Dear sisters and brothers,
How often do we hear that blood is thicker than water? What does this cliche mean? Of course literally blood is thicker than water, it carries a lot of our biological story in it, so it is more than just two parts hydrogen one part oxygen, it would be thicker. (Although with all the stuff we put in our water now adays, who knows if it still is thinner than blood, but this isn't an ecological blog. For one i am not at all qualified to talk about the environment and two i have my hands full trying to explain and grasp God...)
Anyway. Blood is thicker than water, why do we say that? Because we assume that the bondage between sister, brother, mother, or father, (plus extended family), supercedes the sometimes shallow and thin relationships between friends, colleagues, associates, etc. Right? Our familial ties stand strong, no matter what, in most cases.
But is that the way of God? When told about his family being outside waiting and wanting to see Him, Jesus replied, "Who are my sisters and brothers and mother?" And in essence Jesus ignores His own blood. He leaves them outside, looking in. I dont know about anyone else, but i have a strong sense if i did that, my mother would string me up and make sure i realized to never do that again. Not so with Jesus.
Instead Jesus points to the people standing with Him, gathered around Him, and Jesus says, these are my sisters, my brothers, and my mother. Then Jesus adds a footnote, and whoever does the will of my Father is also my sister or brother or mother. What does this mean?
I see at least two dimensions/ responses to this statement.
A. If we do what Jesus did, and if we have no idea what that is, we need to read the Gospels more. Anyway. If we do what Jesus did, if we live as He lived, if we love as He loved, if we serve as He served, and if we heal as He healed, then we will be part of this amazing family anchored in Jesus. He will point to us and say there is my sister. He will point to us and say there is my brother. And He will point to us and say, over there, feeding that hungry person, yeah that's my mother. If we do and act and exist as Jesus; we will be His family.
B. If we dont? Well I see it as an either or kind of thing. Either we are in or we are out. If living like Jesus, following His teachings, loving the unlovable, forgiving our enemies, praying for those that persecute you, if these things get us into the Jesus family tree, then it seems to stand that not doing these things will keep the door shut on us. What do you think?
Perhaps an example is needed. In Ohio there is a public high school that dominates high school wrestling, not just in Ohio, but nationally: Graham High School. When/if you go to a wrestling tournament, where Graham is present, you can tell Graham kids by a lot than the singlet they wear. Their style of wrestling. Their confidence. Their ascension to the top. And their tenacity to win. But also by the cheers when they win or lose. You see Graham wrestling has a way of polarizing wrestling fans. Either you sit in awe of their amazing accomplishments, where i find myself, or you boo them because they are simply dominating and will continue to do so. Either way you know Graham kids when you see them. They are part and parcel of the extended Graham wrestling tree, and they carry that tradition on, just like we are to be anchored in the tree of Jesus and carry on His tradition.
Are we? Does our tree bear fruit? Is the public, those hurting specifically, flocking to us seeking answers, healing, acceptance, and God? These are the markers of sisters, brothers, and mothers of Jesus. Which are we? Amen.
Shalom,
jerry
Friday, January 28, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Are we empty?
Dear Family...
Daniel loves stickers. In fact he loves them so much that the time will come when we hope to use stickers as a motivation tool to make good choices; i will let you know, i am sure, how that works out for us. But he loves stickers. LOVES THEM!
So i bought him a sticker book, by the way it took me a long time to find this sticker book, but i was as giddy as a kid opening gifts on Christmas when i found it. It is an ocean book full of the fish and mammals one finds in the oceans, and you stick the picture of the animal on the appropriate page; it helped him learn a lot about sea life. I was glowing watching him tear through the book, putting down the stickers, and laughing hysterically through it all. Daniel was happy, and i was proud of him.
But then he came to an empty page. It should be said that there were only a limited number of stickers, just enough to accentuate the books literary pages, but when Daniel found the empty page, he began ripping the stickers off and pasting them on the blank sheet. I didn't want to stop him, because he was creating something artistic, at least in his mind. But as i sat there and watched him empty the page of stickers and overwhelming a blank sheet, i realized something. We don't like emptiness.
We have an empty room; we clutter it with junk. We have a blank wall; we decorate it with pictures, paitings, or whatever we can find to turn what we deem boring into colorful and life-giving. Its not only visual, though, is it? How many of us are ok with silence? What do we do when we sit with someone, and there is nothing but complete silence? Who breaks the awkward feelings first? Who cuts through the veil of silence with a song, a word, or a joke? Someone will, because we have to clutter our lives, whether visually or audibly.
