Heart Swagger's Hope

He had a "humble" swagger about him as he moved from important gathering to important gathering.

An up-and-comer if anyone ever was, he caught the attention of the other leaders. He was the type of man that other men wanted to follow since he seemed to have it all together. They wanted to hitch their wagon to his, and may have even fought and pushed each other over the chance to be a part of his tribe.

The best school bragged that the diploma in his office had its name scripted on it. The best professors announced with pride that he was their student. His single-minded focus and devotion was intimidating to many; unimitatable by all. (Is that a word?)

One could trace his family back to the beginnings of their nation. There was a long history of notable men and women who were in his bloodline and as the family gathered together on holy days they reminded each other at how fortunate they were to be part of their family- and not another.

As he passed people on the streets, they recognized him, but most did not approach him. They knew he was special, gifted, set apart...different from them. "Chosen" maybe. It was not his greatness alone that they hid from as much as they hid their own "ungreatness."

The swagger was "humble," but it was still "swagger." Everything on the outside of the man was everything that people respected. And more than anyone who passed him or knew him, he honored himself. He revered himself more than any other person revered him. No praise of any other man could compare with how he praised himself.

And that is the type of praise that slowly destroys a man from the inside out.

Sadly, most could not see the character cancer that was transforming him into the type of monster that the world would love to revere.

All except Jesus. He could see through the educational prowess, the perceived success, the almost universal respect. He could see the deep death growing within the man...death that was beginning to spill out to the people who Jesus called his own.

But Jesus didn't treat Paul the way Paul was treating him. Jesus didn't see Paul's heart swagger as a wall that He could not breech. On the contrary, Jesus saw the deadness and arrogance of Paul and wanted to show Paul that He what matters most is not Paul's own ability to out perform and to over produce, but Jesus ability to make swaggering monsters into humble givers.

I have realized that you don't have to be a high performer to be a swaggering monster. The swaggering heart is something we all carry and just needs to be turned on by "worldy" success or even the sulking pride of "unsuccess." One way or another, we all swagger. Some people just do it with more pizazz.

Jesus reoriented the world of a man who "owned" the world to tell us swaggerers that there is hope. Here is hope for hard-hearted Pharisees. Jesus doesn't just pursue the monetarily poor and the needy, but those who have everything they need but are poor and needy swagger monsters.

There is hope for a man like me who thinks way more highly and lowly of himself than he should. Grace came to the most unlikely of receivers in Paul to prove to the world that there is no heart too far gone, too proud, or too swaggering.

Thoughts over Breakfast

This morning is chilly, but the heat from the charcoal fire warms us while we wait for the sun to greet us. The long night of working has spilled over and I feel the ache. It seems my clothes will always be damp. What else am I supposed to do, though?

I though it was all over, that he was gone for good to a place that I couldn't follow. Don't get me wrong, I am overjoyed that he came back, but what am I supposed to do? I will just go back to work and do what I know to do. It feels good to work with my hands and see immediate gratification of an immediate response. Though I am weary, the work feels good.

But, even work seems different now that he is here. It is not...I don't know..."enough." The fire is attracting, warm, welcoming, but I do not want to merely sit. That doesn't feel like enough either.

He made breakfast, though. He made us breakfast! It doesn't seem right.

Sitting here enjoying a filing meal after a long night I am both at rest and, at the same time, wanting to move. (If I get up and go will he leave?) It seems like my world has changed and I don't fit in it anymore.

Stirring the fire as he cooks, we talk. We sit in the silence of the dawn, contemplating the newness of the day. This feels like a home I always longed for but never understood. Hope energizes me even in the most mundane of his words, but only through hearing more than what is comfortable. But, that is nothing new.

Oh, for more meals like this one!

Then, he looks at me with a fierceness and tenderness that I cannot run from. I have seen this look before.  He is a master at this. What is he about to say? Whatever it is I probably can't handle it. he always asks for more than I have, but in a strange way I welcome it. When he asks a question it always reorients my world.

“Simon, son of John, do you love me...?"

His words reorient the whole world.

Baby Crabs, Boulders and Jesus' Compassion

"Hiding" Might Not Be the Right Word

Last Sunday, I took some time to go down to a rocky beach close to our house and do some preparation for preaching tomorrow. I was amazingly distracted by the view of the Sound and the over large cruise ships that seems to glide past me.

Then I noticed something at my feet. The ground between the rocks seemed to scurry. Since everyone who is anyone knows the ground doesn't scurry, I had to look closer. Under every rock that I picked up was a little crab not even an inch in diameter. There seemed to be, literally, tiny crabs everywhere on the beach.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:35-38 ESV)

In light of why we moved our lives to Seattle, I have a question that constantly grabs my heart's attention: If the harvest is plentiful, then why does it seem so hard to find people who are, for lack of a better way to say it, ripe?

The picture that Jesus paints is not one of anxious, desperate pleading for people to come do a job, but of a real need of workers because the harvest is ready to produce. The wheat or grapes or figs are ready and waiting for someone to come grab them and it will take more workers than those who are normally in the field to harvest all of it.

So, he tells us to pray. I like that and I will pray, but...

My trouble is that the text (the Lord!) says the harvest is plentiful, but it seems like its not the workers who are few but the harvest. Right now it feels like I have to turn over a lot of rocks. The text makes it sound like every rock one overturns will produce a scampering crab. At least now, it seems like (even if the crabs are there) the rocks are boulders.

