The Spirit will show us truth

I love how Chong, in his Banner article, Truth Will Win describes his experience hosting a "no-topic-is-taboo discussion for students, which sounds a lot like the hopes we had at Campus Edge for Pub Theology: 

"Everyone had a fair voice in this forum. It was dialogue, not debate. I didn’t allow any harsh words or tones. I had a number of non-Christians, even ex-Christians, who not only kept returning every week but invited their non-Christian friends to attend. 

Rather than controlling the discussion, I trusted in the Holy Spirit’s guidance that the biblical truths shared would take root in the midst of other views. Sure, some of the opinions shared made me cringe. But I trusted that God’s truth would resonate more with people in the end. The Christians grew in their faith because they learned to answer for their beliefs. The non-Christians learned more about Christianity and the Bible in a safe, non-threatening, and uncensored environment."

There is much hope in trusting that the Spirit will convict people of truth. I can trust that the Spirit will use my efforts (and that of others) to share who God is with others, but I can also trust that God will also help me see where my understandings are incomplete. 

Called to find God's presence in our actual lives

I found Tish Harrison Warren's recent article in Christianity Today, "As a Pandemic Parent, God Calls Me to This Loud and Lonely Life | Christianity Today, to be both encouraging and challenging as she invites us to look for God in our lives today.

Warren shares how Nouwen retells, in The Genesee Diary, how he longs for God to show up 

“in such an intensive and convincing way” that Nouwen would let go of his idols and commit himself unconditionally to God. In response, the abbot is neither surprised nor impressed. “You want God to appear to you in the way your passions desire,” he says, “but these passions make you blind to his presence now.” He calls Nouwen—and me—to find God’s presence in the only place where it can be found: in our actual lives."

I find this challenging, because I find being present in my actual life hard at times. It's easier to imagine that - if only ' circumstances changed, I'd be able to be as holy and loving as I imagine I can be.

Yet, I also find it encouraging because I find it comforting to know that I'm not alone in my spiritual 'fantasies.' I also find it encouraging to be reminded that I do not have to wait for circumstances to be perfect to experience God's presence in my life. God is already here in the middle of my messy and imperfect life. 

In fact, as Warren notes, my messy and complicated life is an invitation to a different kind of spiritual discipline: 

"Typically, when I forsake spiritual practices like silence or solitude, I tend to conceive of it as a failure of discipline—like skipping a workout and eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s instead. But during Covidtide, having to frequently surrender these practices is its own kind of suffering. The call to notice God in the actual moment I’m in is therefore a call to meet him in suffering, however quotidian that pain may appear."

Enough time to waste?

Day care reopening has been the biggest shift in my life this past week. Time thus feels a bit more like a gift instead of something I have to carefully schedule. Time has also become something I can once again waste, which makes me feel guilty - how dare I waste this new gift from God?!? And yet, I also believe that God's gifts are abundant - and so there is enough even to waste it on sitting still, biking, reading, catching up, and ultimately resting. 

Your kingdom come, your will be done: theory vs reality

Awhile ago, Mockingbird posted an article by Grace Leuenberger about how the current situation reveals some of our assumptions about control. While we pray for God's will to be done, what we really want is to make the plans ourselves and then expect God to come through to make them good. As we continue to practice 'social distancing' (stay home, stay safe here in Michigan),

her words feel even more true today as I struggle with giving up some of my desires again today:

"Your kingdom come, your will be done. Many of us have prayed this prayer. But I wonder if I prayed it like it was a joke. True, but with an asterisk. True, but able to be retracted. True, but with a laugh. True, but. Maybe we’re finding out all of this—this life, this world, and the chaos of it all—really was about Christ and his kingdom. But the joke has turned out to be not so funny. Why? Because . . . I think many Americans—myself included—are seeing how accustomed we became to being king, how much we made our independence essential to our existence. . . . Maybe our independence is not essential to our wellbeing. Maybe travel is not the only way to see and understand more. Maybe investing in stocks and 401Ks isn’t the way to a secure future. Maybe the people we’ve looked past are the ones whose lives will point us most to Jesus. Maybe the prayers we only half meant are the prayers God will answer most clearly. Maybe these days will prove to be Kingdom-building, Kingdom-coming."

2 Kings 5 in the time of COVID-19

When I started washing my hands so much that they dried out for the first time in my life, I started pondering 2 Kings 5, especially v. 13 where Naaman's "servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”” 

The following are some of my thoughts: 

If I had been asked to do something hard,

I would have done it with conviction.

Especially if it meant saving someone’s life.

Luther argues that we are not to flee from plague.

We, especially us in ministry, are to ‘remain steadfast before the peril of death.’

Tending the sick would be like tending Christ himself. 

But instead I am asked to wash my hands again and again.

Singing some silly song so I do it long enough.

And to stay home and stay away from other people.

Where are the heroics in that?

It seems so little.

And even almost cowardly.

As if I’m afraid of illness and death.

