Confusion and Clarity

Tomorrow morning I teach our Adult SS class again. I have taught it many times over the past 10 years at our church. But the last two times have been a bit frustrating for me. Not because of the class - they are awesome and really a great cross section of people that I love "being the church" with. And not because I am unprepared - I have been working through these ideas and concepts for the past 7 years and have spent a lot of time thinking, praying, and reflecting on them in light of Scripture. My frustration is in what happens between me and the class. I am having trouble clearly communicating what it is that I am trying to say. What I mean by the words I choose is not what people are interpreting from the words they hear. For someone who communicates for a living that is a pretty frustrating place to be.

My focus is on how we read the Bible. The way to come to the text often shapes what you will see there. I have a friend who once told me that if the only tool you have is a hammer then most of what you see will look like a nail. When we approach Scripture as a repository of promises and blessings, that is often all we find there. When it looks like a rule book to us, that's all it will be. When it's a complicated theological puzzle, we can spend hours and hours trying to make the pieces fit, almost to the point of missing the picture. And if it's a story...? (For more on this you really should read The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight. I wish I could get him to come teach the class!)

I think we need to read the Bible all of these ways, but the best way is to read it as story. To enter the story of what God is doing in the world and just soak in it for a while. To strap on Joseph's sandals, go fishing with Peter, preaching with Paul, to the tomb with Mary, and just let it impact us like we've never heard it before.

That's what I am trying to communicate in this class. But I'm failing. So tomorrow we're back at it. That's what I do. I try to help us all listen to the text...myself included. And sometimes what I need is a good dose of frustration. It's the spiritual castor oil. Tastes horrible, not sure why we need it, but good for what ails you.

This week's sermon...

Here's a message from last Sunday on Simplicity from Luke 12:13-34.

Full study guide is online here.

Bumper sticker truth

Today I saw this bumper sticker on a car parked at our local hospital.  I laughed out loud (LOL for all you text speak people). One of the aspects that struck me as funny was that even though years ago I would have loved it, I would have understood it differently.  It would have been a way to say God bless those other weirdos that I don't understand, and if I was honest, those that I didn't want to understand.  

But the years change you.  I am learning more about people...and more about me.  I'm learning that we are usually more alike than we are different. And far too often I have refused to admit it as a way to feel better about my own preferences and idiosyncrasies. As much as I hate to admit it, the older I get the more it becomes clear to me that the freak is me. Before you laugh too hard let me remind you that it's you too.  There is no "normal".  We all have our freakish aspects.  For years I used myself as the definition of normal, and your level of "freakishness" was derived by how far from me you were on the normal scale.  Today I think we're all a bit weird.  We all have our hang-ups.  We all need a lot of grace. So yeah, "God bless the freaks." That's a great prayer.

How the internet affects us...

You should really read this post by Tod Bolsinger, and the article from The Atlantic Monthly that it references.  At least, I think you should. Pop on over and you will see what I mean....

Word Creation Wednesday

This week's word has a theological bent to it. Something worth chewing on for a while I hope...

"Imaginashun" - The shunning or rejection of another person due to a refusal to see them as created in the image of God. This is usually done for justifiable reasons, including their actions (which may have caused us pain), their belief systems (which may be false and even harmful), or their past failures (which are usually way worse than ours). The truth is that loving people because of the divine imprint in their nature is just too difficult. If we loved people merely because God loves them (and created them in his image) then we would have to love people like Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, Barak Obama, Jerry Springer (heaven forbid), or even worse, the people we come in contact with everyday. We'd have to love Miss California AND Perez Hilton, the contest judge who has made her life so difficult. Surely Jesus didn't mean for us to love people unconditionally? That would have severe implications for our thoughts and actions. Imagine what might happen if we did that...

This week's sermon...

The audio from my simplicity sermon is still not posted so here's one from the past called, "The one who could throw, didn't."

Full study guide online here.

Quote of the week...

“We have the nicest garbage man,
He empties out our garbage can.
He’s just as nice as he can be,
He always stops and talks to me.
My mother doesn’t like his smell,
But mother doesn’t know him well.”

