Elders Part 2: Making Decisions about Making Decisions

Most of the time, when men become elders, they have very little idea of what things are going to be like.  What should they expect in meetings? What's expected from them outside of the meeting room? What kinds of questions are people going to start asking them that they never would have heard before? What do you do when your thoughts are on the fringe? It can all be shocking at first, and it takes a little while before it begins to feel somewhat normal.  I've heard a lot of men say it was at least six months or a year before it felt normal to them—even two years is common!Typically, churches add elders in batches, and since a new batch can take a little while to adjust, they often assimilate into the way the group already does things, going with the flow while they learn to swim.  Commonly being a part of an eldership is a moderating force on individuals, bringing them towards a center of thought. That's mainly healthy and appropriate, part of the way the Spirit runs the church, but there is at least one by product of that process which is potentially negative.It means it's difficult for newer elders to influence the process of leadership.  Now, I think they soon enough can have a substantial impact on the direction or content of leadership, affecting the kinds of decisions that get made and the vision that the leadership begins to develop. However, it can be extremely difficult for them to have influence on the way vision is formed and communicated, and the way decisions are made. Changing the way decisions get made is much more difficult than changing the kinds of conclusions themselves.  But which is more critical?There is a great amount of diversity in the kinds of elderships that exist in churches, and the kinds of processes they use to lead the churches they serve. But I think it's useful for all of them to think occasionally about the types of practices they use, and how they could be made better.  We've done just a little bit of that here at Cedar Lane, and I remember being in a couple of cycles where that happened at PV.  It's a tough process to do honestly, but there are a couple of things to think about that can make it easier.1. Does our process match our personnel? The tendency of elderships to change in waves or batches means that it can be helpful to periodically look at the way decisions are made and see if it matches the current group of elders.  What is the best way for the group to communicate?  When is the best time to meet, what should the meetings look like, is there somebody particularly gifted to chair the meetings? All of those questions could easily change with the make-up of the group.2. Do we have appropriate ways to reach consensus, express dissent, and/or make decisions? Some groups of elders work together for so long that the process gets blurry and even less formal than necessary because the elders easily predict the thoughts and actions of the others. Hence, proposals that wouldn't achieve the necessary support aren't seriously brought up or seriously considered, and the role of the dissenter fades away a bit. That's unfortunate, because the right within the group for a person to express dissent is significant and healthy. That's not at all to say that because of one dissenting voice a decision can't be made, but the expression of dissent still enriches a good leadership. Protecting the balance between the place for expressed dissent, the desire to have consensus when possible, and the need to sometimes make decisions that override dissent, is important in creating good leadership processes.3. Does our process move at an appropriate pace? Does it move too quickly, and bypass time for discernment and prayer?  Does it fail to leave time to outside people that need to be considered?  Or, does it move frustratingly slow? Does failure to prepare for discussion lead to decisions being pushed back through meeting cycles endlessly?  Does it fail to respond to issues quickly enough to be fair to the people affected?4. Is there room for the spirit in our process? Do we have a chance to meditate on scripture and the state of the church? Does the meeting give a chance for the elders to really practice spiritual discernment, even when that presents ambiguities? Have we given thought to how this works with the leadership as a group?None of that is to suggest that the administrative tasks of being a shepherd are primary or that the whole role revolves around meetings—it is so much more than that, and much of the important stuff happens outside the conference room as shepherds work in the lives of people.  But these processes should not be ignored, because they can be such a source of encouragement or disillusionment that they can affect those other pastoral roles. They shape how elders think of their role and the work of the spirit in their life and in the church. The effect can be negative—I have no doubt that the church as a whole has lost many good shepherds because of their frustration with unhealthy processes. On the other hand, it's been my good experience to see many men greatly encouraged by healthy, prayerful processes.(I'm writing this within the contexts of the Church of Christ, although I imagine it will be somewhat useful to those who use different language for their leadership systems.)

