Ash Wednesday

We went to an Ash Wednesday service tonight at the United  Methodist Church.

My soul cries outMy soul cries out for you

These bones cry out

These dry bones cry for youTo live and move'Cause only You can raise the deadCan lift my head up

My soul cries out

My soul cries out for you

There were tables set up with interactive, hands on opportunities for prayer. The kids and I picked up rocks and signed a pledge to carry our burdens of grace and love every day of Lent. 

Jesus, You're the one who saves usConstantly creates us into something new
Jesus, surely you will finds usSurely our Messiah will make all things new

Sanctuary

Standing on this mountaintop

Looking just how far we've come

Knowing that with every step

You were with us

We have settled down into a new church. It's called The Sanctuary. I think God knows that we need a sanctuary right now. The worship band has played this song every week. It's become some what of a theme song for me. The last 3 months have felt like a battle. Had I known how hard this move was going to be, I would have said I could never do it. There have been many times when I've said out loud, "I'm done. I can't do this." Every time, God has said, "Good, now I can start."

Thoughts on free will

One dark and stormy evening a ship with a proud captain was heading directly into an oncoming ship. The other ship signaled, "Turn around," but the proud captain refused. He signaled the other ship to get out of his way; after all, he was a famous captain piloting an important ship. The other ship signaled again, "Turn around now!" Again, the captain refused, signaling "No, you must turn. This ship is the SS Poseidon, and I am Captain Franklin Moran!" Finally the other "ship" signaled: "Turn now-this is the lighthouse, and you are about to hit the rocks." Certainly we are free to live our own way. So is a captain free to deny the light from the lighthouse and do what he wants. He is not free, however, from the rocks. Reality is what we smack into when we are wrong. 
The Good and Beautiful Life, James Bryan Smith

Lent for Everyone- NT Wright

EASTER TUESDAY

All four gospels tell a story which many in today's world have forgotten, or have never even known. It is the story of how Jesus became the king of the world. That's where we have been going, ever since, back near the beginning, Jesus came into Galilee announcing that 'heaven's kingdom is at hand'. So often this has been turned into a very different message, about 'telling people how to go to heaven', that we have ignored the far more startling truth that Jesus was actually talking about how heaven was coming to us. In other words, how God, the God of heaven and earth, was coming to earth to establish his sovereign, saving rule.

Now, risen from the dead, Jesus declares that it's happened. 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me!' In other words, the prophetic picture in Daniel 7, which Jesus quoted in 24.30 and 26.64, has come true. Jesus has been exalted to be God's right-hand man. All that God now does, in heaven and on earth, he will do in and through Jesus. (Within a generation, early Christian theologians like Paul, John and the author of Hebrews would point out that this is because Jesus, long before he became human, was God's right-hand person in making the world in the first place.) This is the great message of the whole gospel. Jesus is King and Lord, not just 'in heaven' (that would be quite a 'safe' idea) but on earth as well.

But what — what on earth, we might say — does that actually mean? If Jesus is really King and Lord, why is the world still in such a mess? How does he exercise this 'lordship'? How does this sovereignty, claimed so strongly in this passage, work out on the ground?

The whole gospel, once more, is written in order to give the answer to that. Again, it's an answer many people today have not even begun to think through. Ask yourself this question: how did Jesus come to this point of being king? The answer is obvious. He didn't do it in the way the disciples expected, in the way the crowds wanted, in the way which the chief priests and Pilate assumed he would behave. He didn't follow the normal human path to power, pushing and shoving his way forward, fighting and killing until his position was established.

He came as the Servant, the one who took people's infirmities and diseases on to himself, the one who suffered insults and mocking and torture and death. He was obedient, through- out his life, to a different vision of power, a different sort of kingdom-dream. And his resurrection not only showed that he was right. It established his kingdom, his type of kingdom, once and for all.

But if that's the sort of kingdom it is, it must be put into operation, not by his followers bullying and harrying and forcing the rest of the world to come into line. That's what people are afraid of today when they warn against 'theocracy', a rule-of-God which would quickly turn into the bossy, self-righteous 'rule' of those who claim to speak for God. Sometimes, indeed, the church has behaved in exactly that way. But that is a denial of the Lord they claim to worship.