Am I reading this text rightly? I long to see Jesus express his compassion by opening the eyes of the people we are around that he is the shepherd they are longing for and didn't even know it. We long for  them to see Jesus more than I can express.

What I know now is to pray. We will pray. Maybe he will raise up compassionate workers for his harvest from his harvest. Isn't that what he always does?

That's Me in the Corner, That's Me in the Spot...Light

To get some work done this morning, I rode by bike to a local coffee shop. It has been my office over the last two weeks because we just got internet access at the house. It is also a good excuse to people watch with the hope that I can see what the Father is doing in the people of our area.

I did something that felt really foolish. I even started to sweat a little because it felt like I committed a public and cultural faux pas: I opened my Bible at the table to write about Matthew 9. All of a sudden it seemed that all of the air in the room was sucked out by the collective gasping and that the spotlight was on me. The spotlight makes me sweat. I don't like to sweat for that reason.

Of course that is not how is actually was, but the two ladies sitting with me at our shared table did notice...but didn't let on. Their conversation up until that point was about what power moms talk about: science projects, how to juggle the things they are involved in at their kid's school, what programs to put their children in his summer in order to better them, and how to manage the chaos of renovating a home.

The pace of their conversation was feverish to the point that I was getting out of breath. Well, not really, but I was amazed that they had enough breath to keep up with one another. As soon as they

recognized that a Bible came out, though, there was a brief, but noticeable pause. The conversation changed to talk about how to handle in-law's expectations about religion and how they want kids to be able to think about their worldview for themselves.

They sounded religious. They sounded as if they wanted their kids to be better for being religious.

They are strivers and striving to have a better life is a sacred, Western cultural value. There aren't any sculpted statues that extoll "striving" but there are the little lives that are being shaped everyday to be "strivers" like their parents. Smaller images reflecting the values that mom and dad aspire to.

I saw it clearly, because I live that so dearly. I am fearful of losing my (striving) religion.

The reason why people do not treasure the gospel of the cross is not that people have to give up specific sins. We give up specific sins all of the time in order to be accepted in our own eyes and in the eyes of society. The problem is giving up THE sin, the sin that defines and motivates us: "I made myself somebody!"

The desire of the flesh is to be able to stand on top of the world and say "I am somebody because I got myself here!" It shows itself in many ways, but mostly it shows itself in not wanting to hear the truth that we are really helpless. The gospel does not make sense to many because it does not reflect sacred cultural values. We do not have categories for it.

As I sit here and type those two ladies have gone on to try to conquer life's chaos. I am still writing this because I am asking the question, how do I communicate a message of Christ's weakness actually being real strength? How do I communicate to people that real life is found, not in striving to be the best "me" I can be through any kind of religion, but in being foolish with the King of Fools?

How can people who religiously strive to be somebody ever let go and see that Jesus is all the Somebody we need?

Spirit, 
We try to live as if we can work hard enough that you might owe us something, be in our debt. I want to earn things, demand things from you. I want to be entitled to good things. But, will you please show us another way? Will you please open the eyes of those who are blinded by self-promotion and show them something radically different? I do not have the words to show them what you have shown me. Will you please do miracles in the lives of the people we are around? Please write the gospel so deeply on our hearts that we cannot help but share what we have seen an heard of you.

My Moment of Pagan Worship

We spent the afternoon outside of Moab, Utah at Arches National Park. The short story is that there is way too much to see in the park and around Moab for one afternoon. ​Way. Too. Much. I kept telling my wife how much I wish I was bigger to be able to understand all of the beauty we got to see. God forbid that we ever get bored with the glory reflected in creation!

I wonder if we will have the "bigness" to understand God's beauty in things like Arches National Park in the new heavens and the new earth. 

There was something else that rose up in me too: covetousness. I don't like that word because I'm not exactly sure what it fully means or how to say it. (covet-chus-ness?)

On the trail to the "Delicate Arch" in the Park, I was overwhelmed with a desire to have the means to buy stuff to play like this all of the time. We hiked along the same path with people who bought expensive stuff to go exploring with their family. I longed for that too. I longed for it too much. I longed for lesser things (like a high end hiking backpack to carry my daughter) in a weak moment.

At that moment, I tasted how easy it would be for me to treasure the things of the world at the expense of the Creator of those things. Being outside, playing in God's world seems to breathe new life into me, but it can also be the path to pagan idolatry. Subtly exchanging the treasure of the Beauty of Christ in his creation for a (falsely) beautiful Lesser thing. (See Romans 1:24-25 for more on that)

So, for a few moments I was a pagan today. Or at least I felt like one. 

I often try to force out this type of sinfulness by doubling up my resolve against it. That doesn't work. It never has, but I will foolishly keep trying, I'm sure.

What does "work" is something only the Spirit can do: give us a deeper, broader love for something (ahem, "someone") more beautiful. I long for the day when we get to play on earth as we were meant to, but with no desire to worship creation.  Those will be days when we will be "big" enough to see and grasp the Source of all Beauty as he plays alongside us in his Creation.

There, by the Delicate Arch and thousands of other breathtaking places, we will love him for the beauty he created and for the scars that remind us of the beauty of his heart.

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither." C.S. Lewis

"If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." (Colossians 3:1-2 ESV)