Mama Esther

When I was a kid, our extended family always went over to Mama Esther's house on Christmas Eve. She was my great-grandmother, the matriarch of the Flippo side of my family, which has always been quite definitive for me and how I think about family.  It was a huge crowd, with eight fully formed branches. There's a big family cookbook that was made sometime in the 90's, and my copy of it is something like a manual for southern cooking.The bulking stack that this company makes has intrigued me for a while, so I decided to man up and just buy the stack. As you know, a pile is just a group of supplements sold together, sometimes at a lower price. It's great food with a lot of soul, but if you only eat food out of it, you're health insurance rates are going to go up. It'll probably kill you, but you'll die happy. It's old school and kind of awesome, like most of my family is.According to business insurance claims miami fl, successful business and property owners, as well as their managers, focus on their goals, objectives and day-to-day operations. That includes understanding the market, recognizing new opportunities and managing costs. Learn more atwww.ecpaclaims.comIn the front of the book, before the recipes, there are pages and pages of family stories. I love reading these, and really can't help but get a little choked up reading them sometimes. Alternatively, some of them really crack me up, like the story of my uncles burying a mule. (Seriously, I'm going to have to post that one sometime. It needs to be on the internet.)The parts about Mama Esther are some of the parts that really choke me up sometimes. By the time I knew her, she was the ancient, respected matriarch—I remember her as an almost otherworldly presence, due to be treated with the utmost reverence. I remember that well, the sense of her aura, the respect that she was so freely given by everyone in the family when we were around her. When I read these old stories, all of that makes so much sense.Mama Esther was born in December 1911, and she married young (16), which meant she only had a ninth grade education. In October of 1944, she gave birth to her eighth child. Two months later her Father died, and then in February 1945, her husband died in an industrial accident.  She was 33 years old.That's right. At 33 years old (my age), she became a widow with eight children. By all accounts, she dug in with an unbelievable amount of grit and determination. She eventually became a nurse, but that doesn't even start to describe how hard she worked to make it. In our family there is a long and deep current of persistence/stubbornness that I think is all traced to that part of Mama Esther. The woman just didn't give up, and that ethic is worked down deep into the bones of her descendants.  One of her daughters wrote later, "We are named Flippos, but whatever standards and values we may have in the way of courage, strength, or work ethic —as well as some of our faults—are all Mama Esther."Reading these stories is incredibly challenging to me. (Seriously, I have trouble when Kelly leaves me with the girls for a couple of days, and she pulled off the single mom role with EIGHT kids at home?) I can't help but be proud of that heritage. It brings out the best in me, and challenges me to become more than I am. She was an incredible woman.Near the end of her life she was in the hospital, having had a series of strokes. Her family got a call early in the morning, and were told that she had fallen out of bed. when they got to the hospital and asked her what happened, she is said to have replied, "See, you can do anything when you put your mind into it. It nearly took me all night to get out of that bed."Yeah, that's the kind of spirit I want to have. Never give up.