Jesus' followers are to implement his kingdom by going and making disciples, learners, students, followers who will be shaped by Jesus' example and teaching. They are to 'baptize' them, plunging them into the very name and life and character of the true God, who is Father, Son and Spirit. They are to teach them everything Jesus commanded, particularly all those wonderful words in the Sermon on the Mount about the meek inheriting the earth, about a different way to be human. That is the character of Jesus' rule, and that is the means by which that rule will be established.

We live at a time of great transition and turbulence in our society. Dreams of 'progress' and 'enlightenment' seem to have produced the exact opposite. Supposedly civilized society has gone back to the use of torture. Supposedly grown-up society cannot educate the rising generation in anything but trivia. This same society regularly tells the church that it is on the way out. The Christian message is bad for you, they say; it's out of date, it's disproved.

This is ridiculous. There is every reason to hope that this year, or this decade, or this century, God will do new things. Jesus is still Lord — but he rules in the same way that he lived, taught and died. When his followers learn again to do the same, we shall see a fresh start. And the encouragement we need is found in the final words of Matthew's gospel, picking up neatly the promise made to Joseph at the very beginning. His name will be 'Emmanuel', said the angel, which means 'God with us'. That God-with-us promise, that heaven-on- earth assurance, has come true in Jesus. Millions of Christians know this in their daily experience, their praying, their living, their work for his kingdom. 'I am with you always, to the end of the age.' That is a promise you can stake your life on. It is also a challenge: if Jesus himself is 'with you', what should you be doing? How then should you live? Easter is a time to ask precisely that sort of question. It is also a time to discover God's powerful answer.

TODAY
Risen Lord Jesus, be with us as you have promised, and help us to go into all the world to bring all nations under the rule of your love.

NT Wright on Psalm 23

"Many generations of devout Jews, from long before the time of Jesus to this day, have prayed that Psalm, putting themselves into the picture. Yahweh, Israel's God, was like that with them! They could trust him for everything, even when everything went dark. And now, many generations of Christians have prayed the Psalm in the same way, in the light of the many passages where Jesus picks up the shepherd-promise and applies it to himself. In fact, the gospel story is not unlike the picture of the shepherd and the sheep: Jesus leading his disciples around Galilee, teaching them, healing people as he goes. And as the story moves us forwards towards the valley of the shadow of death, we look on in awe and wonder as the Good Shepherd goes ahead of us into the darkness. His rod and his staff, two poles of wood, come together in a new pattern, a shape which will etch itself on the heart of the world. We look at the cross and we are comforted." -Lent for Everyone by NT Wright

Simply Christian

I have been listening to NT Wright this week. I'm only halfway through this speech he gave on his book Simply Christian. I think there are 7 parts. Something struck me yesterday and I had to pause the video and grab a piece of paper to scribble it down. The following is from Part 3.

"The creator God is the God of overflowing, generous love. That's what the creation was all about in the first place...."

"God overflowed with creative, self-giving love. That's why when creation went wrong it didn't, in that sense, take something fresh from God. What God had to do was overflow in self-giving love in a new way, in the person of Jesus. Now that that's done God wants to continue overflowing with self-giving love into the world and he wants to do it through you and me.

I love my neighbors!

This is how I want to pray

"Second, [after the prayers for the believing dead] the Church prays for all the dead. This is more difficult, since it looks as though they might have gone completely beyond the pale of prayer if they have not been part of the fellowship of the Church. But they are still part of the huge fabric of Creation, and nothing in that fabric is beyond the scope of mercy. We cannot tell God what to do with them or speak with any certainty of what he is at any given point doing with them, but we can commend them to the mystery of His mercy, as we commend all things thus. We must not be too hasty or fierce or cavalier in reaching conclusions about the judgement that Scripture spells out. God is the judge; we are priests, part of whose ministry is to offer prayer for all people."

Thomas Howard, Evangelical is Not Enough 

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want. for anything.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul. My life, my energy
He leads me in paths of righteousness
For his name's sake.


Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
Because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff, your guidance
they comfort me.


You prepare a table before me 
In the presence of my Failures 
Mistakes
Worries
Doubts
Short-comings
Sins;
        You anoint my head with oil;
My cup overflows. With new wine. 


Surely goodness and mercy shall chase me, pursue me, follow me 
        all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Thoughts

Sometimes I feel like a new Christian. A new believer who knows a lot of bible stories and has heard a lot of sermons. I always felt close to God, but his book has confused the heck out of me most of my life.  I would read it, but I didn't get it. The last few years have been full of aha moments. It's finally coming together in my head as it has always been in my soul.

In Genesis we have the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. God wipes out an entire city because of it's grievous sin. Unrepentant sin leads to death, right? God bombed this city and sent all it's inhabitants straight to hell. Is this what we believe? The God who loves us so much that he sent us his son would do this? Wait, there is more. In Matthew, Jesus gets to finish their story. He tells the Jews that if the people of Sodom would have seen these miracles, they would still be a city. He says it will be better for Sodom on the day of judgement than it will be for Capernaum. These are law-abiding, Sabbath-keeping Jews he's talking to.

This begs a question. Does the God who loves us beyond anything we have ever known draw a line in the sand  as soon as we die? When we finally get to see his face does his mercy end? 

What if a man from Sodom arrived at the gates of heaven and was overcome with repentance upon seeing Jesus. What if he realized that he had wasted his life on a lie. Would God have mercy on him? Would he be restored?  I am left wondering if this is what Jesus meant when he talked about how Sodom would have repented had they seen Jesus perform miracles on Earth. He knew this was true because he was there when they saw the miracle of heaven. Knowing Jesus and knowing God, I have to believe that not all were lost.

 For the Lord will not cast off forever ,but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Lamentations 3:31-33

Why Haiti?

  

A few weeks ago, Sarah Palin posted some pictures on Facebook about her recent trip to Haiti with Franklin Graham. The comment pool was filled with people who were upset that she was helping people in Haiti when so many people in our own country are in need.  Since then, I have been struggling to find the words to describe this country that God has laid on so many of our hearts. So I'll use pictures instead.

Photo by Google Earth

The photo above was taken of the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince on November 9, 2010.  Ten months after the earthquake. The palace still lies in ruin. People have been living under those blue tarps for over a year in a country that gets 54" of rain a year.

This is Mirebalais. It is believed the cholera outbreak started here in the Artibonite River. The people here don't have access to clean water, so they drink out of the river. There are no drinking fountains. Clean, fluorinated water doesn't come out of the tap or out of the door on the fridge. $5000 could drill a well. It could free them from life threatening disease.

This is the reason I started Bags on a Mission. Profits from sales in my shop go toward funding The Wheatland Mission's future trips to Haiti and the current projects of GVCM. Here are a few of the rice bags I have for sale. Come shop and give to those who need is so great.

Thoughts on Passover

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:9-17

These are the words Jesus had for his disciples as he celebrated Passover with them for the last time. He didn't have a lot of time to get his message across and this is the message he chose. It is really all that was needed.

Growing up in church I remember hearing "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love." I was always hung up on the 's'. How many commands? The 10 commandments or the entire Mennonite Brethren Conference manual? Exactly what commands are you talking about?

When I read this at the beginning of Lent, it all finally came together for me. "This is my command: Love each other. Period. Did you see the period? Love each other. Why have we made Jesus' message so hard, so confusing when he summed it all up in one sentence?

Love your enemies. Love your neighbors. Love the church. Love the person standing next you.
'You know you've made god in your image when he hates the same people you do'. Guess what. We gotta love those people too. And not just a little. Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. He's not just talking about your BFF here. The love God gave us is grace, mercy, forgiveness, acceptance. He loved us long before we turned to him.

I'm not very good at this. It would be easier to just get a list of dos and don'ts. A new law. But then we miss out on the amazing beauty of grace. The greatness of forgiveness. I choose grace. I choose love.

Some News, Some Pictures,Some Sheldon Vanauken

Our house has hit the market. It has been total craziness. Since Tuesday, it has been shown 5 times and we have at least 2 more today. Click here to go to our MLS page.

