Chris Yaw

What’s holding us back?

What’s keeping us from moving?

What’s preventing us from discovering, reaching beyond, and breaking out?

There’s that flash of light.

It’s got our attention, even for a moment.

But it’s only a flash in the middle of the day - so quickly washed away and enveloped in the brighter lights that surround us.

So must it have been for Zacchaeus - that flash of light came to him.

But he did not let it go.

He would not let it go.

He dropped everything to move toward that light, and allow it to envelop him.

So Zacchaeus hurried up a tree.

He hurried down a tree.

He gave half his money to the poor.

He paid back the people he’d ripped off.

Jesus said salvation had come to his house.

Jesus had sent His light - and Zacchaeus let nothing in the world prevent him from finding it.

Jesus is still sending His light.

Every now and then it gets our attention.

It’s a flash in the middle of the day - that can be so quickly washed away.

But its desire is to be so much more.

It wants to envelop us – to fill us so completely with all the things for which we most deeply yearn.

It wants to make all the other lights around us become darkness.

What’s holding us back?

What’s keeping us from moving?

What’s preventing us from discovering, reaching beyond, and breaking out?

Reading:

Reimagining Detroit - John Gallagher

Unbinding the Gospel - Reese

God is Not Great - Hitchens

It doesn’t take long before the new guy in the office to become the
center of attention. Some people will talk about how handsome he is
or isn’t. Some people will talk about how smart he is or isn’t. Some
people will engage in endless banter on the ties he wears, the lunches
he brings, or the looks he gives the receptionist. We will make
conscious or unconscious comparisons between him and us as we seek to
win the approval of peers – the lower our self-esteem, the more
critical we can be. It is the condemnation of others for the shoring
up of ourselves. It is the foundation and the joy of gossip.

As we all know, our shared tendency to define ourselves by defining
others is as destructive as it is unhealthy. It drives lepers into
colonies and gay teens to suicide - it is at the heart of bullying.
And at the center of this imprudent behavior can be a theological
conviction – that shapes the way we see the world.

In Luke 18 we hear the parable of a proud religious man who goes
into the temple to pray. He says, ‘God I thank you that I am not like
other people; thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like that tax
collector’ – for in another part of the temple stood a tax man, who
was also praying – but whose prayer contrasted quite starkly with the
religious man’s. All the taxman would say was, ‘God, be merciful to
me, a sinner!’

Jesus uses this story to say that the tax collector, not the
religious man, was in the right. We notice this man who refused to
use comparisons or put downs, or push himself up by beating others
down. Instead he centered his attentions on his own shortcomings and
failings.

As we talked about last week, it’s been said that there are two
types of prayer, ‘help’ and ‘thanks!’ However, here, Jesus reminds us
of a third, which may be more difficult, more important, and not
insignificant to the challenges Christians face today it’s the prayer:
‘Lord, have mercy.’ In a culture cacophonous with judgmental voices,
especially religious ones – we do well to remind ourselves that the
heart of Christianity is a gift – not discovered or improved upon by
our own activities – but by contrite recognition of our own
shortcomings before God. There is no reward in our feelings of
superiority, only in the discovery of God’s inconceivable mercy.

In what ways do we judge, gossip, and seek to put ourselves above
others? Why do we do it? And how can we make the prayer, ‘Lord have
mercy’ – our prayer?

Reading
The Sins of Scripture - John Spong
Reimagining Detroit - John Gallagher
A Stroke of Genius - Jill Bolte Taylor

They say there are two kinds of prayer: ‘thank you, thank you, thank you!’ and ‘Oh God, Help!’ The former bursts forth on those rare occasions of unbounded glee, the latter comes out during those hopefully rare moments of white-knuckle peril. When we’re honest with ourselves, many of us don’t spend near enough time between these two extremes doing what Jesus seems to expect from His followers in Luke 18 – that they, ‘pray always and not lose heart.’

Luke, more than any other Gospel writer tells us about prayer – about how we’re supposed to do it all the time and believe in its unwavering efficacy – if for no other reason, because Jesus did it – sometimes all night, and sometimes to the point of sweating blood. But how, and why do we moderns, who spend most of our waking hours working, driving, parenting, worrying, and generally trying to keep up with life, ‘pray always and never lose heart?’

Certainly Jesus didn’t expect us to take this literally, lest Christianity become a religion of hermits – or very bad drivers. What Jesus may have been getting at is that prayer is not so much an activity, as it is an attitude – an attitude that is formed by God when we spend time contemplating the mysteries, meditating on the promises, and simply talking to the One person who always wants to listen.

