No roar
in this dim light
but the battle
lines have been
drawn.
The curtain opens
on a throne
cast by you
in flesh.
Your glory fills.
Your word heals.
Your presence seals.
The usurper cannot
stand your
grace.
But humble hearts
beat again and
courage finds
a face.
Red skies.
The light turned green.
The gap was small.
A flash
sped between a
Mercedes-Benz,
a Tesla too,
a rushing has-beens BMW.
A quick side check
and I see you pause:
White hair. Grey specks.
Looking back for just cause.
The last time I saw you I’m sure
t’was at the cemetery,
but on that we cannot tarry.
Another mile you see
and I’ll be home.
Your dark eyes a gift – my short poem.
“Still here.” “Still here.”
Still here I smile
and rush on.
To my UBC family: gather with
To gather with
friends and family
is easy for some
but for others of us
it is the most difficult
calling of holidays.
Reconnecting is
pregnant with
surprises.
While apart from
one another
we have all been
changing.
But our minds
and hearts
trick us
and usually
we have frozen
each other,
entombing the other
in the expectations,
beliefs,
habits,
and patterns
of old.
To gather with
is to come
face to face
with conflict
and to face our
own desperate
desire to be
understood
and cherished.
To gather with
is to allow
for the possibility
of change
and the possibility
of not that much
change.
To gather with
in Holy Days
is to rely
on His love
to cast out our fear.
Oh Jesus you came
and gathered with us
full of truth and grace.
Help us
gather
with.
John 1:14, NIV
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
1 John 4:13-21, NIV
13This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16And 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.
17This 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. 18There 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.
19We love because he first loved us. 20Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
Luke 2:11-12, NIV
Talk about sensory overload! Those shepherds had a lot to process. But they were used to looking for signs. So I think the angel was speaking their language when he announced: “This will be a sign to you…”
Folks on the edges and living in the rough are used to looking for signs. They depend on signs. Signs are tangible expressions of something that has been there or of something that is coming. Signs hold promise. But signs are not always interpreted properly, their implications are not always understood. So, the angels have made an announcement and then have given the shepherds clue, a sign, of which child in Bethlehem is the child of promise.
Shepherds are people who know how to read the signs. They are tuned in to:
Signs of distress.
Signs of danger.
Signs of comfort.
Signs of safety.
Shepherds know a lot. They are a wealth of knowledge regarding the land, the seasons, the day, the night, the predators, the sheep, their diet, husbandry, and the desires of those who have hired them. When shepherds see the signs, they process for understanding, and then they take action.
But, shepherds for all their knowledge and all their labour, may or not have been respected by all. Their hard work brought them to the edges of life and death, their schedule, and their persistent days and nights in the rough, meant that their manners and ways may not have been in keeping with the social demands for purity and the Law.
I know we are in danger of romancing the shepherd. But that isn’t a new issue in Israel or the church. King David had been taken from the shepherds’ pen to the King’s throne (Psalm 78:30). In the beloved Psalm, God Himself is called the Shepherd (Psalm 23). As with kings and rulers, most people probably easily found themselves in a love-hate relationship with shepherds.
When you read the Christmas story how do you position yourself? Do you read it from the sanitized space of comfort? Or do you see the gritty, raw, insider – outsider, weak – strong, ruler – ruled, dichotomies?
God chose these people, on the fringes of society, to occupy the front row seats of His tangible introduction of His glory and love in the flesh of a child.
While God is in the history and the details moving the Messiah into Bethlehem, the experience of Mary and Joseph, and the shepherds is one in which other powers are shaping their lives. A foreign ruler wanted to count his people and thereby exert his powers to tax. The shepherds were doing work that was at the bottom of the food chain, but they were expected to risk their lives for the sheep. Mary and Joseph lacked the means to push somebody else out of a guest room so they could face the challenges of delivery in some measure of comfort.
God chose these people, on the fringes of society, to occupy the front row seats of His tangible introduction of His glory and love in the flesh of a child. All of heaven and the church must break out in an ecstatic utterance: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests! (Luke 2:14 NIV)
I believe it, but don’t you too find it challenging? God is still inviting people into tangible expressions of His life and presence today through His church, the Body of Christ. While it may produce fear to turn again to the fringes from which we came or to surrender ourselves to the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, He assures us, “Do not be afraid!” And so it was with the Shepherds who found Jesus just as they had been told: they became a sign of God’s grace to Mary and to others!
Oh, that we would be so occupied by Jesus the Christ that we too become a sign for people on the fringes to discover! Oh that the encounter of Jesus’ church, His tangible manifestation, would yield delight and praise!
