How interesting to be going through a transition from Skyline Church, where I have been privileged to serve for the past 14 years, to Asbury Church, to which God is leading me to help nurture and encourage the movement of God's people gathered there. The resources I have gathered to help me navigate this passage describe leaving a long-term pastorate as a form of death - saying so many goodbye's and handing over ministry tasks among the saints here that have defined me for so long to other capable followers of Jesus who will carry on some of these tasks and lay others that have meant so much to me aside. At the same time, we are in this season of Lent walking together a spiritual path of remembrance of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem and the cross - a journey that beckons each of us to take up our cross and follow Jesus - to lose our lives to save them.
This journey of Lent calls into question everything we think we know about death and life. We think that death marks the end of our lives - the obliteration of all that we are. We fear death, as the last inevitable sign of our weakness and powerlessness before the power of evil and darkness in this world. Each day of our lives when we sin, and fail ourselves, or others, or God, by doing something that breaks our connection to God and others or failing to do something that would strengthen our connection to God and others, we draw closer to the ultimate separation from all things which is our death.
Or so we think.
The death of Jesus is so different from any of these misconceptions - these haunted dreams we carry with us about death - that his death on a cross in Jerusalem redefines what it means to die (and what it means to live). Throughout this journey of Lent, Jesus reminds us of the inevitable destination: the Son of Man will be handed over to his enemies; he will suffer terribly; and he will be put to death. The disciples don't want to hear it, of course. What can his demise mean for the movement toward God that his life represents that they have each given up everything to follow? Without Jesus, they are nothing. They will be utterly lost. Yet on he leads them towards the Holy City where he will suffer and die for the sake of love. On he leads us all.
You get the idea that Jesus has in mind a different destination that the one that strikes fear into our timid hearts. He walks resolutely and purposefully toward this death; this death begins to look like what he was born to do. And as we follow Jesus in our own time, toward our own inevitable death, we can learn something invaluable by resisting the temptation to move to quickly to the resolution of Easter and the miracle of the resurrection.
In my own between time, God calls me to pay close attention to the way Jesus journeys toward Jerusalem and death. He walks with an absolute trust that follows a trajectory beyond the veil of death - his own death or the death of his followers or the many, many people he has come to love. And he invites me (and you) to walk on this reimagined path as well (those who cling to their lives will lose them; but those who lose their lives, for my sake, will find true and abundant life).
So what does walking along this new path that leads to and beyond death look like? The principle characteristic of this path is peace - freedom from anxiety and fear - a peace that defines each step with intentionality and gratitude. There are no coincidences and nothing is left to blind chance. Every moment on the path that leads beyond death participates in an eternal unity that profoundly connects to God. We ware walking this path, yet every step brings us to an arrival, a homecoming, a place of belonging - we are at any particular "here" for a reason - receiving and participating in God's presence and power as we bestow and receive the blessings of all creation.
Can we ever say enough about this peace that passes all understanding? The angels sang of this blessing Jesus would bring to all people at his birth. On his last night with his friends, Jesus blessed them with peace - not as the world gives - but the peace that enabled him to lay his life down for his friends, and to invite them to love each other as he loved them. We cannot imagine the power and promise of this peace of Christ - our birthright. Peace that transcends pain, paves the path of forgiveness, invites us to rejoice in all things, swallows up death in victory, and trumpets the nearness of the Kingdom of God.
He has not left us orphans. We know the way he is going. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Toward death, certainly, but also in peace that sees beyond the death of our pride, our fear and our isolation, toward communion with God and with all creation. I should be glad for such a death.
Showing posts with label Christianity Body of Christ Methodism Gordy-Stith Love empathy Skyline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity Body of Christ Methodism Gordy-Stith Love empathy Skyline. Show all posts
Friday, April 1, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Thursday, 27 January 2011. A new day.
(Note: I wrote this Blog the second morning after I learned that the Bishop had appointed me to leave Skyline after 14 years. At the time, I did not know which church I would be privileged to serve, but only that I would have to leave.)
I am slowly getting used to the idea that this Summer will mark the end of 14 years of service as a co-pastor among the saints gathered at Skyline United Methodist Church. In these few days that mark the savor of that growing idea - while at the same time not knowing about what the next invitation to serve will involve - I have the luxury of reflecting solely on what these past years of ministry have meant to me and to others.
That I understand this waiting time as a luxury marks the gift of wisdom in this time of waiting and watching with Jesus. Even though most times I sleep; yet he rouses me. I have felt the sleep of emotional numbness as I have given vent to my darker angels in the past couple days - mostly to Vicki. A quarter of my life - how that phrase has become something of a mantra, meaningless beyond an expression of exasperation. Longevity cannot by itself reveal any self-apparent truth about the meaning of my life.
I have lived in the unfolding of the time here among a particular group of people (always changing and transforming before my eyes, even as I have changed and transformed in relation to them and apart from them). We have blessed each other with our lives of faith in the midst of circumstances beyond our control and beyond our understanding. We have honored the relationship between us as best we could, learning to live with the ways in which our actual choices do not match our expectations of ourselves and each other.
I have known much grace here, much inner growth, much sorrow, and a great deal of joy. Together we have built a living monument of praise to God, and a house of hospitality to the strangers in our community who have become our companions. We counted the cost as best we could, but we could not have known the true cost - so we have learned to live with the consequences of launching into unknown and unproven territory. And in a way, my leave-taking at this particular time marks a necessary payment of that debt we incurred in the hopes and growing convictions of our prayers.
