accepting the tension of life

But whatever anyone dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman—I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death. Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant?

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus (blessed be he forever!) knows that I do not lie. In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped from his hands.

2 Corinthians 11:21b-33; NRSVue

Yes, this is Paul, but Paul does tells us to follow him, his example, as he follows Christ. The wear and tear of life are telling during a day, during a lifetime. Sometimes I feel like I’m being pulled into an undertow from which there’s no coming back. The tension can be palpable. We could chalk that up to spiritual warfare, weaknesses we have which need to be worked through- like in my case over the years, anxiety, whatever it might be. But there’s no doubt, life has ongoing tensions related to responsibilities, challenges, problems, concerns, even dangers and tragedies. Life on planet earth is not for the faint of heart.

I’ve found over and over again that when I accept the tension of life, I gradually usually sooner than later start to sense help from God, and in time a nearly unsettling peace because it seems unreal, settles in. But life goes on with all the conundrums, with our own weaknesses. I wish we could live in that unsettling settled peace, and maybe if I live long enough, I’ll find that I live much more there than now. I can say that I do experience that peace more than in years past. But life isn’t easy for any of us. Just consider only for a moment what we’re facing today, and you can cut through the tension that easily comes with it, with a knife.

It’s not easy to accept the tension of life. It’s one thing when you’re on the other side where’s there’s at least some blessed relief, quite another when you’re in the thick of it. But that’s part of our calling in Christ, to live in that very same weakness in which Christ lived. In that we’ll find Christ’s strength and not just in our own lives, but in us together in this experience in Christ.

your doctrine doesn’t matter (or maybe it does) compared to your life

All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged in accordance with the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight but the doers of the law who will be justified. When gentiles, who do not possess the law, by nature do what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all.

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God and know his will and determine what really matters because you are instructed in the law, and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you, then, who teach others, will you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by your transgression of the law? For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the gentiles because of you.”

Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law your circumcision has become uncircumcision. So, if the uncircumcised keep the requirements of the law, will not their uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then the physically uncircumcised person who keeps the law will judge you who, though having the written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law. For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.

Romans 2:12-29; NRSVue

“No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts, for what is prized by humans is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Luke 16:13-15; NRSVue

Paul does not downplay correct teaching or as it’s called, doctrine. All is about or connected to the good news in Christ. And Jesus’s teaching is a core part of the meaning of the coming of God’s good news and rule, though it’s often downplayed or ignored today. I for one believe that many who don’t know the name of Christ are in, while many who do profess that name may be sadly out. What I’m trying to say is that what we hold to in our understandings, be they religious or otherwise is actually less important than how we live. How we live ought to affect our thinking so that we would be open to someone who lived, taught, indeed died like Jesus did.

The common “turn or burn” teaching is basically your ticket, or as someone said, barcode to heaven if only you will believe. But just what are we hearing from those teachers? And I mean all of it. Perhaps their teaching like the religious leaders of old ends up being suspect. Why? Because their lives are suspect. And just perhaps that’s little if at all realized since after all, they have their religion or Bible understanding in order. But even if the teaching might be in apple pie order, does what follows give the lie to it?

Give me an atheist anytime who actually expresses concern for others, and attempts to live it out, and I’m sure Jesus would say that they’re not far from the kingdom of God. But take a professing Christian who gives little thought to any of that except to be assured of their eternal life while embracing values antithetical to Jesus’s life and teaching, and you have another story. Yes, well meaning people consign multitudes to everlasting torment whose lives might actually show more grace, and often do, than many of the former.

Regardless of the accuracy of what I say here, I think the point stands. It’s our lives that matter now and in the end. Christ is the fulfillment of what life is meant to be, how it’s to be lived. Emphasis on correct doctrine enters into what James warns is deceptive. Do it, or sadly, perish (or, it will be a hard row to hoe).

pray simply; simply pray

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.

Colossians 4:2; NRSVue

This command or I prefer directive is given to a church, by extension to us as church today, as well as to individuals of the church. And it surely refers to public and private prayers.

Prayer simply put is talking to God. To pray well requires listening, being in Scripture and in life over time. But really beyond all else, prayer is a matter of the heart, a matter of being, and then from that, doing, so that in fact, anyone can offer prayer to God.

