Blog

Posted on

Not the Last Word

The following post on the recent waves of violence across the nation and in the news was originally written for the Anglican Diocese in New England, published at ad-ne.org on August 6, 2019.

We are hardly a week into August and there have been eight mass shootings in the US. Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, New York and Tennessee have seen collectively the loss of 39 lives and 76 people seriously injured. The death toll in the for US following gun violence, for the month of July of this year, was 47. June saw 27 innocent people die in the same horrific circumstances.

There are times when all that we can pray is that God would hear within the anguish of our hearts all that we cannot express in words. What words are there to adequately describe the pain and suffering of those who lost loved ones, or those whose lives were thrown into chaos by these horrific acts of violence?

Watching the news unfold, I felt such a nauseating mix of horror, anger and heartbreak. Amidst the grief, rising up within, I was gripped by that familiar, unanswerable question, “Why, God? Why did you allow this?” Answers that try to make sense of events like this by appealing to our own free will, or the presence of evil, or the need for gun control, or the problem of violence in the media and so on…none of these approaches really help in the moment. We can draw our conclusions theologically, but existentially these attempts fall flat.

So what can we know about the heart of God in so much tragedy? In all our shock and grief, in all our anger and dismay at so much pain and suffering, here are three things we can know for sure about God:

  1. God has not abandoned us.

Our trust in God has been severely tested by these ongoing events. Where might we draw such confidence? What would convince us to believe with conviction the promise that God has made us: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5). How can we be so sure? We are invited to look to the Cross – the place where Jesus supremely demonstrated His love for us by not only refusing to abandon us, but by literally joining us in our pain and suffering.

The agony of the cross was more than the physical torture, public humiliation and painful death. For Jesus, it was the torment of separation from the Father – the God whom He knew to be powerful now seemed furthest from him. In Psalm 22, we find Jesus’ words from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
 Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?” More completely than any other person ever will, Jesus entered into the worst of human suffering and knew the agonizing experience of abandonment by God. The tension we face in the knowledge and experience of a good and loving God, and the reality of hurt, bewilderment and suffering that we are undergoing – Jesus entered that tension in full on the cross.

  1. God can be trusted. 

Even in the most difficult times — or better, especially in those times — God would exhort us to trust Him. We have a Savior in Jesus who knows our humanity because he came to us in person. We have a heavenly Father who knows the terrible tragedy of losing His only son. But the final word is not one of defeat, because through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have the promise that the bonds of death have been broken. The victory over evil is assured. Paul writes, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” [Colossians 2:13-15]. Because of Jesus, because of the cross, death has been defeated and goodness, mercy, justice, peace and love will prevail. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

  1. God’s call to us.

By His Holy Spirit, we join our hearts with the heart of Jesus, who is with all who grieve and all who are suffering. David wrote, “Even though I walk 
through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
 your rod and your staff, 
they comfort me.” [Psalm 23:4]. Do we imagine that this promise is only for those who have died? No, this assurance is given to all of us who are left to grieve; His rod to guide us, His staff to make a way for us.

So our calling is to discern where Jesus is and to join Him. As the dust settles on these tragic events – this is our calling as His people. The apostle Paul writes, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” [Romans 12:21] So let us love louder. Let us pray harder. Let us not allow the evil in this world to overcome our trust in God, and let us serve all who grieve in the power of His love and mercy.

Let us pray together:

Lord Jesus, please hear within our hearts all that we cannot express in words.

We entrust all those who have perished to your eternal love and care. We pray for all the families who grieve the tragic loss of a precious life. Make your presence known, hold them fast in your love, be with those who must break tragic news, protect them in their grief, keep the media at bay. We pray for all those traumatized by these events, those who stood in the line of fire and survived.

Be with the wounded and heal their bodies. Be with the traumatized and heal the pain of their memory. Be with all families and friends in their anguish and grief. Give wisdom to all in authority. In the perfection of your love, banish fear, and surround them with your love. In such vile wickedness, redeem what seems to be irredeemable. Draw all those whose lives have been torn apart by this evil, that they might take refuge in the shadow of your wings. In overwhelming grief, let your healing come. 

In your name we pray, Amen.

Posted on

Agricultural Cardiology

It is one of the more familiar stories that Jesus told and seems reasonably straightforward on first reading. A farmer sowed some seeds and they took root, or didn’t, depending on where they landed. Later, when Jesus explains the parable to His closest disciples, He tells them the seed is “the word.” We’re not told what the words are but let’s presume it’s about encouraging us to be nicer to one another. Following that line of thought, then, it could be that Jesus is giving words of advice to three sorts of people: those who just can’t be nice at all (that would be the hard soil, right?), those who start off nice but then turn out to be mean after all (that would take care of the rocks and thorns), and those who do take Jesus’ advice seriously and learn how to be nicer (the good soil). These are the people that Jesus must love best of all!

