Loss and simplification.

People are so complex.  Situations involving people in relationship are an order more complicated again.  Perspectives and feelings are so personal.  It's all fraught with danger and often doesn't end well.  That is the context of this Christian Way, our personal discipleship, ministry and the Together Life that Jesus calls His followers to embrace, called 'church'.
I have been reflecting on the last two years of my journey.  This weekend two years ago I preached a sermon and then started a 13 week period of absence from my beloved church in order to study full time at seminary...while still working my day job three days a week and trying to see my family in whatever time was left over.  I was depleted mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally and to some extent, physically.  Yet even in that condition I set myself to the 'north face' of a study mountain that would push me to within a semester of completing my Master's degree in ministry at seminary. I pulled it off, by the grace of God, and returned to my church just in time for Advent and Christmas! From the frying pan into the fire!

I had no idea it was to be the beginning of the end.  I was completely blindsided by the discovery that key individuals in my church had perceived my euphemistically named "study 'break'" as a sabbatical.  I had failed to build deep enough relationships with my leaders.  I had also made the foolish mistake of remaining on a peppercorn salary that caused many to value me as much as they paid me.  The money was irrelevant.  It was lack of regard for my calling that was the toxin.  And so after a few episodes of less than heavenly interaction it became very clear that the best thing to nurture The Kingdom, and indeed for the remaining threads of my self-care, was to finish well and move out, making room, I prayed, for a fresh pastor to take that very wonderful church forward into God's preferred future for them.  I grieved long and I grieved hard.  I grieved for my loss, and more particularly for the loss of what could so nearly have been.  It takes vision and hope to dream.  It takes humility and abandonment-to-God to bury a dead dream and pat the grave soil down with a shovel, and walk away.

Since then I have experienced the death of dreams in every area of my life: my family, my work for money, my relationship with my denomination, with friends, and in my understanding of what I used to refer to as 'my vocation'.  Consequently, I am a much simplified person.  I am more acutely aware of the blessings I have: my health, my wife, my faith in Christ, a few good friends and family and the daily rhythm of life.  That's enough for me.  The Lord gives and The Lord reminds us that every moment is a gift.

Two years after the beginning of the end, I am learning to care less about beginnings and ends.  I care less about mean people and their agendas than I once did.  The sun shines on us all alike, even me.

I've been thinking about getting a tattoo, in small but clear lettering over my heart. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of The Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.".  Like I said, this is personal, and may not end well.

PS - I wrote this blog entry in August 2013, but delayed publishing it until now.  There is a wonderful young and very smart pastor leading the church i left - and God will surely bless them together - a happy ending of that aspect for sure.

Every Meal a Eucharist

Approximately 40 hours before Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross, He gathered His inner circle of disciples around a table in an upstairs room to celebrate a Passover Meal with them.  I believe that at that meal, Jesus started His 'passion' - His suffering, and in a real sense, His death.  Ahead of Him was utter loneliness, horror, despair, unthinkable pain, naked humiliation and a slow agonizing death.  Really, it was all a process of death.  Jesus marked the end of His time with His disciples with a highly symbolic meal of bread and wine and told them to always remember Him with this meal.

Christians differ in understanding the timing of what He meant.  Did He mean only every Passover meal (in which case we have Eucharist once a year), or every meal, or every meal where Christians gather for the purpose of worship - or some other periodicity?

As for me, I like to celebrate Eucharist every Sunday - because every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ - and His Lordship over all things.

I heard it said recently that for ever meal, something dies - an animal, a plant.  Something has to die to feed us - to give us life.  How appropriate that Christ chose a meal to mark His death which gives us real life.

Give us this day, our daily bread.

Never be a Methodist Minister

My father gave me advice that his father had first passed to him: "Never be a Methodist minister".  It was delivered as an amusing comment, but with a definite edge of seriousness.  When i was 38 I told my Dad that I had a calling into ministry.  His concern was immediate "But you're at the top of your career!" and "Wait until you retire so that you can give it your full attention.  In the meanwhile focus on earning money to fund that retirement ministry idea".   It was no use.  A call to ministry is like falling down one of Alice in Wonderland's rabbit holes.  Once it's happened, there's no escaping it, and you just keep falling deeper down into it.  You also end up in a strange land that resembles the old world but it works differently.

I'm now 53 and post-secular-career.  I live off my wife's hard work and supplement it with a patchwork of IT consulting, an apartment rental business that I'm not very good at, and hopefully soon, some paid chaplaincy.  Yes, I am still in the world, but it just works very differently.

There are significantly long period where I don't see God working much at all.  Then there are all-too-brief moments when I see His hand, feel His breath.  And I humbly acknowledge that none of this makes much sense, but it all makes perfect sense.

"Never be a Methodist minister, son."
"But Dad, I already am.  And it's OK."

Craving the Pure Spiritual Milk

1 Peter 2:2. Like newborn infants, crave the pure spiritual milk.

There are some situations that are just weird for a guy.  One of them is when a young mother breast feeds her child nearby.  Now I know this is a beautiful and natural thing, and in our enlightened society anyone who feels uncomfortable about this happening in public just needs to get over it.   I know that.  But for a guy it's awkward, because we can't help but notice, but it's socially unacceptable to notice and especially to even glance a second time after we have inadvertently noticed the first time. When it happens in church there is a whole other level of social awkwardness, and when you are the pastor and your young church is apparently filled with nursing mothers it get beyond awkward and just becomes rather wonderful. I learned the pastoral skill of walking amongst my young mothering families with innocence and both eyes focused on some imaginary horizon.

Scripture calls God by male titles usually.  We are most familiar with 'Father'.  But the are plenty of feminine titles and illustrations too.  El Shaddai has a variety of interpretations with my favorite being 'the breasted one'.  The breasted mother who gathers her new babies, utterly dependent on her, into her arms.  The babies don't even know exactly what they want, much less what they need, but she does.  She wraps them in swaddling cloth, comforting them with her warmth, gentleness, and fragrance.  She bares her breast and offers her nourishment to her children...her very self, given for them.  Instantly, the sensation of her presence quietens the mewing child, who suckles content, typically falling asleep even as it feeds, all the while her gentle calm voice washes over her babies.  All is calm, all is quiet. You are safe and secure my child, be fed, full and at peace, rest in my arms and sleep a while.  Shallow..peace, whole news and well being. 

The preceding verse requests us to put away all human striving and contention, and to come like a hungry and discontent child to the breathed mother who sacrificially waits to tend us with what we need, when we don't even know what we need. 

Today, here and now, may you pause and open you heart and mind to the Holy Spirit that longs to gather you up and set your striving aside.  Come and taste of the presence of God, set aside your human envy and contentions.  Be at peace with your all-providing parent, safe and secure nowhere else.

Shallom.