Tag Archive: Jesus

Loving God at Christmas

December 13, 2018 0 Comments

I have an early memory as a kid. That in itself is remarkable as I don’t remember near as much as my wife does of her childhood. As I look back, life in my childhood is a blur punctuated with a few dramatic moments of peaked emotion. Life just seemed to mosey along and I enjoyed a sense of stability even though that’s probably not what my parents experienced. 

My early memory is of Christmas. On a Christmas Eve we joined our  fellow members of St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Gainesville, GA for a celebration of Jesus’ birth. The Christmas Eve service was packed. 

I remember walking down the sidewalk to the stone building in the dark and then sitting in the balcony taking in the hushed holy atmosphere, the candles and a sense of shared expectation. I remember the men from Riverside Military Academy, likely all high school students who couldn’t go home for the holidays, lined up in front of us in their uniforms with their visors in hand. One turned and winked at me. Not just a solitary wink, it was a wink that traveled from one eye to the next and back again. I went home and tried to mimic that motion while looking in the mirror. I spent days trying to perfect the act.

That night in St. Michael’s is the first Christmas I remember.

Now as an adult the memory of that Christmas brings to me to wonder and to question. 

Why where we all there? Tradition? Obligation? Curiosity? Delight?

Where we just acting? 

And perhaps more sinisterly, I have wondered before, is Christmas just a cosmic wink? Perhaps I’m not alone in these questions. Our faith as adults must grow up. I serve a congregation and University that is full of people committed to growing up in the way they think. However, most are not committed to growing up in the way they think about faith. Yes, the academy is growing giants. But, the temptation before us is to develop and deepen our capacities in a topic of study but neglect and even reject God, faith, and our heart.

I believe that first Christmas Eve of my memory laid down a foundation stone for faith in my life. God used that evening to called forth a simple response to Him in my life. Love. As I got older the simple response of love, wonder and delight is often accompanied by questions of doubt and ability: Does God really love me? Is God really? Can I love God? and If so, how shall I love … God?

Luke 2:8- 12
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Christmas is the grand call of God to people in which He says, “I love you.” Jesus born in Bethlehem made God’s love tangible. A sincere response to a tangible gift is to receive it. A sincere response to God is faith in Him. 

Such faith is easily polluted. I am aware of my own inner cynic and the excuse machine it fuels; its always blowing toxic smoke. But I do long this Christmas to enter into the way of knowledge that sincere faith offers us. Only then, by receiving what God has given, can the mean question of “Who loves you?” be met with a reflexive and simple response, “Jesus loves me.”

Discipleship, Education

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Following Jesus and Becoming Human

October 5, 2018 0 Comments

What is your vision of maturity? I have often returned to this question from Willie James Jennings over the past year. The process has forced me to grapple with the  powerful squeeze of culture and context on me. From early on we have absorbed a vision of being a person from our families, friends, teachers, professions and politics that remains largely unchallenged. It’s so unchallenged that our churches find it difficult and at times even impossible to challenge the individualism in which we have been steeped. We all want to be kings and queens; its our divine right. Being in control, being powerful, is driven largely by fear covered in a veneer of pride. All the while our souls are hollowed out and the name of God is taken in vain. And so, a vision becomes a myth shaping us and yet remaining elusive. To step out of that cultural or family mythology of identity though is to risk exile and alienation from someone and some body of people.

 

Recently I have delighted in watching my children and myself react to brothers and sisters in Christ coming to Vancouver from around the world who have a different vision of mature human persons. Sometimes their vision lived out means that they show up in Vancouver without knowing where they are going live. Like live tonight. What a gift! They are following Jesus and living into what my friend Miller says about Jesus. His mantra goes something like this: “Don’t you know, Jesus runs the largest hotel and accommodation chain in the world! Craig, why are you staying in hotels, when followers of Jesus have space in their homes?”

 

To actually read the words of Jesus and adopt them as our vision of a mature person, as a vision for ourselves means we risk humiliation, shame, and rejection. It means we may become taken up in the needs of other people for a time. It means the transgression against our agenda is going to inconvenience other people. Jesus was totally aware of this. For he said things like, “Blessed are those of you who are persecuted for righteousness sake.” “Blessed are those who are persecuted for my name’s sake.” And, “You cannot be my disciple unless you deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” “You cannot be my disciple unless you hate your mother, father, brother and sister.” In spite of these “cannot’s” Jesus fully expected that it was possible to have an identity rooted in Him and flowing from belonging in HIs family. He fully expected that He was forming a people who would be able to do His will. He says, “Who are mother and my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Jesus fully expected to reclaim persons and create a people who were human.