I have always known that it would be me who would be called to head out into the waters of the unknown - who would depart on a voyage of discovery to a far country. If that is payment to secure the victory we have long pursued, it is a payment I am glad to make, on my behalf and on behalf of so many others. And truth be told, I relish the promise of cutting the lines to shore and putting to sea again. Joy commented that I have tasted the bitterness of rejection of the prophet in his own country. She hopes that in that far country, I will find a people thirsty for the passion that is my life.
Yet in this blessing of time before the lines are cut, God invites me to discern what has happened here, to me and through me. I have chased the wind of uncertainty too long since Derrick called; now I can attend to the blessing placed in my hands: the gift of knowing where I stand before launching into a new place among a new people.
The flood of versions of this story give the impression that nothing - or only one thing - can be known about what this time together has meant. Joy wisely reminded me that no pastor acts alone, but that we all are products in so many ways of the people who gather at the churches we serve. My unidimensional pronouncements - of any flavor - take flight from the delusion of my autonomy.
Then, too, there is a deep context we ignored at first, but which asserted itself as the years unfolded. We merely added a chapter to a story told by others in and beyond the church called Skyline. The first seven years here marked my ignorance of that story; the second seven blessed me with a vision that we were neither alone nor singularly responsible for the undoing of nearly everything we had done when we arrived here.
Besides the context of a stagnant, conservative, homogenous demographic, we inherited a story of volatility, transition, conflict and mistrust between laity and clergy, and schizophrenic theological identity. What we have built together here has become an oasis of hospitality to strangers and all manner of spiritual searching - and that not without cost. Yet even the cost itself marks a measure of spiritual maturity here that fits into the larger story of Skyline.
From it's inception, this community of faith has always been marked by an invitation to costly investment of self and to a demanding and unsettling wideness of understanding spiritual hospitality. We have not buried that talent, but have consciously nurtured it in the fires of anxiety, indifference and hostility. Time and again, we have traded away comfort for what we discerned together to be faithfulness to a Savior who died to set all people free and who called us to take up our crosses and follow.
As co-pastor here, I have certainly made my share of mistakes. I have been impatient for change and I have talked when I could have profited more by listening. At first, I spent too much time working on the wrong kinds of things, and at the end I struggled daily with the paralysis of what I perceived to be a world without a map. Yet for all of these mistakes, grace abounded in and beyond the walls of myself - expanding even my notion of self.
So many walls came down for me while serving here with Vicki and with the saints at Skyline. Through it all, we never seemed to forget our first love. We witnessed the power of Christ to break down every barrier that separated us from each other and from God that we forgot what it was like to live beyond faith; we assumed God would act to strongly support our hearts that belonged to God alone. The horse would talk, though we could not know when or how.
More than anything else, I learned to walk by faith here among the saints at Skyline. I did not teach this trust, but I participated in the way this entire community claimed it. Each one mattered (and matters) far more to any of us than the 99. For us, the time was always propitious to follow in the path of faith, though we walked through the valley of the shadow of death. We learned to trust in God together, not measuring the consequences of our action but realizing the enormity of the cost of inaction.
Perhaps it is no mere coincidence that I am physically stronger now than when I arrived 14 years ago. The past seven years of famine have been for me a time of unprecedented growth in soul and body, as if I have been training for some great event. And regardless of the future, I have come to know that the event for which I train is the unfolding of each day following God to places where darkness pretends to reign. Though I cannot light them all, and though no one else may know, I have the strength to light up the darkness - and to bear witness to the light - wherever and to whomever God calls and sends me.
There is no good time to do a wrong thing. Skyline is the place where heaven and earth meet. We are on a journey of faith, and though we are on vastly different places in that journey, yet we can journey together. You preach the Gospel - we will run the church. Festival of Light. All means all. God bless our pastors. Jesus saved my life. I have been searching for a place like this. Come as you are. Transform us, O God, from getting here to being here. We're going to do something a little differently today.
I have learned that I cannot do this alone - but I have also learned that I do not have to do this alone.
Just like we planned!
I am slowly getting used to the idea that this Summer will mark the end of 14 years of service as a co-pastor among the saints gathered at Skyline United Methodist Church. In these few days that mark the savor of that growing idea - while at the same time not knowing about what the next invitation to serve will involve - I have the luxury of reflecting solely on what these past years of ministry have meant to me and to others.
That I understand this waiting time as a luxury marks the gift of wisdom in this time of waiting and watching with Jesus. Even though most times I sleep; yet he rouses me. I have felt the sleep of emotional numbness as I have given vent to my darker angels in the past couple days - mostly to Vicki. A quarter of my life - how that phrase has become something of a mantra, meaningless beyond an expression of exasperation. Longevity cannot by itself reveal any self-apparent truth about the meaning of my life.
I have lived in the unfolding of the time here among a particular group of people (always changing and transforming before my eyes, even as I have changed and transformed in relation to them and apart from them). We have blessed each other with our lives of faith in the midst of circumstances beyond our control and beyond our understanding. We have honored the relationship between us as best we could, learning to live with the ways in which our actual choices do not match our expectations of ourselves and each other.
I have known much grace here, much inner growth, much sorrow, and a great deal of joy. Together we have built a living monument of praise to God, and a house of hospitality to the strangers in our community who have become our companions. We counted the cost as best we could, but we could not have known the true cost - so we have learned to live with the consequences of launching into unknown and unproven territory. And in a way, my leave-taking at this particular time marks a necessary payment of that debt we incurred in the hopes and growing convictions of our prayers.
I have always known that it would be me who would be called to head out into the waters of the unknown - who would depart on a voyage of discovery to a far country. If that is payment to secure the victory we have long pursued, it is a payment I am glad to make, on my behalf and on behalf of so many others. And truth be told, I relish the promise of cutting the lines to shore and putting to sea again. Joy commented that I have tasted the bitterness of rejection of the prophet in his own country. She hopes that in that far country, I will find a people thirsty for the passion that is my life.