But it is more than that too. Jesus tells the parable of the man who was freed from a demon, only to have that demon return, finding the house empty, and completely destroying the man, making the man worse off than what he had been before the exorcism. Why? The man's house was clean. In order. And he had found a way to be at peace with the emptiness, so how did the demons get the will to destroy him?
Because when it comes to our souls, our lives, our beings, we have to fill it with something or we are just shallow zombies that belong in a movie being chased around by someone who likes to double pump us. We are more than clones or shells. There is something of tangible depth in each of us, and if we find ourselves chained to an addiction or haunted by a demon, and God frees us, but we don't fill that new freedom with God, we become an empty shell, a zombie.
The danger of zombieland? Demons destroy zombies for sport. But it doesn't matter if we are recovering from an addiction or demon possession; we can inhabit zombieland when and if we do not engage God, actively, on a regular basis. We can and do get stuck in ruts of daily routines and grinds, while missing out on the vitality and beauty of God, which is all around us. When we become zombies; God becomes colorless at worse, grey at best. So when God frees us from whatever our demon might be; we have to make an intentional effort to spend our lives conversing with God, studying God's word, and loving God's children. When that happens, like Daniel decorating the blank page, God adds so much color to our lives that we become that new creation.
Being new is always better than being a zombie, besides who wants to be hunted by Woody Harrelson anyway? Amen.
Shalom,
jerry
Daniel loves stickers. In fact he loves them so much that the time will come when we hope to use stickers as a motivation tool to make good choices; i will let you know, i am sure, how that works out for us. But he loves stickers. LOVES THEM!
So i bought him a sticker book, by the way it took me a long time to find this sticker book, but i was as giddy as a kid opening gifts on Christmas when i found it. It is an ocean book full of the fish and mammals one finds in the oceans, and you stick the picture of the animal on the appropriate page; it helped him learn a lot about sea life. I was glowing watching him tear through the book, putting down the stickers, and laughing hysterically through it all. Daniel was happy, and i was proud of him.
But then he came to an empty page. It should be said that there were only a limited number of stickers, just enough to accentuate the books literary pages, but when Daniel found the empty page, he began ripping the stickers off and pasting them on the blank sheet. I didn't want to stop him, because he was creating something artistic, at least in his mind. But as i sat there and watched him empty the page of stickers and overwhelming a blank sheet, i realized something. We don't like emptiness.
We have an empty room; we clutter it with junk. We have a blank wall; we decorate it with pictures, paitings, or whatever we can find to turn what we deem boring into colorful and life-giving. Its not only visual, though, is it? How many of us are ok with silence? What do we do when we sit with someone, and there is nothing but complete silence? Who breaks the awkward feelings first? Who cuts through the veil of silence with a song, a word, or a joke? Someone will, because we have to clutter our lives, whether visually or audibly.
But it is more than that too. Jesus tells the parable of the man who was freed from a demon, only to have that demon return, finding the house empty, and completely destroying the man, making the man worse off than what he had been before the exorcism. Why? The man's house was clean. In order. And he had found a way to be at peace with the emptiness, so how did the demons get the will to destroy him?
Because when it comes to our souls, our lives, our beings, we have to fill it with something or we are just shallow zombies that belong in a movie being chased around by someone who likes to double pump us. We are more than clones or shells. There is something of tangible depth in each of us, and if we find ourselves chained to an addiction or haunted by a demon, and God frees us, but we don't fill that new freedom with God, we become an empty shell, a zombie.
The danger of zombieland? Demons destroy zombies for sport. But it doesn't matter if we are recovering from an addiction or demon possession; we can inhabit zombieland when and if we do not engage God, actively, on a regular basis. We can and do get stuck in ruts of daily routines and grinds, while missing out on the vitality and beauty of God, which is all around us. When we become zombies; God becomes colorless at worse, grey at best. So when God frees us from whatever our demon might be; we have to make an intentional effort to spend our lives conversing with God, studying God's word, and loving God's children. When that happens, like Daniel decorating the blank page, God adds so much color to our lives that we become that new creation.
Being new is always better than being a zombie, besides who wants to be hunted by Woody Harrelson anyway? Amen.
Shalom,
jerry
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Whose side?
