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Reflections On The Way To The Compost Bin — An Urban Meditation

December 28, 2018 0 Comments

O Ground beneath our feet, 
what realms of life await us?
All bodies like to eat
but the compost bin disgusts us.

From your dark and meagre crust 
come the tastiest traded fares.
Yet those who return to dust
would rather put on aires.

We are better than dirt
and our children would be lucky
to wear a white shirt
than get their hands all mucky.

Such highbrow notions
train us not to see
how the farmers’ motions
are worth more than their fee.

Without the faintest care
we devour lavish plates,
leaving your ground bare,
and sealing our common fates.

But here among those
who moil for rusty gold
are some who dare propose 
to give thanks before we are old.

Thank you God 
for the carrot on my plate
and the sod 
from whence it came to date.

Grant Dear Sue good rest.
May her tribe increase.
May her soil be best – 
with unseen creepy crawlies never cease.

O Ground beneath our feet
let us not forget,
our dusty destinies entwined shall meet
for God for sure redeems this set.

Early to the bin a bowl of scraps I take
soon upon your face to spread.
Yes, indeed, all will shake,
but together, may we break more bread.

–Watch Living Soil, produced by the Soil Health Institute.

Creation, Poetry, Prayer

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Holy Days Tip #3

December 23, 2018 0 Comments

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.

Change, Discipleship, Prayer

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Holy Days Tip #2

December 22, 2018 0 Comments

To my UBC family: sit and listen

Whether you are are seated 
amongst the crowds of the mall,
along the banks of a river,
or on the couch at a party,
taking a moment to listen
and sort through the sounds
will tune your heart
to thoughts pulsating
with life and death.

Tuning in is not what 
busy people do.
We tune out.

But tuning in 
is what loving 
people do.

Feet on the ground.
Hands in my lap.
Ears identifying the 
sounds.

My soul quickens.
My mind sorts.
Praise.
Gratitude.
Concern.
Lament.
Repulsion.
A plea for 
God’s wisdom.

We need wisdom from heaven.
So, come Lord Jesus, come.
I am listening.

13Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

James 3:13-17, NIV

Discipleship, Prayer

Holy Days Tip #1

December 21, 2018 0 Comments

To my UBC family: enjoy your rest.

“There remains, then a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us then make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish following their example of disobedience.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sward, it penetrates even to dividing the soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Hebrews 4:9-12, NIV

Much of the fog enveloping us
after a stressful season
of production and effort
will lift if we can rest.

Rest allows you to listen.
Rest must be accompanied
with refuelling.

Like Elijah who ran
until he could no longer run,
its time to lay down your head and
then get up
and eat.

Eat this Word:
“anyone who enters God’s rest
also rests from their works.”

Heavenly Father,
grant to our students and friends,
good rest, in the name
of Jesus,
AMEN

Discipleship, Education, Work

Joy to the World! The Dirtiest Christmas Carol

December 20, 2018 0 Comments

Its Christmas… again. As a preacher the celebration of Jesus’ birth and the return to the usual texts is both a burden and a delight. But Christmas and planning for a congregation has not always been so “usual” for me. In 1985 I was not even 18 yet and I was responsible for planning worship and congregational gatherings for Riverbend Baptist Church in Gainesville, GA. The Baptist hymnal provided me with the standard mix of some strange and some wonderful songs to sing as a congregation. And no doubt, the best and most enthusiastically sung carol of all was Isaac Watts’ poem Joy to the World. 

Even in 1985, with the advent of Advent in a few baptist churches, I was vaguely aware that Christmas is a high context event. That mix of candles and a four-week celebration with a wreath was deemed too catholic for many, but we dove right in. We were celebrating not only the birth of Jesus as the Messiah but also anticipating the return of Jesus to reign in the new heaven and earth.

Joy to the World is literally down to earth. The hymn shouts out, “Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her King.” With those words, Isaac Watts pulls together both the historical entrance of Jesus through the womb of Mary and the anticipated return of Jesus as a reigning King through the heavens. Jesus has come to “earth” to the “ground.” Jesus will come to “earth” to the “ground” again. Jesus is the divine seed that will inhabit Mary’s womb and reverse the fortune of adam, but He is also the seed that will transform all Creation.

Somehow our vision of loving God and loving people has not included the stewardship of earth.

The carol is full of imagery and of meaning rooted in Genesis 1-3, the imagery of the Psalmist, the incarnation and birth of Jesus, and Revelation.

Imagery of the earth, the ground and nature.
Both heaven and nature can sing.
People can sing for the reigning King.
Rocks, hills, floods and plains can repeat (echo) the sounds of joy.
Sin and sorrows grow.
Thorns infest the ground but will be displaced by the blessings of the Saviour.
The curse infecting the ground is to be removed.
The nations occupying the land display the King’s righteousness.

Imagery of Jesus, the King, the Messiah, the Saviour.
He is the Lord, the King.
People may prepare the hearts for Him, making room for Him.
He is the Saviour who reigns.
He has blessings that infiltrate every space.
He rules with truth and grace.
He causes the nations to prove His righteousness.
His love is wonder-full.

I’m so glad Christmas comes every year. Without Christmas and the week of Jesus’ passion (Easter) the church would succeed in divesting itself of responsibility for how we steward the stuff of earth. There’s nothing like Christmas to draw the church out of a sanitized vision of life with God. Jesus comes from the communion of God and takes on flesh. He takes on the form of adam, a dirt creature. Perhaps we forget that Jesus is not born in Bethlehem just to be “born in your heart.” Jesus declared His presence and ushered in the Kingdom of God on earth. He is going to accomplish it with His life, His death, and His resurrection. He is going to accomplish it through a people he builds who will pray not just with their words, but with their very lives, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

But when we sing Joy to the World, we are invited back to the Eden Garden and forward into the new creation redeemed by Jesus. All who sing this song are invited into the grace and truth of Jesus for the stewardship of the ground and the stuff of earth as we anticipate His return and glorious reign.

Watts presents a vision of the earth and of Jesus that is continuous. By that I mean there is no interruption between us and the new heaven and earth. Those who now live with Jesus as King and Saviour are to live in all their relationships in the anticipation and joy of Jesus’ full reign as Lord. All who confess Jesus and Lord and sing this song are actually commanding nature to sing, and to acknowledge Jesus as Lord of all Creation.

Jesus calls to us in “Christ’s Mass” to pursue a fully formed discipleship in which the Gospel has implications for all our relationships: with God, with self, with people, and with the stuff of earth. I’m afraid that our relationships are malformed just as our sense of the Gospel may be malformed. Somehow our vision of loving God and loving people has not included the stewardship of earth. But when we sing Joy to the World, we are invited back to the Eden Garden and forward into the new creation redeemed by Jesus. All who sing this song are invited into the grace and truth of Jesus for the stewardship of the ground and the stuff of earth as we anticipate His return and glorious reign. As followers of Jesus the Lord of the Earth we cannot help but become environmentalists or at least sympathetic to those who are occupied with the wise stewardship of the ground.

Is it possible that everyone who sings Joy to the World has been invited, even commanded, into a life formed by the Kingdom of Jesus and His Cross? Then are we not compelled to consider the ground we walk on with redemptive and holy wonder? Can we keep ourselves from getting dirty in the science, politics, and policies of the ground for His glory?! Can we love the earth with Jesus?

Joy to the World!

Joy to the world! The Lord is come; Let earth receive her King.
Let ev’ry heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders of His love.

Written by Isaac Watts and first published in 1719 in his collection The Psalms of David: Imitated in the language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian state and worship.

Creation, Discipleship

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