Signs of Earth Looking More Like Heaven in 2022

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. The Gospel According to Matthew 6:10

Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. The Gospel According to Luke 7:21-22

1. The blind received sight: William Yoo’s book What Kind of Christianity: A History of Slavery and Anti-Black Racism in the Presbyterian Church was published in August. The first step of turning from sin and towards God is seeing the truth about ourselves and Yoo’s book tells the truth of our history as Presbyterians. (The truth will set us free, but first it will make us miserable. That’s okay.) And for the second year, anti-racism training was required for all clergy and other leaders in our Presbytery.
2. The lame walked: One of our churches purchased new shoes in December for the children in their rural county. This was the 35th year of this project and they collected enough donations to buy 700 pairs of shoes this month.
3. The lepers were cleansed: Ten of our congregations have showers and/or laundry facilities available for homeless neighbors.
4. The deaf heard: Technology grants were provided throughout our Presbytery to improve sound systems and the quality of online worship services.
5. The dead were raised: One of our churches made the faithful decision to close in June and the Presbytery invited a team to work with Give Impact to discern how this property could best be used to address needs in the community in the name of Jesus Christ. The team includes members of neighboring congregations, a member of the closed congregation, and several neighbors who aren’t affiliated with any church – all of whom love the community and want to resurrect that corner of Charlotte, NC. (A final decision will be made in 2023 by our Presbytery.)
6. The dead were raised: One of our pastors received a double lung transplant in 2022 and the very fact that this surgery is possible is a testimony to resurrection on earth. We thank God for the donor’s family, for the miracle of successful transplant surgery, and for this pastor’s new life.
7. Good news was shared with the poor: From pastoral care to strangers to inspirational sermons, from sharing money, water, food, housing to inviting neighbors to share what they have, from connecting over coffee to holding each other in prayer there was Good News shared with those who’ve experience every kind of poverty in 2022.

The examples of resurrection are countless. The mistakes were numerous. The grace was immeasurable. Thanking God for the past year.

What Winning Looked Like in 2022

“I won.” Logan Roy in the final episode of Succession, Season 3

HH and I hate-watched/love-watched Succession on HBO during his COVID recovery. No redeeming characters. Beautiful scenery. Excellent writing/acting. We were hooked.

Winning looks like many different things. For the parents of young children, winning is keeping them alive for another day. For grievers and addicts and desperately sad people, it’s about keeping ourselves alive for another day.

For a political party, winning means election success even if a problematic candidate prevailed. For the 1% winning involves even more wealth. For the Argentina National Team it’s 120 minutes and a four-round penalty-kick shootout for the championship.

“Love wins,” we say. This is a faith statement that can be applied to every life situation.

In these last days of the year, living as if love wins is the way to go. It feels great. It fills the soul with a pure power that tempers our fears and washes away our dread. It assumes there is something bigger than we are.

Whether we are dealing with deep grief or family estrangement or a wholly uncertain 2023, may we win in the end because we tried our best to love.

We Have Ignition! (Thanks Be to God)

It’s amazing what the Lord has let us learn. E.J. Edmiston

BSE attends a worship service called Ignite and the church’s website describes it this way:

Our vision is for the presence of God to ignite a movement of worship in us so infectious that it brings others with us into His presence. Responding in public worship is often where change begins; the change of a deepening personal relationship with God. Our weekly gatherings spark new spiritual relationships while refueling ones already established. 

I was thinking about Church Names and Worship Service Names and even Financial Grant Names that we come up with today in hopes of energizing The Church. Aspirational names I’ve come across lately include:

• Renovation – Where we get cleaned up and rewired? Yes please.
• Blaze – “This girl is on fire.” And eventually we all are.
• Amplify – Loud and getting louder.
• Power Surge – “It’s not a church. It’s a movement.“

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California announced this week that they had “achieved ignition” and I don’t know what that means but The Wall Street Journal is wary and The New York Times is pumped.

According to Nature, humans have created “a nuclear reaction that generates more energy than it consumes” which means that it’s possible that we could one day have “endless energy.” Goodbye fossil fuels forever. Hello healthier planet.

As I meet with people who love Jesus and serve the Church, I occasionally hear words like “ignite” but I more often hear words like “depleted” or “done.” Yes. Many of us are.

And yet in the year of our Lord 2022 and on the cusp of 2023, something amazing has happened in the creation God made that generates more energy than it consumes. Imagine this happening in The Church.

• Imagine that we experience more energy after the Middle School Retreat than we expended to create it.
• Imagine there is a surge of power after the Session Meeting instead of utter depletion.
• Imagine that we begin the new year feeling ignited rather than stone cold.