 

I have found my best mentors are the ones who encourage me to be more human as Jesus envisioned being human. This week is our annual Kindness Week at UBC. So, in honour of the UBC Kindness Week, I invited Jean Vanier to be my companion on my drives across the city. I’ve been listening to his 1998 Massey Lectures: Becoming Human. The five lectures form an awesome and challenging vision of being human. He speaks of

Loneliness
Belonging
From Exclusion to Inclusion: The Path of Healing
The Path to Freedom
Forgiveness.

You can check out the audio CD’s from the library or listen at the links above. (The CBC Audio Player only has four links available.)

Or, you can order the book based on the lectures, Becoming Human.

Change, Discipleship

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You are not too much for God

June 13, 2018 0 Comments

My friend, you are not too much trouble for God. When unbelief is a rising tide drowning out any ethical thinking and action your voice may seem small, your determination may seem wasted, and your resolve may seem weak. You may ask, “How long, Lord, how long?” But God hears. God sees. And the Psalmist declares, “The LORD knows all human plans: he know that they are futile.” (Psalm 94:11)

In the bone-crunching, blood-pounding, gut-wrenching struggle we may not see the help present for us. But one day we may declare with joy:

Unless the LORD had give me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, LORD supported me. when anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” (Psalm 94:17-19

You are not too much trouble for God. He loves you. Jesus says,

27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:27-29

Discipleship

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Delusions of the wealthy and the poor

June 12, 2018 0 Comments

Wealth is a seducer. Jesus believes we are in danger of barrenness when we are taken in by its false promises and premises. He says in the parable of the soils,  “16Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy.17But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.18Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word;19but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.’  (Mark 4:17-19)

I live in a city of great wealth and conspicuous consumption. At times I sense our barrenness. The poverty of soul reveals itself in shallow conversations, narrow fields of self-interest, and sickly love for our neighbours. Our materialism abandons the divine dimension of our relationship; in fact our minds are so hardened by the pursuit of material conquests that we cannot conceive of the Creator nor discern whether He has a first-right calling on us.

I find a slow reading of Psalm 49 gives perspective.

Psalm 49

 

1Hear this, all you peoples;

listen, all who live in this world,

2both low and high,

rich and poor alike:

3My mouth will speak words of wisdom;

the meditation of my heart will give you understanding.

4I will turn my ear to a proverb;

with the harp I will expound my riddle:

 

5Why should I fear when evil days come,

when wicked deceivers surround me—

6those who trust in their wealth

and boast of their great riches?

7No one can redeem the life of another

or give to God a ransom for them—

8the ransom for a life is costly,

no payment is ever enough—

9so that they should live on forever

and not see decay.

10For all can see that the wise die,

that the foolish and the senseless also perish,

leaving their wealth to others.

11Their tombs will remain their houses forever,

their dwellings for endless generations,

though they had named lands after themselves.

12People, despite their wealth, do not endure;

they are like the beasts that perish.

13This is the fate of those who trust in themselves,

and of their followers, who approve their sayings.

14They are like sheep and are destined to die;

death will be their shepherd

(but the upright will prevail over them in the morning).

Their forms will decay in the grave,

far from their princely mansions.

 

15But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead;

he will surely take me to himself.

 

16Do not be overawed when others grow rich,

when the splendor of their houses increases;

17for they will take nothing with them when they die,

their splendor will not descend with them.

18Though while they live they count themselves blessed—

and people praise you when you prosper—

19they will join those who have gone before them,

who will never again see the light of life.

 

20People who have wealth but lack understanding

are like the beasts that perish.

Discipleship

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Compassion as radical criticism

May 23, 2018 0 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

Walter Bruggeman on the compassion of Jesus.

Jesus in his solidarity with the marginal ones is moved to compassion. Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. In the arrangement of “lawfulness” in Jesus’ time, as in the ancient empower of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion. The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but person are accommodated to the norms. Otherwise the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement. Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context. Empires live by numbness. Empires, in their militarism, expect numbness about the human cost of war. Corporate economies expect blindness to the cost in terms of poverty and exploitation. Governments and societies of domination go to great lengths to keep the numbness intact. Jesus penetrates the numbness by his compassion and with his compassion takes the first step by making visible the odd abnormality that had become business as usual. Thus compassion that might be seen simply as generous goodwill is in fact criticism of the system, forces, and ideologies that produce the hurt. Jesus enters into the hurt and finally comes to embody it.

 

Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, Second Edition, 2001.

Leadership

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