This blog has moved to: https://thoughtfulpastor.wordpress.com/.  All the posts from this blog are there plus many more.  I am working to post more often about the intersection of life, theology and work as a pastor and Christian.

To Save A Life

The word "friendship" has, like so many other emotionally rich words, been cheapened by commerce. It is possible to have thousands of "friends" on Facebook or some other social networking site, and yet not have a single friend in the true sense of the word. 

This past Sunday, I talked about the biblical story of Jonathan and David, an unusual friendship that teaches us about the nature of God's willingness to befriend us. Jonathan, the son of first king of Israel, very much jeopardized his own future and his relationship with his mentally unstable father by befriending David. 

Yet, Jonathan offered that costly friendship, the kind of friendship that transcends time and circumstance. Jonathan served as a Christ-figure for David, for he ended up dying in a battle that opened the final door for David to assume the role as king and leader, a position that might have otherwise been Jonathan’s.

This story takes friendship significantly beyond the way we define it these days. Real friendship, with others and with God—and friendship with God is the privilege given by Jesus to his followers—does not demand a like return for favors and gifts given. 

So many of our friendships, as well as so much of our relationship with God, is actually based on transactional exchanges. A transactional relationship happens when the actions of one party result inevitably in the expected actions of another. So, when I purchase a book online for my e-reader, I expect it to show up within a few seconds and for a charge to appear on a credit card. In the same way, if I insert my debit card into the card reader at a gas pump, I expect to be able to pump gas. Clean, easy, expected, common transactions.

When friendships look like this, they are based on an exchange of favors. If one party lets the other down for any reason, the relationship often breaks quickly.

Many people do this with their relationship with God as well. There is an expectation that if the individual is in any way serving God, then God has a responsibility to make the world go smoothly for the person. 

It’s a cheap way to treat God. For many, the existence of God is only on occasion acknowledged. Once in a while, words of thanksgiving may be given, or perhaps a few minutes in actual worship of God may take place. In exchange for having honored God with such paltry attentions, many find themselves shocked, simply shocked, that they still have to face trials and huge obstacles in their lives. After all, isn’t that what God is about—making sure we get what we want when we want it? If I have asked, and done my minimal part, isn’t God supposed to give and give endlessly, perhaps like a mal-functioning ATM machine?

This question of real relationship, beyond the ATM God and disposable friends, struck me again last week when one of our youth directors and I previewed together the film, “To Save a Life.” This exceptionally well-done movie portrays the reality of the lives of many of our older teens as they dance through the world of drugs, drinking, sex and ever-changing and often painful friendships.

This movie uncovers many of the layers of the complicated lives of these emerging young adults. One of those complications lies in both the power of friendship and the devastation that can come when friendship is withdrawn, especially when withdrawn for superficial reasons.

We’re going to show this movie at our church this Sunday at 6:30, and then have discussions with parents and teens afterwards about their lives and challenges. Anyone is welcome to come to our screening, but I hope other churches will do the same. We need to reclaim the word friendship from its current cheapened state and hold tenderly its power to save a life. Because it does.

The Untrustworthy Life

Another pastor bites the dust. Last week, news readers heard about Matt Jarrell, a traveling man with a wife, four children and a congregation in Mesquite, TX. This pastor accumulated arrests on his travels for soliciting prostitutes, illegal handgun possession, and rape. Two days after the final arrest, he hanged himself in his jail cell.

Jarrell led the double life, a life without integrity.

I read this once: "Integrity is the act of doing what is right when alone and unobserved." Good definition. Matt Jarrell failed.

Mature people integrate their external and internal selves. Ideally, adults teach children how to behave morally by placing outward restrictions on their behaviors and then teaching them to internalize those restrictions. Should a child steal, parents rightly insist that what was stolen be returned with apology and restitution. This is followed by instruction on honoring the life and possessions of others.

In time parents hope the child's inner voice, the conscience, will become well developed.

So, again ideally, the Matt Jarrell's of the world become aware early in life of their tendencies to lie, manipulate and use other people wrongly. They work diligently to transform those tendencies by practicing truth, compassion and service to others.

But some do not choose that path, and instead practice habits that lead to a life without integrity, the double life. As aware as I am of the dark side of human nature, I am still occasionally shocked when I come face to face with one who has made those choices.

At the church I serve, we have been faced with a series of thefts. One item, a very much needed commercial carpet cleaner, bothers me more than anything. With so many children in the building, we need to be able to clean the carpets frequently. We recently invested in this piece of equipment in order to keep the building as clean and safe as possible for these little ones. I do not understand punishing innocent children for the sake of self-gratification.