I don’t know how nuclear fusion works and I don’t know how spiritual ignition works, but the same God makes each possible. Even with my active cheerleader gene, I can’t make people excited about what God has done, is doing, can do. But we can be like the Livermore scientists by . . .

• Imagining what’s possible.
• Being patient (It’s still going to take at least a decade to tap this energy for everyone.)
• Telling everybody what we’ve already seen/learned/realized.

Enlivening our congregations has nothing to do with the names of our churches, our ministries, our worship services or our pastors. (Remind me to tell you the story about the pastor who changed his name to “Randy” the same Sunday his church changed their name to “Journey” because “they both sounded cooler.” The church still closed a couple years later.)

We can even call ourselves St. Luke’s Lutheran or First Presbyterian or Our Lady of the Lake and be “ignited” if we are authentic and genuinely humble regarding God’s love. Life is about who God is. We just need to pay attention and marvel and respond.

Image source.

An Invitation to Do Something Today

It happened on this date ten years ago.

First, read this.

If you are feeling enraged or hopeless or paralyzingly sad over the gun violence that continues to ravage our nation, please also take some great or small action today. Click here to find out who to pray for and what to support financially. Read about those who died and what they meant to people. Look at their faces and remember.

Some of the best advice regarding how to love and care for those who grieve comes from AAM and NMG who say essentially the same thing: Each of us gets to choreograph our own grieving. Please honor those who grieve by following their lead.

And although it feels pointless sometimes, we must continue to be activists against hate and misinformation.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Crying Over Beautiful Things

I’ve come to realize recently that I cry a lot, but I don’t, I don’t, I don’t cry over grief. Like, I’m not crying over the death of my father and my brothers and my mother or my other brother, or even the condition of the world or you know, or every sparrow that falls. I end up crying over beautiful things. Stephen Colbert in an interview with Anderson Cooper about grief

I remember a friend telling me that she couldn’t cry over the losses in her life because – if she started – she might never be able to stop. There had been an inordinate amount of ugliness in her childhood.

I get that. Who wants to be re-traumatized, which is what happens when we remember unspeakable pain? And yet, if we can’t cry over our deepest sorrows, I wonder if it keeps us from reaching the point when – like Stephen Colbert – we also can’t feel the joy of what’s deeply beautiful in this world. I wonder if part of spiritual maturity is having such gratitude for life that we cry more because of the beauty of what God has allowed us to witness than the shattering pain. Some moments are too sacred for words.

I pray that all of us – especially those who grieve – have those moments this week.

This is a crying week for me. Ten years ago today I was enjoying a Christmas staff party with Greek food in Chicago when my phone rang. Cindy had died in Virginia after a particularly nasty adventure with cancer. She had shared stories about her sorrows that made me marvel over her resilience. She had a lot of things to cry about, and yet we usually cried together because we were laughing so hard over the ridiculous things of life or marveling over the holy things of life. I can only feel joy today because her life was a testament to what can happen when people are treasured. The beauty of her life makes me want to weep with joy.

Ten years ago this Wednesday, the lives of innocent children and their teachers were stolen and subsequently their families were changed forever because of one of the most excruciating shootings in U.S. history.

Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. Jeremiah 31:15

That verse goes on to say “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; there is a reward for your work,” says the Lord: “they shall come back from the land of the enemy;  there is hope for your future,” says the Lord: “your children shall come back to their own country.”

When I consider the parents who lost their children ten years ago, I can’t imagine a reward that’s worth surviving one’s children. And yet, I believe that there is still hope in their future. I don’t know how it happens. Some human beings literally cannot survive the grief.

I trust that the God who knows our deepest pain in both life and death is immeasurably loving and the incarnation seals it for me. Why do I have this faith and others don’t? I don’t know. But having this faith makes me want to weep with joy.

Another podcast I really like is Kelly Corrigan Wonders and she often ends interviews with a series of questions like “When is the last time you cried?” The last time I cried was Saturday night watching this scene from Joe versus The Volcano. Joe’s got a terminal illness. He’s stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean with a woman whose life he has tried to save. And he prays:

Dear God, whose name I do not know – thank you for my life. I forgot how big . . . thank you. Thank you for my life.

God bless the grievers this week.

The Enemies List

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. ‘ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:43-45

A tip of the hat to retired PCUSA pastor Ruth Kent for inspiring me. In response to this post, Ruth commented:

This is similar to why I keep an “enemies” prayer list. Not just because Jesus says we should love our enemies and praying for them is one way to love them. It’s more selfish than that. Praying for enemies (however defined, personally, nationally, globally) changes me and my heart. I don’t spend as much emotional energy on negative — and useless — emotions, and can spend more on the good ones. Also, I really believe that some people are just so deeply damaged that no human agency can heal them. At the same time, it’s not passive — I do what I can to stop their abusive, hurtful, oppressive conduct.