Honestly, if that’s what this parable is teaching, then frankly I am a little depressed and discouraged. 

Jesus’ clue to unlocking this parable is all about our understanding of “the word.” John’s Gospel takes us right back to the beginning: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1). So according to John, it’s not “what” is being sprinkled but “who” is being sprinkled. The seed being sown here is not advice on being a better person or little fortune-cookie nuggets of wisdom on how to live a good life. What (or more accurately, who) is being sown is the person of Jesus Himself as given through the Gospel, the Good News, of who He is. 

So if the Gospel of Jesus is the seed, how should we interpret the types of soil in the field? Is Jesus talking about distinct groups of people that are either receptive to him or not? In fact, this parable has as much to do with cardiology as it does with botany. The places that are described in the field do not apply just to the distinct types of people who receive the Gospel but can also apply to the places that exist within our own hearts. You see, we aren’t usually all or nothing – either hard soil or good soil, though our general disposition can be one or the other. Often, there are different types of soil in our very own hearts!

It is in this often mixed and ongoing condition, that Jesus is continually breaking up the rocks and hard places, removing weeds and thorns, and then plowing His presence into our lives. In Jesus’ day, the fields in Palestine were in the form of long, narrow strips. The strips of land were divided by little grass paths which provided access for everyone. With all this traffic, these little paths were beaten down and the soil underfoot became as hard as stone. Any seed that landed here just ricocheted off the path!

I recall a time in my life when I had nothing personally against Jesus as long as He stayed in His place. I think that it is just this sort of indifference that Jesus was targeting when He talked about hard soil. How might our hearts develop this sort of indifference? Like that little pathway, maybe we have been trodden upon just too many times. Is there a part of our hearts that is still hanging on to those hurts and leaving a hard place?

If we take a Palestinian farm as our model, the rocky soil didn’t mean this part of the field was just full of stones. What Jesus was referring to is a narrow skin of earth over a shelf of limestone rock. Much of Galilee was like that. Seed that fell upon this meager two inches of soil germinated and would begin to sprout, but because the soil was so shallow and held so little nourishment and moisture, the heat of the sun soon withered the plant and it didn’t bear grain. 

When I was first getting to know Jesus a little better, a friend of mine lent me a cassette tape of worship songs, and I played it in the car. The songs were full of lyrics that spoke about the majesty of Jesus and His incredible mercy and goodness. Frankly, they made me cringe. I was attempting to fit God into about two inches of soil and what sprung up from that place was not strong. It took Jesus to penetrate into the deeper soil of my heart for worship to begin to take on a new reality. What I thought was “cringy,” I now see as Jesus detonating the limestone of my heart to get to deeper soil. 

And the thorns? The practice was to cut off, or sometimes burn, just the top of the weeds. We know this is only a temporary fix because below the surface the weeds’ roots are still very much alive and, in fact, grow stronger through pruning. They grow with such deadly strength that they literally choke the life out of the seed. Jesus explained to the disciples that the thorns and weeds refer to “the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things” (Mark 4:19a) that come in and choke His life in us. None of us intend for this to happen. My experience is that weeds and thorns grow up not because we woke up one morning and in an instant decided to buy a new car or book an exotic vacation and forget all about Jesus. Weeds and thorns sneak in the back door through the busyness of our lives. It is not that we made a conscious decision to avoid Jesus. We just lost sight of Him in our schedules. Distraction can choke His life out of us. 

In so far that we have identified any of these three soils in our own hearts, then Jesus’ encouragement is to give them over to Him. Here are two thoughts that might encourage us to surrender a bit more of the field to Him. First, if the seed is the person of Jesus, then it follows that the sower is God our Father. It is the Father who has sown Jesus within our hearts. This sowing is done without any recourse to us. We did nothing to merit this action; it is simply what the Father has chosen to do. “This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.” (1 John 4:9) And the extravagance of the Father’s love lies not only in His choice to sow but also in the method of His sowing. Maybe we imagined a hand delicately sprinkling seed from a basket. That was not how Jesus’ listeners pictured the action of sowing. In Jesus’ day, they would have taken a large sack of seed, cut a hole in the corner and then tied that open sack to the back of a donkey. As the donkey was led up and down the field, the seed was not so much sprinkled but liberally poured out — not just a little bit here and a little bit there, but an abundance and overflow of seed. My point is that the Father has sown Jesus liberally, not just out into the world among the people, but also into each and every heart. 