Motherhood and Mystery—A Sermon for Mother's Day

This past week has been an unusual one. Preparing for the sermon has not been about deep exegesis, but deep participation.Kelly, apparently knowing full well that I was unprepared to preach for mother's day—being a man who understands almost nothing about the subject, graciously offered me the opportunity to deepen my understanding while she went to the beach this week. That's right—for nearly a week I've been flying solo with the girls, which is of course a joke you can understand only if you know both me and the girls in question. Indeed, today's short sermon is mostly due to the fact that I have to get home and clean up before she gets back later tonight.Mothers are amazing. It is well and good that today is a day marked off to say thank you to all those mothers out there, the stay at home moms, the working moms, the single moms, the struggling and victorious moms who give so much of themselves to their families, fulfilling the sacrifice of Christ in the most humble and incredible ways. To you all we say, "Thank you. We could not be who we are without your love and sacrifice."The Bible has much to say about motherhood. The story of redemption is full of many stories of women, women who took down and raised up kings, who preserved the people of God and who opened the way for exodus, conquest, and redemption. Along the way, many of these stories (though not all!) are stories of women who worked, wept, and waited for children—women who saw their place in the story of God as being related to their calling as mothers. That's not at all to suggest that this was a single, homogenous sort of work. Indeed, stories such as Sarah, Rebecca, Hannah, Mary, Elizabeth, Bathsheba, Ruth, Jochebed and Zipporah testify to the diversity of paths that may all be called, faithfully, "motherhood". "Motherhood" mysteriously takes many forms, as each person who finds that role to be part of her story works out what it means in her own context, in the face of her own challenges and amidst her own blessings. We do motherhood a disservice when we try to make it take one form. Indeed, no two moms are any more alike than any two sons or daughters. Mothers, be free, not to become just like the other moms you see, but what has called you to be in the life of your family. Learn from the example and wisdom of other women as well as you can, but do not try to become them. God did not give your children to them, but placed them in your care, entrusted them to you. You honor that trust not by simply imitating others, but by seeking out the gifts and blessings that you can uniquely offer your children. That freedom is not license to be irresponsible (this is just my way!) but is an immense challenge, that by struggling, collecting wisdom, and discerning what is right and faithful you can become exactly the mother God created you to be rather than a copy of someone else.God gives us different mothers because we all have different needs and challenges. Some of us struggle to understand boundaries and responsibility, some of us struggle to find our independence. Some children need to be coaxed into hitting the books, some need to be coaxed out of them from time to time. Some of us need more help making friendships, some of us need more help understanding what it means to have boundaries in our relationships. Different mothers do things differently, and part of the challenge in this role—like in many of the things God calls us to— is figuring out what it means to do it as you. what does it mean to take all the things that make you unique and fit them to the unique challenges posed by your situation. Motherhood, as a calling, is intensely personal. But that doesn't mean it's all about you. Rather, if I have one challenge to give you today, it's to learn the mystery that as personal as your calling is, it is not all about you. In fact, in the call to motherhood we can clearly see the challenge of what it means to be called by God to do anything, namely that we must learn to live as though the world does not revolve around us. In accepting any call of God we lay down any claim to our own self-interests, and place ourselves at God's disposal. Hear that well: when I say that motherhood is not about you, I do not mean that it is all about your children, either. Rather, it is all about God. What you want or desire, as well as what your children want or desire, is not as important as participating in God's story and mission.Mothers do well when they teach their kids that the world revolves around neither the mother or the child, but for the sake of God's glory and honor. In motherhood, you participate with God in his work to redeem the world, by teaching your children to hear and follow God. By providing for their needs you can become for them both the means and a symbol of his gracious provision in their life. By your speaking and living what you see in the scriptures, God's word can again become incarnate before your children's eyes, so that faith can take on flesh and become a part of the world made up of car pools and summer walks, the world of crazy schedules and bedtime stories, the world of soccer practice and lost shin guards. Your participation with God makes you a missionary to a world of crayons and swim meets, to the foreign lands of sidewalk chalk and middle school cafeterias.Becoming a mother may not be the only expression of your role in God's mission, but it can be a powerful one, filled with the miracles of supper and found shoes, the hard tasks of homework and the perils of prom. Paul in his shipwrecks was in no place as strange as those corners of the world a mother's minivan takes her on her missionary journeys, and his heartbreak over the Corinthians scarcely matches the tears any mother sheds over the sorrows of the children God places in their hands.Mothers, may God bless your work, not because it is easy or rewarding, but because it is His work, because it is part of His mission, for the sake of His glory.  For your calling to be a mother is not about you, or even your children. It is one place where, mysteriously, we become co-workers with God, his ambassadors of reconciliation. Motherhood is about God, and God's work in the world. You may say about your work as mothers what Paul mysteriously says about his own ministry (2 Cor. 6:1), "As we work together with him...". This is the mystery of life, the mystery of ministry, the mystery of motherhood. It is a partnership with God, something that he gives us to do, but something that he also does with you and through you. In motherhood, you participate in God's work. May we all listen to the call of God, so that wherever he bids us to join him, we may joyfully and faithfully follow, for the sake of his glory.Amen.  