Some Good Christians claim they have no enemies. This is clearly not true. We all have personal, national, or global enemies whether we would use that word or not. The person who gets on our last nerve. The political figure who triggers contempt. The global leader who threatens to obliterate the world.

We can stew or yell or express our fury on Twitter. We can also pray.

I do not wish to be best friends with my enemies, but I can pray that God is with them today, that God melts their hearts to do better, that God will bless them while also protecting me and the world from them.

Instead of preparing snarky strategies for dealing with difficult loved ones over the holidays, instead of trolling senators who spark our rage*, instead of losing sleep about global obliteration, we might try writing down an Enemies List and then praying for them. It’s actually selfish in that it heals our own souls. But I think it’s okay in this situation because Jesus commands it.

*It makes Jesus cry when we take delight in the sorrows of others. Please don’t.

Is It Possible for People to Change?

Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell from the 2022 movie “Spirited”

The Bible says “yes.” My therapist says “probably not.” In Scripture we are shown examples of people who changed over the course of their personal lamenting, confessing, repenting. Encounters with the Almighty – in any of those Three Persons (Creator, Christ, Holy Spirit) – will change a person.

And yet, in conversations with my therapist I’m told not to get my hopes up. (“It’s the hope that kills you,” as they say in Ted Lasso.) As many will go home for Christmas to spend time with parents and siblings, there is hope that Dad will finally be proud of me or Sister will not be so cruel or Grandma will not ask about my love life. As a pastor, I hear these stories and it puts a layer of dread on the holidays that are already dreadladen in other ways for so many people.

The movie “Spirited” asks the question, “Can people – particularly mean, selfish people – authentically change?” It’s a Christmas movie so you can guess the answer without watching it. (Note: I’ve now seen it twice and can’t decide if it’s really good or really not good.”)

Life is short.

For those of us who grieve during these weeks around all the holidays, there is abundant awareness that some we love are no longer here and we play numbers games in our heads: “I’ve now spent more Christmases without my parents than with them.” “This could be the last Christmas for ____.” Pro Tip: listen to Anderson Cooper’s podcast on grief here or wherever you get your podcasts. The Stephen Colbert episode is especially poignant.

My life experience has taught me that we need to address trauma that haunts us, bitterness that stifles us, and resentments that blacken our own souls. Many (most?) people die without resolving past hurts.

Life is too short to avoid dealing with @#^!. I’m not saying that we must continue to subject ourselves to abuse by acting that the things that obliterated our joy can or should be easily forgotten. I am saying that things can be different. We cannot change someone else, but we can change ourselves. And part of changing ourselves might include accepting the fact that ___ will never change and then make decisions around that.

All I want for Christmas is for all of us who are unhappily estranged to take steps to change this season. Not New Year’s Resolution kinds of changes that fall away by January 4th. I’m talking about therapy and prayer – not necessarily in that order.

Life can be different. But it takes the will and the effort to change. I pray that each of us has an encounter with the Holy that helps us where we need it.

Where “Woke” Goes to Live

“Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 5:14

“Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” The Gospel of Matthew 25:13

“Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” is a beautiful German hymn with lyrics based on the parable of the Ten Bridesmaids in Matthew 25. If only they had all stayed awake.

Waking up is one of the core themes of the Christian season of Advent. Wake up! Jesus is coming and we need to prepare. Wake up! We are called to do the work of Jesus: bringing good news to the poor, releasing those who are held captive, helping the blind see, and freeing those who are oppressed. (Note: If this is a political statement for you, note that Jesus said it first.)

The Church of Jesus Christ is called to be where “the woke” go to live and I’m not just talking about a physical place. I’m talking about a spiritual place.

Where do we live spiritually? In a hellhole of pessimism marked by hopelessness and utter darkness? In a perennially anxious state marked by constant handwringing over world circumstances? In a blindly naive land of privilege where God is good (to me) and all is well (with my world)? In the already/not yet reign of God?

One political figure has said repeatedly that his state is “where woke goes to die.” He is referring to the political usurping of the term “woke” meaning those embracing “Critical Race Theory.” I invite all who oppose “Critical Race Theory” to read The 1619 Project or What Kind of Christianity or The New Jim Crow or Tacit Racism or The Color of Mind or Waking Up White. These books were all written by historians or educators who have deeply researched and pondered issues of race in the United States of America. If you believe these books are wrongheaded, reading them will not sway your thinking. Go for it.

Jesus calls us to wake up from all that keeps us poor in spirit, enslaved by toxic systems, blind to the Truth, and oppressed by our own or other’s chains. Wake. Up. We are also called to wake up from those things we are and do that perpetuate oppression.

It’s in the Bible, Christians.