Second, the sort of seed that the Father is sowing is imperishable. “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23) However “hard, rocky  or thorny” we may be today, the Father has imperishable seed for all the contours of our hearts if we are willing to receive it. It is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to break up the hard parts of our heart and to clear away the rocks and the thorns so that we can know more of the fullness of Jesus. Our part is to invite Him in to do just that.

And if this seed is liberally sown and imperishable, do we really understand the potential harvest we are in for? Jesus ended the parable this way: “Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it and produce a crop, thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.” (Mark 4:20). Those who hear the word and receive it like this are in for quite the harvest, just like those parts of our heart that are becoming soft and ready to receive Jesus. In each and every place that once was hard and rocky, may He take root and grow abundantly.

Posted on

College Farewells

I taught all three of my daughters to swim. Not to any accredited athletic standard, but just enough to get them moving approximately in a horizontal direction whilst remaining oxygenated. When my eldest daughter, Katie, was just four years old, I told her that on the day she could swim a length of the pool unaided, I would buy her a CD player. These were highly coveted items in the previous century.

I said, “You can do this! I know this feels scary, but all you have to do is take a deep breath and jump. I promise you won’t sink and I am right here!” I had imagined that this challenge would take at least a few months to be accomplished. To my utter amazement she looked at me and then at the water, took a deep breath, jumped and swam her first length! Her smile said it all.

When my youngest daughter, Olivia, had just turned seven I was successful in persuading her to take her first solo jump from the diving board. I was in the water, calling up to the tiny aquanaut anxiously edging her way to the brink of the abyss. From beneath the board, I encouraged her, “You can do this! I know this feels scary, but all you have to do is take a deep breath and jump. I promise that you will not sink and I am right here!” She looked at me and then at the water, took a deep breath and jumped. As she bobbed back to the surface, her smile said it all.

And then all too soon, Katie left us all for her freshman year at college. The summer was spent making lists and packing, with me pretending that I was not counting down the days to the heartbreak of farewell. We compressed what seemed like the contents of a four-bedroom house into the car and made the eleven-hour road trip to the next bright chapter of her life. 

I had been wondering just what I was going to say to her when we finally came to the big goodbye. I had prayed about this. What words are there? And if there were some words of particular wisdom and profundity, shouldn’t I have said them sometime before?! We hauled her belongings up to her dorm room and as my wife, Elena, helped Katie unpack, I was deployed to construct a set of drawers from Bed Bath & Beyond. The task was indeed almost beyond me. And then suddenly it was time to say goodbye. An upper classman knocked politely at the door and informed Katie that the welcome lunch meeting was about to start. I asked if we might come too, and he politely shook his head. One moment my self-assembly handiwork was being likened to the leaning Tower of Pisa, and then it was goodbye. Eighteen beautiful years, and then goodbye! I wasn’t sure that I was capable of saying anything, and then I knew exactly what to say.

I held her very close and repeated some familiar words, “You can do this! I know this is scary, but all you have to do is take a deep breath and jump. I promise you that you will not sink, and don’t you ever doubt that I will always be here for you!” So, she took a deep breath and then she jumped. We remained in her dorm room (for me to re-assemble the drawers under Elena’s supervision) and we listened, as her footsteps grew faint. I peered around the door to see how far she had made it down the corridor but she was already out of sight. Later that night she sent us a photograph of herself amidst a sea of new faces. Her smile said it all. 

Posted on

Swimming through Time

How scary can a horror movie be at 30,000 feet? I had wrongly assumed that being sealed in a steel tube and travelling at 500 miles per hour would put all that shaky camera work and suspense in perspective – right? Suffice it to say that I had to ask the cabin crew to please leave my reading light on. So on a more recent trip, I carefully avoided the scary stuff and settled back to watch the latest Richard Curtis’ movie: “About Time”, a light British comedy in the genre of Hugh Grant. This time I had to plead with the cabin crew to keep the lights off. I was moved. Actually, I was a blubbering wreck! 

At face value this movie looked harmless enough. Our protagonist, a young man called Tim, has inherited an unusual family gene. While most of us typically get distinctive noses or ugly feet, Tim’s genetic bequest from his father is the ability to travel in time. In C.S Lewis fashion, this happened by Tim ducking into closets and closing his eyes. He would then re-emerge at some desired event in his family history. 

Tim’s initial jaunts in time are amusing: the opportunity to recapture a lost kiss at a New Year’s party or supply the perfect pick-up line to the beautiful girl. These made me laugh. It was Curtis’ exploration of family life, love and friendship, celebration and grief that really caught my heart and made me wonder:  if we could walk in and out of different chapters of our lives and edit out our mistakes, what would we re-write? Conversely, surveying life’s rich tapestry, would we have the courage to rationalize that some life lessons are only learned in the crucible of pain and loss?