Living Resurrection—A Sermon from Mark 16:1-8

It is John's gospel that tells us that if all the things that Jesus did while on earth were written down, the whole world wouldn't have been able to hold all the books. Nonetheless, God chose to give us four books, not so that we could hear more stories, but so we could learn different things, sometimes from different versions of the same story. The resurrection story is like that. Four different versions of the story each teach us different aspects of what the resurrection means to us.John's gospel, in telling the resurrection story seems to stress, among other things, how the resurrection leads us to believing in Jesus. "These things were written so that you might believe" the gospel tells us about its own mission, and indeed the post-resurrection stories in John certainly highlight the disciples' journey into faith in the resurrected Jesus. Most paradigmatic for that within the fourth gospel is the story of Thomas. Thomas's story begins when the risen Jesus appears to the disciples who are gathered together—all except Thomas, that is. when Thomas shows up, Jesus has gone, and he finds their story incredulous. He declares that he won't believe it until he sees it for himself—and that is exactly what happens. This whole episode is highlighted by Jesus' declaration to Thomas that there is an even greater blessing in store for those who are able to believe without seeing. It's the gospel's way of acknowledging that what it asks of us, namely belief, isn't easy. But it's important, because believing in Jesus is ultimately the way to truth and the realization of God's mission in our lives and the world.  So John's story of resurrection is all about belief. Luke's account tells a different story. The fundamental story is not a crisis of belief, but of confusion. There's a story of two disciples who are walking to a town called Emmaus, and as they walk, they (unknowingly) meet the resurrected Jesus. Jesus finds them confused and so he painstakingly explains to them everything that had happened, and how the scriptures had described it. In Luke's story, we don't just find belief in the resurrection story, but its within the resurrection that we find understanding. It's the resurrected Jesus who reinterprets the world for us, who explains the way things really are. Everything that before seemed definitive, things like death and power, are reinterpreted and re-understood as we walk with the risen Jesus. We understand in the resurrection.Matthew's version of resurrection is very brief. It culminates with Jesus giving the disciples the great commission. the risen Jesus sends the disciples out. Jesus doesn't just want us to understand his resurrection, but to understand the entire world awaits resurrection, that it all waits to be drawn back into God's mission, back to the way things are really supposed to be. In Matthew, the resurrection isn't just about rewriting the past, it's about rewriting the future. The resurrected Jesus sends us out on his mission.So we believe in the resurrection, we understand the resurrection, and we find our mission in the resurrection. So say John, Luke, and Matthew. But, of course, that leaves Mark.If Mark's version makes you uncomfortable, that's okay.  It has a long history of doing that.Before we can really start into what Mark's story, we have to make a note from textual criticism, not something I usually do overtly from the pulpit. If you notice in Mark 16, between verses 8 and 9 there is probably some sort of a note about how some early manuscripts leave out everything from verses 9. What scholars think happened is that those verses were added, probably late in the second century, by someone who thought that the original ending in verse 8 left too much unsaid. We think that someone added the longer ending so that it would look more like what we read in Matthew and Luke.That may seem somewhat offensive, but I can understand why they would do that, because the earlier, shorter reading is hard to swallow. We don't normally notice how hard this ending is because we typically read the gospels as a blended whole, and fail to pick up on the differences between the four versions. but this is one of those places where the differences are so stark and real that they are worth noticing.  Here is Mark's version:

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mark 16:1-8)

And that's it. No gathered disciples meeting with Jesus, not even a pair of disciples who have a conversation with the risen Lord. Instead, Mark tells a story about two who receive the news of the resurrection from an apparent angel, and who go home confused and afraid. Mark leaves us not just astonished at the empty tomb and the announcement of Jesus's resurrection, but astonished at the response of these two witnesses. The Marys are so paralyzed by fear, that they don't even fulfill the mission given to them. This short and tough version is worth listening too, because it tells the truth—we are challenged by resurrection. Perhaps that isn't even about whether or not the women believed or not—don't fear and belief go together more often than we like to admit? Yet the gospel closes seemingly asking us, what will we do with the story? Will we tell and live the resurrection story, or will we just go back to our homes in paralysed fear. the resurrection story isn't passive, just waiting to be believed, but it asks something of us. Ultimately, what we believe about Jesus changes what we must believe about ourselves and the world around us. How we understand Jesus changes the way we understand everything, all of it given new perspective by the resurrection. The mission that Jesus sends us on awaits a response, but it isn't a foregone conclusion. We can still go home, shut the doors, and act as if nothing happened. Perhaps that's what we want to do. The resurrection of Jesus simply doesn't allow us to go along with our lives in a business as usual mode of being. If we find Jesus's teachings such as the sermon on the mount challenging, they become ever more so when we realize that they are issued by the resurrected Jesus. In Revelation, it is from this very position—the resurrected Lord–that Jesus speaks to the churches, commanding them to turn away from idolatry and mediocrity, to abandon the things that pull our love away from him, to embrace suffering and anticipate the recreation of the world in him.  Jesus says all this after announcing himself, saying, "I am the First and the Last, and the Living one. I died and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys to death and Hades." The resurrected Jesus will not be appeased by lukewarm faith, he will not be followed from a distance, halfheartedly. He demands all that we are, and he demands it from the position of being the Resurrected One. And yet, he doesn't demand it as an absent Lord, but as one who is present and who works within to accomplish the mission he gives us. Paul prays that the Ephesians would become aware that the same power that resurrected Jesus works within us. We must learn to live in that place, not just of the awareness of Jesus's resurrection, but aware of our own. We live in the resurrection. We live in the resurrection now, the new world made possible by Jesus's defeat of death and his power to recreate the world is actively at work in us, changing us, restoring his kingdom in us, and calling us to help him restore the world. That is our gospel, or at least our version of Jesus's gospel. The call of Jesus to come and live in the resurrection now, to believe it, to understand ourselves anew in it, and to take on the mission that it sends us on, with the power of the risen Christ working those things into reality within us—that is our witness to the world.  That is our resurrection story. But, hear from Mark this truth: all resurrection stories don't get told. May it not be so with ours.Amen.