This doesn’t have to be done with formal liturgies, on kneelers, or even in quiet places. God knows we can pay attention to ball games in bars, certainly we can think about the Lord as our Shepherd in the subway. Jesus stresses the importance of prayer because it’s good for us. It reminds us of who’s in charge, who will take our burdens, and where life is ultimately destined to go. When we pray we remind ourselves, and God, or our positions in life – as the Lover and the Beloved – and how we’ve been made channels of that affection for all that surrounds us. These are the things that matter. This is why Jesus wants us to do it more often. Let’s take a moment this week and figure out a way to make prayer a more central part of our lives.

Reading
Enough – Adam Hamilton
Sins of Scripture – John Spong
Radical – David Platt

Churches can think they're doing a great job at being hospitable, when, many times, they're not. Here's a parable, set in a coffee shop, urging us to be more mindful of our visitors.

Reading
Enough - Adam Hamilton
The Book of God - Walter Wanergin
Radical - David Platt

‘Got Faith?’ It was more than just a cheeky t-shirt slogan for Jesus’ excited disciples when they came to him in Luke 17 asking, ‘Increase our faith!’ But instead of laying hands on them, re-baptizing them, or teaching them a secret ‘faith prayer’ – Jesus said something we find curious, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed you can tell a tree to plant itself in the sea, and it will.’

It’s a funny answer, and it’s a funny request.

Funny request, because as you and I have previously read in Luke, the disciples already had a lot of faith. In fact, they had pretty much turned into super heroes – In Luke 9 they had ministered to the multitudes - casting out demons, healing people. and their preaching had met with great success! What more ‘faith’ could the disciples want? What more could Jesus give? - which helps us understand Jesus’ answer.

When Jesus points out the amazing power of faith – that a mustard seed is all that’s needed to displace the elements – He’s not so much saying that it’s faith they don’t have – as much as he’s saying, it doesn’t take much of what they already have to do what they want to do.

Every day we go about our lives – living God’s life for us – and we find our fears threatening to over take us – will we get sick, lose our jobs, lose our houses, be bad parents, continue destructive habits – and we cry out, ‘Lord give us faith!’ What Jesus tells us is just what he told the disciples - we already have all we need to do what we’re supposed to do. Jesus lives inside of us. We have the ability to take whatever comes our way and live through it to the glory of God.

Jesus wants to affirm us, just as He did His disciples, that we need not be afraid of taking on what we’re being called to take on. We have the ability in us to be good workers, good parents, to lead Godly lives – we can get through our sicknesses, our unemployment and whatever catastrophe comes our way. It’s because we don’t walk alone. We don’t need a new book, a special prayer, or another seminar. We need to look to the One who dwells in our hearts – and concentrate on His presence and purpose for which He’s already given us more than enough faith.

Reading
Sins of Scripture – John Spong
Radical – David Platt
Wild Swans – Jung Chang

Who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell?

In a nation fascinated with end times and the judgment day – that birthed the Millerites in the 1800’s and put the ‘Left Behind’ series atop of the New York Times bestseller list today – it can be easy for Americans to read one of the most popular parables in the Bible, the one about the Rich Man and Lazarus, and get so caught up in the eschatological details that its plain message becomes obscured.

Our desire to seek religions that clearly tell us who’s in and who’s out may be an expression of our fear. It may be our pride. It may be our lack of self-esteem. Or it may be our unconscious desire to preoccupy ourselves with conflict as a way of avoiding the difficult demands that Christ puts on us – not the least of which is the point of this parable: sharing.

This well-known story, unique to Luke, tells about a well-fed and well-dressed Rich Man, and a very poor, suffering man named Lazarus. The latter lay at the rich man’s gate while he sumptuously feasts on and ignores Lazarus. So after they both die, Lazarus is in heaven and the Rich Man is in hell. We note the freaky features of this arrangement; the two are able to talk but not visit, the great patriarch Abraham is readily on call to chat, and not a pitcher, bucket or cold water hose is preferred as relief from hell’s fires, but a finger dab of water will do just fine.

Libraries full of imaginative speculation and theological generalization about heaven, hell, and judgment have emerged from these details, but precious little gets hammered home about the main point. The Rich Man was condemned for being indifferent to the plight of the poor. With more than enough opportunity, but not nearly enough concern for his neighbor, the Rich Man found himself in unbearable suffering. While some take this literally, others metaphorically, Jesus seems to be saying that the place this indifference takes us is not a happy one.