Yet in this blessing of time before the lines are cut, God invites me to discern what has happened here, to me and through me. I have chased the wind of uncertainty too long since Derrick called; now I can attend to the blessing placed in my hands: the gift of knowing where I stand before launching into a new place among a new people.
The flood of versions of this story give the impression that nothing - or only one thing - can be known about what this time together has meant. Joy wisely reminded me that no pastor acts alone, but that we all are products in so many ways of the people who gather at the churches we serve. My unidimensional pronouncements - of any flavor - take flight from the delusion of my autonomy.
Then, too, there is a deep context we ignored at first, but which asserted itself as the years unfolded. We merely added a chapter to a story told by others in and beyond the church called Skyline. The first seven years here marked my ignorance of that story; the second seven blessed me with a vision that we were neither alone nor singularly responsible for the undoing of nearly everything we had done when we arrived here.
Besides the context of a stagnant, conservative, homogenous demographic, we inherited a story of volatility, transition, conflict and mistrust between laity and clergy, and schizophrenic theological identity. What we have built together here has become an oasis of hospitality to strangers and all manner of spiritual searching - and that not without cost. Yet even the cost itself marks a measure of spiritual maturity here that fits into the larger story of Skyline.
From it's inception, this community of faith has always been marked by an invitation to costly investment of self and to a demanding and unsettling wideness of understanding spiritual hospitality. We have not buried that talent, but have consciously nurtured it in the fires of anxiety, indifference and hostility. Time and again, we have traded away comfort for what we discerned together to be faithfulness to a Savior who died to set all people free and who called us to take up our crosses and follow.
As co-pastor here, I have certainly made my share of mistakes. I have been impatient for change and I have talked when I could have profited more by listening. At first, I spent too much time working on the wrong kinds of things, and at the end I struggled daily with the paralysis of what I perceived to be a world without a map. Yet for all of these mistakes, grace abounded in and beyond the walls of myself - expanding even my notion of self.
So many walls came down for me while serving here with Vicki and with the saints at Skyline. Through it all, we never seemed to forget our first love. We witnessed the power of Christ to break down every barrier that separated us from each other and from God that we forgot what it was like to live beyond faith; we assumed God would act to strongly support our hearts that belonged to God alone. The horse would talk, though we could not know when or how.
More than anything else, I learned to walk by faith here among the saints at Skyline. I did not teach this trust, but I participated in the way this entire community claimed it. Each one mattered (and matters) far more to any of us than the 99. For us, the time was always propitious to follow in the path of faith, though we walked through the valley of the shadow of death. We learned to trust in God together, not measuring the consequences of our action but realizing the enormity of the cost of inaction.
Perhaps it is no mere coincidence that I am physically stronger now than when I arrived 14 years ago. The past seven years of famine have been for me a time of unprecedented growth in soul and body, as if I have been training for some great event. And regardless of the future, I have come to know that the event for which I train is the unfolding of each day following God to places where darkness pretends to reign. Though I cannot light them all, and though no one else may know, I have the strength to light up the darkness - and to bear witness to the light - wherever and to whomever God calls and sends me.
There is no good time to do a wrong thing. Skyline is the place where heaven and earth meet. We are on a journey of faith, and though we are on vastly different places in that journey, yet we can journey together. You preach the Gospel - we will run the church. Festival of Light. All means all. God bless our pastors. Jesus saved my life. I have been searching for a place like this. Come as you are. Transform us, O God, from getting here to being here. We're going to do something a little differently today.
I have learned that I cannot do this alone - but I have also learned that I do not have to do this alone.
Just like we planned!
How Skyline Has Changed Me - January 26, 2011
(Note: I wrote this Blog the morning after I learned that the Bishop had appointed me to leave Skyline after 14 years. At the time, I did not know which church I would be privileged to serve, but only that I would have to leave. I remembered an old pastor prophesying that Skyline would change me and I took the time this cold January morning to reflect on how Skyline had changed me in the last 14 years.)
Since arriving with my wife and co-pastor, Vicki, at Skyline in the Summer of 1997, I have matured in the areas of conflict management, postmodern theology, evangelism and ecclesiology, and clergy-lay partnership in ministry. The experience as co-pastor here for 14 years, through two church splits and a two million dollar construction project, has given me deeper insight into faith, pastoral leadership, and who God creates and calls me to be as a person. I have exchanged a one-size-fits-all church "growth" model for a more responsive emerging church model at resonates especially with people in search of a faith relevant to postmodern life.
At Skyline, I have come to see the role of pastor in the context of the ministry of all believers. Our lay partners in ministry here have taught me both the extraordinary power of God's Spirit poured out on all believers as well as the perspective of pastoral leadership in articulating both the shape of God's presence in the gathered believers and the trajectory of God's movement among God's people. At seminary, I came to accept the dogma of a gulf between professional and lay Christians. The people at Skyline have given the lie to this myth, and have encouraged me to speak the truth in love as I have listened to and witnessed the courageous power of their faith.
I have witnessed the best and worst in people here and in myself, and have come to rely time and again on the miracle of God's forgiveness for us all. At times this miracle leads to a transformation in others, but always it opens the way to an inner transformation in me. The most profound change I have experienced as co-pastor here involves the peace these repeated and sustained transformations have wrought in my soul. Peace in parting (by death or other leave-taking); peace in the stillness of waiting (while God's presence deepens); and peace in witnessing in awe and wonder that truly "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose".
That peace in Christ, as a weaned child on its mother's breast (a bittersweet comfort if ever there was one!), has become the only meaningful consolation and affirmation of the narrow way I am following. That peace has calmed my inner fears and doubts, and stilled the raging storm of my ego and anxiety when all around me seems to indicate failure and danger. That peace has become the author of my faith in God, in cemeteries and contentious meetings, whether the people of God (or especially when I, myself) fulfill, exceed, or fail to meet my expectations.