--Peter Marshall (I think)

This is ironic...

In light of my last post and my sermon topic today you just have to wonder...

Twittering in Church, With the Pastor's Encouragement

Will we ever just be open to being "still"?

Playing little games

Tomorrow I preach on the discipline of simplicity.  I've defined simplicity as “Living life for what is most important, refusing to let the accumulation of the unimportant distract us from God’s call.” Once again I have been forced to think through the stuff of my life and how what I have shapes who I am, often whether I realize it or not.  I don't know who wrote this...but they said something worth saying.  

Some men die by shrapnel;

Some go down in flames.

But most men perish inch by inch

Playing little games.

In different words Thoreau said something similiar..

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

It seems that there is only so much mental head space in my life and once I have filled it there is no room left for the voice of God.  The goal has to be to clear the way, to open up space for God to speak. And that has serious implications for the choices I make from day to day.

My hope for you this week-end is that you take the time to think through your own life...reflecting how you can simplify your life and thus make space for God to speak clearly to you.

Mental Illness of the Spirit...

Today I had a long interaction with Steven (not his real name).  Steven suffers from extreme paranoia.  He came to see me because he had been banned from the local Greyhound bus station. Of course, he was completely innocent.  His story was that the ticket agent had jumped across the counter and assaulted him.  He had called the police, but they had, just as he expected, taken the Greyhound employee's side.  The witnesses had seen nothing...other than the fact that Steven had become very impatient and loud with the ticket agent and the agent responded by telling him to leave the station.

As I talked to Steven his mind was hard at work making mental connections.  They were out to get him.  This incident was tied to the recent fire in his apartment building.  The fire was started by people connected to his step-mother.  She had slowly poisoned his father over that last 5 years, leading to his eventual death.  The step-mom is engineering all of this to keep him from collecting any of the inheritance.  She wants to isolate Steven in Hope (thus the expulsion from the Greyhound station) so that he has no freedom to travel.  This, he says, makes him a sitting duck for those who are seeking to kill him.  It's quite a fascinating story - and I haven't even told you how his siblings are complicit in the whole affair.

After a few minutes of talking with Steven it becomes abundantly clear that the only thing that is out to get him is his own mental illness.  He needs some intensive help, and probably some good medication in order to keep the paranoia at bay.  But because he can function at a pretty high level in society, society tends to let him be, even if that is to his own detriment.

As is often the case, my personal interactions tend to inspire reflection.  As I pitied Steven for the difficult challenge of having his own mind work against him, I was challenged to think about a malady that I often suffer from - spiritual paranoia.  When bad things happen to me, when I am not sure where God is, when I don't understand how He could allow the things that He is allowing, I begin to allow these things to make me paranoid.  What if He isn't good?  What if He isn't in control.  What if Romans 8:28...

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

...is nothing but wishful thinking?  At that moment God looks at me, much as how I look at Steven.  He sees the futility of my thinking.  He marvels at my ability to miss so much of what is actually going on in the middle of my self-absorption.  He hurts for my weakness.  And somehow He still loves me.   

Steven has lost the ability to trust.  Every action that happens to him is somehow suspect.  I often do the same.  Trust is a fragile object that must be cared for.  It is one that needs to be both nourished and practiced.  As children we trust without too much effort.  Maybe that comes from our lack of understanding of what the real world is like.  As adults we "know better".  But when it comes to our spiritual life, trust is the only antidote for spiritual paranoia.  If we don't learn to trust, we spend all our lives running from everything - even those things that God works for our good at a level far beyond our own understanding.

"The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion."

--Proverbs 28:1

Uh....what?

"The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey."

So says a CNN article.  Read the rest here. I understand that there are complexities when it comes to the church and the power of the state, but can we really just write off "turn the other cheek" that easily?  It was Jesus who said that, right?

I was saving the following quote for next week's quote of the week but I think you'll agree that it's quite appropriate for this particular post.

“Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishment, its wars”

-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Go ahead...tell me what you think.

One further note...

The funny thing about the post below is that by including those words I have actually increased the likelihood of someone coming to this blog based on that search criteria.  I find that slightly amusing.  I am saying less and yet attracting more attention.

In case you ever feel too important...

Here's an interesting fact that is helping bring a little humility to my life. I can tell when people come to my blog via a search engine such as Google and also what they were searching for when they came across my blog.  The top search terms have always been my name - "Jeff Kuhn".  But in the last three months a new "hot item" has directed an incredible amount of traffic my way. In fact, it appears as if this post - World's longest dead snake - will soon surpass my own name as being the search term most used to find my site.  So while I'd like to think that people come here for the witty and profound words that I pour forth from somewhere deep in my soul, the truth may be that a good "YouTube" video has more pull. Oh well...

"Life is a long lesson in humility”  

-- James Matthew Barrie

Far from the church we often see today...

A church that doesn’t provoke any crises,
 a gospel that doesn’t unsettle,
a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin,
a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin
of the society in which it is being proclaimed–
what gospel is that?

Very nice, pious considerations
 that don’t bother anyone,
that’s the way many would like preaching to be.
Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter
so as not to be harassed,
so as not to have conflicts and difficulties,
do not light up the world they live in.
They don’t have Peter’s courage, who told that crowd
where the bloodstained hands still were
that had killed Christ:
“You killed him!”

Even though the charge could cost him his life as well,
he made it.

The gospel is courageous;
it’s the good news
of him who came to take away the world’s sins.

-- Oscar Romero - April 16, 1978

Word Creation Wednesday

This week's word has to do with the way we adopt the things that we choose to believe.

"Pseudocontemplation" - The mental act of choosing to believe a certain idea or concept due to the way it is presented, our personal bias, or our feelings about and reaction to the presenter of the idea.  The converse is also included in this, where we reject an idea because it is poorly presented or we don't like the presenter. This is especially practiced in North America where we often, consciously or unconsciously, adopt the ideas presented in the news and entertainment media as our own.  Every idea seems to have great merit if it is the only idea that you consider.  There is a famine of true critical thinking in our world...in my own life.  Edward R. Murrow said, "A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices and superstitions."  If you've never taken the time to listen to the person who disagrees with you then you are building beliefs on a shallow foundation.

This week's sermon...

Part 2 on Disciplines for a Busy World - Solitude and Silence.

Full study guide and outline is here.

Quote of the Week...

Passed on to me from my good friend Wes...

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

--Ann Lamott

Prayer for a Sunday...

Written by Walter Brueggemann - 

We are strange conundrums of faithfulness and fickleness.

We cleave to you in all the ways that we are able.

We count on you and intend our lives to be lived for you,

and then we find ourselves among your people

who are always seeking elsewhere and otherwise.

So we give thanks that you are the God

who yearns and waits for us,

and that our connection to you is always from your side,

and that it is because of your goodness

that neither life nor death

nor angels nor principalities

nor heights nor depths

nor anything in creation

can separate us from you.

We give thanks for your faithfulness,

so much more durable than ours.  Amen

And never be the same...

Pastoral Epiphany

June 10, 2007

A vending machine of God

I am not

No slot for quarters

No chutes of spiritual sweetness

Dispensing divinity

Guaranteed to satisfy

At times people see me thus

I hate it

Mostly when I’m empty

When sweetness is hard to find

Quarters overflow

Yet there is nothing to give

And a line of those who want

Then, in a moment of grace

Insight comes, ripping scabs from eyes and heart

I see the truth

I like it too

Being a source 

Supplying quantities of God yet consuming none

Prepackaged Jesus, clean and sterile

Spiritual truth sealed in bags

A God contained

There is a joy in teaching 

Free from pain of being taught

Truth observed but not encountered

Analyzed, but paralyzed

You do not build another’s stones of remembrance

There is no life in living truth for others

If you handle fire you will be burned

Scars will evidence lessons learned

A vending machine God does not need

Maybe yet, a cup, albeit cracked

Filling, spilling, overflowing

Telling of the God I know

In hopes that they will someday go

To meet Him for themselves

And never be the same.

