Tag Archives: Bible

The God Who Trades

...to comfort all who mourn...to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning... (from Isaiah 61:2-3)

God is no good at trading. In this last section of Isaiah, God trades the hardship of the Israelites for renewed hope. “Let me carry your mourning,” God offers, “while you hold the gladness.”

What an uneven trade, Lord! Everyone knows mourning is heavier than gladness. And sins weigh more than forgiveness, another one of God’s uneven trades.

God is unfathomably generous. God’s ways do not align with our human, even-trading, fairness-focused, transactional look at life. We do not give this in order for God to do that. This is not a balanced relationship.

Which is nice.

When the dark winter days come with heavy human sadness, it is good to know that Christ will carry his share of the pain and yours. “Sit down, take a load off,” you hear Jesus whisper. “I will take care of things and when you are ready, you can follow me through the darkness. You are looking a bit broken today. I will gather the pieces and trade you for the peace only I can give you.”

Thank you, Lord, for uneven trades, a mark of your light-bearing grace.

Photo by Joshua Rodriguez on Unsplash

The Way

As a seminary student, I remember discussing with classmates how long a pastor should serve a congregation. The lore was that a pastor’s call should conclude around seven years, seven being a number that reflects completion in the Bible.

Growing up, one of my pastors practiced the seven-year model. My Methodist colleagues are often transferred at the seven-year mark. If God created everything and even rested within seven days, seven years as a pastor in the same congregation should do it. Marcus and I entered this life of pastor/teacher expecting to move if not every seven years than at least every so often.

And yet, here I am in the same congregation for 17 years, long past not only one seven-year mark but two. Perhaps this is on my mind because it was 18 years ago, around this time of year, when Marcus and I travelled from our home in the Twin Cities to Dickinson to interview. I interviewed at a congregation that astoundingly had called only two senior pastors within a stretch of 50 years. They had completely rebelled against the unwritten seven-year rule! Who were these people?!?

Any long-term pastor can tell you the gift of a long-term call is that relationships grow deeper, which can serve to further a congregation’s mission to follow Christ. You become more aware of someone’s quiet gifts and someone else’s profound wisdom. You learn who has a genuine desire to learn or to serve in Jesus’ name. You have the privilege of entering into multiple generations of a family’s life and proclaim God’s hope through Christ.

On the flipside, the goodbyes get harder as the relationships grow deeper. You must witness more people join the communion of saints, people you have grown to love as you serve alongside them. It becomes like watching the introduction to a television show. The intro moves you through the years to give you a flashback of all that has happened in the lives of the characters. This way, by the time the episode begins, the characters are more familiar.

Being a pastor for a long time is like that. God brings new staff members to a congregation, yet you are the one who has lived through much of the introduction.

  • You can see the group of people who once gathered for coffee before worship on Sunday mornings. Now, they are no longer living, or no longer able to come to the church building to worship. Their absence is felt each week.
  • You can see that group of people who served in leadership roles. Their wisdom continues to be beneficial, but you have to know who they are.
  • You can hear the sounds of worship that both changed and stayed the same from one generation to the next. You endured some of the trials and tribulations through the changes and the sameness; you felt the impact on the community of faith; you have lost enough sleep over the years to know what is at stake.

How long should a pastor serve a congregation? Like perhaps any question in the universe that relates to relationships, the answer is less important than the question.

The question is not how long, but how now?

This question is not reserved for pastors. How does a pastor, a deacon, a lay person, a young person, an old person, a new person, a seasoned person, serve a congregation now? What difference does it make that God gathered these people at this time for this community of faith, which ever community it might be?

The answer is less important the question, the question is less a question than a prayer.

Lord, you are the way, the truth, and the life. Guide our feet, you who are the way. Instill in us wisdom, you who are the truth. Renew us by your grace, you who are life. Amen.

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There is Crying in the Bible

There is no crying in baseball…although I would not mind if Yankee fans shed a few tears tonight. Otherwise, there is no crying in baseball, but there is indeed crying in the Bible.

Jesus cried in John 11 at the death of Lazarus. In the Greek, the word for weeping describes tears falling down Jesus’ face. He cried (a different Greek word) out to the Father to awaken Lazarus from the dead, and God the Father did. Other times, Jesus cried out to God for justice, or comfort. Some of his cries shed tears while other cries were heard and heeded by God the Father.

Jesus cried. It is what humans do. Overcome by joy or sorrow, our faces leak, as Bob Maloogalooga, one of my favorite movie characters observed. When the psalmist wrote that you are intricately made, perhaps he also had in mind the well of your emotions. Crying, Jesus taught us, is a human response to life.

Back in 1 Kings, there is crying. The prophet Elijah was sent to a widow. He asked her to help him and later he helped her. She had a young son who was ill to the point that “there was no breath left in him.” (1 Kings 17:17).

She blamed Elijah. “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!”

Elijah asked for the boy, laid him down and cried out to the Lord. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”

This reminds me of a prayer Will Willimon cried out to God. Just before entering a hospital room where a young boy was gravely ill, where despair held everyone captive, and hope was absent. He cried out to God, “Don’t you make me go in there and lie for you!”

Cries speak the depth of who we are. They pull from the corners of our most honest self, the corners we mostly leave untouched.

Cries connect you with the God who hears them, as both Elijah and Jesus show you. There is crying in the Bible. There is crying in life.

There is no cry that goes unheard by God, who became a human who cries, who tenderly gathers up your cries and holds them for you.