Frankly in my case my default is often feeling empty, unready, or even worse. At times it can seem uphill at best to pray at all. Most of the time for me, it can seem mechanical, just something I do. But then there are those moments when it seems like I’m taking up into a space of God’s making in which I feel the love and peace, yes presence of God.

Whatever may be the case in our experience of prayer, we’re told that we’re to devote ourselves to it. Praying for ourselves and loved ones, for neighbors and community, for the church, for the world, for concerns on our heart, whatever is on our hearts and minds. But also people and things we consistently pray for, regardless of how we feel (thoughts from morning and evening prayers in the hymnal, Voices Together).

Nothing fancy, in fact perhaps the most eloquent prayer might be the most simple. Just pray. Speak your heart and mind. For me that often involves not knowing what to think or how to look at a situation so that I just lift the person or situation up to God. We pray and keep praying.

what can I do?

Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty warrior.” Gideon answered him, “But sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has cast us off and given us into the hand of Midian.” Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.” He responded, “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” The LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.”

Judges 6:11-16; NRSVue

The longer I’m on my faith journey, the less I like to focus on individuals and individual faith. But it’s a part of life, an important part of it actually, and while the church in Christ is preeminent for our spiritual journey at this time, it’s not like each one of us is not on a spiritual journey, because we most certainly are.

Just like every story in Scripture, there’s something we can gain, or at least we should make the effort to do so. And it’s not hard to see a few things in the Gideon story. One of the questions I ask myself from time to time is just what I can do. I can see enough from the whole of Scripture and from life that there is indeed plenty I can do. Just learning to pray and continuing in prayer, to grow in that is by itself exponential in importance. Good works will come with real prayer; God will make sure of that.

In the passage above, Gideon is humble, understands his limitations, probably doesn’t appreciate well enough the gift that he has so that God’s call makes little or no sense to him at all. And as we see from the rest of the narrative, he struggles somewhat in his faith, or at least I would consider that to be the case given his seeming propensity to demand signs or proof that it is really God who is speaking to him. I can imagine that had I been living in that time, and it were me, I would have been the same way.

God commissions Gideon, but the key seems to me to be the point God makes that God will be with Gideon. This is something for each of us to take home. We are the called in Christ, yes together primarily, but also out from that into our individual lives, to do the good works God has for us, and to see God’s loving rule in Christ present in all of that.

It’s good to read Judges 6-9, the entire Gideon story, and consider. It may have had a good beginning, but not such a good ending. Nor was it necessarily all good throughout. That is a heads up for us. It’s important that we remain steady, which means continued growth in Christ, and for us, in Christ’s body.

Hopefully good things to remember as we consider yet another fascinating story in Scripture.

do nothing half way

Whatever task you must do, work as if your soul depends on it, as for the Lord and not for humans, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ.

Colossians 3:23-24

I realize that this is taken out of what is called household codes, “Rules for Christian Households” in the NRSVue. And strangely enough, a part of those households were the masters and slaves. That is a whole different topic. As I recall it, nearly half of the Roman empire at that time were slaves. While it was different than American history, which is substantially worse, still slavery was slavery. We have to remember that Christians used these passages to defend slavery in the United States. While I believe that’s ultimately a rejection of the gospel of Christ, that’s not the topic for today.

But it does seems strange, doesn’t it, to pull a passage out for application that was originally meant for slaves? That’s called proof texting, which too often misses the point of the passage turning it into a “precious promise” which might actually not apply at all. But I will attempt to do something of the sort in a way which makes sense and is appropriate for us now.

Most of us, probably the few who see this post are not actual slaves, though we may feel like we are at times. Getting up in the morning to work a long and hard job, maybe two jobs, with the pay not much beyond what we need for housing and all the rest. There actually is a systemic disorder in this, and it’s all the more if you’re a person of color, usually especially so when you’re black.

Any of us in looking at this passage, has to consider it well in its original context. We might say, even when life is unfair, and all of us run into that at times, we’re to keep doing whatever task we have to do, the very best we can, that it should be done well. And as the passage tells us, as if our souls, or life, maybe well being depends on it. That is still difficult for me, given the context.

