May we not be of one heart?

As we continue our never-ending journey of spiritual discovery, My Lovely Wife and I joined a new Sunday school class last week that, for now at least, is studying the foundations of the United Methodist Church. We are reading a book called Revival: Faith as Wesley Lived It by pastor and theologian Adam Hamilton. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014)

In the first chapter, we learn about John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, his family background in the context of 18th-century British religious and political history, and the beginnings of his path and ministry.

One particular passage struck a chord with me. Rather than tell you about it, I will quote it here at length:

In his introduction to Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, Wesley wrote these words that capture his spirit so well:

"Would to God that all the party names and unscriptural phrases and forms which have divided the Christian world were forgot; and that we might all agree to sit down together as humble, loving disciples, at the feet of our common Master, to hear his word, to imbibe his Spirit, and to transcribe his life in our own!"

In one of his most famous sermons, "Catholic Spirit," Wesley wrote, "Though we can't think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may." Wesley was calling his hearers to listen to those with whom they disagreed and to focus on what they shared in common. He was teaching them (and us!) to build bridges rather than walls. The word catholic is a bit confusing to some, but in this context it simply means "universal." It conveys the sense that the church, the body of Christ, is made up not only of people who are in my denomination or tribe but of all who call upon the name of Christ, even if they disagree on this or that point of doctrine.

The twenty-first century is as polarized as eighteenth-century England. We're not Tories and Whigs, conformists and dissenters, Anglicans and Puritans; we're Republicans and Democrats, fundamentalists and progressives, liberals and conservatives. Yet divisiveness and conflict drain us of our spiritual vitality and leave many today longing for a different approach, an approach like Wesley's catholic spirit.

How do we embrace such an approach today? Paul described it when he admonished the believers in Philippi, who themselves were divided, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:3-5). To the Christians at Corinth, who also were deeply divided, Paul noted that love was the defining characteristic of Christian life, and then he went on to describe the character of Christian love: "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Having a spirit like Wesley's today means that we assume the best of others, not the worst. We give them the benefit of the doubt. We speak well of others, not poorly. We treat them as we hope to be treated. We listen more and talk less. We walk in other people's shoes and try to understand what they believe and why. This does not mean we give up our convictions, but it does mean we test them. I've found that, after listening to another person's point of view, some ideas I was sure of were not nearly so convincing. I've found that, on more than one occasion, views that seemed utterly indefensible actually were quite convincing when I moved beyond my assumptions and took the time to listen.

I've also learned that it's easy to be adamantly opposed to a viewpoint or position -- be it theological, ethical, or political -- when no one I deeply care about holds such views. But as I get to know those with views different from my own and come to care about them and consider them my friends, it is hard to be adamantly opposed to their views.

Among the defining characteristics of the Christian life are humility, grace, and love. The test of our faith comes in how we respond to others and how willing we are to listen to, learn from, and love them.

What do you think?

Gracism in Georgia

It was a beautiful service Sunday at North Decatur United Methodist Church. A baby girl, backed by a huge entourage of family and friends, was baptized. A beaming Pastor Dalton Rushing tenderly carried her up and down the aisles as the whole congregation sang a sweet lullaby to her:

Caroline, Caroline, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We this day do all agree a child of God you'll always be. 
Caroline, Caroline, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We your family love you so, we vow to help your faith to grow.
Caroline, Caroline, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We are here to say this day that we will help you on your way.
Caroline, Caroline, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
And if you should tire or cry, then we will sing this lullaby.
Caroline, Caroline, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.

I'm new to the Methodist tradition, so I don't know if this is standard baptism procedure. Regardless, it was beautiful and touching.

After the service ended, I walked through the narthex to say hello to the pastor in the open doorway before heading home. Dalton said he had a book for me and asked me to wait a few minutes while he finished greeting folks, so I stepped out onto the church's large concrete porch in the autumn warmth.

A tall, well-presented young man was standing just behind and to Dalton's left on the porch. The young man immediately greeted me with a firm handshake and a smile and introduced himself as George. He was clean-shaven, had a conservative but attractive haircut under a navy blue ball cap, and flashed a set of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. He was impressive. I guessed he was in his early 20s.

We exchanged polite small talk as people continued to file out of the church. Because I am new to this church and still haven't met many people, I asked George if he attended there regularly.

"No sir," he responded earnestly. "Actually, I'm homeless and I was waiting right over there for the bus, but I needed to use the bathroom so I came into the church."

I tried not to look as stunned as I felt as he continued his matter-of-fact description of his day so far:

Go team!