Tim’s father cautioned him not to use his gift for fame or wealth but to live as normal a life as possible every day, but then (and here’s the trick) to relive that day a second time. On the second time around, ignoring all the stresses and strains, one is then free to appreciate all the little things: the kindness of a stranger, the humor in the moment, the simple goodness of being with someone we love and making new friends. 

Tim scrupulously practices this rule but then perfects it when he decides to cut out the “second day.” To simply live every day as if it were his last because, said Tim, “all we can do is our best to relish this remarkable ride and remember that we are all travelling in time together.” The Psalmist had the same revelation when he wrote, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)

I was at the gym later that week in the pool. Taken up with my own thoughts I lost all sense of direction and sailed right into the path of an oncoming swimmer. I eventually resurfaced spluttering my apology, expecting a “you stole my parking space” admonishment. To my amazement, I received the warmest “apology fully accepted” smile, at least that is possible with goggles on and a nose clip. 

I think this encounter was one of the most human moments of my week. I wondered if my new friend had seen this movie and but more importantly, with my head down, filled with my own thoughts, how many moments like this had I missed in my life? I pray that, even though I cannot relive each day, the Lord would help me see every little moment like this one. It’s evident I will miss some, but my hope is he will bring the ones I need to see most to my attention. 

Posted on

The Song of Gratitude

Even before I could walk, I was trained by my mom and dad to say “thank you”. As a Brit, saying thank you comes as naturally as introducing yourself by saying sorry! It is simply the right thing to do (even if you are not especially grateful). Indeed, almost every British conversation ends with the words, “Cheers, thanks, thanks so much, really thank you very, very much…bye…and thank you.” In the U.K., even ending an email with the word “thanks” is often a clear signal that one is perilously close to losing one’s temper!

But what if gratitude were more than just socially-warranted behavior? What if gratitude is the means by which the inner man or woman is strengthened? What if thankfulness is good for our spiritual well-being? Let’s imagine that New England was surrounded by enemy forces whose desire was to wreak havoc and destruction. Let’s also imagine that there are enemy sympathizers living and working in the region who have a view to undermining its defenses. Now what if you were to discover that there is a song that the enemy and their sympathizers cannot tolerate or approach? Whenever they hear it, they run the other direction. Isn’t it certain that you would want to learn this song? And after you learned it, you would sing it when you went to bed at night and when you got up in the morning. You would sing it on the way to the railway station, to the school doors, and to the coffee shop. And the more deeply embedded in your mind the song became, the more secure and fearless your life became. Biblically-speaking, that “song” is gratitude.

The apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6-7, emphasis mine). Gratitude is an essential guardian of the soul. When we abandon it, we lay ourselves open to attack. In the absence of a thankful heart we are prone to drawing away from the love and faithfulness of God. Paul, writing to the church in Rome, argued that the absence of gratitude creates an on-ramp to the slippery slope of doubt and fear. He wrote, “For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21, emphasis mine). If ingratitude lays us open to confusion and doubt, gratitude positions us to take hold of God’s goodness, steadfast love, and faithfulness. Gratitude brings us into the truth that God is “on my side as my helper” (Psalm 118:7a).

Gratitude also plays a vital role in guarding our minds and hearts. To the church in Philippi, Paul wrote, “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will GUARD your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7, emphasis mine).

Gratitude also helps us better discern God’s presence and purposes. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” (Matthew 26:41a). Personally, I don’t always find that easy. Sometimes, to sit down and pray is to battle a head full of distractions, anxieties, pressures, and thoughts. I am not alone in this dilemma. The missionary Hudson Taylor wrote, “The hardest part of the missionary career is to maintain regular, prayerful Bible study. Satan will always find you something to do when you ought to be occupied about that, if it is only arranging a window blind.” Paul gave us an important piece of advice on how to keep our eyes off the “window blind” and fixed on Jesus: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 4:2, emphasis mine).

Thankfulness is never about getting on God’s “good side.” Gratitude before God is truly for our benefit, and not His. In my own prayer life, I have recently attempted to give thanks to God for at least 10 things before I bring anything else to His attention. I am so struck by the profound difference that this simple practice has made. My part is just to be honest about the impact of the good things in my life — great or small. And as I compile my list, I find that two things happen. First, the list gets longer and longer. And second, my anxiety level decreases, while my faith and assurance in God’s goodness increases.

In just this way, the author Melody Beattie can write, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity….” The practice of thankfulness before God is much more than proprietary politeness or “liturgical correctness.” Gratitude is the titanium of spiritual armor. Maya Angelou would encourage us: “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.”