These pictures get me so excited for warm weather. Nothing is better after a long winter than blowing bubbles and drawing with sidewalk chalk.

I read this last night and just had to share.

Time is our natural environment. We live in time as we live in the air we breathe. And we love air-who has not taken deep breaths of pure, fresh country air, just for the pleasure of it? How strange that we cannot love time. It spoils our loveliest moments. Nothing quite comes up to expectations because of it. We alone: animals, so far as we can see, are unaware of time, untroubled. Time is their natural environment. Why do we sense that it is not ours?

C.S. Lewis, in his second letter to me at Oxford, asked how it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there. "Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or wd. not always be, purely aquatic creatures?" Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest?

It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it-how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.

-Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

Wishing you a slow and peaceful Lenten season

Walk slowly beside the road

As others rush past
And do not hurry to catch up.
At last you will. At last.
Count on the miracle
To be what makes the difference
And do not hurry to fix what remains.
At last all will make sense.
Pray before moving. Listen.
Notice the tree limbs swaying
And the way the sun plays off the hills.
And when you are done praying
Move strong and fling yourself
Even where you cannot see to grasp
The hands to hold you up.
At last you will. At last.

~ Jeff Reed

Taken from iLent.org

LOVE (III)

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

by George Herbert, published in 1633

Grace

I looked up at the blood stains on the cross piece where his hands had been pierced.
...
I stood up full of courage. "I am ready to serve him with all my heart," I said.

"That is not why he died for you, Tim. He doesn't need your service. He died for you because he loves you. He doesn't need you to do anything at all. Now you are faced with a more difficult task: to let him love you in the midst of your shame. He did not die to coerce you into service or into moral improvement. All he wants...is you." I stared in silence at the blood-stained wood.

"You must let him love you as you are, not as you intend to be. Let him love you as you are, without a single plea for reform. It is all about grace, Tim. All of life is grace. We deserve nothing; we are given everything. Until now you have only experienced the drippings of grace. You have longed for the real thing, like the longing for the scent of a flower you have never been able to find, or the echo of a tune you have not yet heard, or news from a country you have never visited. Well, now you have found it. Grace is the thing you have been searching for, and it is all around you."

Room of Marvels
James Bryan Smith

God is Good

My church is going through the book The Good and Beautiful God. This week we were suppose to spend some time admiring nature. Anthony and I had a good time of it today. We're going to go get Sister and go do some more.

Psalm for Holy Week

^{In church on Saturday, we talked about how the Jews in Jesus' day knew most of the Psalms by heart and prayed them daily. When Jesus said, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me," the Jews listening would have been able to finish this Psalm. He was in fact fulfilling the words of David.}

^{Psalm 22
1} My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?

² O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.

³ Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.

⁴ In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.

⁵ They cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

⁶ But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by men and despised by the people.

⁷ All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

⁸ "He trusts in the LORD;
let the LORD rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him."

⁹ Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you
even at my mother's breast.

¹⁰ From birth I was cast upon you;
from my mother's womb you have been my God.

¹¹ Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

¹² Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

¹³ Roaring lions tearing their prey
open their mouths wide against me.

¹⁴ I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted away within me.

¹⁵ My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.

¹⁶ Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.

¹⁷ I can count all my bones;
people stare and gloat over me.

¹⁸ They divide my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.

¹⁹ But you, O LORD, be not far off;
O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

²⁰ Deliver my life from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dogs.

²¹ Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

²² I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the congregation I will praise you.

²³ You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

²⁴ For he has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

²⁵ From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.

²⁶ The poor will eat and be satisfied;
they who seek the LORD will praise him—
may your hearts live forever!

²⁷ All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,

²⁸ for dominion belongs to the LORD
and he rules over the nations.

²⁹ All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.

³⁰ Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.

³¹ They will proclaim his righteousness
to a people yet unborn—
for he has done it.

Prayer for Today

God of light and life, you deliver me from the bondage of all that attempts to enslave me. Help me let go of false security, and embracing my vulnerability, help me to receive your love and compassion. Amen.

from explorefaith.org