Most especially, that peace has sustained me when the image I carry of God burns to ash in the fire of life. In the wake of that profound silence, I have learned to pray in the darkness until light shines again - knowing beyond understanding that it shines whether I sense it or not. I have walked often enough in the valley of the shadow of the death of my dreams and of my faith in God at Skyline, with a changing cast of companions on this journey who encourage and confound, challenge and heal me along the way - but without fear. I have learned that in the faithful act of returning to the grave to minister as I am able, resurrection dawns, and with it, a transformation of the relationship and the calling I thought I had known.
Dying and rising so many times here, I have learned to leap into chasms of darkness in the exhilarating knowledge that falling does not kill me - the fear that pins me to the precipice alone has the power to kill - and that power has long been broken here. And if it is not exactly flying, it is a form of falling with style and grace. The things have tried to do here at Skyline have not always (perhaps never) had the effect I originally intended. But the fact that they have turned out serendipitously has taught me to offer my creativity and conviction (and to listen without judgment as a non-anxious presence) in the certain faith that God will honor such offerings by incorporating them into a tapestry that looks like a plan in retrospect.
Of all the things I have tried to accomplish while serving as co-pastor at Skyline, none compares with the humbling and profound honor of serving as a foster parent to several children over the past few years. Apart from the people of Skyline, I would never have been able to answer this call to welcome the strangers which has profoundly transformed and blessed my life. Through the welcome Vicki, Joy, Eli and I have been able to provide for others, we have found a place at the table God sets for us all. As the experience of fatherhood converted me to a new sense of love (giving and receiving this love), so too has the experience of sheltering a child of God as a foster parent converted me to a new way of life in God's love.
I take my leave indelibly marked by this transforming love, filling and overflowing my life. The blessing to love and live as a generous friend to those to whom love is a stranger marks and guides my life now as never before. I have come, as Jesus comes, that they might have life in all of it's abundance. I am a traveling midwife who will stop at nothing to assist in birthing that abundant life in all of God's children - paying no heed to the Pharaoh.
I bring a fearlessness and reckless creativity to the pastoral ministry, wherever God sends me from this place of transformation among the saints gathered at Skyline. I mock the Pharaoh, and I follow blindly in the path of Jesus, crucified and risen, not only on the third day, but in me, and in every gathering of saints with whom I am privileged to serve.
And one final reflection:
Serving as co-pastor with Vicki for the past 14 years has been the catalyst for every transformation I have celebrated above. Surely we have experienced a profound synergy in our partnership and in our love, but that synergy has made possible a wealth of partnerships in ministry at Skyline and beyond, in the larger community we serve. As a co-pastor, I have learned to value the other parts of the body of Christ of which I am a part. And because of this partnership in ministry that extends beyond the two of us as co-pastors, any ministry in which I am involved in the future will also be an expression of my love and partnership with Vicki.
Nothing - absolutely nothing that has happened here at Skyline in the past 14 years - could have happened without the synergy and support of our ministry as co-pastors. We modeled partnership and mutual interdependence for others and for each other. That model created sacred space to nurture great faith in times of despair, light in places of darkness, and fierce hope where the path gave way to wilderness. Our partnership with each other and with other ministers at Skyline made a way where there was no way, time and again (just like we planned).
So our partnership does not end with this parting - or rather, with this new way of serving together with God in each other and in other members of the body of Christ. Before serving as co-pastors at Skyline, my vision of our partnership in ministry and in love was bound by restrictions of space and time. But serving together for so long at Skyline has revealed the many ways in which our partnership in ministry and in love transcends and is not dependent on those restrictions. I understand now that just as nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, so too can no space or even time prevent us from serving in the profound realization that God's love binds us together in the midst of a great cloud of witnesses.
Since we are fully committed to God, we know that God will strongly support us, wherever we serve (2 Chronicles 16:9a). And wherever God sends each of us from this gathering of grace and love, we will serve in the power of our love for each other, and in the mutual encouragement and wisdom we give to each other day by day. I leave this particular expression of co-pastoral ministry in the knowledge that every calling will of necessity be a co-ministry. In short, I go knowing that neither I nor Vicki will ever have to serve alone - God will always provide gifted partners with whom we can be in ministry.
Since arriving with my wife and co-pastor, Vicki, at Skyline in the Summer of 1997, I have matured in the areas of conflict management, postmodern theology, evangelism and ecclesiology, and clergy-lay partnership in ministry. The experience as co-pastor here for 14 years, through two church splits and a two million dollar construction project, has given me deeper insight into faith, pastoral leadership, and who God creates and calls me to be as a person. I have exchanged a one-size-fits-all church "growth" model for a more responsive emerging church model at resonates especially with people in search of a faith relevant to postmodern life.
At Skyline, I have come to see the role of pastor in the context of the ministry of all believers. Our lay partners in ministry here have taught me both the extraordinary power of God's Spirit poured out on all believers as well as the perspective of pastoral leadership in articulating both the shape of God's presence in the gathered believers and the trajectory of God's movement among God's people. At seminary, I came to accept the dogma of a gulf between professional and lay Christians. The people at Skyline have given the lie to this myth, and have encouraged me to speak the truth in love as I have listened to and witnessed the courageous power of their faith.
I have witnessed the best and worst in people here and in myself, and have come to rely time and again on the miracle of God's forgiveness for us all. At times this miracle leads to a transformation in others, but always it opens the way to an inner transformation in me. The most profound change I have experienced as co-pastor here involves the peace these repeated and sustained transformations have wrought in my soul. Peace in parting (by death or other leave-taking); peace in the stillness of waiting (while God's presence deepens); and peace in witnessing in awe and wonder that truly "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose".