Elders Part 1: The Value of Growing, Caring Shepherds

(Note: My faith tradition, the Churches of Christ, are organized into autonomous churches governed by multiple elders. In this series, I'm going to write some of my observations about how those elderships work, or don't. If your faith tradition has another organizational practice, don't let my language freak you out too much. I would imagine much of what is written here about our leadership structure would be useful across other church leadership structures.)Elderships have a bad reputation, and sometimes for good reason. Churches with dysfunctional leadership teams get burned by terrible decision making, the failure to spiritually care for hurting people, and harsh judgments. Beyond that, there is a thick layer of communication problems that have built up over time, and elderships that have made good and wise decisions have often struggled to nail the follow-up and communication elements of leadership, intensifying distrust and creating distance between themselves and the congregations with which they have been entrusted.One of the reasons leaving Little Rock was a tough decision for us was that Kelly and I were aware of how common those problems are, and also extremely comfortable with the leadership team at Pleasant Valley. Perfect they most certainly are not, but they are largely functional, and are committed to fulfilling their role in that body as well as they can.  They are extremely prayerful and wise.That made it hard for us to leave, because we were afraid to trade in the blessings of that highly functional group of shepherds for the unknown element of wherever we would land! Frankly, it was terrifying to walk away from that group of shepherds who had shown us much love and blessed us with much wise counsel over the years. So far, those fears have been misplaced, and we’ve found the eldership here at Cedar Lane to be extremely supportive and helpful. I see in these men the same dedication to spiritual care that I loved and admired at PV, and a commitment to growing in all the various ways they show leadership throughout the church.Leaders committed to their own personal growth and development into caring shepherds model these things for their churches. They foster two extremely important cultural climates within the church. The first is a culture of personal compassion, where people actively seek to care for other people. In a community dominated by this culture, people extend hospitality to their brothers and sisters, making space for them in their lives. They seek ways to help others carry their burdens, and take initiative to get involved with people on the level of their broken and hurting hearts.  When elders take compassion on as their primary job, it helps everybody else understand that this is really the church’s job. We create a culture of compassion. Secondly, eldership have a unique opportunity to model a culture of growth for the church. When elders commit to  growing and demonstrate that they are in full pursuit of what it means for them to live as disciples, they foster those kinds of attitudes within the church. On the other hand, how many eldership out there are communicating, intentionally or not, that their own lives as disciples is a fixed entity? How many are communicating that discipleship is about being stable and static? Growth is essential to our lives as disciples, it is a fundamental part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus—somebody that is learning from him what it means to live in the kingdom of God. Elders committed to their own growth as disciples create an expectation within the church that we are all growing, that discipleship is an active, ongoing process. These two factors could make a tremendous difference in churches across the country. I’ve been in two churches where it already is making a difference. And I know that those two elderships are just getting started.

