Category: Lifestyle

Margaret Mead wrote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

In the wake of so much fear, confusion, disquiet, and sickness, as members of a network of thriving and dynamic, spirit-filled churches up and down New England, we have in the power of God, a great opportunity to transform our culture. As Jesus’ agents of His peace, hope, love, and healing we have the gift to re-shape troubled and harried hearts. In the outbreak of sickness, we can be the carriers of the greater outbreak of Jesus’ love. Please, let’s not look back at this time and lament that we missed such an opportunity. Indeed, let us take such action, that we might recall with godly pride (where we celebrate the glory of God in each other’s lives) that, by His grace, this was our finest hour!

Andy Crouch (executive editor of Christianity Today) gives this helpful direction, “This crisis presents an extraordinary opportunity to fortify small communities of love and care for our neighbors. That will only happen if we lead in a way that reduces fear, increases faith, and reorients all of us from self-protection to serving others.” I am receiving the most remarkable calls from our ordained and lay leaders whose testimony is that this is indeed happening.

Father Len Cowan and his wife Hallie are leading the way to be salt and light in their neighborhood. The Abbey of the Way hosted the community in a Q&A session with local doctors and medical experts who were able to provide a balanced and reasonable account of the health crisis. “Like the Celtic houses of prayer and hospitality, The Abbey of the Way is a refuge.” commented Father Len, “It was a good opportunity to serve the neighborhood with reliable medical testimony and for us to assure residents that, as followers of Jesus, we are praying for them. We intend to open our home in this way on a weekly basis and if people are troubled by coming inside – we shall meet on the lawn!”

Reverend Craig Vickerman in Attleboro is working with his church on plans to provide daycare for local children whose schools have been temporarily closed but whose parents still have jobs they need to attend to. They are also considering ways to bring food and provisions to older members of the local community. These innovative and spirit-led projects are typical of the servant heart that is pervading the Diocese.

Andy Crouch continues, “We have become accustomed to culture being shaped “somewhere else” — by elected officials, especially national ones; by celebrities; by media. But we are dealing with a virus that is transmitted person to person, in small and large groups of actual people. This is not a virtual crisis — it is a local, embodied one.” What we need, therefore, are local, embodied responses to the wider community. I am so encouraged by what I see across New England through the agency of our Diocese.

This week I wrote to the Diocese about the implications of the virus, our responsibility to conform to recommended hygiene practices, our call to serve in love and the reality, that on a community by community basis, we may find ourselves having to close our church doors for Sunday worship and larger gatherings. I will not repeat that letter but suffice to say, if we have no choice but to suspend Sunday worship let us not imagine that we are suspending the ongoing life and ministry of the church.  “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb. 10:24–25). Crouch comments. “The author of these words, who lived in a world that knew the danger of plagues very well (though not the exact mechanism), who urged his congregation to meet even when they expected an imminent Day of Judgment, would hardly have said that we ought to stop meeting for worship under the conditions of an infectious disease.”

So, if we must suspend our larger gatherings, let us be intentional and creative about how we might continue to worship and pray together. Let us re-imagine small groups, the family unit and let’s not forget the plethora of social media that makes worship and virtual prayer meetings not only possible but free of any risk of infection. Reverend Michael Kafeero of St. Paul’s Waltham has, for a very long time, led his congregation in conference call prayer meetings, twice a day, Monday to Friday. These are well attended, lively worship and prayer events that provide real sustenance to his church family members through the week.

Let us not forget that worship is an integral and vital piece of our human flourishing. We were made for His presence. We cannot take the difficult decision to close our doors on Sundays and then imagine that, as followers of Jesus, we are on some kind of extended “Snow-day.” In these circumstances, we must be ready to ask God how He might have us use our resources and time to demonstrate His presence in service and to draw us into His presence in worship. Have no doubt, He has great plans for us, and they will be life to us. [LINK TO LETTER – WITH LIST OF WAYS TO SERVE]

COVID-19 is the cause of much pain and suffering but it is not the end of the world. It is, however, exactly the kind of event that Jesus prepared us for in these end times. (Matthew 24:6). So, by His grace and in the power of His Spirit, let us be the non-anxious presence in the community distinguished by His presence in our worship and in service to others. When we allow Jesus to lead us in the reality that He will never leave us nor forsake us, we can rise above anxiety and we can stretch out our hand draw others into His embrace. It is never helpful to say, “You are overreacting.” Jesus would say and does say, “…fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10).

