Christmas Re-Gift!

Perhaps you’ve heard or read this before. In the spirit of Christmas, I’m decided to “re-gift” it…

Several years ago in a large city in the far West, rumors spread that a certain Catholic woman was having visions of Jesus. The reports reached the archbishop. He decided to check her out. There is always a fine line between the authentic mystic and the lunatic fringe.

“Is it true, ma’am, that you have visions of Jesus?” asked the cleric. “Yes,” the woman replied simply. “Well, the next time you have a vision, I want you to ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I confessed in my last confession.” The woman was stunned. “Did I hear you right, bishop? You actually want me to ask Jesus to tell me the sins of your past?” “Exactly. Please call me if anything happens.”

Ten days later the woman notified her spiritual leader of a recent apparition. “Please come,” she said. Within the hour the archbishop arrived. He trusted eye-to-eye contact. “You just told me on the telephone that you actually had a vision of Jesus. Did you do what I asked?” “Yes, bishop, I asked Jesus to tell me the sins you confessed in your last confession.”

The bishop leaned forward with anticipation. His eyes narrowed. “What did Jesus say?” She took his hand and gazed deep into his eyes. “Bishop,” she said, “these are His exact words: ‘I CAN’T REMEMBER.’”

Manning, Brennan (2008-08-19). The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out (pp. 118-119). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Just Love Them All

Isn’t it true that we (you and I) “see ourselves” through the things that we associate with? In my case, I am a Christian, I love Led Zeppelin, Harley’s, dogs, friends, Doritos, my wife (not in this order), sarcasm, and a bunch of other things that increase or decrease in priority depending on my surroundings. We seek to show our identity by vainly clinging to other people, things, ideas, organizations, etc., We also self-justify through the things that we turn away from. I once believed that to maintain an independent, autonomous existence as a Pastor I had to be mindful of what I distanced myself from as well as what I attached myself to.

I dissociated with hip-hop music. Starbucks, homosexuals, drug addicts, alcoholics, lawyers, and all those people with the homeless signs on every street corner who insist on looking directly at me when they walk by. I can’t listen to hip-hop music because it threatens my identity as a music snob with sophisticated 60’s rock taste and, quite frankly, I can’t understand most of whatever it is they are saying.

Even Starbucks is too mainstream and thus threatens my identity as a counterculture, progressive, and independent thinker (hippie). I believed that as a Pastor I had to remain conscious of my every move so that I wouldn’t cause others to stumble even if they were walking (running) away from me screaming much of the time.

Lately, for whatever reason, God has decided to get my attention regarding my relationship with others, (all “others”). I just want to love someone nobody else truly wants to love. That sounds “sappy” but I don’t know any other way of saying it. The plain truth is as a Christian (and a Pastor) if I make demands on people to be “like” something so that God will love them then either the God I represent isn’t worth the effort or I am grossly misrepresenting Him.

Jesus left us with two new and improved commandments. Matthew 22:34-40 Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

At times, it seems easier to take hold of a good looking goat, toss it up on the altar and sacrifice the crap out of it than to simply love my “garage band practicing all hours of the night” neighbor, and yet, loving, is exactly what God expects.

My part isn’t to make any determination as to the guilt or innocence of anyone. I’m not to be looking for enough evidence to hold them over for trial. My job is to love them all and let God sort them out. I sometimes find that's a very difficult thing to do.

Lately, as God continues to lovingly correct me whenever I justify my self righteousness through the sins of another I’m learning to better love as He loves regardless of what people bring to the table.

Merry Christmas

We are very close to celebrating Christmas, the holiday, the time of gift giving, and kinsfolk, and food, and decorations, and mistletoe. In just a few days we’ll unwrap our gifts, make a mess, and say, in one form or another, “Thank You, you shouldn’t have.”

Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (Which means Teacher). —John 20: 11-16

Mary, the forgiven whore, the sinner no one proved to be sinless enough to stone to death stands before her Savior, mankind’s savior, my savior, and perhaps thinks to herself, in one form or another “Thank You, you shouldn’t have.”

God, does not only exist when you recognize Him.

He is the God of the flood, the God of the manger, the God of the cross, the God of the resurrection.

Heaven is filled with forgiven sinners who stand before Him and proclaim, “Thank You, you shouldn’t have.”

Merry Christmas

Failure

Sometimes I just can't deal with perfect Christians.

I want to start a new sociological category, no, even better, a new Religion. I would call it RF (Religious Failures). I would be its undisputed champion, the undisputed champion of failing. It would be the largest group in the church, in fact, in the world. I would be its best example, its leader, it’s King of the jungle. I don’t enjoy it when I fail. I don’t love the failure, the pain, or the problem failure may cause but what I do love is the unmasked truth that failure represents. Failure rips the ski mask right off your face. It leaves you exposed, facially naked!. It takes away every precaution I’ve taken to prevent failure from occurring. It exposes my inability to protect me from myself! I’m helpless at the instant of each failure,
But I’m not alone… because…

Jesus has a fatal flaw: He can't stay away from the failed. He is a friend of failures, a lover of failures. Everyone else has given up, He seeks them out...

The woman who failed at five marriages; John 4:17-26 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The crippled man by the pool, who had failed to get his timing down for 38 years in a row...the disciple who failed at following; the thief who failed at keeping the law; the adulterous woman who failed at moral purity; the doubting disciples who failed to believe.
God uses very flawed, damaged, and "imperfect" people to accomplish great things for His kingdom interests. After all, damaged, imperfect, and flawed people are all He has to work with, including you and I! The expansion of His kingdom is not held hostage by the development of our character. Faith works by love, not by holiness and this is offensive to all spiritual over-achievers.
Some say this makes grace a license to sin. This absolute truth of radical grace is very offensive to the religious sensibilities of propriety: how unholy people can be used to accomplish dynamic, holy results. It is, nevertheless, the way it is. Does this mean we do not deal with sin or behavioral issues? Does this mean that our transformation into the image of Christ is of no value? GOD FORBID! Transformation is EVERYTHING that matters to us subjective and for all eternity!

HOWEVER....it also does not mean that in order to go forward through human vessels, that God's kingdom requires a preconceived notion of some level of personal holiness, (it begs the question....how holy do you have to be, and who measures it?).
The thief who failed at keeping the law...

Luke 23:32-43 “Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

What? Where's the level of holiness in this guy? What makes him uniquely qualified?

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Whenever I feel that my “good work” has, in some way, qualified me for heaven I remember these lyrics from Russell Fragar of Hillsong…

Can’t stop talking about everything He’s done
It’s the best thing, happened since the world began
It didn’t come cheap but I got it for free
It’s the hope of glory, Christ in me

There’s hope for all our failures in the reality of God’s amazing, unconditional, loving grace!