Month: November 2017

How will the Church respond this time?

On By Innermost BeingIn Faith and CultureLeave a comment

I don’t know if my pastor realized it, but he was on trial today, the first Sunday after the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history. I read comments this week on social media from purported Christians that were quite disturbing. So at 9:00 am this morning, I was anxious to find out if my church would respond in a way that is consistent with the word of God. I wanted to know, 1) will my pastor acknowledge this tragedy and 2) will he guide his flock to respond in a way that is consistent with God’s word?

My pastor is preaching a series of sermons based on a book of the Bible that he had never preached on before – the book of Obadiah. At one chapter, it is the shortest book in the Old Testament so it is understandable that it would be overlooked. It proved to be relevant to our times this week. Obadiah delivered a message from God to the people of Edom. The Edomites were descendants of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother. Obadiah predicted that God would destroy Edom for not aiding its northern neighbor, Israel (descendants of Jacob).

Pastor Brad used the book of Obadiah to make three points that are relevant to our own nation. One, the people were prideful and self-centered (verse 3). Two, God was not happy about their violence (verse 10) and three, the people were aloof or indifferent to the suffering of others (verse 11).

My pastor assured the congregation that the church does take measures to protect our safety. The church pays for the county sheriff to come to the services and sit outside. I see them, not just guiding traffic, but sometimes coming in and walking down the children’s wing. He said there are panic buttons or alarms in different places that can be used to summon help quickly.

I am happy to say that Pastor Brad did not tell us to come to church armed. If he had said that, I would have walked out. Instead, he had us sing “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” He gave us scriptures about not fearing, like 1 John 4:18. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

My pastor did not lay the blame for the tragedy in Sutherland Springs, Texas on guns. He admitted that he owns a gun himself. He said that the problem is a heart problem and not a problem of weapons. I acknowledge that there is some truth to this argument. There is something very wrong with the hearts of Americans. In some situations, we can be very compassionate. For example, witness the American response to natural disasters or the illness of a stranger.

But when it comes to the right to own the weapons that take 33,000 lives a year, many Americans turn into rabid defenders of inanimate objects. They are so afraid of losing the right to bear arms that they won’t consider even commonsense controls to protect us from the worst and most sick among us. Why is that? When did this nation become so hard-hearted and self-centered and fearful?

More importantly, when did so-called Evangelicals become so hard-hearted, self-centered and fearful? We’re supposed to be a light in the darkness and I’m sorry to say that we are not. I had to admit that truth to myself a year ago when I saw that the majority of “Christians” were willing to cast aside everything that Jesus taught us in exchange for political power.

My pastor did lay some of the blame for violence, and rightly so, on individualism. Individualism defines American culture. Pride defines American culture. Violence defines American culture. But Christianity is not based on individualism. It is not based on pride or violence.

I said my pastor was on trial today because I was watching him to see evidence of something different. I didn’t want to hear NRA or Fox News talking points. I wanted to see light in the darkness. I wanted to see hope. I wanted to hear the word of God preached. Thankfully, I was not disappointed.

The world is watching all of us who claim to follow Jesus. Jesus is not prideful and self-centered. Jesus is not violent. Jesus is not aloof and indifferent to pain and suffering. When we are tested by trials of these times, how will we respond?

Word of God Speak

On By Innermost BeingIn Faith and CultureLeave a comment

On Monday, after hearing about the latest U.S. mass shooting, I called a stranger on Facebook a fool in response to her defense of killing tools. I stand by the truth of my comment but I was ashamed of myself because I was brought up to be kind. I guess my prayer for courage worked.

I am sad. I am angry. I am disgusted. I am sick and tired of grieving the senseless loss of life over and over and over again. Columbine. Las Vegas. I am sick and tired of hearing the same lame excuses why the elected leaders of this country won’t do anything to prevent civilians from amassing military-style weapons and ammunition to use against fellow citizens. I am sick and tired of learning to associate places I’ve never heard of with mass shootings. Sandy Hook. Sutherland Springs. I am sick of hearing people pretend that semiautomatic weapons are no different from scissors or knives.

Give me a freakin’ break!

