Month: January 2017

Surviving Storms

When I was in high school, my best friend and I took our small speed boat out onto the lake with some friends, even though we knew a storm was coming. We were hoping to have some fun skiing and tubing before the rain came.

As it started to drizzle, we decided it was a good time to head into shore. But it was too late! The winds became vicious, the waves big, we made it back to the dock – soaked and scared.

Storms are part of our life on Earth. It’s nothing personal, just part of how the ecosystem works. With some accumulated wisdom, preparation, and cooperation, we can survive most storms.

But as we know, there are storms that swamp us unexpected. And not just windstorms, but also soul-storms, hearts breaking open with tears of sorrow, hopes battered by rains of disappointment. What then?

 

This was the kind of stormy political and personal place the disciples of Jesus were in as they crossed the furious Sea of Galilee with him one evening. As people of Israel, their souls ached for God to return the nation to their former days of glory when a son of David reigned as king, ruling with justice, mercy, and humility.

Instead, they struggled to survive under the violent thumb of the Roman Empire – prior to that it was enduring the turbulent rule of the Greek Empire, and before that putting up with the powerful Persian Empire, which had inherited Israel from the Babylonian Empire. Imagine trying to survive amidst those political terrors.

The gospel that Jesus was preaching centered on the announcement that God had indeed returned to Israel to reestablish the throne of David – the kingdom of God was coming, so be prepared. It was difficult for the people of Israel to believe that Jesus was the king come to save them. Slowly Jesus would reveal who he really was, usually in decisive moments, often times in the midst of personal, political, and powerful storms.

For the disciples in the boat with him, they were terrified that they were going to die. The furious squall stirred up fear, and it swamped their faith. That’s what storms can do. Interestingly, even with Jesus in the boat, they still had no faith in him.

Sometimes we think that if we could only see Jesus, it’d be easier to believe in him. But that wasn’t the case with the disciples or the people of Israel. Seeing is not always believing.

Jesus asks his disciples, “Why are you so afraid?” Why are you so afraid of death? Why are you so afraid of chaos? Why are you so afraid…? To his disciples who had been with him, he spoke straight: “Do you still have no faith?”

Storms not only reveal our fears, and our lack of faith, but also the faithfulness of Jesus to us. Some storms he will calm. But he can’t and won’t still all the storms of our life. Storms are part of life, and through them we can see our fears and become open to the faithfulness and presence of Jesus.

Jesus is present to people in this stormy world by his Spirit and by his people who are faithful to him. When we have storms, we must receive the people God sends to be with us.

But when others are swamped by their storms, will we let God send us to be with them, to bring the presence of Christ to them amidst their fears and drowning faith?

Whether the storms are personal, political, or powerful natural phenomena – may Jesus’s faithfulness calm our fears when we barely believe, may our surviving make us braver, that we may extend the presence of Christ together in bigger storms to come.

God Starts Small

As we reflect this week on the aspirations and achievements of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we can remember this description that Jesus gives of what serving in the kingdom of God is like: God starts small.

Maybe like Martin Luther King Jr. and like Jesus, your heart is grieved by the brokenness of men, women, and children in your community who are afflicted by injustice and hatred. Jesus saw the people of Israel as sheep without a shepherd, and he had compassion on them. Martin saw the riots and despair of black people in America, and taught them the way of love.

But it started small. Before Martin was famous he was a nobody, just a student, a young minister, a family man and friend. Before Jesus was famous, he was an outcast, a refugee, a scandalized boy, a backwater laborer, but a good son and neighbor to all. And you: you don’t need to be famous for the kingdom of God to take root in you. God starts small.

Do you ever see injustices in your community? Do you have any friends who must fight off the oppressive despair that pervades in our culture towards minorities and immigrants? Does your heart ever get stung by the tears of those close to you who get the shaft? Do you ever wonder what you could do about it? God starts small.

But in God’s kingdom, when God starts small, well, it doesn’t stay that way. When God goes about sowing seeds of justice and peace, righteousness and truth through our serving, it may start small but it will grow. Jesus describe the kingdom of God like this:

“It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

Many of us who sit on the branches stretching forth from the seed of the tree that men and women like Jesus and Martin planted. What will we do with the seeds God has given us?  Will we start serving, or do nothing?

Doing something usually means joining in on what is already at work to bring healing and justice to what is wrong and wounded in our world. But to do something first starts with being present with those whose cries you hear. Martin was a pastor, Jesus was a shepherd, and you as a friend must be with those and hear their stories, their pain, their prayers.

God starts small. And we must strive to protect what gets planted, for there are always those wanting to uproot saplings of justice to preserve their power and wealth. In our city there are those who profit by the oppression of our neighbors. As they say, follow the money. Start serving. Search for truth. Seek righteousness for all.

As we remember the life of MLK, a minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, let us recommit to planting the seeds of the kingdom of God – being present to what has been sowed in us and our neighborhoods- nourishing it, fighting for it – for all God’s children.

What can you do, if you were to start small? Volunteer in your school with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Get to know a neighbor through NeighborLink. Help build a home with Habitat for Humanity. Mentor with the Urban League, Blue Jacket, or the Rescue Mission. Teach adults to read with Literacy Alliance. Invest in youth at your local YMCA or Boys and Girls Club. And so many more!

Pay attention to your local school board, city council and county council, then vote. Walk the sidewalks and greet neighbors. Pray for people at church and in your community that you’ve gotten to know.

Visit prisoners in the county jail. Donate to Redemption House. Figure out how to start or support small businesses in the south side of town like Bravas, George’s International Market, Friendly Fox, and so many more. God starts small. Start serving, dream big, join God in what he’s doing in our community, work for justice, for all.

How Does God Work In The World?

If you’re like me, there are specific moments in your life where you wish God would have showed up and… [fill in the blank]. When my little 13 year old brother started to go blind, we wanted to know why God didn’t step in and restore his eyesight. When Ben died later that summer due to a brain tumor, we wondered – with deep bewilderment – why God didn’t show up and save our dear brother’s life.

Watch the news. Hear the statistics. Listen to painful stories of loss, abuse, neglect, violence, mayhem, terror, insanity. With all that is wrong in the world, how is God working? Is God doing anything? I’m still not immune to the bewilderment. Like a lot of people, we wonder at how God can be God and let so much evil wreck so many lives.

But: a thoughtful and prayerful reading of the Gospels in the New Testament reveal a Jesus of Nazareth who speaks to the pain that perplexed the people of Israel, Rome, and now us. In the gospel according to Mark, there is a short parable where Jesus explains how God works in the world:

“This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain – first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Obviously this parable doesn’t explain everything, nor is it meant to. But it does shed some important light on the questions the people of Israel asked while under the brutal rule of Rome. How God works in the world is attuned to the ways of the earth.

Just as a sower accumulates wisdom of seeds and soil while using diligence to prepare for the needed harvest, the sower must also trust in the mysteries of the seed and soil. So with us, as we work with God in Christ among the real world. The wisdom and diligence we attain from doing God’s will adds to the flourishing of each other, while we trust the Lord with what we don’t understand.

We want peace on earth? God wants it more. We want everyone to flourish in life? Jesus wants it more. I don’t know all the reasons for why Rome oppressed Israel or Ben died of a tumor. But I do believe that in both cases God was present with his people, in the midst of the suffering, always working through our sowing of faith, hope and love to produce a harvest that heals.

If we learn anything from this parable, Christians are ones sent out together into our community as little Christs to sow good works everyday, for the nourishment and flourishing of all, in the face of evil, amidst our own suffering, done with unstoppable love.