why I added it, etc. As I was searching for a new book a few weeks ago, I picked this one and pulled up both authors. Since I could not remember the recommendation, I decided it might be interesting to read both. I was not wrong. They took decidedly different approaches. In some instances, they came to remarkably different conclusions. They used different scripture references to bring their points. They pulled from different historians, scholars and theologians. They came from different perspectives, circumstances and backgrounds. 

What did they have in common? They are faithful followers of Jesus. They are learned scholars. They hold scripture to have wisdom useful for us today. They value the life, work and teachings of Jesus. They both believe He spoke openly and courageously into the politics of His day in ways that ultimately led to His crucifixion. And that what we learn from that can, and should, effect the way we live today.

I did not immediately accept or agree with every conclusion they drew, but I learned a lot - much that will keep me thinking, meditating on and finding ways to incorporate change into my daily life.

What am I learning? That it is not a dangerous thing to read a wide variety of teachers, scholars, theologians and teachers and authors (both fiction and nonfiction) as I grow in my faith. God speaks to ALL of us through our life and circumstances. We ALL interpret scripture through the lens of the life, culture and generations, victories and traumas we've come up in. Through the magic (and sometimes curse) of social media, I follow and am friends with people from almost every conceivable background - many of them Christ followers. I am amazed at the number of Bible verses shared by folks from completely different perspectives, using the same exact verses to reinforce completely opposite beliefs. Both believing it proves their point irrefutably. It's sometimes just downright amusing. Sometimes sad. We can't see what we can't see. I hear folks say that, "All we need is scripture," but this simply is impossible. Scripture MUST be interpreted. And we all interpret it through our personal lenses, most handed down to us from someone else's lens (but usually one very similar to our own, because we want to feel safe). Again, it is impossible. But on the bright side, I don't think God ever intended it should be this way.

"No man is an island," or so they say. Or even better, scripture tells us, "We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other," (Romans 12:5). When we pick and choose to learn only from those like us, we are harming, not just ourselves, but others that are part of that larger community. Learning from those different from us expands our ability to see a greater depth in Jesus and our scriptures, to understand communities and the world we live in better. To understand clearly that God, AND the community of His people are much bigger than we believe. Reading books from those outside the Christian faith has helped me grow in compassion and empathy. It has shown me that all Truth is God's truth and I do not need to fear learning from others. 

I am often frustrated that I grew up fearful to explore those whose Christian faith looked different from mine. And DEFINITELY not anyone outside of the Christian tradition. Slippery slopes were literally everywhere. 

I'm learning to enjoy letting my world be bigger, wider, deeper. I'm learning to be comfortable (or at least less uncomfortable) with not having firm answers, with more gray and less black and white, with embracing mystery. With reading, following and learning from folks that challenge me, that make me say, "WHAT?!" and then walk me through it. Not that we'll always agree, but so we will always learn, grow and listen, growing closer together, even amidst differences.

Perhaps one of the joys I've found is that at the bottom of that slippery slope? God is very much there. I've found deep, enriching friendships outside of my previously very safe orbit. I've found friends that love and follow Jesus. We are literally everywhere. Don't be afraid to look around.

Missing People Still Here

Missing people still here.

Once integral parts of you,

Now disconnected. Apart.

Wholly separate.

You see them.

Hear evidence of their lives.

Busy. Productive.

Full of laughter. Friendships.

Witness struggle.

But isolated. Beyond reach.

The reasons vary.

Expected. Necessary.

Sudden. Misunderstood. Reeling.

Slow, steady decline, until suddenly,

It simply is not.

Life, ever in forward motion,

Cares little for what is left behind.

But our hearts?

Forward motion is more difficult.

Leaps and lurches.

Falls and setbacks.

What can be redeemed?

What must be left?

What new is coming?

Life, ever in forward motion,

Does indeed promise new things.

Yet we are often left

Missing people still here.

God is Joy?

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Gal. 5:22

"We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness.” ~ Dallas Willard

My sense of what God is like has not been static. I can think back through my life to several different versions of God in my imagination. For lots and lots of years, He was primarily angry. In word and theology, I believed He was love, but in reality, He was too holy to even look upon our sorry, wormy selves and it was only through the sacrifice of Jesus that He could bare to cast His gaze on us. Angry. I shed that vision quite a long while ago. I spent a lot of years after that stage in the practical belief that He tolerated us - again, because Jesus. I have gradually come to believe that He loves me - in word, in theology and in reality.