Ministry

Most people don’t feel good. Most people aren’t happy, and aren’t satisfied. For me, being a preacher starts with that gloomy fact, with that realization that most of the people I see walking around the world are terribly unhappy. And, it’s not without reason, either. A lot of people fight to keep depressing realities out of the forefront of their mind. Their families are crazy, and their friendships are shallow. Their jobs are unfulfilling, don’t provide what they really want financially, or are at risk of being taken away. Their life is slowly draining away, minute by minute, and it becomes increasingly obvious that they don’t really have much to show for it. And on top of that, most nights there isn’t even anything good on TV.I suppose in the back of my mind, a major part of what I’m doing in life is that simple—I'm trying to help people feel good. Sometimes that means ministry is about helping them get right with God, because when you’re out of line with God, it jacks up everything else. Sometimes it means helping people find something to do with themselves besides just turning the page on the calendar. Ministry means helping them see that there can be more to their life than chasing paychecks, boys, girls, and what passes for glory these days. Sometimes it means helping people pick up the pieces when they lose something like their job or their family. Sometimes it is full of the really hard work of helping people figure out what the next step is for them to take responsibility for their life, whether that means fixing or abandoning some old relationships or trying to figure out how they’re going to pay off the credit card. Lots of times ministry is about giving people a place where they feel like they belong.Sometimes, and maybe most of the time, ministry for me means just trying to help people believe that somebody else in the universe cares what happens to them. I guess I believe that if people think I care about them, it’ll help them believe that God cares about them. That seems to me like an important thing to do.I got into this business because I had a chance, early in life, to feel what it was like to help somebody get right, to help them untangle stuff in their mind just a little bit, and feel loved. I wanted to help everybody feel like that.  I suppose that’s what I’ll try to do again tomorrow.

Thoughts on Bread and Wine, Church and Covenant

Today I've been working on catching up on the sermon audio part of the site, with the recordings from the (Sermon on the) Plain, and James.Additionally, I also had these recordings from the day where we recently focused more on the communion part of our worship.  It seemed better to post them here, so enjoy these thoughts on Bread, and these thoughts on Cup and Covenant.

Team

This week, I've had the wonderful pleasure of hanging out a bit with Kyle. He's part of a missionary group in Peru that our church sponsors. It was cool to hear him talk about the other side of a pretty cool team dynamic.When we first came to Tullahoma, it became quickly apparent to us that the church had a pretty unusual relationship with this particular missionary team. They had been in the field for two years, but the church still talked about their work eagerly, intensely. Beyond talk, they seemed to really value relationships with the team members, and evidenced their desire to continue to invest in those relationship, talking about them as if they were church members who had just been out of town for the weekend.  People kept up with what was going on, and were sincerely excited whenever a bit of news came by of things going well. The upcoming furlough visits were anticipated not just like some sort of Return on Investment presentation, but like reunions with much loved friends—or family.  (And not just because half the team literally is family either.)All that speaks well of the degree of community developed between the missionary families and the church. Beyond that, what's really significant—and not accidental, is that a lot of people at Cedar Lane really seem to understand the goals and tactics of the team in Peru. They buy into the idea that we are all part of the team, that this is something that the church does together.  This particular mission team has helped people understand the part they can play, and helped them connect to the mission of God, both in Peru and, I think, here in Tullahoma. They've been provoked to think about mission not just as something we fund, but something we are and do.The partnerships between missionaries and the churches that sponsor them are complicated things, and I'm far from an expert in how those relationships should be developed and nurtured. But I do understand this: Whenever people become connected to the mission of God, it's a win. We need more things like this, places where people get a better understanding of how they can connect with the mission of God. When we try to "do" mission without making that connection, we waste a huge discipleship opportunity.Glad to hang out with you, Kyle and Larissa.  Greg and Megan, y'all come home soon.

Unpolluted, Unstained

Growing up, I got the sense that when the church talked about being "different from the world", that was more or less code for a fairly defined set of behaviors, things like cussing, drinking, and sexual activity.  (Maybe smoking, but that was on the fence, at least for anyone over 35 years old.)  Those things represented something like distinctive marks of christian nonbehavior, another layer in addition to the other marks of good people generally agreed upon by society at large: honesty, respect for other people's property, etc. I don't honestly know that anybody was really saying that, or if it was just the way my immature mind heard it all, but for a long while I felt like this was a pretty good summary of what people thought it meant be "different than the world" as a Christian. The back half of James 1:27 would have been given that idea words in my young mind—it was a text I often heard in church.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself  from being polluted by the world.