It seems almost quaint today, but in its time, the TV sitcom Seinfeld broke new ground in the way it addressed how straight people misunderstand gays and lesbians. In a 1995 episode titled "The Beard," Elaine decides she wants to start dating an attractive man she knows. Only problem: He's gay. Undaunted, Elaine has a plan. She talks it over with Jerry at the coffee shop:*

Jerry: Not conversion. You're thinking conversion?

Elaine: Well, it did occur to me.

Jerry: You think you can get him to just change teams? He's not going to suddenly switch sides. Forget about it.

Elaine: Why? Is it irrevocable?

Jerry: Because when you join that team it's not a whim. He likes his team. He's set with that team.

Elaine: We've got a good team.

Jerry: Yeah, we do. We do have a good team.

Elaine: Why can't he play for us?

Jerry: They're only comfortable with *their* equipment.

Elaine: We just got along *so* great.

Jerry: Of course you did. Everyone gets along great when there's no possibility of sex.

Elaine: No, no, no, I sensed something. I did sense something. I perceived a possibility, Jerry.

Jerry: You realize you're venturing into uncharted waters.

Elaine: I realize that.

Jerry: Are you that desperate?

Elaine: Yes I am.

A culture of unforgiveness

Why can't we forgive in this country? And why, if we brag that this is such a great country, don't we believe in one of the things that set it apart: our justice system?

We live in an age of hatred, rage and unforgiveness, and I believe this attitude holds us back as a society and as a nation.

We're all human. We all make mistakes. We all screw up. We all hurt someone sometime. And a few of us commit crimes.

We have a system in this country wherein a person who commits a crime is tried in public by a presumably impartial jury; if the person is convicted, he or she receives punishment proportionate to the crime, according to law. When the sentence is completed, the convicted person can go on with his or her life.

But that doesn't seem to be good enough for an awful lot of people. At a gut level, they want more. They want blood. And they never, ever want someone who has committed a crime to stop suffering consequences for it.

Look at Michael Vick. I'm not a big fan of pro football, and I don't think athletes or celebrities deserve any special treatment. I also am an animal lover. I cry at those Sarah McLaughlin Humane Society commercials.

What Vick did was horrible and disgusting. Dogfighting is vile, ugly and inhumane. I believe it offends God.

But we have laws to deal with dogfighting, and Vick was tried and punished according to those laws. He admitted his guilt, he did his time, and he paid his debt to society -- a debt that society (that's you and me) determined.

So why doesn't that settle it? Why can't people accept a "Paid in Full" stamp on Vick's rap sheet? Why do they want him banned from the NFL, banned from society, banned from making a living for the rest of his life?

Why are the provisions of the law not good enough for people who are mad at someone for breaking the law? It's as if we agree to sell someone a car for $5,000, they pay the $5,000, and after they've driven off we tell everyone they stole the car from us. "No, what I meant was I wanted them to pay me $5,000 every day for the rest of their life."

Many, if not most, companies won't hire anyone with a felony record, even if that person has fulfilled all the court's requirements for punishment and compensation. A former boss of mine once cackled over a job application on which the applicant checked "Yes" in response to the question "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" "This guy is too stupid to get a job," the boss told me. I guess he would have preferred for the applicant to lie.

Even when the offense doesn't rise to the level of lawbreaking, no response by the offender ever seems adequate for the offended.

Someone says something offensive or does something unethical and is called on it. The offender realizes his or her error and offers a sincere, specific, public apology. The person might also be fired or resign. "Not good enough!" the offended party cries.

What exactly do you want? You want the person who offended you to be totally abased, to be publicly humiliated, to lose everything he owns, to never have an opportunity to gain it back, and, ultimately, to die by stoning, followed by the body being burned in the public square. There. Satisfied?

Is that the American way? It certainly isn't Christ's way.

We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Those of us who have accepted Jesus as our savior have received eternal forgiveness for all our sins -- past present and future, no matter how heinous. By Christ's death on the cross, our debt is paid in full. How then can we who have been forgiven of so much be so unforgiving? How can we who enjoy such abundant grace offer no grace to our neighbors who are just like us?

Punishment has to fit the crime. Penalties have to have limits. At some point the creditor has to stamp the promissory note "Paid in Full." Refusal to do so places the unforgiving creditor in a position of superiority to God, a sin far greater than the original offense. How dare the forgiven not forgive?

Is there not a cause?