Dear family,
The other day i was watching a football game, between the San Francisco 49ers and some other team. I can't remember who they were playing, because the other team quickly became insignificant. Why? Because the cameras quickly panned over the 49er's sideline where the head coach, Mike Singletary, was yelling, big time, at his quarterback, Troy Smith. It got so heated, between the two, that Smith's old friend, Ted Ginn, had to come over and throw a towel in Smith's face to defuse the confrontation. It was drama at its finest.
And as i rehearse the scene, it doesn't shock me that San Francisco is terrible. They are a terrible team. They have loads of talent, no quarterback, but they are atrocious. They horrid. Why? Im sure there are more reasons than what i can name, and since i am not a football analyst or expert, i dont want to act like i have a clue, but it seems to me that one of the core issues is they dont like each other. They aren't a team. They are fighting against one another, and if a team cant stand together; they can't win.
This is true for all team sports, but it is also true for any business, school, or church. If the people are not united, under the vision, purpose, future of the organization; the organization is doomed, period. No living, breathing, organic structure can survive when it is fighting against itself. It cannot and will not survive, thrive, or grow. It will, on the other hand, in the image of the fig tree, whither and die.
The conflicts can have many layers, because we are dealing with people, and we are a complex animal. We all have opinions, and we think that our opinions are always valid and worthy of sharing, whether they are or not. We want to be heard, and we rarely take into account the affect or impact our words might have to the larger body, and that, my friends, leads to discord, disunity, and sideline fights between leaders. The victims of the discord: everyone.
But on the other hand, a team, a business, a school, and especially a church, united together, standing arm and arm under the same umbrella, loving, caring, and ministering to one another will build a house that not even the winds of Katrina could blow away. United we can withstand the hurricanes of this world. Fighting against each other, well it doesn't even take a cool breeze to shake us.
Perhaps the most revealing truth is this: God calls us to unite, in His Name, for His glory. And if we can't do that, if we are at odds on how to do that or even if we should, what does our future hold? The good is this: the coach for the 49ers was fired, but God doesn't fire His children. He gives them ample opportunity to do what He asks of them, and when they do, no matter how long it takes, God does amazing things.
One road leads to brokenness and confusion.
One road leads to revelation, healing, and unity.
Which one sounds more attractive? Are we choosing the right road? Are we willling to do what is necessary to stay the path? Amen.
Shalom,
jerry
The other day i was watching a football game, between the San Francisco 49ers and some other team. I can't remember who they were playing, because the other team quickly became insignificant. Why? Because the cameras quickly panned over the 49er's sideline where the head coach, Mike Singletary, was yelling, big time, at his quarterback, Troy Smith. It got so heated, between the two, that Smith's old friend, Ted Ginn, had to come over and throw a towel in Smith's face to defuse the confrontation. It was drama at its finest.
And as i rehearse the scene, it doesn't shock me that San Francisco is terrible. They are a terrible team. They have loads of talent, no quarterback, but they are atrocious. They horrid. Why? Im sure there are more reasons than what i can name, and since i am not a football analyst or expert, i dont want to act like i have a clue, but it seems to me that one of the core issues is they dont like each other. They aren't a team. They are fighting against one another, and if a team cant stand together; they can't win.
This is true for all team sports, but it is also true for any business, school, or church. If the people are not united, under the vision, purpose, future of the organization; the organization is doomed, period. No living, breathing, organic structure can survive when it is fighting against itself. It cannot and will not survive, thrive, or grow. It will, on the other hand, in the image of the fig tree, whither and die.
The conflicts can have many layers, because we are dealing with people, and we are a complex animal. We all have opinions, and we think that our opinions are always valid and worthy of sharing, whether they are or not. We want to be heard, and we rarely take into account the affect or impact our words might have to the larger body, and that, my friends, leads to discord, disunity, and sideline fights between leaders. The victims of the discord: everyone.
But on the other hand, a team, a business, a school, and especially a church, united together, standing arm and arm under the same umbrella, loving, caring, and ministering to one another will build a house that not even the winds of Katrina could blow away. United we can withstand the hurricanes of this world. Fighting against each other, well it doesn't even take a cool breeze to shake us.
Perhaps the most revealing truth is this: God calls us to unite, in His Name, for His glory. And if we can't do that, if we are at odds on how to do that or even if we should, what does our future hold? The good is this: the coach for the 49ers was fired, but God doesn't fire His children. He gives them ample opportunity to do what He asks of them, and when they do, no matter how long it takes, God does amazing things.
One road leads to brokenness and confusion.
One road leads to revelation, healing, and unity.
Which one sounds more attractive? Are we choosing the right road? Are we willling to do what is necessary to stay the path? Amen.