This week, as world leaders and aid workers flocked to the United Nations to give glowing updates on the Millennium Development Goals, we are reminded that the Lazarus’ of the world are still sitting outside our gates. And the Church has no option. We are not a body of indifference, but a body of hope, the Body of Christ, called to plunge itself deeper into the center of the world’s suffering and anguish, where the rich see, hear and share. In what ways are we fighting back indifference and heeding the voices of those laying outside our gates?

Reading
Radical – David Platt
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
My Stroke of Insight – Jill Bolte Taylor

The atheists who once lived next door used to say that Christianity is one of the poorest investments anyone can make. You awaken each morning to pore over an incomprehensible book and talk to an invisible friend, tie up hours a week in frivolous fellowship, and give away 10% of your income. Life is short, why waste so much on fairy tales and worthless investments?

For them, Sunday’s Gospel reading, and the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, holds great appeal. A corrupt caretaker learns he’s getting canned so he cuts deals with customers further shafting his boss, yet endearing this embezzler to his clients who, we gather, will return the favor down the road. Smart cookie. I guess there’s one Bible story worth reading.

While I share with my neighbors a great deal of their appreciation and interpretation, we would take different turns at the fork when we compare our notions of wealth and its purpose.

For Christians, our wealth lies in things not seen – love, relationships, honesty, reputation, community, peace, hope, and resurrection – we have nothing more valuable than these. We understand Jesus to be commending the proper use of money when it’s invested in these things, like the ones our dishonest manager chose; relationships, community building, and bolstering his master’s reputation (after all, how much would we love our credit card company if it cut our bill in half?).

Like fish in water, you and I are surrounded by notions that our wealth is really in something else; the things we can see, our cars, homes, IRAs, jewelry and pantries. All too often I fail to remember that this wealth is best used to build the other kind of wealth – the things I cannot see - and truly value. Yes we, like the dishonest manager, need to use all of our resources to secure our future. How can we invest the things we see in the things we don’t see? In what ways are we investing too much in this life, which is temporary and passing away, and not enough in the Kingdom of God, which is eternal and coming into being?

Reading
A Stroke of Insight – Jill Bolte Taylor
Radical – David Platt
Luke – N.T. Wright

Every once in a while we get the chance to really dislike someone. Maybe they are famously discourteous, like Simon Cowell. Maybe they give the impression of being spoiled, dim-witted and egotistical, like Paris Hilton. Or maybe they have done enormously hurtful things, like Kim Jong Il. However history shows that if we really want to inspire loathing, there should be an element of religion in the mix. Perhaps that’s why we’re so incensed at Florida pastor Terry Jones.

Jones is the small church pastor in Gainesville who plans to burn 200 copies of the Koran in front of his church on Saturday. He has been denigrated and criticized by nearly everyone. The White House, the Secretary of State, and the military say it’s a stupid idea that will inspire Anti-American violence and harm U.S. soldiers. Muslims have threatened Jones’ life. And Christians have urged Jones to cancel the event, and asked him to see what he’s doing in the light of the Gospel as brainless, divisive, incendiary, and hateful.

Yet Jones is (at least at the time of this writing) standing firm in his conviction that he is called by God to burn the holy books, to send ‘Radical Islam’ a message, and to carry out his understanding of the Christian faith. We can call him what we want, but at the very least Pastor Jones is a lost sheep.

This Sunday we will hear the Gospel story of Jesus welcoming sinners and outcasts as pious religious leaders look on and grumble. Jesus tells a story of a shepherd who loses a sheep, leaves 99 alone in the wilderness, and goes off to search. The shepherd is so happy to find his missing sheep that he calls his friends to celebrate. The implication being that Jesus came, not to impress the religious, but to go to incredible lengths to save the lost.

After all, a lost sheep is one who has, for whatever reason, wandered away from the flock. Perhaps they weren’t paying attention, got distracted, or were ambushed by an enemy. A lost sheep may be content on its own and not even know its lost, for a season, but it is in a sheep’s nature to ultimately want to go back home - to be with the flock, the shepherd, and a place of security and warmth.

Despite Pastor Jones’ twisted theology and dangerous practice, when we ask the question, ‘What Would Jesus Do?,’ we cannot doubt that the Lord would drop everything to find a lost pastor, hug him when he found him, and throw a party for him when he got home. This is not to say Christians should hold their tongues and passively stand by as Pastor Jones spreads his hateful convictions. Christians must stand up and set the record straight. However, we must do so in love, remembering that just as God is more merciful than judgmental, God’s followers must be also. It is quite a temptation to join in on this feeding frenzy, but we must remember that just as the world watches Pastor Jones’ actions, it also sees Christendom’s reactions. Pastor Jones’ enemy is radical Islam, which he is choosing to attack. Our enemy is the Pastor Jones’ of the world, who we must choose to love.