My brilliant pastor, Jentezen Franklin, this morning preached on the subject, "You need to get free of 'What's in it for me?'" He used the passage in 1 Samuel 17 where David's brothers and other men tell David what rewards would be given to the man who slays Goliath.

These guys were all focused on the prizes -- great riches, the king's daughter in marriage, and tax-free living for life. But all that talk didn't sit well with David, who said, "Is there not a cause?"

By that David meant there was a better reason than personal rewards to go after Goliath. This thug was insulting their God and everyone who believed in him. What more incentive did they need?

My pastor then lit into preachers who do things not for the glory of God and furtherance of his kingdom, but for self-aggrandizement and income opportunities. Then he turned it onto the rest of us, saying the cause of God's kingdom should be enough motivation to get us to serve others; we shouldn't need any other incentives, such as payment, recognition or fame. Amen and amen.

He kept repeating the line, "You need to get free of 'What's in it for me?'" And it got me thinking about the health-care town hall screamers and the current crop of conservatives in general. (By the way, Franklin himself is clearly pretty conservative, so this message surprised me a little, but he didn't take it where I'm about to.)

This very morning on the way to church I had been saying to My Lovely Wife that the theme of these protests makes me sick. I saw on TV a woman with a look of disgust say of President Obama's proposed plan, "It takes away from those who have been paying for health care for years [and] reduces our health care so that everyone else can have it."

Yes, and isn't that horrible? I mean, I got mine, so SCREW everybody else! Am I my brother's keeper? Why should I be expected to give up a tiny fraction of the abundance that I have so that my neighbor who has nothing might have something?

I've never really been able to put my finger on what it is about conservatives that nettles me so much, but this is it exactly: They go on and on about how great America is, America love it or leave it, God bless America, but they're not willing to give anything up to help their fellow Americans. Anyone who suggests Americans pool their resources to help out the least of these is decried as a SOCIALIST!

I wonder if any of them have ever read the last four verses of the second chapter of Acts. The first Christians were total pinkos.

I voted for Obama in the primary election, but I liked Hillary Clinton's health-care reform plan better. So I'm not suggesting everyone should just go for Obama's plan; it definitely needs work. What I am saying is that it appalls me that people think it's OK to let their fellow Americans -- even children -- go without health care.

Believe it or not, I actually liked George W. Bush for a minute when he was running for president in 2000. That line about ushering in an era of "compassionate conservatism" got my attention. But those words turned out to be not only a lie, but an oxymoron. In today's American politics, conservatism is by definition the opposite of compassionate. It is service only to oneself, regardless of the cost to others.

What's in it for me? How about a better night's sleep knowing some child won't die because her parents' insurance company didn't want to pay for a liver transplant? How about fewer people hitting you up for money while you're walking downtown because medical bills will no longer drive anyone into homelessness? How about the avoidance of a rebuke at the Judgment Seat of Christ when he says, "Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me."

Revelation led

We have a lot of electronic billboards around here, the ones that look like giant TV screens and change the ad every few seconds.

One near the Georgia Dome in Atlanta is owned by a company called Revelation LED, which promotes itself on a couple of the panels in the rotation.

The first time I saw the promo's big, bold logo -- REVELATION|LED -- I thought it was an ad for some church. I chuckled when I realized my mistake, but I thought, "What a great slogan that would be for a church: REVELATION LED."

It reminds me of a quote by Israel Houghton on his "New Season" CD (my favorite Christian album):

"Seasons are not governed by clocks and calendars. Seasons are governed by revelation and truth."

It's a great line in a great monologue that gets my blood pumping every time. Hear it for yourself in context in the following file. The monologue follows the song, which is quite beautiful and was co-written by Free Chapel's worship leader, Ricardo Sanchez. The monologue begins at 6:18 of the clip.

Kingdom Coaches

I saw a tour bus today with the name Kingdom Coach emblazoned on the sides and back. I like that name -- not necessarily for a bus company, but as a title for a person, a spiritual guide.

Two of my kingdom coaches are hurting right now. C.David, an inexhaustible font of encouragement and optimism, is mending rapidly from extensive surgery to remove a tumor in his belly; now he's learned he's going to need two chemotherapy treatments a week for six months. Sister Dorothy, who seems to have committed the entire Bible to memory and always calls up the perfect verse to address any concern, is in severe pain from a vascular problem in her feet.

God, please bless both of these my coaches, as well as all the others. They've helped you make me into the player I am today.

Women begetting badly

Matthew's genealogy of Jesus covers forty-and-two generations, but it mentions just five women -- and only four by name. The interesting and fun thing is that every one of those women was scandalous in some way.