That theft, in addition to the other things taken, have also led to a troubling question: how much do we restrict access to this building? It's so easy to say, "A church is a business and should operate that way." Yes, it is a business, and wise business principles should be followed.

But a church is more than a simply a business. It is also a group of people who are called to worship God and serve the world. Physically, it is a place where people gather intentionally to engage in those acts of worship and service. To put restrictions upon entrance to worship and service disturbs my spirit. More, it sets the basis of relationship as non-trust instead of trust.

Years ago, I made the decision to enter into any relationship using trust as my primary bridge of connection. I will not change my mind on that decision, even as it means personally getting hurt. It is right decision for me.

Yes, I am hurt by what has happened. So is this worshiping community and I suppose we will have to lock down things tighter.

Mostly, however, in the aftermath of these thefts, I ache for the one who needed to take these things. The one without integrity is unable to trust anyone else. Result: loneliness, isolation, a sense that the world is out to get them, and a loss of the understanding that God is good.

It's a tough way to live and leads to a loss of hope in salvation, for God cannot be trusted in this mind-set. The only hope is repentance, that profound change of mind and direction that transforms the soul. With repentance, the gates to the kingdom of heaven fly wide open again. Without it, we are doomed and damned. We all get to choose which it will be.

The Untrustworthy Life

Another pastor bites the dust. Last week, news readers heard about Matt Jarrell, a traveling man with a wife, four children and a congregation in Mesquite, TX. This pastor accumulated arrests on his travels for soliciting prostitutes, illegal handgun possession, and rape. Two days after the final arrest, he hanged himself in his jail cell.

Jarrell led the double life, a life without integrity.

I read this once: "Integrity is the act of doing what is right when alone and unobserved." Good definition. Matt Jarrell failed.

Mature people integrate their external and internal selves. Ideally, adults teach children how to behave morally by placing outward restrictions on their behaviors and then teaching them to internalize those restrictions. Should a child steal, parents rightly insist that what was stolen be returned with apology and restitution. This is followed by instruction on honoring the life and possessions of others.

In time parents hope the child's inner voice, the conscience, will become well developed.

So, again ideally, the Matt Jarrell's of the world become aware early in life of their tendencies to lie, manipulate and use other people wrongly. They work diligently to transform those tendencies by practicing truth, compassion and service to others.

But some do not choose that path, and instead practice habits that lead to a life without integrity, the double life. As aware as I am of the dark side of human nature, I am still occasionally shocked when I come face to face with one who has made those choices.

At the church I serve, we have been faced with a series of thefts. One item, a very much needed commercial carpet cleaner, bothers me more than anything. With so many children in the building, we need to be able to clean the carpets frequently. We recently invested in this piece of equipment in order to keep the building as clean and safe as possible for these little ones. I do not understand punishing innocent children for the sake of self-gratification.

That theft, in addition to the other things taken, have also led to a troubling question: how much do we restrict access to this building? It's so easy to say, "A church is a business and should operate that way." Yes, it is a business, and wise business principles should be followed.

But a church is more than a simply a business. It is also a group of people who are called to worship God and serve the world. Physically, it is a place where people gather intentionally to engage in those acts of worship and service. To put restrictions upon entrance to worship and service disturbs my spirit. More, it sets the basis of relationship as non-trust instead of trust.

Years ago, I made the decision to enter into any relationship using trust as my primary bridge of connection. I will not change my mind on that decision, even as it means personally getting hurt. It is right decision for me.

Yes, I am hurt by what has happened. So is this worshiping community and I suppose we will have to lock down things tighter.

Mostly, however, in the aftermath of these thefts, I ache for the one who needed to take these things. The one without integrity is unable to trust anyone else. Result: loneliness, isolation, a sense that the world is out to get them, and a loss of the understanding that God is good.

It's a tough way to live and leads to a loss of hope in salvation, for God cannot be trusted in this mind-set. The only hope is repentance, that profound change of mind and direction that transforms the soul. With repentance, the gates to the kingdom of heaven fly wide open again. Without it, we are doomed and damned. We all get to choose which it will be.

The World is Still Around

Well, despite the predictions of Harold Camping, of Family Radio and end-of-the-world scenarios, it didn't happen.

