I had some friends help me carry a table into my house the other night. My wife and I finally grew up and bought a real table. Our family of six won't fit around the cheap old one any more. But I'm so glad I have friends. The friends are close enought they will probably eat around the table soon anyway. And it makes me think how great it is to have community. But this is all over a table. Remember the story from the Gospels about the friends who brought the paralytic to Jesus.
Mark 2
1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
Does this give you any feeling that it's time we impact our community in a huge way. I started this blog to dream about the future of our community. So here we go. I have been a part of some great communities. Powerful enough to bring people to Jesus. And no, I don't think it's Allegory. I think we should bring people to the one person who has power to forgive, heal, restore, and glorify. But how is that done? How do we bring people to the Table? (Luke 14:15-28) How can you bring people to the Table?
Monday, January 24, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
i heart dreams
Isaiah 29:8
As when a hungry man dreams he is eating
and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,
or as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking
and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.
Have you ever had a dream about someone? Someone that you love. A dream that inspires you to love them even more. To be in love. Waking up in that place where you can't forget about them. You feel yourself bursting at the seams with affection. Or sometimes the opposite. Waking up from a dream to feel yourself crying...or almost crying. Guys don't cry. Hurt in the imagination by one so close the wound lingers in real time. And the thoughts keep returning to love. To hurt. To the dream.
i have had those dreams. It's weird to me how a dream can inspire emotions that follow me all day. Sometimes its even difficult to pinpoint who the dream is about. But the feeling doesn't go away. It's deep in the heart, deeper than the mind usually dwells. The dreams carry the heart to the surface, bubbling up like magma, powerfully hot, seething to the top layer, simmering against the landscape, waking to the dullness of the old world now shattered by the new. Then i remember, it is only a dream. But this is loves power. The intangible manifested. The dream filters its way into reality for a day, perhaps to the evening, only drawing out slowly with the tide of time. And then the dream finds its place again.
I wonder if this is my place before God. What is the power of love and admiration between us? What is my role in this dream? Does it matter if i cry for Him? He is high and i am low. Does it matter if i pour out my heart into love poems and bring myself to the edge of existence. What does God think of me? Does He dream of me and then think of me all day? I feel the weight of that question. Am I as powerful as a dream?
One wiser than i said:
"How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall 'stand before' Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son - it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is." (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)
Now what I keep wondering, do i believe this in my heart, where the dreams sleep?
As when a hungry man dreams he is eating
and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,
or as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking
and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.
Have you ever had a dream about someone? Someone that you love. A dream that inspires you to love them even more. To be in love. Waking up in that place where you can't forget about them. You feel yourself bursting at the seams with affection. Or sometimes the opposite. Waking up from a dream to feel yourself crying...or almost crying. Guys don't cry. Hurt in the imagination by one so close the wound lingers in real time. And the thoughts keep returning to love. To hurt. To the dream.
i have had those dreams. It's weird to me how a dream can inspire emotions that follow me all day. Sometimes its even difficult to pinpoint who the dream is about. But the feeling doesn't go away. It's deep in the heart, deeper than the mind usually dwells. The dreams carry the heart to the surface, bubbling up like magma, powerfully hot, seething to the top layer, simmering against the landscape, waking to the dullness of the old world now shattered by the new. Then i remember, it is only a dream. But this is loves power. The intangible manifested. The dream filters its way into reality for a day, perhaps to the evening, only drawing out slowly with the tide of time. And then the dream finds its place again.
I wonder if this is my place before God. What is the power of love and admiration between us? What is my role in this dream? Does it matter if i cry for Him? He is high and i am low. Does it matter if i pour out my heart into love poems and bring myself to the edge of existence. What does God think of me? Does He dream of me and then think of me all day? I feel the weight of that question. Am I as powerful as a dream?