That peace in Christ, as a weaned child on its mother's breast (a bittersweet comfort if ever there was one!), has become the only meaningful consolation and affirmation of the narrow way I am following. That peace has calmed my inner fears and doubts, and stilled the raging storm of my ego and anxiety when all around me seems to indicate failure and danger. That peace has become the author of my faith in God, in cemeteries and contentious meetings, whether the people of God (or especially when I, myself) fulfill, exceed, or fail to meet my expectations.
Most especially, that peace has sustained me when the image I carry of God burns to ash in the fire of life. In the wake of that profound silence, I have learned to pray in the darkness until light shines again - knowing beyond understanding that it shines whether I sense it or not. I have walked often enough in the valley of the shadow of the death of my dreams and of my faith in God at Skyline, with a changing cast of companions on this journey who encourage and confound, challenge and heal me along the way - but without fear. I have learned that in the faithful act of returning to the grave to minister as I am able, resurrection dawns, and with it, a transformation of the relationship and the calling I thought I had known.
Dying and rising so many times here, I have learned to leap into chasms of darkness in the exhilarating knowledge that falling does not kill me - the fear that pins me to the precipice alone has the power to kill - and that power has long been broken here. And if it is not exactly flying, it is a form of falling with style and grace. The things have tried to do here at Skyline have not always (perhaps never) had the effect I originally intended. But the fact that they have turned out serendipitously has taught me to offer my creativity and conviction (and to listen without judgment as a non-anxious presence) in the certain faith that God will honor such offerings by incorporating them into a tapestry that looks like a plan in retrospect.
Of all the things I have tried to accomplish while serving as co-pastor at Skyline, none compares with the humbling and profound honor of serving as a foster parent to several children over the past few years. Apart from the people of Skyline, I would never have been able to answer this call to welcome the strangers which has profoundly transformed and blessed my life. Through the welcome Vicki, Joy, Eli and I have been able to provide for others, we have found a place at the table God sets for us all. As the experience of fatherhood converted me to a new sense of love (giving and receiving this love), so too has the experience of sheltering a child of God as a foster parent converted me to a new way of life in God's love.
I take my leave indelibly marked by this transforming love, filling and overflowing my life. The blessing to love and live as a generous friend to those to whom love is a stranger marks and guides my life now as never before. I have come, as Jesus comes, that they might have life in all of it's abundance. I am a traveling midwife who will stop at nothing to assist in birthing that abundant life in all of God's children - paying no heed to the Pharaoh.
I bring a fearlessness and reckless creativity to the pastoral ministry, wherever God sends me from this place of transformation among the saints gathered at Skyline. I mock the Pharaoh, and I follow blindly in the path of Jesus, crucified and risen, not only on the third day, but in me, and in every gathering of saints with whom I am privileged to serve.
And one final reflection:
Serving as co-pastor with Vicki for the past 14 years has been the catalyst for every transformation I have celebrated above. Surely we have experienced a profound synergy in our partnership and in our love, but that synergy has made possible a wealth of partnerships in ministry at Skyline and beyond, in the larger community we serve. As a co-pastor, I have learned to value the other parts of the body of Christ of which I am a part. And because of this partnership in ministry that extends beyond the two of us as co-pastors, any ministry in which I am involved in the future will also be an expression of my love and partnership with Vicki.
Nothing - absolutely nothing that has happened here at Skyline in the past 14 years - could have happened without the synergy and support of our ministry as co-pastors. We modeled partnership and mutual interdependence for others and for each other. That model created sacred space to nurture great faith in times of despair, light in places of darkness, and fierce hope where the path gave way to wilderness. Our partnership with each other and with other ministers at Skyline made a way where there was no way, time and again (just like we planned).
So our partnership does not end with this parting - or rather, with this new way of serving together with God in each other and in other members of the body of Christ. Before serving as co-pastors at Skyline, my vision of our partnership in ministry and in love was bound by restrictions of space and time. But serving together for so long at Skyline has revealed the many ways in which our partnership in ministry and in love transcends and is not dependent on those restrictions. I understand now that just as nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, so too can no space or even time prevent us from serving in the profound realization that God's love binds us together in the midst of a great cloud of witnesses.
Since we are fully committed to God, we know that God will strongly support us, wherever we serve (2 Chronicles 16:9a). And wherever God sends each of us from this gathering of grace and love, we will serve in the power of our love for each other, and in the mutual encouragement and wisdom we give to each other day by day. I leave this particular expression of co-pastoral ministry in the knowledge that every calling will of necessity be a co-ministry. In short, I go knowing that neither I nor Vicki will ever have to serve alone - God will always provide gifted partners with whom we can be in ministry.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Cultivating Gratitude Year-round
Brooks Twilley shared with me a recent (11/22/10) NPR radio interview between Dan Gottlieb Ph.D, host of Voices in the Family, and Dr. Robert Emmons, professor at University of California, Davis. His primary interests are in the psychology of gratitude and the psychology of personal goals. He's the author of "The Psychology of Gratitude." The show's a rebroadcast and originally aired in November 2009. Brooks asked me for my thoughts about the conversation, which I felt was so meaningful that I wanted to share them in this blog.
You can listen to the conversation here.
I like boiling happiness down to faith (hope), forgiveness (grace) and gratitude (praise). I heard once that persons who commit suicide suffer from a catastrophic contraction of their perspective of these aspects in their lives. Suicide, in this sense, becomes a fatal symptom of depression. They talked about the truncation of options in life being related to ingratitude later in the program.