As I read the above quotes in my Advent readings a couple of weeks ago, I was stopped in my tracks by the thought of God as full of Joy. This is a thought I seldom consider. God "full of joy?" I believe He loves me - I don't remember ever doubting that - but I rarely think of God and Joy simultaneously. I readily believe He is the source of my Joy, yes - but thinking of Him as exuding Joy? No.

As I've spent the days since trying to spend some time in intentional meditation, scribbling down random thoughts on this, I've asked myself, "What do you, in practical, lived reality, believe is God's disposition toward you? toward us?" -- And here's what comes to mind, if I'm being honest (and there's really no point in anything else) -- I feel like most of the time my most readily accessed thoughts about God's disposition is that He's ticked off with us because we are just so. stupid. so much of the time. Or that He's very serious, stone-faced, even. He's the stern but faithful Father - you do not doubt His love, but you also are not wrapped in warmth in His presence -- perhaps more standoffish than likely to run in for a hug. Still, my thoughts go to - "if not for Jesus"...  And I know some of you are probably getting really "but what about substitutionary atonement" right about now and getting worried that I'm diminishing the work of Jesus on the cross. This is not that, so not to worry. (Though I will go down a brief rabbit trail and throw in a little freebie here: I have in the last few years come across "Christus Victor" atonement theory. It is not new, it's as old as our faith, it's just new to me - and guys -- to the point that I've come to understand it, it has given me a much fuller view of what Christ accomplished at the cross.  This post is not about that - but, if you haven't, you should so do some reading on it. N.T. Wright is a fabulous place to begin. Now, back to the point.)

I feel like this might be an important thing for me to continue to consider. What did my Christian tradition teach me about God's disposition? What has life taught me about what love looks like and how has that formed my view of God? Do I need to shed some of that as an inaccurate, or at a minimum, imbalanced view of who God is? How does not thinking of God as full of Joy effect my view of God? my place within Him? my own general disposition as I live and move throughout life? the ways I interact with others?

I pretty easily think of Jesus laughing, teasing his friends, loving on kids - but I do not think of God in this way. Our scriptures tell us clearly that Jesus is the exact representation of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), yet as a practical life theology, I rarely think this way. Jesus is the fun parent. God is the not fun parent. And this is an easy one for me to grasp as I've spent most of my adult life being the "not fun" parent. My kids have never expected me to be the one that was spontaneous, that came up with ridiculous adventures, that encouraged risk for the sheer Joy of it. That ain't me. Brian would, more often than I care to admit, have to tell me, "Maybe just go inside and don't watch," when the kids were taking risks and reveling in the Joy of it all. I probably missed some outrageous laughter and Joy because I am always so tied to the "shoulds" and the "whatifs." I am trying to break away from that person as Mom to adult kids and as Lolly to a new generation.

As I've meditated on God as Joy the last few days, I've begun to make connections between my view of God as ticked off and stern to the ways I interact with those I disagree with. I have too often connected their performance to how I will choose to relate to them. If someone is not doing "it" the way I believe is best for them (even if I can chapter and verse "prove" that my way is obviously also God's way - please read in the much needed sarcasm font), I feel myself distancing myself from them, living with an underlying anger or sternness that I know bubbles to the surface in how I treat them and speak to them. Not ugly, but certainly not Love. Not Joy. I too often have a sense that my primary job is to make sure they know how harmful, dangerous, self-destructive, others-destructive they are living/speaking/acting - and certainly if I interact with them with Joy, they will never learn! Will they? But also, what I'm seeing is that what they more likely see and learn is that they are not accepted, not fully loved. And how likely is someone to change that feels unloved? that feels like a perpetual disappointment?

How does God teach us? By beating us with sticks? By squashing us like bugs? By killing us with His scathing rhetoric? By reminding us that we are a perpetual disappointment? I know some like this picture of God and it's become increasingly popular in our polarized society - a warrior ready to squash out dissent - but I do not. It is the cruciform Christ that we are told is God wrapped in flesh. (John 1 & Philippians 2) It is the Kindness of God that leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4). We see this in Jesus. Going back up to the very top of this page - it is in the displays of His Spirit within us and around us, in the actions of others toward us when they allow these fruits to flow out of them, that we are pulled to the Kindness of God. He is so good to us. I want to believe that just as He is Love, He is also Joy. He rejoices over me with singing (Zeph. 3:17). He is saddened with my sometimes rebellious ways, yes. He is angered by the ways we treat others unjustly, and tolerate the unjust treatment of others, clearly. We see Jesus speak hard words in the gospels, but even then, He is, at the same time, dining with "sinners." He is always moving in closer, while still giving space for repentance. I want to live and move in ways that reflect that - even and especially, toward those I disagree with. Just as God allows us to bear consequences, just as Jesus spoke truth to power, there will be times that boundaries need to be drawn, truth must be spoken, consequences allowed to unfold. But that never negates Love. 