By now, should Camping have been correct, those of us left on this rapidly self-destructing earth should have been faced with a massive clean-up effort after the true believers were caught up in heaven on May 21.  At least I suppose there would be a massive clean-up effort--those rolling earthquakes that were supposed to start in New Zealand and move around the earth would certainly have left a lot of destruction.

I grew up with these Rapture scenarios--and they scared me.  What if I wasn't actually saved? What about all those people driving cars and piloting planes and operating heavy machinery and nuclear plants when they suddenly disappeared--and the cars and planes crashed and the heavy machinery kept going without guidance and the nuclear plants melted down--well, you can visualize the rest.

What scared me more is that it appeared that God really doesn't care about the whole world, only for the few that had managed to worm their way into God's pleasure. I remember being highly convinced that there were only a tiny number of "real" Christians, that is, those who believed exactly as I did.  As for the rest--I did genuinely feel sorry for them, but there was also a unspoken and barely acknowledged gleeful sense of, "I'm in, they are out--makes me pretty special, doesn't it?"

All this makes for an amazingly mean and unloving deity and an amazingly mean and unloving group of people who are followers of such a deity. Why is there such a strong human penchant for a God who delights in sending much of humanity to eternal damnation?

Also, if God is really that cruel, then our only hope is to appease such a one. However, does appeasement work when such cruelty is at the existential core?  

At the risk of my own eternal torment here, I call such a deity extraordinarily wicked. Why?  Because I've known and read about way too many people who actually operate that way. They use power to declare certain ones "in" and certain ones "out" and demand obeisance and penance and appeasement to keep their wrath from falling even on the apparently favored ones. They are the tyrants that destroy others in order build up their own fiefdoms. They lead families, run businesses, populate the political world, start wars, stimulate terrorism, and make everyone around them miserable, using fear, guilt and punishment as ways to keep the less powerful dancing to their inner and twisted tunes.

Why do we want such Gods?  I think because we ourselves like being capricious tyrants, so we need God to be a tyrant in order to justify our own actions.  Some of the most evil people I know cloak their words and actions with "god-language" to mask their despicable thoughts and actions. They need God to be equally despicable, so they can justify their actions by claiming they were prodded by their God.

Was Harold Camping, the 89 year old self-taught Bible scholar an evil man?  In some of the articles I read about him, he certainly doesn't come across that way. Yet he intentionally left the church behind, a church that might have helped keep him accountable to a larger body of biblical interpretation, and led a large group of people into deception and some real foolishness--like spending their children's educational funds because they thought they wouldn't need them.

I know the church has problems--but I have long decided that anyone who says he or she alone has the proper interpretation of Biblical truths with no willingness to listen to other scholars and seekers after wisdom and godliness is indeed a dangerous person--and may have very well crossed over the line to evil, however unintentional.

This is why I chose to become part of a connectional church.  The United Methodist Church, for all its faults--and I can name them easily--does not let its pastors and leaders make pronouncements without accountability and needed checks from other sources.  This journey to salvation cannot be done in isolation, or we'll wander off the path for sure. Unfortunately, Mr. Camping did exactly that, and many will suffer because of his arrogance.

The Only Child Syndrome

I've come to the conclusion that, at heart, we all want to be only children. Deep inside each of us wants the full attention of our mother, father, God and anyone else we consider important in our lives. We don't want to share that attention with others. I suspect we're convinced that if we do, there won't be enough love, gifts, time, etc. to go around.

Two weeks with grandchildren now have reinforced that view. These particular grands are both boys, just 17 months apart in age, 5 and 3 1/2. They generally play together well, and there are those special moments when clearly the older one is looking out for the younger one.

However, they behave the best when by themselves having the full attention of parents or grandparents who are also doing exactly what the child wants done. They behave the worst when competing for the attention of the big people in their lives. And while they do have much fun together, they also pick on each other, and know very well how best to irritate and infuriate each other and get the other in trouble.

Those moments when they get that coveted undivided attention of parents also often lead to more discord between the siblings later--they seem to need to compare and boast about those attentions and see if they can spur jealousy on the part of the other.

Essentially, they are adorable little narcissists, just like most adults I know.

I wonder if this need to be only children--and I think it is universal--is the source is much of the religious conflict that seems to have characterized much of the world for known history. We will not wrap our minds around the idea that God might deal differently with different members of the human family. The negative implications of this only child syndrome lead to intense watchfulness to see if someone else might receive more favors, more attention, more perceived blessing than we ourselves may be experiencing.