Imagine a Church of Jesus Christ where the woke live. It’s a place and a faith space where the world looks a little more like heaven on earth. It’s a place where the poor are seen and the mocked are loved and those held captive by cruel systems are freed and Jesus reigns. It’s good to be “woke.”

As a person of faith in Jesus Christ, I am not afraid of flag-burnings or even Bible burnings. I’m not afraid of looking at the painful stories of our nation’s history. I’m not afraid to look at my own family’s history of slave ownership or possible lynching participation. God calls us to lament and repent. And so that’s what I’m committed to do.

Wake up. Jesus is returning. Will we continue to celebrate blindness and oppression?

Image is sunrise over Jerusalem.

Reframing The Stories that Traumatize Us

In my first pastoral call, there was a family in town who’d gathered for Thanksgiving at Grandma’s House since it was difficult for her to travel. She was in her 80s and fragile. She lived just down the road from the church building.

After dinner prepared by her children and grandchildren, she announced that she was taking a nap. About two hours later, someone checked on her and found that Grandma had died in her sleep. There were several options for framing this family narrative:

Narrative One – What a great way to die – in your sleep after a feast with loved ones.

Narrative Two – Thanksgiving is forever ruined because it’s the day Grandma died.

• Narrative Two-A – I am so angry at Grandma for destroying Thanksgiving.
• Narrative Two-B – I’m furious at Mom for letting Grandma eat so much pie.
• Narrative Two-C – Why did Dad insist we all play Monopoly while Grandma napped? If we’d played Taboo, the game would have been shorter and someone would have checked on Grandma earlier.

Regrets and second-guesses and blaming ourselves and others can go on and on in our family storytelling – until somebody helps us see the story with a different perspective.

This is why we need therapists. They help us reframe our experiences – even those traumas that stay with us.

I’m not saying that trauma can be forgotten easily. I’m not saying that those who’ve traumatized us should be quickly forgiven without protecting ourselves from future anguish.

I’m saying that our perspective is not always the intended or true perspective. Sometimes what we saw and heard and remembered are not the whole story.

A brief “death note” was found on the phone of the Walmart shooter in Virginia last week which included these words: “I was harassed by idiots with low intelligence and a lack of wisdom. The associates gave me evil twisted grins, mocked me and celebrated my down fall the last day.” According to Walmart employees and victims’ family members, the fallen included “a kind man and loyal employee” (Randall Blevins), “an outgoing, social man who battled a brain condition and spent 10 years working at Walmart” (Brian Pendleton), and “a hardworking father of two” (Lorenzo Gamble.) The shooter, who was a supervisor, was considered both “overly aggressive” and “friendly” depending on who you ask. For another example, watch The Patient on Apple TV. There is a young man who sees every facial expression or comment as an offense against him by strangers and acquaintances. He becomes a serial killer.

I write these things today because many of us are angry, anxious, and unforgiving. Many of us have been traumatized by others via gaslighting, rumor, betrayal, and run-of-the-mill neglect. Some of us are upset enough to take out our grief and fury on others.

Things can be different. With Advent we welcome new possibilities.

Starting with a God willing to show up in human skin, we are invited to reframe our own stories. That parent who was “never home” when we were children might have been working extra hard to provide for us. That teacher who picked on us might have been kicking our backsides to reach our potential. That family story we tell might be retold in a way that brings relief and even joy.

Again, there are indeed mean and cruel people in the world. And there are also people who’ve tried to do their best but their best disappoints. And there are also people who’ve royally screwed up which impacted our lives too.

Reframing the stories of our lives might help us move forward.

How wonderful that that grandmother died on Thanksgiving Day after celebrating a feast with the people she loves the most. Thanks be to God.

Image Source.

Random Love

Random hate is an everyday part of our culture. FBC sent me this and I wish I knew who wrote it:

Gay people aren’t shooting up straight clubs.

Black people aren’t shooting up white grocery stores.

Latinos aren’t shooting up Walmarts.

Jewish people aren’t shooting up Christian churches.

The violence is coming from one demographic: Alt-Right Radicalized Men.

And I would add that their violence is random.

They are being fed a diet of hate and misinformation by commentators posing as journalists, power hungry people posing as political leaders, and false preachers posing as Jesus followers.

Only God can overcome this depth of evil with good. And yet we are instruments in God’s work. What if we replaced random violence with random love. Not just “random acts of kindness” but authentic random love. That barrista who looks exhausted or that grocery store clerk who looks bored or that dog walker who looks cold – just look them in the eye and thank God for them. And smile. And maybe say a little prayer to yourself that they would feel loved today.

I am thankful for the array of people who live in this world God made. I’m especially thankful when I find myself in situations that look like the Reign of God in the world. How about you?

And if you know who wrote the piece above, please let us know.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Image source (and the article is good too.)