Shalom,
jerry
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Are we chosen?
Dear Family,
Most of us are familiar with the story of Heifer International, right? We know that Dan West was from Pleasant Hill, Ohio, and that he was traveling through Spain, after World War I and witnessed some painful poverty; his response was to create a minister to meet the needs of the hungry, all over the world. Heifer works by giving a community/family a cow, with the education and understanding on how to utilize that cow to the fullest: milk and more cows, etc. Heifer has grown to include all livestock and grains as well, so that they can, literally, turn hunger around. And it all started because West saw a need and felt chosen to meet that need.
Did he wealth? No.
Did he have experience with starting ministries? Maybe.
Did he face hurdle after hurdle, naysayer after naysayer? Absolutely.
But in the end, because he felt such a strong conviction to do something about hunger, Heifer International, which started as a Church of the Brethren ministry, has outgrown the denominations ability to run it. One cow, one seed planted created a history of change.
Jesus seems to point to the reality that he was chosen to change lives. In Matthew 12 verses 15-21; Jesus gives His clear defense why Jesus was chosen. Listen to powerful truths, "I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations." "In his name the nations will put their hope." These are markers of how we are to know that Jesus was God's chosen Messiah. Notice there is nothing about moral purity. Law abiding obedience. Powerful army. Deep pockets/balanced budgets. Nope. According to Matthew's hearing of Jesus, the Messiah will be known by: nations having hope, justice flowing, and Jesus' work wont stop until, justice becomes victorious. Justice which could and should include peace. Hope that things are not always going to be this way. Justice says all people have value. Hope suggests that God's people will do something about it.
If this is how we are to know that Jesus is God's chosen, how are people to know that we follow Jesus? How are we proving God's love as truth? And do people who run across us suggest that our work, like Dan West, gives them hope? Brings justice? Or do we still have work to do?
Naysayers will always exist, especially in the church. They have always been here, and they will always be here. We can't let their negativity and lack of vision and faith stop us from moving forward. It is time, like Dan West did, to change the world. It is time for the West Milton Church of the Brethren to have such a powerful impact on the world that we grow beyond our walls, our district, our state, and our denomination. It is time for the people to know hope and experience justice, because we are doing what Jesus did. Amen.
Shalom,
jerry
Most of us are familiar with the story of Heifer International, right? We know that Dan West was from Pleasant Hill, Ohio, and that he was traveling through Spain, after World War I and witnessed some painful poverty; his response was to create a minister to meet the needs of the hungry, all over the world. Heifer works by giving a community/family a cow, with the education and understanding on how to utilize that cow to the fullest: milk and more cows, etc. Heifer has grown to include all livestock and grains as well, so that they can, literally, turn hunger around. And it all started because West saw a need and felt chosen to meet that need.
Did he wealth? No.
Did he have experience with starting ministries? Maybe.
Did he face hurdle after hurdle, naysayer after naysayer? Absolutely.
But in the end, because he felt such a strong conviction to do something about hunger, Heifer International, which started as a Church of the Brethren ministry, has outgrown the denominations ability to run it. One cow, one seed planted created a history of change.
Jesus seems to point to the reality that he was chosen to change lives. In Matthew 12 verses 15-21; Jesus gives His clear defense why Jesus was chosen. Listen to powerful truths, "I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations." "In his name the nations will put their hope." These are markers of how we are to know that Jesus was God's chosen Messiah. Notice there is nothing about moral purity. Law abiding obedience. Powerful army. Deep pockets/balanced budgets. Nope. According to Matthew's hearing of Jesus, the Messiah will be known by: nations having hope, justice flowing, and Jesus' work wont stop until, justice becomes victorious. Justice which could and should include peace. Hope that things are not always going to be this way. Justice says all people have value. Hope suggests that God's people will do something about it.
If this is how we are to know that Jesus is God's chosen, how are people to know that we follow Jesus? How are we proving God's love as truth? And do people who run across us suggest that our work, like Dan West, gives them hope? Brings justice? Or do we still have work to do?
Naysayers will always exist, especially in the church. They have always been here, and they will always be here. We can't let their negativity and lack of vision and faith stop us from moving forward. It is time, like Dan West did, to change the world. It is time for the West Milton Church of the Brethren to have such a powerful impact on the world that we grow beyond our walls, our district, our state, and our denomination. It is time for the people to know hope and experience justice, because we are doing what Jesus did. Amen.
Shalom,
jerry
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