As do children, we observe carefully to see if the cake is divided perfectly evenly--and if it is not, we grab for the biggest piece ourselves. As do children, we are quick to scream "It's not fair!" when it looks like a sibling is getting special privilege--or we are getting special discipline.

Children have great difficulty with the concept that parents can love all fully, but may have to treat each differently. But anyone with more than one child knows that each successive child in the family actually has different parents, because the parents themselves will have changed by what they have learned and by the different personalities of the children themselves.

We carry that difficulty to adulthood. We don't come easily to the idea that God might relate differently to different parts of the created world and and yet God still has profound love for us. These differences in relating do not change the essential nature of God or the nature of the redemptive process. It's just individual from person to person.

Somewhere deep inside most of us lingers a huge fear that we are going to get left out. And the best way to keep from getting left out is to knock down everyone else so we are the only one left. The only child, the one who gets all the attention.

How sad that we can't seem to be get past this and instead be willing and active participants in the process of seeing God's will done on earth as well as in heaven.

The Only Child Syndrome

I've come to the conclusion that, at heart, we all want to be only children. Deep inside each of us wants the full attention of our mother, father, God and anyone else we consider important in our lives. We don't want to share that attention with others. I suspect we're convinced that if we do, there won't be enough love, gifts, time, etc. to go around.

Two weeks with grandchildren now have reinforced that view. These particular grands are both boys, just 17 months apart in age, 5 and 3 1/2. They generally play together well, and there are those special moments when clearly the older one is looking out for the younger one.

However, they behave the best when by themselves having the full attention of parents or grandparents who are also doing exactly what the child wants done. They behave the worst when competing for the attention of the big people in their lives. And while they do have much fun together, they also pick on each other, and know very well how best to irritate and infuriate each other and get the other in trouble.

Those moments when they get that coveted undivided attention of parents also often lead to more discord between the siblings later--they seem to need to compare and boast about those attentions and see if they can spur jealousy on the part of the other.

Essentially, they are adorable little narcissists, just like most adults I know.

I wonder if this need to be only children--and I think it is universal--is the source is much of the religious conflict that seems to have characterized much of the world for known history. We will not wrap our minds around the idea that God might deal differently with different members of the human family. The negative implications of this only child syndrome lead to intense watchfulness to see if someone else might receive more favors, more attention, more perceived blessing than we ourselves may be experiencing.

As do children, we observe carefully to see if the cake is divided perfectly evenly--and if it is not, we grab for the biggest piece ourselves. As do children, we are quick to scream "It's not fair!" when it looks like a sibling is getting special privilege--or we are getting special discipline.

Children have great difficulty with the concept that parents can love all fully, but may have to treat each differently. But anyone with more than one child knows that each successive child in the family actually has different parents, because the parents themselves will have changed by what they have learned and by the different personalities of the children themselves.

We carry that difficulty to adulthood. We don't come easily to the idea that God might relate differently to different parts of the created world and and yet God still has profound love for us. These differences in relating do not change the essential nature of God or the nature of the redemptive process. It's just individual from person to person.

Somewhere deep inside most of us lingers a huge fear that we are going to get left out. And the best way to keep from getting left out is to knock down everyone else so we are the only one left. The only child, the one who gets all the attention.

How sad that we can't seem to be get past this and instead be willing and active participants in the process of seeing God's will done on earth as well as in heaven.

The Morning Tonic

Since I have been with my son's family in London, my daughter-in-law has fixed me a tonic that she insists I drink each morning.  It is, to me, a foul-tasting concoction of raw garlic, fresh-squeezed lime juice, radish and several other unidentifiable substances. Adriana insists this will cure what ever could possibly ail me.

She comes from a long family line of herbalists.  Her mother's family, living near the jungle area of Colombia, has for generations created their own medical potions and used natural substances to deal with disease and sickness.  Adriana just told me about the time when they had to chase her around the house and hold her down to take a tonic to rid her body of roundworms, a common ailment in children.  It worked fine.

So, every morning, I hold my breath and down six to eight ounces of this stuff, immediately popping a piece of fruit in my mouth afterward to help dispel the yucky aftertaste.

The question is:  has it helped?  No doubt about it, I do feel better.  But I am also sleeping a lot, taking long walks, intentionally tossing my stressors away, eating only the most healthy of foods, and moving to my own rhythms.

Jonathan and Adriana have been incredibly kind and welcoming to me and are more than willing for me stay as long as I'd like.  They are going to Brittany at the end of May and even booked an extra cabin for me just in case I'd like to stay and go along.