One wiser than i said:
"How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall 'stand before' Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son - it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is." (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)
Now what I keep wondering, do i believe this in my heart, where the dreams sleep?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Love and Loss
I'm speaking at a wedding in a couple of days. And I spoke at a funeral a couple of days ago. I can't help but have trouble processing these two events so close to each other. One event was a memorial for an unexpected death that tore apart a marriage of several decades. The other is the celebration of hope for a marriage to last decades. For the marriage I'm reading I Corinthians 13. It's the passage that tells us that love is patient and love is kind, it does not envy and does not boast. But near the end it says this:
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (vs12)
The word for "dimly" is actually the word "enigma." What we see now in the world when it comes to love is just an enigma. A riddle. A difficult question. A conundrum. It's like we are looking at love's reflection through foggy glass, and what we experience is the best we can see.
My difficulty is separating these two events in my mind: the funeral and the wedding. Unless the happy couple to be is as lucky as the old couple in Ovid's Metamorphosis, one of them will have to live without the other for some period of time. (The old couple in the tale was give one wish, and they wished to die at the same time.) Have I been a fool to miss this sad point of love for this long in my life? Or is it better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all?
I think the thing my mind is most drawn to is this longing for love in my life, and maybe a fear of losing it. Lewis did say that he was surprised that grief felt so much like fear. But I have a need to be loved and I have a need to give love. And it's a need. Maybe the answer to the Enigma is God himself. Maybe all the community, and family, and friends, and my wife are all ways that God is revealing my need for Love. And the funeral makes me realize that God himself will eventually have to be the source of love in all of these relationships, as his love replaces someone who is lost from the world, maybe me. Is God enough? Or do I have to outlive the world? I guess that wouldn't work either.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (vs12)
The word for "dimly" is actually the word "enigma." What we see now in the world when it comes to love is just an enigma. A riddle. A difficult question. A conundrum. It's like we are looking at love's reflection through foggy glass, and what we experience is the best we can see.
My difficulty is separating these two events in my mind: the funeral and the wedding. Unless the happy couple to be is as lucky as the old couple in Ovid's Metamorphosis, one of them will have to live without the other for some period of time. (The old couple in the tale was give one wish, and they wished to die at the same time.) Have I been a fool to miss this sad point of love for this long in my life? Or is it better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all?
I think the thing my mind is most drawn to is this longing for love in my life, and maybe a fear of losing it. Lewis did say that he was surprised that grief felt so much like fear. But I have a need to be loved and I have a need to give love. And it's a need. Maybe the answer to the Enigma is God himself. Maybe all the community, and family, and friends, and my wife are all ways that God is revealing my need for Love. And the funeral makes me realize that God himself will eventually have to be the source of love in all of these relationships, as his love replaces someone who is lost from the world, maybe me. Is God enough? Or do I have to outlive the world? I guess that wouldn't work either.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Up and Running
I have a car that won't start. Actually I jump started it this morning for about the 5th time, and now its been running ever since. I don't know if I'm brave enough to go out and stop the thing. If it won't start I'll be stuck here at church. Everybody that comes in is asking whose car is running though.
I wonder if this says something about faith. I don't know anything about the battery...really. I don't even know if there is something else wrong or if its just the battery or both. You non-mechanics our there will know what I'm talking about. But I have no faith to stop my car engine. I have no faith in my car.
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Heb 11:1) This passage leads into the story of who God is. It tells us the history of how God has acted in the world and the history of how the faithful have trusted in God. I guess the real truth is that I cannot hope in my car. It has let me down. I can take my chances, but hope has no assurance. The question for me now is, have I ever trusted God like I'm about to trust my car. Have I ever "turned off the engine." Do I have faith in Him to come through. Do I have hope and conviction that he can start something in me that I cannot?
I'm gonna go turn off the engine now.
I wonder if this says something about faith. I don't know anything about the battery...really. I don't even know if there is something else wrong or if its just the battery or both. You non-mechanics our there will know what I'm talking about. But I have no faith to stop my car engine. I have no faith in my car.
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Heb 11:1) This passage leads into the story of who God is. It tells us the history of how God has acted in the world and the history of how the faithful have trusted in God. I guess the real truth is that I cannot hope in my car. It has let me down. I can take my chances, but hope has no assurance. The question for me now is, have I ever trusted God like I'm about to trust my car. Have I ever "turned off the engine." Do I have faith in Him to come through. Do I have hope and conviction that he can start something in me that I cannot?
I'm gonna go turn off the engine now.
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