In my understanding, this text gave a kind of summary of faith, with two main ideas.  Do positive things (care for widows and orphans), and don't do negative things ("keep oneself from being polluted by the world" Read: don't drink, cuss, or have sex.). Such was my youthful understanding of holiness.  For a preadolescent kid, before fermented or sexual opportunity presented themselves, the bar was admittedly low.  Still, resisting the small amount of pressure I got from wanting to fit in with my friends in the neighborhood who skillfully cursed while we played basketball and kick the can generally made me feel like I was doing what God wanted me to do. As I grew older and was able to generally fend off the other two behaviors in the unholy trinity of worldly behavior, I reinforced within myself the idea that being a Christian person really wasn't all that tough.  And truthfully, unless you have some addictions or at least some deeply grooved habits, that brand of christianity really isn't that tough. I mean, when it really comes down to it, you can do whatever the heck you want, as long as you say heck instead of hell. I suppose I could have lived like that for a long time without much problem, except maybe boredom.When I started really listening to the Bible, though, I started getting a radically different kind of idea about what God wanted me to be like.  Take that verse in James, for instance.  That earlier line of interpretation of what it means to be polluted by the world is pretty easy to understand in the context of our american church culture.  But it doesn't really ask the important interpretive question, "What did James mean by polluted by the world?" And when you really ask that question, you don't just get an ambiguous idea of what it means, because James spends a good part of his letter describing what he seems to see as the influence of the world.  Indeed, the section right after this verse, in James 2, rails against viewing rich people as more valuable than poor people.  At the end of chapter 3, he talks about wisdom that's worldly as being marked by envy and selfishness.  That discussion that trails into the beginning of chapter 4 where being covetous about physical wealth (and perhaps the honor and respect that came with it) sparks James to ask, "Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God."  His rant goes throughout that chapter, and in the back half of chapter four and the beginning of chapter five he uses some pretty flaming rhetoric to talk about the wealthy who presume to set their own agendas without concern for God's authority over their existence or concern for the needs of the poor! (Seriously, that language in chapter 5 is smoking hot. No wonder it is probably the least publicly read part of James.) When you read all of that together, you can begin to put some content in James's phrase "keep oneself from being polluted by the world". It's not just a few nitpicky behaviors that James is concerned about. James critiques the whole assumption of the world that we have no responsibility for other people, that our wealth is our own to do with as we please. To the extent that I adopt that mentality from Wealth Line, I have allowed the world to pollute my faith.James's statement about true religion here isn't a divided concept. Widows and orphans were an important group of "the poor" for the Jewish mind, people who were defenseless and vulnerable without the financial or legal help of other people. Caring for them is a specific expression of what people who are unpolluted by the world do. It is a way people show that they don't think of their possessions as truly their own.See, true religion is inconvenient.  Not because of all those church meetings that keep us from sleeping in on Sundays, or it might refine my beverage selection. It forces me to reevaluate the way I think about stuff, and my relationship with it.  It forces me to take responsibility for the poor and the way they are treated in my society. It keeps me from just doing whatever the heck I want. It challenges my "wants", my desires, my greed, as motivations for my life.It raises the bar.There are certain behaviors that we have come to think of as producing something like a moral stain, a sin grease mark that has to be dealt with, and we often think about the biblical language of defilement in those terms almost exclusively. But we could take a significant step forward in understanding our faith if we can grasp that the real stains on our souls are not just behavioral slip-ups.  They are the deep stains of materialism, the deep stains of our thought patterns and habits, colored by the assumptions of the world around us. The opposite of being polluted by the world is precisely what James mentions in the first half of 1:27, the care for the widows and orphans. It's what the Hebrew Bible refers to as "justice and righteousness", a way of living in the world that respects the dignity of each of our neighbors as an image bearer of God. In the spirit of James, the practice of justice and righteousness is not just the maintaining the absence of evil—it is about the active love of our neighbors that goes beyond words and is fulfilled in action.

Do Not Judge—A Sermon from Luke 6:35-42

I told somebody this past week that the sermon for today could really only last a few seconds. Don't get your hopes up, it's going to be longer than that, but it seems like I should be able to just say something like, "Jesus says, 'Do not judge.'  So, stop doing it. Amen, let's stand and sing."It's not as though the command is unfamiliar to us.  The text we're dealing with is in Luke 6:35-42.