A Re-Run...

Here's a post that I wrote back in 2005.  It came back to me as I sat through our denominational convention this week - excited by some of the changes happening in our Fellowship and yet still wondering about this weird thing that we call church.  As we work through budgets and by-laws and begin to discuss theological issues (while they are both important and necessary) it is so easy to lose the joy in laying it all our for the Kingdom.  We lose the focus of Jesus in the trappings of running a church.  And, as often happens with me, the same questions surface in my head.  Here's what I wrote about it 4 years ago...

July 5, 2005 - 

The more time passes the less I am sure of and the more confident I am that Jesus is all He said He is. It is encouraging for me to see others at the same point in their journey. My faith has become less about answers and more about quiet trust in the One who is leading. Anne Lamott writes,

“Another problem involves what the light looks like. I have thought over the years, that the light would look like success, a good man, a child, a Democratic president, but none of these were right. Moses led his people in circles for forty years so that they could get ready for the Promised Land, because they had too many ideas and preconceptions about what a Promised Land should look like…We have to sit in our own anxiety and funkiness long enough to know what a Promised Land would be like, or, to put it another way, what it means to be saved.”

So much of my spiritual journey has been about letting go of what I thought God was doing in order to embrace what He’s actually up to.

I never wanted to be a pastor. I thought that they were too secluded from the real world. What an idiot I was. But God is patient (and persistent), and here I am pastoring a church, never more sure of His calling in my life than I am now.

I thought that spiritual leadership was about giving people answers. Truth is that it’s more about walking with people through their questions. I’ve realized that God doesn’t need me to be His agent; He can do His own PR work. He wants me to be His hands, showing compassion, serving, loving, dying. Sure, you speak the truth, but your eloquence and insight aren’t needed, He just enjoys letting you be a part of what He is doing.

I thought that being a pastor was about discerning vision and preaching with passion. I am learning that it’s more about riding the roller coaster we call life. Let me share with you a day from a couple of weeks ago. I got to the office at 9:00am on Friday and spent the next hour talking with a suicidal woman on the phone. Our church has tried to help her repeatedly, just like every other social agency in our town. But she continually burns her bridges, abuses those who help her, and justifies it by saying that God is leading her to do these things. At 10:00 I met with another person. She has every reason to be suicidal and yet God is slowly but surely changing her heart. On my way back to the office I met with a family of a 66 year old man who had just died. They have little or no understanding when it comes to Jesus and what He intends for us. It was an hour of trying to bring some hope to a situation where there is none, or at least it feels that way. When I got back to the office I had to do the intensely spiritual work of responding to emails. That was followed up by an hour of wrestling with Acts chapter 2, asking God to speak to me and enable me to speak clearly to others. At 2:00 I did a funeral. Once again, very little hope, just a deep love and respect for a man who they will miss everyday for the rest of their lives. I wrapped up the day trying to finish off my sermon. And all of this is set against the back drop of hurt feelings and misunderstandings that surround a recent church decision. And yet I love it. I’m seeing God in places that I never dreamed He would be. And guess what, He’s getting the job done. I should’ve known that when He said that He would build His church that is wasn’t some politician’s promise, good only for the time it takes to get them in office. He meant what He said. And He’s good for His word.

I thought that peace was the absence of all these struggles. I am learning that the real peace comes in the midst of the roller coaster. You can only use a parachute when you’re falling to the earth at some insane speed. You can only trust God when it looks as if there is no hope.

So I’m learning to be sure of less, but to be more confident of the less I know to be true. It’s an interesting paradox, and one that’s difficult to explain. I guess that’s what makes it so beautiful. Easy answers lose their beauty when held up to the light. But when you experience something that is beyond describing, or at least describing fully, the truth seems to actually grow in beauty as the light reflects across the surface of the unknown.

That’s just the way God likes to do things.