I also enjoyed Dr. Robert Emmons' definition of gratitude as thoughtfulness and remembrance. Another way of thinking about the way they talk about the physical/neurological/psychological (as well as spiritual) effects of gratitude, thoughtfulness and remembrance is meditation, or perhaps contemplative prayer. Vicki recently read a great book titled "How Prayer Changes Your Brain" that explored the power of prayer from a neurological perspective. Some of this reminds me of the Psalms that catalog the good things that the community of faith remembers and celebrates God doing among them over time, and the old hymn: "Count Your Blessings".
The concept of movement beyond self focus to connection to others is the sine qua non (without which none) of any authentic religious practice and understanding. And I liked the concept of distinguishing between gratefulness as a desire or attitude rather than a feeling. The conversation about giving up the illusion of control (and self-sufficiency) and gratitude as acceptance was powerfully helpful in articulating what happens in religious, transformational experience of "the Holy".
One caller struggled with his inability to believe in a God/god who could receive his thanksgiving. When the host talked about giving thanks to the animals and the people who brought the food to the table, I was reminded of the prayers in the Cormac McCarthy book, The Road. I don't think being grateful to specific people and not wanting to deflect this feeling of gratitude to a transcendent reality (god?) because a person does not have an experience of God/god is necessarily a bad thing. I love that the caller felt a tug drawing him to experience what the AA group calls a "Higher Power", and I believe that to settle for anything less would prevent him from experiencing the blessing of getting in touch with the reality of what I call God.
To put it another way, I think the pathway to experience the transcendent reality of God/The Holy/The Divine is precisely through the immanent/incarnational relationships with real people in real circumstances of life. Ironic that I was just reading in 1 John 4 this morning:
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us.
20 If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars. For if we do not love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we have not seen.
21 And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love one another.
The caller who talked about raising a special needs child and being grateful for every little thing hit home with me, as a sibling of a special needs person, and as a parent of foster children. The issue of the human need for the contrast of adversity in life (between good life and bad life) in order to "wake up" to gratefulness says something about the question of the necessity of evil in a cosmos/universe/world created by God - and of the necessity of suffering. Near the end of the conversation, I loved the observation that people who have experienced great loss are the most grateful - for all of the little things in a life that becomes precious in every little moment. I remember a book by (social scientist) Dan Ariely called "The Upside of Irrationality" in which he described persons who had endured great pain and healing (as he had, as a burn victim), even partial healing, had a far higher tolerance for pain than people who had not experienced great pain and healing - precisely because those who had suffered a great deal believed things could get better through the pain of suffering.
What a fantastic conversation to share with people struggling in times of deep uncertainty.
You can listen to the conversation here.
I like boiling happiness down to faith (hope), forgiveness (grace) and gratitude (praise). I heard once that persons who commit suicide suffer from a catastrophic contraction of their perspective of these aspects in their lives. Suicide, in this sense, becomes a fatal symptom of depression. They talked about the truncation of options in life being related to ingratitude later in the program.
I also enjoyed Dr. Robert Emmons' definition of gratitude as thoughtfulness and remembrance. Another way of thinking about the way they talk about the physical/neurological/psychological (as well as spiritual) effects of gratitude, thoughtfulness and remembrance is meditation, or perhaps contemplative prayer. Vicki recently read a great book titled "How Prayer Changes Your Brain" that explored the power of prayer from a neurological perspective. Some of this reminds me of the Psalms that catalog the good things that the community of faith remembers and celebrates God doing among them over time, and the old hymn: "Count Your Blessings".
The concept of movement beyond self focus to connection to others is the sine qua non (without which none) of any authentic religious practice and understanding. And I liked the concept of distinguishing between gratefulness as a desire or attitude rather than a feeling. The conversation about giving up the illusion of control (and self-sufficiency) and gratitude as acceptance was powerfully helpful in articulating what happens in religious, transformational experience of "the Holy".
One caller struggled with his inability to believe in a God/god who could receive his thanksgiving. When the host talked about giving thanks to the animals and the people who brought the food to the table, I was reminded of the prayers in the Cormac McCarthy book, The Road. I don't think being grateful to specific people and not wanting to deflect this feeling of gratitude to a transcendent reality (god?) because a person does not have an experience of God/god is necessarily a bad thing. I love that the caller felt a tug drawing him to experience what the AA group calls a "Higher Power", and I believe that to settle for anything less would prevent him from experiencing the blessing of getting in touch with the reality of what I call God.
To put it another way, I think the pathway to experience the transcendent reality of God/The Holy/The Divine is precisely through the immanent/incarnational relationships with real people in real circumstances of life. Ironic that I was just reading in 1 John 4 this morning:
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us.
20 If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars. For if we do not love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we have not seen.
21 And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love one another.
The caller who talked about raising a special needs child and being grateful for every little thing hit home with me, as a sibling of a special needs person, and as a parent of foster children. The issue of the human need for the contrast of adversity in life (between good life and bad life) in order to "wake up" to gratefulness says something about the question of the necessity of evil in a cosmos/universe/world created by God - and of the necessity of suffering. Near the end of the conversation, I loved the observation that people who have experienced great loss are the most grateful - for all of the little things in a life that becomes precious in every little moment. I remember a book by (social scientist) Dan Ariely called "The Upside of Irrationality" in which he described persons who had endured great pain and healing (as he had, as a burn victim), even partial healing, had a far higher tolerance for pain than people who had not experienced great pain and healing - precisely because those who had suffered a great deal believed things could get better through the pain of suffering.
What a fantastic conversation to share with people struggling in times of deep uncertainty.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Extending Beyond Ourselves in the Body of Christ
There is a beyondness to life I have held in the hands of my soul. A place where the parallel lines come together (though I have not seen this place). Throughout human searching, we have posited this place in a far away realm, though there was one who taught that it encroaches upon us everywhere.