"But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." And he also told them this parable:  " Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will not they both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brothers eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye."

It's one of the most popular passages in the Christian Bible, well known among Christians and nonbelievers alike.  In fact, I don't know if there is any Christian ethic as respected by the outside world as "Do not judge."  Of course, the world is also acutely aware of our failure in following this command, and knows that while Jesus tells us not to judge, we are quite practiced in the art.  Unfortunately, it comes quite easily to us.Judgement against our friends, family, neighbors and strangers simmers deep within our hearts.  Occasionally it might pop out as gossip or a sharp word, but we try to police ourselves about that, because we know it sounds bad.  We don't want to be known as judgmental people, but truthfully, even when we don't actually say what we're thinking, it is just so easy to harbor our verdicts, the bitter condemnations of people around us, deep in our hearts.  We don't want to judge.  We know we're not supposed to, but it just comes so easily to us. One of the problems here is that we try to avoid judgmental behaviors without really working on judgmental attitudes. We try to catch that stuff before it gets out of our mouths, but really, by the time we get to that place we've really already lost the battle.  The mouth is just speaking out of the abundance of the heart, and it's the fact that all that condemnation is in our heart that is really the issue.  Our morality begins with our identity, or at least our understanding of our identity.  The way we understand ourselves controls the way we interact with other people and perceive them in powerful ways.  That said, there are two significant things I have come to understand about myself that, the more I internalize them, the more they help me escape my tendency to judge.   I want to share and confess here in the hopes that they can help you out as well.1.  I am not God. I know, it's a shocker. But, seriously, it's helpful for me to get in touch with the fact that I am not the sovereign lord of the universe. I believe people are accountable for the good and evil things they do in the world—but most of them aren't accountable to me. I didn't create anybody, and I'm not supremely powerful.  Beyond that, my failure to be God also means that I have a limited amount of knowledge and insight into people.  I don't understand the whole of anybody's situation, don't understand the different things in people's backgrounds that make them act the way they do.  I don't even understand why I do half the stuff I do, much less what's going on in anybody else's heart! So I will never the authority or information I need to pass judgment on anybody else.2.  Not only am I not God, but I also know that I am not perfect. Far from it, in fact.  Most people I know can confirm this, but of course I know it more truly than anybody else could possibly suspect.  After all, they can't see what's inside my heart.  I am, like the rest of you, a broken human being, a person whose heart has been twisted by sin and who is powerless to recover except for the grace of God.This is an important nuance to the world's criticism of the church as being too judgmental.  It wants to believe everything is alright. It's as if the world wants refuse our right to judge on the basis that everyone is basically equally good. But we refuse to judge on the opposite basis, because we know that everyone, including ourselves, is broken and sinful.I know, that because I'm not God and I'm not perfect, that I need grace from God. I need the grace of forgiveness and the grace that God gives to change and purify me. Truthfully, I need all the grace I can get.  And that self-awareness really heightens the shock of this text for me. How I give grace to people around me can actually affect how God gives grace to me? Whoa. That is an absolutely stunning idea, and as it becomes more firmly lodged in my mind, it has the power to really shape the kinds of things I harbor in my heart towards other people.Gratefully, though, I'm also aware that I receive grace from God! It's not like I'm merely aware of my sin, awaiting some pending judgement and trying to butter God up before he makes his decision. I live in the joy and awareness that God has already acted decisively to extend grace to me.Many of us live fairly aware of those two things, our need for grace and how we receive it.  But, we stop there, not realizing that those who need and receive grace from God are also called to learn grace from God. I want God to teach me how to treat others like Jesus treats me.For our community of faith, that really is the critical turn. So much of our worship and conversation revolves around what we need and receive, and how valuable it is to us.  But how much value do we place on what we are called to become?  How much do we value a gracious spirit? May God help us to honor those among us who cultivate that spirit, who become people of heroic forgiveness, who turn back any effort to condemn others from taking root in their own hearts.  May we value those who work hard to become merciful, just as our father is merciful, and may we become a place of grace for those who—like us—need to receive it.Amen.(This is part three of a series on the Sermon on the Plain. A list of the sermons and the audio recordings are here.)