If you have no words for “it,” does that mean “it” doesn’t exist?
A lack of vocabulary for the spiritual life does not mean the spiritual life does not exist. However, I do agree with Jonathan Merritt that our North American societies have an ever decreasing competency with words associated to the workings of the soul and a religiously informed life.
In friendship with my neighbours in Vancouver for the last 24 years I have had many conversations where “I made no sense.” To speak of grace – makes no sense. To speak of salvation – makes no sense. To speak of sin – makes no sense. In fact, almost all the biblical vocabulary of life in relationship – makes no sense. And then to my despair even words I thought were shared were not. I have found, to speak of love – makes no sense at least in the way it make sense to me as a follower of Jesus.
The words “faith, hope, and love” are simple words yet they are complex constructs. As a construct these words in the context of the story of Jesus have narratives and relationships buried within them. There are treasures to be mined in these words! When Paul writes, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” he has the stories of Jesus and of Israel and of his Hellenized world in mind. He has a spiritual treasure trove available to him and these words were “short-hand” for grand visions for life and of humans flourishing.
Just about everything has to be uncovered and explained.
Most people avoid feeling stupid. Make them feel stupid and they will avoid you. The brilliance of Jesus is on display for us in the primary documents we call Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These histories of Jesus and of His relationships show us how He used language in a religiously saturated context. There was no end to the religious vocabulary available to Him. But, Jesus didn’t major on these words.
Instead Jesus used His life encounters and language to create analogies for spiritual realities that resided in the human heart and to divine realities that were still external to His “audience.” Jesus uncovered what folks didn’t know and then let them inquire about it. Then when there was some understanding, he offered invitations into it through Himself. In fact their religious language may have been a hindrance to flourishing spiritual life and relationship with Him that He envisioned. He had to help them break out of it.
We lack the cultural impulses of folks in the first century who were hanging around with Jesus, and therefore we often miss the scandal they experienced in both His activities and His words. They were scandalized by Him. And he didn’t mind that. That scandal was part of the breakthrough.
But truthfully, it seems to me, that many followers of Jesus in my city have a low tolerance for being misunderstood. We have a low threshold for the inquisitiveness empathy requires. We may be too quick to write off folks who simply don’t “get us.” They don’t understand us. And so, because they lack the words for “it” we may inadvertently do one of two things:
1. Make them feel stupid and therefore drive them away.
2. Assume they don’t have an interest in knowing God and therefore smugly take leave of them.
But most often I fear, because we don’t want to do awkward we don’t actually risk a look into the soul of another person at all.
So what can we do?
Humbly, start listening. Begin inquiring through the windows of the soul offered to us. Spiritual conversations are occurring all the time. Our neighbours are talking about their relationships, their ambitions, their desires, their hopes and fears, their frustrations and their delights. Our neighbours just aren’t using our vocabulary for the spiritual life. But they are talking about what they believe or at least they are talking about the matters that drive them. And behind these compulsions are an array of beliefs about life. We can look through these windows of the soul and draw out a belief-bridge to the heart. The Risen Lord Jesus has a way of walking across these bridges. Sometimes we need to say to each other, “That’s fascinating, tell me more; how did you come to believe that?”
All our beliefs are relational. Not all our beliefs are rational. Most often folks have unexamined beliefs. The gift you can give is to ask people to explain themselves. Probably they have not had anyone actually ask them to take a look at what they believe and where it came from. Beliefs often have been formed through these 5 P’s — parents, peers, professors, politics and pain. By entering into conversation we can become participants in the spiritual transformation God offers to both of us. Be patient. The question may need to be asked and then be given time to marinate for a while before a conversation is possible. I have it found it helpful to keep the Mark 4 parables of Jesus in mind: God is always sowing good seed in our hearts; sometimes these seeds come in the form of questions.
But later in relationship, we have to become willing to explain ourselves, to search for analogies and to tell the stories of Jesus rather than the treasured doctrinal constructions of our community of faith. We may need to invite folks into an encounter with Jesus in prayer and not just into an explanation of Jesus. Later we may be given permission to be teachers or “story tellers” of the grand narrative of God that we find in the Bible and now in our lives. I suggest we can ask for permission to explain before we launch. This is important, because just like you and me, I find that folks in my city are increasingly unwilling and unlikely to learn something from a stranger.
So listen. So explain. And do awkward. We are going to have to be willing to do awkward in order to love our neighbours well in the way of Jesus. And that means being present, and listening, and explaining – when we have been given permission.
Those who live loved have learned to listen.