God, for reasons that are not hard to grasp, chose to describe Himself in ways that are wrapped up in father and mother metaphors. For many of us, this is a concept we get. We get what it means to love a kid with your whole entire being. We get what it feels like to have all the ranges of emotion as we watch them live and move throughout their journeys. But we're also so fallible, so fragile. Our vision of a full and complete love is diminished by the pain and trauma we experience here. Our imaginations are stunted by broken versions of Love that have been presented to us in family dysfunction, in toxic churches, in institutions meant to care for us. I do not want to lose sight of the fact that my picture of what someone "should" be may be marred by my own brokenness. And also, it is not my job to fix anyone. It is my privilege to love them - to make sure they know I delight in them. If they're willing to hear my terrible voice, I may even sing over them.

Today, I'm learning more of what His Joy looks like and it's giving me a fuller picture of His love for me - a more vast understanding of who God is. I want to allow that to change my relationship with Him. I want to fully grasp that He's not mad at me, not irritated with me, all the time. He's not looking down His nose at my failures. Even in my failures and frailty, He is patiently guiding me to wholeness, while at the very same time, smiling and cheering the places of growth in me.  He will allow me to face the consequences of selfish choices because this is how we learn and be right there by me when I'm ready to embrace His Kingdom way rather than my own. He laughs, He sings. He enjoys me. I want the God who is Joy to change the way I live with others. Do people believe that I really enjoy them? Not just love them, but enjoy them, right where they are, today? 

Learning what the perfect Love of God is like will be a life long journey for us. I don't ever want to think I've finally got it down. It will always be bigger than I can imagine. Better than I can envision. I want to live in the belief that just when I think God can't be any better, any bigger, any more wonderful than I've been able to comprehend, He will show up and shatter that paradigm as entirely too small.

Some Reflections on The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

"When I hear people urge us to talk about all the good that came out of Mars Hill, asking why we can't just focus on the redemptive aspects of this story, I want to invite them to sit with Levi, Anderson, Lindsay or Michelle, and ask them the same question. I want to remind them that Jesus leaves the 99 for the one. Which means that these stories of loss, of disorientation and shattered faith matter just as much as the encouraging stories we can tell about the churches planted in the aftermath. And sometimes, if I'm being honest, when I'm in a particularly dark mood, I'll tell them that they sound like Job's friends and encourage them to talk less and join those who are sitting in the ashes and just weep." ~ Mike Crosper, from The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

I finally finished The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill a couple of weeks ago and it's still circling around in my gray matter. If you've never heard of it, it's a podcast series put out by CT Magazine's podcast arm and can be found here.  Throughout the course of the series, I have experienced the full range of emotions. I've laughed out loud in utter disbelief at some of the things said and done under guise of "the gospel." I have raged, literally shouting to the heavens, with anger. During the final episode, I simply wept. I wept for those I know - those I love - that are sitting in the same kind of wreckage, in too much pain. too much betrayed trust, too much loss, to find their way out. I wept for those that continue to hear all the trite answers, prayers and memes that try to diminish or explain away their pain, yet only serve to drive it deeper.

If you listen to this podcast, and all you leave with is relief that Mark Driscoll is not your pastor or that you escaped Mars Hill Church, I believe you've missed the point. If we do not hear and search our hearts for the ways we have been Mark Driscoll (whether we pastor or not) and repent of and seek repair of, anything revealed; if we do not reflect on ways our own church environments currently are, or could easily become, the type of place that allows damage to hearts, lives, families; if we do not evaluate seriously the types of theologies we may be following unquestioningly without realizing the blind spots and damage they create; if we do not take seriously the level of pain so many coming out of these toxic environments are facing - then we've definitely. in my opinion, missed the entire point and wasted a lot of hours listening.