I have not seen this place, but the notion that we swim in it tastes of the kind of irony that calls to me (and that refuses to let me go). To say "beyondness" gives me a way to put my fingers on this relentless, undeniable itch of my consciousness - a maddening truth that eludes me just when I look for it, but that teases me like a cricket in the corner of my bedroom. I live in this place.
The Body of Christ and the Kingdom of God. The Way. These keys, these talismans create a framework for exploration, for exploring the beyondness. Yet for many they seem to stand for the end of the journey - they circumvent the journey altogether. We - all of us - can only attest to what we know. And some of us must guard the walls while others are driven to move out ahead in the darkness.
The Body of Christ holds together the grace of the incarnation, Immanuel; the sacrificial healing work of the crucifixion; and the miraculous hope of the resurrection, both in the person of Jesus (who becomes the Messiah) and in the lives of all who follow The Way. The last two cannot be teased apart - the resurrected body and the body of his followers and disciples - who have unfortunately come to be called (and who identify themselves as) merely believers.
Life in the Body of Christ goes far beyond belief. We who are members of this body do not accede to some principle or doctrinal concept. We give our lives entirely over to the will of Christ. I write in the general sense of this yielding, because not one of us can live each moment in the path of the Master. Yet his hold on us is fierce and unrelenting, perhaps especially when we attempt to thwart it and go our own way.
I offer this caveat when writing about anything (will, desire, identity) that could be construed as "mine": the Way of following Jesus the Messiah involves coming to know myself from God's perspective, reconstruing the way I understand who I am. This process leads to what Christians call "dying to self" and the miracle of "new life in Christ".
Jesus leads me to a larger comprehension of who I am - a relational understanding of myself as a member of the Body of Christ a body which encompasses all of creation, and not merely the church, or any subset of that creation). The themes of dying and rising again are typically thought of primarily in an ethical sense, but if the definition of "sin" includes this larger sense of life in God, then dying and rising "in Christ" contextualizes all ethical considerations (good and bad behavior) as manifestations of my understanding of "self".
Here is what I mean: if I understand my identity solely from my personal perspective, I also define "the good" from that perspective as well. Self-preservation and gratification become the highest aims and drive all my ethical considerations. In the epistles, this ethical behavior is called the way of "the flesh" and "captivity" to (false or distorted) desire. But if I understand myself as a member of the Body of Christ, the perspective of my desires enlarges beyond the narrow horizon of my "self" and I identify with the "other" (and by this I mean any "other") as part of my self.
Anyone who has experienced love for another person (or perhaps also for another animal, or even a special place) can attest to this enlargement of perspective and desire. As love grows, what begins as a largely selfish desire can expand imperceptibly but powerfully into life with and for another. The Prayer of St. Francis celebrates this love in the phrase "for it is in giving that we receive". When the desire of my partner (or friend, or child, or parent, or lover) conflicts with my own, we seek a mutual reconciliation, or offer each other the gift of subordinating our self-limited desire in order that the one we love might be fulfilled. Sacrifice is certainly one manifestation of this giving attitude, but so also is mutual fulfillment.
The Pauline correspondence includes a statement about a spouse whose desire is for her (or presumably his) partner. When my "self" becomes inextricably related to all "others" in the Body of Christ, my desire expands to consider the needs and concerns of others, in the spirit of a marriage partnership (a union where two are joined as one). As Paul writes, when one experiences joy or sadness, all experience joy or sadness in the Body of Christ.
This unity of identity, perspective and desire in the human community (and perhaps also in all creation - the community of the cosmos) relates us all to what humans have for ages called God. Jesus the Messiah lived in a constant state of awareness of his relatedness to God (a state he consistently called "The Kingdom of God") and invited his followers to experience the "drawing near" of this Way of being in community with others and, through them, with God.
The fourth Gospel includes Jesus' bold claim that he was constantly motivated and moved by the will of God: "The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19 NRSV). This understanding of God's will involves not necessarily (or merely) knowledge we can know; those who inhabit the Kingdom of God experience life animated by God's desire - God's love for all creation and all humanity. Life in Christ cannot be reduced to a system of belief - it reorients my identity entirely in union with God and the whole of creation. And this radical reorientation makes possible a new life in Christ, inspired and empowered by God's love for all.
Dallas Willard, a contemporary Christian theologian, has defined the Kingdom of God as "that place where God's will is perfectly done". The opening petition of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 bears witness to the fact that "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" and connects the concepts of God's Kingdom and God's will. Later in the same prayer, Jesus reverses the formula, where God's forgiveness of "us" reflects our own forgiveness of "others".
Like the Body of Christ metaphor, the Kingdom of God encompasses all creation in a cosmic perspective that redefines our identity. New actions and behaviors that reflect a deep respect and regard for others flow from this identity "in Christ". Jesus radically defined this new identity for his disciples by inviting each one of us to become a "servant of all". Thomas Merton, in his introduction to The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the fourth Century writes: "Love takes one's neighbor as one's other self...It is hard to really love others if love is to be taken in the full sense of the word. Love demands a complete inner transformation - for without this we cannot possibly come to identify ourselves with our brother [or sister]. We have to become, in some sense, the person we love. And this involves a kind of death of our own being, our own self."
Choosing to serve others involves a mastery over the delusion of our selfish desires that frees us to love others. Laying down (aside) our lives for the sake of God's love for the Other leads us to share in the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah in our lives. We become the Body of Christ dwelling in the Kingdom of God. Doing for others as we would have done to ourselves results from this expanded notion of Self - this behavior signifies that Jesus has accomplished the transformation of our individual, solitary life into the life of God. We are One, even as Jesus and the Father are One.