Obviously, I can't just leave my life behind and move in here.  I am, above all, a pastor, and called to this work, a life of service and leadership to God's community that I've found deeply fulfilling.

I also realize that living here brings out a helplessness in me that would eventually drain me.  While I'm now finally getting accustomed to finding the passenger seat in the car on the left side, not the right side, and have figured out that if I don't look right when getting ready to cross a street that I might very well get hit by a car, I also know that I would probably never drive if I were to live here. 

A sense of competence in living is important for our basic self-images.  The self-esteem movement that rewards children for simply showing up actually defeats its own purpose.  Self-esteem is built by learning how to do things, and at mastering the essentials tools in order to be able to deal with normal living. Look at a child who is learning to dress himself or herself and notice the beaming face when he or she manages to get the clothes on correctly.  That beaming face is repeated thousands of times over as the child becomes more and more able to do things independently.

So, having said that, I do feel a bit incompetent here and know in the long run, this would really wear me down.

So, I shall just savor the next three days here and then prepare for the long flight back, knowing I leave one joy to enter another.

Perhaps that tonic is working, after all!

Fourteen Turns

Since arriving here and fairly frequently accompanying Adriana on her twice or three times daily trips to the boy's school, I have wanted to try to actually describe that drive and what is it like to get the boys into and out of the school each day.

Joshua and Sammy attend a very nice all-male prep school. It is 2 1/2 miles from their house.  Although Google Maps, which estimates 8 minutes from home to school, appears to show a more direct route, the route Adriana actually takes involves 14 turns, seven left turns and seven right turns. 

Right turns are the more difficult ones here, and it is often that she must make that turn onto quite a busy road without the advantage of stoplights.  All streets are amazingly narrow, at least to these American eyes.  Many residential streets are two Texas sized lanes wide, with cars parked on both sides.  They are also two way streets, so there is a constant dance of weaving in and out of parked cars so those coming in the opposite direction can get through.  Much road courtesy here--people know that without cooperation, giving way whenever necessary, these crowded roads will soon shut down.  On those residential streets, especially the very narrow ones, I work on staying calm as my passenger side rear-view mirror races by the driver side rear-view mirror often not more than one or two inches away.

As we approach the school, generally ten to eleven minutes after leaving the house, I can see Adriana get ready to play the parking game.  There is no parking lot at the school, and although there is a drive through where parents can let their children off, most parents, particularly of the smaller children, (Sammy started before he was three), prefer to park and walk their child or children to the classroom.

The streets near the school have some carefully outlined parking spots--and not very many, for these streets are all residential, all houses with driveways to the street, and all houses very close together, so there is minimal curb space.  Adriana's eagle eye will hone in on a possible spot, and she rapidly speeds up to see if she can grab it before the next parent gets it.

She must be parked precisely within the marked lines or she will get a ticket.  These lines fit compact cars only.  They drive a compact SUV, and there is only inches of play on all four sides for her.  Just in case you are wondering, no Texas-sized truck would have a chance here.

We all tumble out, the boys looking absolutely adorable in their smart uniforms, and join the other parents in trying to get the children to their classrooms before the tardy bell rings.  The small foyer opening to the classroom areas is packed with parents and little boys.  We head for the nursery first, where Sammy grabs each of us, Mom, Granny, Brother, deposits a hearty kiss, and then politely greets his teacher and walks in.  Then we wind our way back through the foyer into another narrow hall leading to three classrooms.  It is packed with parents and the four and five year old boys, each needing to find the proper peg to hang his jacket on. The older boys wear maroon sports jackets with the school insignia on them over a maroon sweatshirt and white polo shirts (also with the school insignia) and dress gray flannel shorts with gray and maroon knee socks and black shoes.  The jackets themselves must be carefully hung from the correct peg so they can be found later.

Again, kisses at the classroom, and Adriana and I make our way out, often stopped as the mothers and dads eagerly greet one another and often make plans for later in the today for each other and for their children.  A multiplicity of languages is heard--this particular prep school seems to be a magnet for the many internationals who live here. I am guessing there is a parent and child from every continent in that crowded foyer each morning.

Then finally back to the car, and hope for no ticket because the police wander these streets constantly and ticket anything not in perfect compliance with the parking regulations. Four days a week, Adriana must do this three times a day, as Sammy only goes half days M, T, T, F but on Wednesday, she gets a break and only has to do this twice since he goes a full day then.

Let us just say that my admiration for my daughter-in-law grows by the hour.