I do not personally know anyone that attended Mars Hill Church or one of it's satellites. I do not know anyone personally that was directly hurt by Mark Driscoll. I do, however, know a lot of people that have been hurt by the ways our church cultures have created pastor celebrities that are entirely, or almost entirely, out of reach of criticism, that value a toxic form of masculinity and/or authority structures (going so far as to name it as "biblical") that leaves untold numbers in their wake, that worship the certitude of their theologies while sacrificing real human lives that dare to voice doubts or speak out. I know people that have left the Christian faith entirely because of places like this. I know still more that have held on to Jesus, but continue to struggle to find a place to belong after either being officially forced out of their church, or left with such a loneliness that they felt no other option but leaving. This pain is real. Brushing it aside as "that one bad space" or that "one bad pastor" brings more pain for those still reeling from it. The sheer numbers tell us this is not a one-off issue. The Church, by the nature of our calling, is interacting with people at their deepest hearts, their most vulnerable wounds, their core values, their greatest trust. How could we think that a space that should be the safest in the world, yet abuses at these levels of heart, soul and mind, could be so easily brushed off? That it's as simple as brushing the dust off their feet and just "go find another one" that won't do that to them? This level of pain, betrayal, abuse, toxicity goes to the core of who we are as human. Five line memes won't fix it. "Our church isn't like that," won't fix it. 

The Church has some soul-searching to do. We need to grapple with the responsibility and weight of what we carry when human souls entrust themselves to a space that claims to walk as Jesus walked. Even when we are doing this as best we know how, the responsibility should always weigh heavy. But when we see it failing so spectacularly all around us, when we find ourselves complicit in harming others as we choose worldly power or fame or structures or ideologies over the cruciform way of Jesus - even more so then, we need to grasp the havoc we are creating in lives and hearts. We need to be willing to sit with our mouths shut and listen. No excuses. No theology rants. No passing the buck. Listen to their pain. Sit down in the ashes and weep with them. Love them.

We can choose not to. We can circle our wagons, we can blame it on what must be their own waywardness, we can explain away the numbers in ways that bring no personal responsibility. We can. Just as Herod thought he could wash his hands and be innocent of his choices, we can try that route as well. We will be just as wrong and just as responsible. 

All Saints Day

Today is All Saints Day. This is not a day I ever considered until about six years ago, when we began to follow the Church calendar. It is a day set aside to honor the Saints that have gone before us. At our gathering yesterday, Stephen and Karen encouraged us to honor and remember the Saints that have impacted our own lives and we spent the morning doing that - listening to stories from friends there, of those that have gone before them, that impacted who they are today...the ways they did that both in their faithfulness and in their brokenness. As they spoke, I was struck with how much those people I've never met are now impacting my life through my friends that loved them.

I've spent a lot of time since thinking about those I love, those that have impacted me, that have passed on before me. My first thoughts went to my grandparents, the ways they impacted my life, the stories, the memories, the kindness and love they gave freely. I thought of the ways they shaped my parents, who in turn, have shaped me. And how I've since shaped my children. They've all been gone for many years now, yet their lives continue to impact even my grandkids.

My thoughts also went to three different people outside of my biological family I've loved that died much younger than we typically think of as fair. None had lived the "long, full life" that we want spoken of when we're giving our final goodbyes. With each of them, it was too soon. And their lives had much pain. There was trauma, physical illness, mental illness, heartbreak. There was also joy, love, belly laughs and connection. In their pain, they sometimes hurt those they loved the most. They also enriched those same lives, and many others, in ways we will likely never fully grasp. They sometimes frustrated me. And they also taught me love in ways I had not before imagined.

This is life. We heal and we hurt. We nurture and we damage. We mess up and we begin again.

The biggest thing that struck me as I thought through all these messy, beautiful lives that changed who I am today is the consistent presence of Jesus. He never ceased to love. They never ceased to love - even when they could not find ways to express it in healthy ways, they still loved. 

And Jesus loves us - our entire messy, beautiful selves. I do believe He will consistently pull us toward healing and wholeness. His love is not an excuse to wallow in, or harm others, in our brokenness. But neither is it ever a condemnation in our brokenness. We are fully and completely loved.

I pray that I will learn to see people this way more often. Beautiful and broken. Life is hard and sometimes the levels of brokenness will require safety and boundaries. But I pray I will never lose sight of the humanity of those God loves. I pray I will never lose sight of the fact that the imagi dei in every single person, and the ways I treat that, impacts who I become. I pray I'm becoming more and more like the love of the One I follow and that it will be that love that leaves the biggest impact on those coming behind me.

Loved. 

No matter what. 

Love is always the first thing. 

And always the last thing.