We have every reason to trust that this epidemic will pass. By God’s grace, the human immune system has a remarkable capacity to adapt and resist viral threat. Furthermore, the grace of modern medicine is not a second-class miracle. Pray for all those globally in the medical field including those in research programs. This is indeed good news, but it is not the focus of the hope we have in Jesus. The Apostle Paul reassures us, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:54-58)

In his newspaper column, Bill Farmer (the voice of Disney’s Goofy) reported that a certain J. Upton Dickson was writing a book entitled Cower Power. Mr. Dickson had also founded a group for submissive people called DOORMATS – the mnemonic for “Dependent Organization of Really Meek and Timid Souls — if there are no objections.” Their motto was “The meek shall inherit the earth — if that’s okay with everybody” and they selected the yellow traffic light as the group’s symbol. This might be funny except the word meek is open to exactly this sort of misunderstanding. Because the words rhyme, “meekness” gets unfairly linked to “weakness.” Supporting that premise, the Merriam Webster definition of meek includes “deficient in spirit and courage: submissive.” Synonyms include “submissive, yielding, compliant, tame, biddable, tractable, acquiescent, deferential, timid, un-protesting, unresisting… like a lamb to the slaughter.”

And yet Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5). What does meekness have to do with God? I want to offer three Biblical portraits of this word in action that I hope will bring us closer to a Godly understanding of this quality.

We can be reasonably certain that the beatitude described at Matthew 5:5 (“Blessed are the meek”) is an allusion to this verse in Psalm 37: “But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.” (Psalm 37:11). Psalm 37 describes what God requires of us in terms of meekness. Meekness begins with trusting God (verse 5b). Biblical meekness is securely rooted in a deep confidence that God is for us and not against us. Second, we are to commit our way to God (verse 5a). The Hebrew word for “commit” means literally “to roll.” To exercise meekness is therefore to decide that God is trustworthy and to roll all our affairs to Him — all our problems, relationships, health, fears, and frustrations. Third, Psalm 37 adds to the definition of meekness the quality of stillness before the Lord, the capacity to wait patiently for Him, to be free of frenzy. John Piper wrote this of such a stillness: “a kind of steady calm that comes from knowing that God is omnipotent, that He has [our] affairs under His control. He is gracious and will work things out for the best.” And, finally, meekness does not give way to anger and fretfulness when faced with opposition and setback (verse 8).

These qualities that come to define meekness can be seen in evidence in the life of Moses. Numbers 12: 1-4 records Miriam and Aaron’s harsh and outspoken criticism of Moses on an issue. What is noteworthy here is that sandwiched between their accusations and the Lord’s vindication of Moses is this line: “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.” (Numbers 12:3). Why this insertion? Why bring up Moses’ meekness at the precise moment before the Lord intervenes and defends him? We are being shown (as we learned in Psalm 37) that meekness is committing your cause to God and trusting in God’s vindication. Moses doesn’t say a word. Instead, he waits for the Lord. And the Lord does not disappoint him. J.I. Packer made an interesting observation regarding the strength of Moses’ meekness: “Moses was a man with a fierce temper — it was this which had betrayed him during the time in the wilderness — but when God said, in effect, ‘Now look, Moses, in order to teach the whole world how much loss sin can bring, I’m not going to let you enter the land; the people will go in, but you won’t,’ he did not curse God in furious protest; quietly, if sadly, he accepted God’s decision. That’s meekness. Meekness, for a child of God, means accepting uncomplainingly what comes, knowing that it comes from the hand of God who orders all things. What He sends, we accept in faith even if it hurts, knowing that it’s for our and others good.”

Finally, I want to turn to the book of James. We read, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger… receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” (James 1: 19, 21b). The quality of meekness that is being referenced here is teachability. John Piper adds, “To receive the Word with meekness means that we don’t have a resistant, hostile spirit when we are being taught.”