I have not seen this place, but the notion that we swim in it tastes of the kind of irony that calls to me (and that refuses to let me go). To say "beyondness" gives me a way to put my fingers on this relentless, undeniable itch of my consciousness - a maddening truth that eludes me just when I look for it, but that teases me like a cricket in the corner of my bedroom. I live in this place.
The Body of Christ and the Kingdom of God. The Way. These keys, these talismans create a framework for exploration, for exploring the beyondness. Yet for many they seem to stand for the end of the journey - they circumvent the journey altogether. We - all of us - can only attest to what we know. And some of us must guard the walls while others are driven to move out ahead in the darkness.
The Body of Christ holds together the grace of the incarnation, Immanuel; the sacrificial healing work of the crucifixion; and the miraculous hope of the resurrection, both in the person of Jesus (who becomes the Messiah) and in the lives of all who follow The Way. The last two cannot be teased apart - the resurrected body and the body of his followers and disciples - who have unfortunately come to be called (and who identify themselves as) merely believers.
Life in the Body of Christ goes far beyond belief. We who are members of this body do not accede to some principle or doctrinal concept. We give our lives entirely over to the will of Christ. I write in the general sense of this yielding, because not one of us can live each moment in the path of the Master. Yet his hold on us is fierce and unrelenting, perhaps especially when we attempt to thwart it and go our own way.
I offer this caveat when writing about anything (will, desire, identity) that could be construed as "mine": the Way of following Jesus the Messiah involves coming to know myself from God's perspective, reconstruing the way I understand who I am. This process leads to what Christians call "dying to self" and the miracle of "new life in Christ".
Jesus leads me to a larger comprehension of who I am - a relational understanding of myself as a member of the Body of Christ a body which encompasses all of creation, and not merely the church, or any subset of that creation). The themes of dying and rising again are typically thought of primarily in an ethical sense, but if the definition of "sin" includes this larger sense of life in God, then dying and rising "in Christ" contextualizes all ethical considerations (good and bad behavior) as manifestations of my understanding of "self".
Here is what I mean: if I understand my identity solely from my personal perspective, I also define "the good" from that perspective as well. Self-preservation and gratification become the highest aims and drive all my ethical considerations. In the epistles, this ethical behavior is called the way of "the flesh" and "captivity" to (false or distorted) desire. But if I understand myself as a member of the Body of Christ, the perspective of my desires enlarges beyond the narrow horizon of my "self" and I identify with the "other" (and by this I mean any "other") as part of my self.
Anyone who has experienced love for another person (or perhaps also for another animal, or even a special place) can attest to this enlargement of perspective and desire. As love grows, what begins as a largely selfish desire can expand imperceptibly but powerfully into life with and for another. The Prayer of St. Francis celebrates this love in the phrase "for it is in giving that we receive". When the desire of my partner (or friend, or child, or parent, or lover) conflicts with my own, we seek a mutual reconciliation, or offer each other the gift of subordinating our self-limited desire in order that the one we love might be fulfilled. Sacrifice is certainly one manifestation of this giving attitude, but so also is mutual fulfillment.
The Pauline correspondence includes a statement about a spouse whose desire is for her (or presumably his) partner. When my "self" becomes inextricably related to all "others" in the Body of Christ, my desire expands to consider the needs and concerns of others, in the spirit of a marriage partnership (a union where two are joined as one). As Paul writes, when one experiences joy or sadness, all experience joy or sadness in the Body of Christ.
This unity of identity, perspective and desire in the human community (and perhaps also in all creation - the community of the cosmos) relates us all to what humans have for ages called God. Jesus the Messiah lived in a constant state of awareness of his relatedness to God (a state he consistently called "The Kingdom of God") and invited his followers to experience the "drawing near" of this Way of being in community with others and, through them, with God.
The fourth Gospel includes Jesus' bold claim that he was constantly motivated and moved by the will of God: "The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19 NRSV). This understanding of God's will involves not necessarily (or merely) knowledge we can know; those who inhabit the Kingdom of God experience life animated by God's desire - God's love for all creation and all humanity. Life in Christ cannot be reduced to a system of belief - it reorients my identity entirely in union with God and the whole of creation. And this radical reorientation makes possible a new life in Christ, inspired and empowered by God's love for all.
Dallas Willard, a contemporary Christian theologian, has defined the Kingdom of God as "that place where God's will is perfectly done". The opening petition of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 bears witness to the fact that "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" and connects the concepts of God's Kingdom and God's will. Later in the same prayer, Jesus reverses the formula, where God's forgiveness of "us" reflects our own forgiveness of "others".
Like the Body of Christ metaphor, the Kingdom of God encompasses all creation in a cosmic perspective that redefines our identity. New actions and behaviors that reflect a deep respect and regard for others flow from this identity "in Christ". Jesus radically defined this new identity for his disciples by inviting each one of us to become a "servant of all". Thomas Merton, in his introduction to The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the fourth Century writes: "Love takes one's neighbor as one's other self...It is hard to really love others if love is to be taken in the full sense of the word. Love demands a complete inner transformation - for without this we cannot possibly come to identify ourselves with our brother [or sister]. We have to become, in some sense, the person we love. And this involves a kind of death of our own being, our own self."
Choosing to serve others involves a mastery over the delusion of our selfish desires that frees us to love others. Laying down (aside) our lives for the sake of God's love for the Other leads us to share in the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah in our lives. We become the Body of Christ dwelling in the Kingdom of God. Doing for others as we would have done to ourselves results from this expanded notion of Self - this behavior signifies that Jesus has accomplished the transformation of our individual, solitary life into the life of God. We are One, even as Jesus and the Father are One.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)