Reading
My Stroke of Insight – Dr. Jill Taylor
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
The Four Day Work Week – Timothy Ferriss

Imagine we’re involved in a plane crash in the snowy mountains. We survivors on one side of the mountain suspect there are injured passengers on the other. A doctor organizes a search party over the dangerous, blizzardy terrain and says in order to come you’ll have to leave behind your family, your possessions, and realize there are no guarantees of comfort, safety or even survival.

In this scenario it’s not hard to understand Jesus’ terse words to his disciples in this Sunday’s Gospel reading, after all, Jesus is headed to Jerusalem to take on the most important work in the world. He says that in order to follow we must have a willingness to put our families in subordination to the Gospel, a commitment to self-denial by taking up our cross, and then we have to give up all of our possessions. We wince at the idea of following through with this, and we suspect that the vast majority of Christians throughout history haven’t been able to do it either.

Then we remember that the vast majority of Christians haven’t plucked out their eyes or cut off their hands when they’ve sinned either. Yes, there is a fair amount of hyperbole going on here, which, through the years has not been helpful to the Christian cause. It has been fairly argued that the language of cross bearing has been corrupted by overuse. It’s got little to do with severing family ties, willfully seeking out suffering, or seeking to live in squalor. Carrying the cross is what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus.

Sure, our everyday life with Christ is not the adventure it was for the early disciples, but, our commitment to voluntarily follow – to offer up all we are and all we do – opens up this same world of possibility. This means mothers and grandmothers who work hard to provide and care for kids and spouses, your dedication to the Christian virtues of devotion, commitment, and loving-kindness do not go unnoticed. On this Labor Day weekend we remind ourselves that our work as accountants, teachers, engineers, salesmen, lawyers, doctors, bus drivers, librarians, musicians and retirees is our way of offering the whole of our lives to Christ, and offer their own unique opportunities for us to carry the cross. How we conduct our everyday lives matters a whole lot to God and makes a difference in the world.

Name the crosses we’re facing in our vocation. In what ways can we bear them as Christ would?

Reading
Genesis – Karen Armstrong
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work – Alaine de Botton

There we were, just in from the wedding, standing in line at the reception hall to pick up that cute little pink and white placeholder – the one with our calligraphied names on it, and with a little number next to it. Of course the number never means anything. As we all know, given the varied constellations reception table arrangements take, table number one could be next to the kitchen and table 17 might be the head table.

So we walk into the hall trying to find the table numbers, which usually fight a losing battle with the centerpieces, but after a few minutes of scouting, there it is! Hmmm, we wonder, how close is it to the head table? The bar? The restrooms? What’s it mean to be assigned to sit at this table and not another? Then, who else is at the table? Is it empty? Will it stay empty? Who’s going to join us - The Cool Cats, or someone’s smelly uncle? And what were they thinking by putting us with them?

Few social customs have withstood the test of time, remaining just as tricky for the ancients as they are for us, as that delicate business of who sits where! Ask any bride, mother of the bride or wedding consultant and they will tell you how stressful making seating assignments can be. Where one sits shows status and power. It denotes accessibility, social rank, and affection. Arranging seats at a big dinner is much more than simply putting people in chairs.

In this Sunday’s Gospel reading Jesus uses table etiquette to say something important about God. Jesus is invited to dinner at a religious leader’s house. He notices the guests jostling for the best seats and he makes a few comments. First, when you’re invited to dinner don’t assume you’re better than anyone else. And second, when you invite others to dinner, don’t assume they’re better than anyone else.

It’s not that Jesus wants to do away with class, rank and stature – it’s that He wants to put it all in context. One of humanity’s primal struggles is with significance. Our deepest, most strenuous endeavors have to do with our desire to see ourselves and our children do better, be better, and succeed. God knows this – and we forget this. We fail to realize that no one wants better for us than the Lord. As the Psalmist says, the Lord rejoices in the joy of His children.

Jesus is telling us that this joy is not found in social climbing and class jumping, no matter what the Real Housewives of Paducah have to say about it. It is found in God, where the kingdom etiquette of generosity, humility, charity, and altruism trump political cunning and self-promotion. The struggle for earthly status is a fool’s errand, especially when it keeps us from cultivating kingdom etiquette.

So we ask ourselves, how are we nurturing the values of generosity, humility and self-giving? In what ways can we work to value and respect the dignity of every human being?