I am so tired of mourning that sometimes I react with numbness. My sorrow always hits a wall of hopelessness when I see how hard-hearted and selfish Americans are.

There have been way too many of these tragedies yet the political response is always the same. Why is the loss of 33,000 lives a year considered a fair trade for the man-made right to own weapons that are illegal to use as intended?

The day I called a stranger a fool, a broken-hearted woman posted a couple of questions on a K-Love Facebook post. Wouldn’t now be a good time to talk about gun control? Doesn’t God want us to stand and say this needs to stop? One person laughed at her. Another woman condemned her for politicizing the issue and said we should be praying.

Thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers. As the compassionate and thoughtful woman on the K-Love post noted, thoughts and prayers do not bring innocent lives back.

And I have to state what should be obvious – talking about preventing deaths is not politicizing the issue, it is humanizing it. When you strip away the political identity that means so much to many Americans – to too many Christians – we are all human. We all bleed. We all want to enjoy the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and to have our loved ones with us as long as possible.

This week I’m grieving even harder than after Las Vegas. Because some of the loudest voices I have heard in defense of killing tools are people who claim to be Christians, followers of Jesus Christ. Presumably, they’ve read the 10 commandments. You shall not kill. You shall have no other gods before me. Presumably they’re familiar with the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the peacemakers. No doubt, they’ve read what Jesus says you should do if something causes you to sin. Get rid of it. If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. So why do Christians arm themselves to disobey God’s word?

Speaking of God’s word, I opened up a notebook so I could write to express my grief. The last thing I wrote in this notebook were the words of the prophet Isaiah that Jesus repeated when addressing the hypocrites of his day:

This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

The thoughts and prayers of people whose hearts are far from God are in vain. They won’t prevent the senseless deaths that result from this nation’s reckless obsession with guns. They won’t bring back the dead. Lips that defend objects that were designed for the sole purpose of killing do not honor God.

I don’t have the right words. I don’t have the answers to the sickness that afflicts this nation. But I do have the word of God in my heart and the lyrics of Mercy Me in my head. Everytime I hear these lyrics, I am comforted.

Word of God Speak. Would you pour down like rain? Washing my eyes to see your majesty. To be still and know that you’re in this place. Please let me stay and rest in your holiness. Word of God speak. I’m finding myself in the midst of You. Beyond the music, beyond the noise. All that I need is to be with You. And in the quiet, hear Your voice.

I’m still sad and I know I will feel this way again and again and there’s not a darn thing I can do about it. But in my grief and even in my anger, I find myself in the midst of God’s presence, soaking in his grace, hearing his voice of comfort. Father, speak to us. Pour down like rain. Wash our eyes to see your majesty, your love, your mercy, your will. Heal this broken nation.

 

Shadowboxing My Way to Maturity

On By Innermost BeingIn Spiritual GrowthLeave a comment

Sometimes we feel so validated by our inner voice of conscience, so sure of our internal convictions, that we confuse our own voice with the very voice of God. In rereading Richard Rohr’s book, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, a passage about the deeper voice of God brought tears to my eyes. I hear a voice that sounds a lot like risk, trust, and surrender but I keep pushing it away because there is too much safety and security in my protective shell.

There is a deeper voice of God, which you must learn to hear and obey in the second half of life. It will sound an awful lot like the voices of risk, of trust, of surrender, of soul, of “common sense,” of destiny, of love, of an intimate stranger, of your deepest self, of soulful “Beatrice.” – Richard Rohr

Discharging my loyal soldier

Rohr wrote about how Japanese communities helped soldiers return to civilian life after World War II. Faithful soldiers were first thanked for their service and then were told, the war is now over. We need you to return as something other than a soldier. The communal ritual gave the returning soldiers the closure they needed to move on to the next phase of life. Rohr called this transition process “discharging your loyal soldier.”

Similarly, to grow spiritually in the second half of life, we must transition from an egocentric to a “soul-centric” worldview. We have to let go of or “discharge” the ego-driven “loyal soldier” that served us well in the first half of life. While the loyal soldier plays an important role in early life, giving our lives shape and purpose and stability, at some point, he starts holding us back from the life we were meant to live.