But I might say that if those in difficult, tight, and really unjust spaces are to do this, how much more those of us who have much more freedom and latitude. At the same time, isn’t it the case that we’re all rather subservient to a system which is mixed at best in its treatment of us all? Whatever may be the case in all of this, I want to make the point that we’re to do nothing half way. If anything is worth doing, it should be done well, completely. And we may particularly need to hear this when life seems unfair and unjust.

But Paul ratchets it up to another level entirely. It is not just for humans or even for ourselves, but for the Lord. That is really the sole reason that we’ll never do anything half way. Yes, we want to earn a living for our family or support ourselves. And we want to help others. But what will give us the necessary impetus from our end will be this basic commitment to Christ through which comes the wholehearted devotion needed to do the work well and right, the very best we can. Not perfect, since only God can do that, but to give it our all. That is what we’re called to as followers, yes even slaves of Christ.

pressing ahead to God’s peace

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

James 1:2-8

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

There are times which trouble human souls (as the saying goes). And in this world, even during the best of times, there can and will be things which are unsettling. Scripture never promises us that all things always in this life will go well, that nothing bad will happen. No, not at all. But we do have promises that God will be with us, that Christ is with us, that no matter what we face, we can navigate it, even go through it well with God’s help.

We should be careful not to act out of fear or in reaction to whatever it might be. We do well to hold back, to try to look at the larger, even big picture, to pray and seek wise human counsel, and then let it go and wait. We’re going to be spinning our wheels, getting deeper in the dirt, going no where if we keep proceeding with a sense of panic.

It is hard at the moment and during that period of time, but we can actually grow substantially through it in ways we could never imagine. It has to be experienced, we have to be taken there, to a better place than we were before. A process which doesn’t end in this life, though I’m probably too glad myself for the intervals in which I’m okay in the inevitably imperfect state I’m in.

talk to God(?!.)

…persevere in prayer.

Romans 12:12b

Paul’s words here can sound like some mere religious exercise. Not that a religious exercise might not be helpful. But prayer as we see in Scripture, I think is a lot of things. But one of the things it astonishingly is, is actually talking to God. Yes, talking to God.

That is not only astonishing if we really take it at face value, but it also seems to be quite presumptive. Can God listen to the prayers of people who lift up their voice to God, regardless of their religion or lack thereof? I think we can clearly say from the pages of Scripture that yes indeed, God can and if it’s truly prayer in a Scriptural sense, God does. At the same time, God can shut God’s ears to the prayers even of God’s people when their prayers for whatever reason are somehow worthless and even offensive to God. There are a number of examples in Scripture on both sides which I won’t mention here.

But there’s nothing more valuable than talking to God. Do it slowly, thoughtfully, should I say prayerfully? I had an aunt who passed away not that long ago, and it was said of her that she took three hours daily to pray for her family. What a blessing, and what better thing could she have done?! I think I knew her and know that family well enough to believe without a doubt that prayer was just an expression of her heart and soul, meaning her body and life was fully engaged as well. That spoke to me then, and still speaks to me today.

What better thing can we do than talk to God? And if we do it right, then it seems to me that we won’t be hurrying or shuffling through it just to get it done. We’ll take our time. And maybe it will become not only the most important thing we do, but the thing we’re doing in the midst of life. Not only during a time set aside for it, which is important. But throughout the day, through all of life. Surely at least a worthy thought and goal.

God is bigger than that

…the fullness of [Christ] who fills all in all.

Ephesians 1:23b

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.

1 Corinthians 15:28

God is often quite confined in our thinking. I mean if there is a god, if there’s God, then wouldn’t that be larger than all the world, more than anything we could ever think of? Probably all that is universally received as the best, like goodness, love, happiness as in blessedness or well being, and a whole host of other things that together we could think of, are not only exemplified in God, but absolutely perfected in God in a way that makes God indeed, Other.

Surely much of Christian theology which in large part is the consideration of God, might in and of itself unwittingly and surely inevitably limit God in ways that Scripture and life do not. That is something, just as anything about God actually, which is well above our pay grade. We can only try to catch a glimpse, and stammer whatever our reaction might be, probably being more distrustful of what seems so coherent except for basics like God is love, and God is good.