Even the potential cries of Yankee fans, God will hear them. At least I think so. Some things I do not know.

What prayer might you cry out to God?

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Hey, Don’t You Live Up There?

One Wednesday night at St. John is an adventure story. Within three hours, there is an intensity to the volume of delightful, multi-generational conversation, mishaps, tears and giggles. I love how this gathering reflects life as it truly is: imperfect.

Luther described a theology of the cross as God meeting us not in the positive, perfect moments, but in the thick of life. Call a thing what it is, Luther instructed. And so, we call our lives what they are: hurried and haggard at times, each day our best effort and nothing more. Christ did not die for our sins because we have our lives together, but because we do not.

I love Wednesday nights because this is what we live out – a theology not based on rewards for how well we are living, but a theology that solidly trusts in God’s grace through Christ. This gift of grace is enough. You do not need to do more, try harder, or get better.

Where you live, with your weariness and wondering, is exactly where God meets you. In the adventure story of Wednesday nights, we live out our imperfect lives fully trusting in God’s perfect grace.

The number of stories manifested on a single Wednesday night could fill a book, that is, if you could be on all three floors and in every corner of the building at the same time. Since I cannot, I can only report this small chapter.

I sat behind a young, conversational kiddo at worship. I was doing my best to listen to Christina preach, but my worship neighbor has not yet perfected the art of whispering.

“Hey, what’s your name?” she wanted to know.

“Lisa,” I whispered quietly, dropping a hint.

She gave me a hard look and then threw a glance toward the front of the church where Christina was speaking.

“Hey, don’t you live up there?”

“What?” I whispered, trying to set an example and failing.

“Don’t you live? Up there? Why aren’t you up there?”

Oh, I realized! She thinks my home is the chancel. That I make my bed beside the altar and eat bread and wine for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That I had left my home up front to sit in the back of the church.

She accepted my whispered answer, that it wasn’t my turn to be “up there,” and the night went on. During Communion distribution, she had one more thing to say to me, as she paged through the heavy hymnal.

“I like this book,” she announced. “And this is my church.”

There she was in a community of people who astound me each week. Parents and grandparents who have decided that passing along the Christian faith is worth the work of getting a young family to church, which can be a great deal of work. Many of these parents wear their fatigue on their faces, their time at church a brief intermission from running between kids’ activities.

Because my worship neighbor’s family almost never misses worship, this little girl may not be proficient at whispering, but she is wise enough to know St. John is her church.

The adventure book would capture other moments: grandparents teaching grandkids how to hold their hands for Communion; single parents who visit with their kiddos over supper with no cell phone in sight; a cook who lets nothing get in the way of her dedication to the ministry of the Wednesday night meal; kids who woke up that morning and announced to their moms that they can’t wait to eat at church; ordinary people who extraordinarily teach, mentor, sing, wash tables, bring dessert…

We do none of this perfectly. Perfect is not the goal, not the requirement, indeed not even a helpful aspiration. Perfect is the love of God, who also does not live “up there,” but here, among us, now and always.

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If Only the Disciples Were the Dwarves

It isn’t right to compare the 12 disciples with Snow White’s 7 dwarves, however, I do wish the disciples had been assigned descriptive names. Surely there was a Sleepy or a Clumsy among the 12. Was there a Grumpy or a Bashful? There had to be!

We only know there was a Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, another James, Simon (not Peter), Judas, and “the” Judas. (Acts 1:13). “The” Judas was replaced by Matthias.

We know Peter is called The Rock, John and his brother James were Power-Hungry, and Thomas has been called Doubter. Beyond these descriptors, the Gospels tell us very little about these followers.

The Gospel text for World Communion Sunday this weekend is the feeding of the 5,000 in Luke 9:10-17, which has me wondering whether there was a disciple who could be called Curious.

Uniquely, this story is told by each of the four Gospel writers. In Luke, the disciples make the assumption that those who gathered to hear Jesus should be in charge of their own lunches. They tell Jesus, “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions, for we are in a deserted place.” (Luke 10:12)

I find this instruction mystifying! By now in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has healed the sick, cleansed the outcast and calmed a stormy sea. And they have the audacity to tell Jesus what to do? I would name them all Ridiculous.

“You give them something to eat,” Jesus replied, if only the Gospel writer would have clued us in on his tone.

The disciples go on to explain they have only 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread, pointing to the thousands of hungry people.

If I were to watch this scene unfold in real time, I would begin to look for Curious. Was there one disciple, just one, who was suspicious that Jesus was up to something? Was there a single disciple who had a hunch that whatever they had was more than enough for Jesus to satisfy the crowd? Did one of them raise his brows and wonder what more this teacher could do?

Jesus already knew he would have enough to feed the crowd. Eventually, the disciples knew it, too, along with the crowd. The Curious disciple, if there was one, had a head start. It had already occurred to him that anything is possible.

With God, beginnings are disguised as endings and hope masquerades as despair. Power and might turn out to be foolish and the greatest of these is not money or status, but love. With enough curiosity, we recognize abundance in 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread.

I hope to be the Curious disciple as I follow Jesus around in this life. Would I have raised my brows when Jesus broke the loaves, itching to know what he might do next? Or would I have furrowed my brows with the certainty that his meager offering would never be enough?

Will you open your eyes to the wonder of God’s mysterious abundance in your life? Will you set aside your certainty that there is not enough of whatever you worry might run out? Raise your brows, Curious disciple, and watch the bread that is broken satisfy the crowd.

Photo by Yulia Khlebnikova on Unsplash