Tamar had been married to Judah's son Er, but Er died. According to Hebrew custom, Er's brother Onan was supposed to take on Tamar as his wife to provide offspring for his late brother, but he failed to fulfill his duty. (Onan "wasted his seed on the ground," meaning he pulled out so Tamar wouldn't get pregnant; it is misunderstanding of this Scripture that has led many Christians to condemn masturbation, which in fact has nothing to do with this.)

As Tamar's father-in-law, it was Judah's duty to provide a man to help her conceive, but he reneged. So, Tamar tricked Judah into fulfilling this duty by disguising herself as a prostitute and getting him to sleep with her. When Tamar, no longer disguised, was found to be pregnant, Judah tried to have her burned at the stake. However, Tamar turned the tables by proving that Judah was the father, exposing him as a john and as a man who failed to fulfill his word or his duty.

Judah -- a son of Jacob and patriarch of the largest of the Twelve Tribes of Israel -- admitted in front of everyone, "She is more righteous than I." Tamar gave birth to twins, one of whom was Jesus' ancestor Perez.

Rahab was the mother of Boaz and great-grandmother of David, the greatest king Israel would have and a figure who in many ways was a precursor of Jesus. She was also a prostitute, but she helped the spies who scouted out the town of Jericho for Joshua.

Rahab's son Boaz married Ruth, who was not a Hebrew. She was a minority, a foreigner, a member of a different race, so to speak, but she became David's grandmother.

Next in line is a woman whom Matthew calls "Uriah's wife." Her name was Bathsheba, and David had a one-night stand with her while Uriah was off fighting a war for him. David married her after having Uriah killed. She eventually gave birth to Solomon, who succeeded David as king and was one of Jesus' forefathers.

The last scandalous woman on the list is a girl named Mary, who was an unwed teenage mother whose fiance knew he wasn't the father. Her fiance, Joseph, "desired to put her away secretly." However, an angel of the Lord let Joseph know that Mary had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, so he stuck with her.

And, as Jentezen Franklin said, Mary had a little Lamb.

Every one of these women was at the center of a scandal, every one a subject of gossip. And every one is in the bloodline of Jesus, the Son of God and Savior of the world.

God esteems -- and redeems -- scandalous women.

The Deacon is Freakin'

OK, this is pretty wild. We truly are made in the image and likeness of God. Watch this:

Give The Big Guy A Hand

How cool is this?

Family circles

Looking back, I realize I failed to follow up on a line of thought in a previous post, and that loop needs to be closed.

I said that despite my pastor's gentle encouragement, I didn't cry when my mom died.

For the record, that situation was rectified on the Sunday after the funeral, when the freakin' dam burst.

That same pastor, Dennis Butts, had come over and sat down next to me. He asked me if I remembered what he had told me earlier, that it was OK to cry. I told him I did remember, but that's just not the way my grief was coming out. He just sat there with me for a couple of minutes, neither one of us saying anything.

"It's OK to cry."

Pastor Butts is a big bear of a man at better than 6 feet tall and better than 200 pounds. He carries a large, quiet, powerful presence, much as my dad did. That presence began to overshadow me that day on the front pew -- enveloping me, drawing me in, surrounding me, subsuming me. I felt like I was inside a small, dark closet, in the deepest shadows behind the long winter coats. I felt safe.

That's when I absolutely lost it, sobbing inconsolably on that front pew for 20 minutes after the service ended.

I could hear people chatting, some stopping to ask MLW what was wrong with me, random people placing a hand on my shoulder or offering a word of comfort, and the tears and snot pouring out. Someone finally had the good sense and compassion to stuff a couple of tissues into my hand.

That day it became clearer to me than ever that I had a new family. It didn't replace my birth family but augmented it. I felt safe enough to cry like a baby in front of these people, and they responded with love, comfort, empathy and compassion.

Less than three weeks later, when my father also died, my tears were warmed up and ready to go, and go they did. My hysterical reaction at the hospital remains one of the more memorable entries in my family's grief scrapbook.

But it's all good. MLW and my sister Sheila stayed with me to comfort me while I was treated (read: sedated) in the emergency room, and no one made fun of me when we eventually made it back to the house, where we sat around the dining room table in stunned disbelief.

Both my families had their finest hours in the days and weeks that followed. My birth family, without exception, demonstrated kindness and grace to a degree that I had never seen in many of them before, and it helped heal some old wounds in me. My church family, which I already knew to be full of kindness and grace, proved generous and gentle as well, weeping and grieving with us, taking on themselves the loss of two people they had never known.