Yet if it’s so little,

Why do I chafe under these requirements?

Why do I protest against it so strongly?

Why do I want to turn away in anger, like Naaman in 2 Kings 5?

If I had been commanded something difficult, would I have not done it?

How much more then, when only this little is being asked of me?

Wash, be clean, keep others clean.

Wash and be clean.

Rearrange the way you look at the world.

For Naaman, the command was an invitation.

Humble yourself,

wash yourself in the dirty river of this other country,

follow the seemingly arbitrary commands of this prophet and his God.

Recognize that all your best efforts cannot save you.

God alone does the impossible.

Wash your hands, stay home.

Let go of your plans.

Recognize how little control you have over the future.

Deny yourself

Trusting that God can use this seemingly small effort to save lives.

Naaman returns to the prophet healed.

Deeply thankful, ready to make a great sacrifice.

Except he is not allowed to pay for the gift he received.

A reminder again

that no matter how mighty we are

God does not need our help.

God meets us in our humanity

The gracious gift of a piece of earth so that we can align ourselves with God

While not needing to give up everything in our lives.

An ancient sort of technology.

Allowing Naaman to remain with those he cared about.

While continuing in thankfulness for the gift he received.

Our gifts today are internet, computers, zoom and Netflix,

Keeping us connected to those we love

Allowing us to keep meeting together.

For the request to stay home is hardly easy.

Being human means being in community.

The lack of physical presence

Requires each of us to go a little against who

We are created to be.

Naaman didn’t learn humility in a day.

It started with the quiet voice of a servant girl

And the humility required to listen to her.

It all began with a stranger.

A foreign captive in Naaman’s house.

Who spoke up and was heard

Who brought words of hope

A promise of the impossible

In a time when distancing makes helping hard

When every other could be a potential threat

And even those I love

Are disrupting the order of my life.

How does one keep loving and listening?

When I’m turning in on myself

With barely enough energy left over for me,

How do I care for those who are part of my communities?

my next door neighbors?

Let alone the foreigner

and the potential threat.

This illness that spreads through being connected.

How does my physical distance

Not become emotional and spiritual distance?

But that is not what the servant girl did.

She spoke up.

Naaman listened.

Elisha intervened.

God acted.

And so the impossible happened.

Stay at home. Help others.

It sounds so simple.

Yet, just like with Naaman, it asks so much more of us.

It sounds like nothing heroic,

except to throw my whole life into chaos

Rearranging all of our schedules,

Cancelling all my plans,

Confronting me with how little control I have,

Offering up my whole life to you.

The command has become the gift.

Let go of my efforts.

Trust in those of God.

And look forward to the day when this experience

Is behind us.

When we once again live fully in community.

And this experience is like the dirt that Naaman brought home.

A complicated piece of truth

To remind us of what we ought to be bowing down to.

Not our own control and plans.

But the one who controls all.

Finding words for the sadness

I know I am not the only one who has been crying in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Finding words to describe the sadness has been hard, though, as there are so many emotions present right now as we experience the chaos and challenges brought about through COVID-19. Emily Newton at the Mockingbird gives words to some of the many reasons we are crying:

We cry for the changes to our immediate daily lives and the growing pains that have come as a result. We cry because we are limited. We cry for the uncertainty, the fear, the anxiety present in our spaces, the isolation. We also cry for our world, healthcare workers, and the hospitalizations and deaths that have come and will continue to come, both afar and close to home.

We also cry because this crisis has brought about unexpected gifts: a recognition of the friendships and community I have, the joy brought to us from our small child (and my joy in hearing her interact with Matthijs), and the sense that I am using my gifts to pastor well and bring hope and comfort to people's lives. But all of these gifts do not erase the hardness of having normal life upended, being physically separated from others, or the loss of life that this illness has already brought and looks to be coming to people closer to me.

O Lord, how long will you forget [us]? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?

But I trust in your unfailing love.

Excerpts from Psalm 13 (NLT)

Remember you are dust

Once again I heard the words, "remember you are dust," when I received the ashes on Ash Wednesday. And then I witnessed our small daughter also receive ashes and hear the words that she is dust. She is now old enough to realize that this experience was unusual. As we returned to our pew, she kept looking at her father's forehead and mine, noticing the dark cross on them. She was clearly wondering and trying to figure out what was going on. To explain it to her, I told her that this cross means that we belong to Jesus. 

To be reminded that we are dust is to me a reminder that we belong to Jesus - and that our time together also belongs to God. My time on earth and her father's time on earth and even her time on earth is limited. No matter how hard I strive, how careful we all are, or no matter how much I wish it were otherwise, I cannot prevent us from being hurt or any of us from experiencing loss. That is a sobering thought: a humbling realization of my own human mortality. I'd rather live in denial. Yet, in remembering that we are dust, I am also pushed into recognizing how thankful I am for my life (and loved ones) and remembering how much I need to trust Jesus and take comfort in knowing that we do belong to Jesus.