If something of what has been said about God as I tried to say above reflects the least bit of reality, then it’s surely more than reasonable to say that God is bigger than so much that we make so big here on earth. Let’s start with our differences, whatever they may be. Political and religious, the two forbidden areas of conversation, at least in part of my culture. And whatever other differences there are. God is bigger than that, than all of it.

We tend to confine God and God’s working to just certain entities and people. Yes, we do well to turn to Scripture where we find that Christ’s presence in the church is a key if not the central part of what is happening now. But take some of the rest of that writing and Scripture as a whole, along with all of life, and we surely will begin to surmise that God is bigger than our differences. That God is at work in ways that we can’t understand beforehand, and barely begin to comprehend afterwards.

Let this be a rebuke to all of us whenever we think we have anything figured out, and settled. I believe that Christ is the center of all things, and that God is preeminently present in him and through him to all the world, and that this manifestation comes especially through the church directly and indirectly, but possibly (I would say, likely) not confined to that. This should help us beyond all that divides us, to what is the most basic of all. Even while we try to understand what all of that might mean for life on the ground here and now.

we never outgrow the careful, prayerful application of Scripture

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

James 1:2-8

On the one hand, you have the evangelical concern for Scripture, almost as an end in itself, so that what can lose out is the purpose of Scripture itself, to point us to Christ, and Christ-likeness. On the other hand, you have for lack of a better word, the liberal dismissal of Scripture as yes, a good book, even sacred, but on something of an equal par with many other “inspired” sacred texts. Neither one is very helpful, but in spite of both, the Word can break through in both the public and private reading of Scripture.

A primary thing that is needed is the careful, prayerful application of Scripture. We never outgrow or get beyond that. Some seem to have suggested that we start with Scripture, and basics we derive from it, but that we’re not meant to stop there, but actually get beyond it into the sphere to which Scripture leads. That sounds interesting, and can be at least somewhat compellingly argued for, but really does not entirely make sense on the face of it.

For example, the above scripture from James is something that has to be applied in this broken, difficult existence, in this life, and that ongoing. We will never arrive to a place in this life in which such application is no longer necessary. If we think we’ve outgrown it, we’ll soon find out otherwise. Life itself will teach us differently. God has given us provision, yes through Scripture, somehow even all of it (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It’s up to us to take it, and prayerfully apply it. Indeed that’s indispensable.

faith living in the real world

He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the LORD, and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Genesis 15:5-6

Abraham’s story is in many ways not that far removed from ours. Sure, as far as culture goes, it was worlds apart. But like ours it was chalk full of contradictions, conundrums, we might even add conflicts as in conflict of interest. Abraham was responding to the call and vision from God as he understood it. But life itself didn’t seem to match up with it at all, and Abraham’s (Abram, here) solutions, though still blessed by God, were not God’s fulfillment of the promise.

I find this so very true for myself and my own life and situations. I call him my mentor, a good friend who faithfully meets with me, and who leads a small group my wife and I are a part of. He has encouraged me time and time again to trust God. And sometimes it’s easy to just think something like, “Well yes, I certainly trust God. After all, I already have made a faith commitment to Christ.” And just shrug your shoulders, go on, and more or less forget it.

But what my friend tells me I think is not only quite appropriate for me, but even sorely needed in the ongoing unfolding of whatever time is left. We often look at narratives in scripture such as Abraham’s and shake our heads in wonder when we read in the New Testament for example, how Abraham didn’t waver in his faith, how he is a leading exemplar of faith for us, the father of all who believe. And yet if we really take an honest careful look at ourselves, are we really any better, or even as good? We live now in our time with supposedly more light than Abraham had, though I think that somehow is fiction because light in a sense is more or less the same in experience regardless of what era. I doubt that it was any easier for Jesus’s disciples to have faith, then it is for us today, since faith is not strictly speaking about seeing. God somehow makes it possible and real to us. “Blessed are those who have not seen, but believe.”

So this is something I want to center on more, myself. Simply believing, trusting. While faith has the sense of allegiance to, as well, I’m thinking more of the entrusting of one’s life, and to the end of doing what is right and good, as well as for well-being. Of course not just for myself, but as was certainly true in the case for Abraham (in his case, for the world) for others. In Jesus others actually first, but ourselves included. Yes, faith in the middle, maelstrom and mess of life. Faith in God. Faith in God’s word. Faith in the Word himself, Christ.