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge as well the kindness of my co-workers, who sent stacks of cards and food and sent flowers to the funeral home and covered my extended absence from work without a word of complaint.

It's true that there's a lot of bad stuff and a lot of bad people in this world. But these moments and these memories remind me that God looks after his own:

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy
dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with
singing;
... You gave abundant showers, O God;
You refreshed your weary inheritance. -- Psalm 68:5-6a;9

I apologize for writing so much about death and grief lately. It's a season the Spirit has sent me into, and I'm walking through it. Which reminds me of something another member of my church family, a man named Brother Herman, said a couple of years ago:

"Psalm 23 says, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death ...'
Notice that it says 'walk through'; it doesn't say 'set up camp in.'"

Thanks for that, Brother Herman. Thanks to all my brothers and sisters. And thanks, God, for them.

An issue of blood

The best example of someone going to Jesus and literally grabbing hold of his healing power is the woman with the “issue of blood.” Her story is told in the fifth chapter of Mark and the eighth chapter of Luke.

This poor woman had a condition that was not only physically painful but also socially stigmatizing, and it had been going on for years. She had nonstop menstrual bleeding, which under Old Testament law kept her perpetually “ceremonially unclean” (Leviticus 15:25-27).

Think for a moment about the isolation and loneliness this would mean. No one could touch her without becoming unclean, and anything she touched became unclean. Think what it would be like for you if you could never give or receive a hug, or even a handshake or a pat on the back. Or use a shopping cart. Or pick up produce at the market and put it back down. Or walk on a crowded sidewalk. Or get your hair cut. Or go to a concert or a game. Or a restaurant. Or school. Or work. Or church. And forget about meeting someone special, falling in love and starting a family.

You are condemned to life in solitary confinement with invisible walls.

Imagine the shame and degradation that would come with that kind of shunning, along with the fear of embarrassingly bleeding through her clothes. Not to mention the terrible cramps that must have been a source of constant misery.

The medical treatments of the day were probably quite crude and excruciatingly painful; the NIV says she "had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse."

And the Word says this went on for twelve years. A lot of people would kill themselves under that kind of stress, and who could blame them?

But this woman chose life, and she knew where to find it.

Can you imagine the courage it took for her to leave her house and venture to that crowded marketplace where Jesus was visiting? To press through the throng, this mob of strangers who would revile her and recoil from her if they knew her terrible secret?

But nothing else had worked, and she was desperate. This might be her only chance. She waded into the crowd and pressed through. She didn’t seek to speak to the man or ask anything of him, but just hoped to grasp the hem of his garment.

And she did it. The Bible says she was behind Jesus and touched the edge of this cloak, and immediately she felt healing flow from him into her body.

She thought that would be the end of it, that she could disappear back into the crowd and slip away, but with Jesus you always get more than you bargain for.

He took notice of her.

“Who touched my clothes?” he said (as if he didn’t know). His disciples practically laughed at him: “You have all these thousands of people pressing in on you, and you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

Yes, thousands were pressing in on him, but only one had truly touched him.

Have you reached out to Jesus with a passion and a fervor that will make you stand out from the crowd?

I’ll have more about this in a future post.

Take your healing

The Lord revealed something interesting to me this morning while I was doing my daily Bible reading.

When they [Jesus and his disciples] had crossed over [the Sea of Galilee], they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went – into villages, towns or countryside – they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed. -- Mark 6:53-56

What jumped out at me was the last phrase: “... and all who touched him were healed.”

He didn’t touch them, they touched him.

He didn’t touch them, they touched him.

Jesus went to “the marketplaces” – public places where everyone went every day. No one had to look very hard to seek him out. He made himself available where anyone – in villages, towns and countryside – could find him.

Those who needed healing – and doesn’t everyone need healing of one kind or another? – came to him. And those who were too weak to get themselves there were “placed” there by other people who cared about them.

We often hear complaints that Jesus didn’t intervene in this or that situation, and often he doesn’t, for his own reasons that we are incapable of understanding.

We expect him to come to us, when what is needed is for us to come to him.

But I wonder how many times we miss blessings – how many times we don’t get healed – simply because we fail to reach out to him. We expect him to come to us, when what is needed is for us to come to him.

He isn’t hard to find. He makes himself available in all situations in all places at all times, out in the open. It’s up to us to go to him, to reach out to him and to take the healing. He carries the healing with him wherever he goes, but it takes action on our part, not his, for us to receive it.