Reading
What Every Church Member Should Know about Poverty – Ehlig/Payne
Changing the Conversation – Anthony Robinson
Wild Swans – Jung Chang

I once called a radio talk show. It was a religious show so I thought I was in for a rather balanced, civil conversation even though my contribution was sure to differ from the opinions of the host. After a few minutes on hold I was live on the show, albeit a few seconds delay (was it in case my language needed to be censored? How many people called into Christian talk shows planning to use the Seven Dirty Words?!?).

No sooner had I begun making my point when the host cut me off, began criticizing and telling me just how off base my comments were. He had not finished listening to me, nor did he allow a rebuttal before he thanked me for calling and hung up. What became clear in the exchange was the role of callers in talk radio – secular or religious. We are the stooges, the patsies, the pawns. The hosts are the manipulators, the attention-getters and the shockers who simply use callers to make their points and bolster their images to entertain and attract the vast majority of listeners who, wisely, never call in but who do listen to the commercials.

This Sunday we will hear the story of Jesus healing a crippled woman – in order to make a point let’s call her the stooge. The stage is set, on the Sabbath in the synagogue, packed with people, regular Jews looking to hear Jesus and at least one religious leader looking for a way to object. This is when Jesus calls on this poor woman who has been crippled for 18 years. She does not ask to be cured nor present herself for healing. Jesus simply pulls her out of the crowd knowing very clearly what day it is and who’s watching.

In the exchange that follows, the woman is cured, the religious leader objects to healing on the Sabbath, and Jesus says just as you will untie a donkey to water it today I have untied this woman and given her living water that has made her whole. This is when we begin to see that Jesus the Shocker, has used this woman to make a much larger point. Jesus has come to unbind not just this women, but all of Israel. Jesus has come to unbind a people, a nation, you and me.

As we see in this story the existing power structures and religious frameworks don’t make this easy. Despite all of his training and devotion, this synagogue leader does not recognize that God is standing right in front of him. This religious man would rather see the afflicted woman continue to suffer, the multitude of religious rules that penalize the poor stay in place, and his religion go unchanged. For the one thing the religious establishment must accept – Jesus’ message and Lordship – is the very thing it will not accept.

Even though Jesus has tried reasoning, healing and miracles, he does not give up. On this day He tries shock therapy. Jesus takes them by the shoulders and tries to shake some sense into them. He so desperately wants people to see what’s really happening. What will it take them to leave behind the comforts of their old system and embrace something better – something new?

How about us? Jesus sometimes uses shock therapy - for we too are stuck in religious systems that limit and bind. The North American church somehow goes to sleep each night knowing a billion people are hungry, women make 75 cents on the dollar, and the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. Jesus has tried reasoning with us, even the miraculous. How might He be trying to shock us into embracing a new reality? How might the dramatic situations that we have seen been used to form us? And how might the Lord be using them now?

Reading
Rediscovering Values – Jim Wallis
Unbinding the Gospel – Martha Grace Reese
Changing the Conversation – Anthony Robinson

This Sunday in church many of us are going to hear Jesus say some very strange and unusual things. He’s angry. And he almost seems to be shouting when He says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” He says family members and households will be divided. Then he yells at his audience for not understanding that this is a big part of what He is about.

The notion that Jesus came to upset me upsets me.

One reason I choose to follow Christ is because of the peace I’ve experienced – through prayer, meditation, and at church – after all, He’s called ‘The Prince of Peace.’ But there is a side to the Journey that is all about exasperation, irritation, and annoyance.

I’m annoyed when people ask me to give more. They need more time, more money, more of me. And I’d rather... not.

I’m annoyed when my friends get together to dish the dirt and just when I’m ready to chime in that little voice inside my head says, ‘Nope...’

I’m annoyed when I see that thing that I want finally on sale at that place that I love and I wonder if I really should be racking up more debt when there are hungry and hurting people all over the place?

The notion that following Jesus leads to annoyance - even division and strife - is no better seen than in the Civil Rights struggle, when Martin Luther King, Jr., locked up in a Birmingham jail wrote a long letter defending his struggle – and it wasn’t addressed to white supremacists, but to a different set of antagonists: his fellow pastors. The work Jesus wants to do in us and in our world cannot come about without upsetting our personal moral order, as well as the larger status quo. Jesus didn't get executed because he made too many fish sandwiches. He died because He was just too annoying.

How is Jesus annoying you today? And what’s it mean?

Reading
Changing the Conversation – Anthony Robinson
Rediscovering Values – Jim Wallis
Bodies at Motion and at Rest – Thomas Lynch

Chris Yaw

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