Who is my loyal soldier? What persona has served me so well in the first part of life? I would describe my loyal soldier as a dutiful Guardian, the name David Kiersey calls the Sensing Judging personality type. “Guardians are the cornerstone of society, for they are the temperament given to serving and preserving our most important social institutions.” Guardians are concerned with rules and procedures and right versus wrong, with making sure that people do what they are supposed to do. Guardians police social behavior by laying out the should’s and should not’s.

In his book, Please Understand Me II, Kiersey used the phrase “preoccupied with morality” to describe the Guardian personality type. I am not flattered by that description. I see the sinfulness in myself and I see how much I have struggled to do what I know to be right. I see that when I try to attack evil, I produce an ugliness in myself – anger, impatience, condescension, hypocrisy. And most importantly, I see the beauty of forgiveness and grace.

I have learned to let go of my innate compulsion to control or dictate what other people do and to let God do the work of changing people.  I am free to be something other than a finger-pointing Guardian of morality. I am free to be the grace dispenser I was meant to be.

Shadowboxing with myself

Rohr said that your persona represents how you choose to identify yourself and what other people expect from you. But we also have a shadow self – the parts we don’t want other people to see and that we don’t want to see in ourselves. He said that we never get to the second half of spiritual life without engaging in the inner work of shadowboxing with this false self.

Growing spiritually means letting go of the false self. For me, the self that filters and censors herself is a false self. The self that protects people from hearing anything critical, even when it is for their own good, is a false self. The self that avoids offending fellow Christians when she knows that God is on the side of justice and mercy – this is my false self.

Unfortunately, the work of confronting our own faults never ends. I am learning to face my faults, my contradictions, my fears. Just as David did long ago, I’ve invited God to shine a light on my faults.

Search me God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).

Getting out of my foxhole

Early in life, I learned to go into self-protection mode when I felt threatened by too much attention or too much social stimulation. I was socially awkward and easily embarrassed so I withdrew into my protective shell, my foxhole. If I kept quiet, I wouldn’t say the wrong thing or the right thing at the wrong time. If I didn’t approach other people, they wouldn’t reject me.

In contrast to the analytical, thinking me, my Protector is the sensitive, feeling part of me. My Protector is considerate of other people. She has empathy. She doesn’t want other people to feel bad. She doesn’t like to criticize. She respects the fact that other people have a right to their own opinions so she avoids controversy and conflict.

Now, I find that the self-protective mode that served me well in the first part of life keeps me from being obedient to the deeper voice of God. No one can hurt me. I don’t have to prove that I am worthy because I know that God loves me just as I am. I have experienced the power of God’s grace. My protector has outlived her usefulness.

I no longer want to be silent about my faith because I am afraid of offending someone, whether it is atheists or other Christians. When I hear Christians complaining about welfare recipients, I want to speak out on behalf of the poor. When I hear Christians say that we should live in fear of gays or Muslims, I want to talk about God’s love for all people. When Christians say that we should turn our backs on refugees, I want to ask them, what would Jesus do? But instead of speaking up, I hide in my foxhole and avoid confrontation.

I hear the voice of God calling me to be a voice for justice and mercy, to be a voice for genuine Christian discipleship. He has shown me that my purpose in life is not accounting; it is loving other people as I love myself. My purpose in life is not making sure that everyone follows my rules. It is seeing to it that no one misses out on the grace of God. I hear the voice of mercy with tear-filled eyes.

I hear the deeper voice of God telling me to bravely, courageously, and gently speak up. He did not give me a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7). The thought of obeying this call is frightening. It means going against what feels comfortable and safe. It means stepping out of my foxhole and possibly into the line of fire, even from fellow Christians.

I will be honest, fear has held me back all too often. Rohr wrote, “once you have faced your own hidden or denied self, there is not much to be anxious about anymore, because there is no fear of exposure – to yourself or to others.”

I’ve said goodbye to my loyal soldier. Now it is time for me to get out of my foxhole, to say hello to the voice of risk, to surrender to the voice of mercy and love.