Meekness does not mean that we will never get angry. James 1:19 encourages us to be “slow to anger,” not that we should never experience anger. Jesus said of himself, “I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29) yet the New Testament includes references to His righteous anger (Mark 3:5). And, of course, Jesus famously drove the merchants out of the temple and turned over their tables (Matthew 21: 12-13). Meekness is not the absence of righteous passion and a desire for justice. Biblical meekness would guard against our developing hair-triggers!

Fortunately, meekness is not a quality that we are supposed to conjure up ourselves or pull up from within us. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. In writing to the churches of Galatia, Paul knew that the community was deep in personal conflict. Indeed, he referred to their behavior as “biting and devouring each other” (Galatians 5:15). He did not urge them to simply pull themselves together. His exhortation was that they “walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16). Paul went on to describe how the Holy Spirit would transform their hearts and lives. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5: 22-23 King James Version)

This blog causes me to ask myself how I respond to difficult truth, challenge or opposition. How teachable am I? Where am I placing my trust? The answer to these questions (when I see my shortfall) should not prompt me to simply try harder. My response is to accept Jesus’ invitation to acknowledge my fault, receive His mercy, and in stillness and quiet, trust Him to fill me with His Spirit. That would be a response directed by Spirit-led meekness.

Let me give the final word to A.W Tozer: “The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto.”

The train finally pulls into Boston, North Station, 20 minutes behind schedule. You’ll have to move quickly if you’re going to get to your important meeting on time. As you exit the building, you discover that it has now started to rain hard and you did not bring an umbrella. Standing in the pouring rain, you attempt to flag down a cab and as you search your coat pocket for your cell phone and some cash, you realize that you have left your wallet on the kitchen counter. You breathe a sigh of relief as you find a $20 bill in your back pocket. But in your multi-tasking attempt to flag down a cab and call your appointment with the news that you are running late, you drop your cell phone in a torrent of flood water that is fast becoming a river, now rushing past the sidewalk. You decide that this is the worst day of your life. Fishing around in the dirty water to retrieve your cell phone, with its now cracked screen, you catch sight of someone in the periphery of your vision. He too is crouching to get out of the rain and in his hand is a cardboard sign upon which is scrawled a simple message. The crude lettering is streaked with rain water, but the message is still visible, “Have not eaten in two days. Can you help?” Simultaneously, you have three thoughts: 1) I am glad that I have not made eye contact, 2) He looks young. Why doesn’t he have a job?, and 3) If I give him this $20 bill, I will have to walk two blocks in the pouring rain.

So, what do you do?

A church that I know of deliberately set themselves in just this dilemma. The senior warden donned dirty clothes and a big hat, dirtied his face and hands, and sprinkled whiskey on his clothes. Deep in disguise, he sat on the front steps of the church, just before the start of the morning service, to see what would happen. He was overwhelmed with the response. Immediately he was invited in and offered a clean change of clothes, a meal and all sorts of help. During the service, he came to the front, threw off the disguise and reported to the church members how well they had done. As he was speaking and as they were congratulating themselves, a stranger appeared at the back of the church — dirty clothes, smelling of cheap liquor, huddled by a heater for warmth. Later they said that they realized that the earlier charade had been only the dress rehearsal and now it was the real deal. This man was overwhelmed by their kind response. And more than that, his presence amongst them and their sense of God’s testing launched a whole new ministry to the homeless that has since helped many, many people in desperate circumstances. They must have been relieved they made the right call that morning! 

In his teaching about the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25: 31-46), Jesus communicated that there will be eternal consequences to the choices we make. Get it right and we follow the way of the “sheep” (“Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance…” – verse 34). To get it wrong is to go the way of the goats — what C.S Lewis calls, “the other thing.” This is Jesus saying that we are going to be held directly accountable for something that we might not even notice or recognize. (“Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or ill or in prison, and did not help you?” – verse 44). Where is the love of God in the whole sheep and goat thing? Where is the grace of God in that? To which Jesus is saying: well, where is there grace in any of us walking past the sick, the hurting, the poor, the prisoner, the destitute or the hungry — without a second look? Where is the grace in us concluding that it is okay to ignore people who are suffering because we are stronger and better fed than they are?

And after all, Jesus’ instructions in this teaching are very straightforward: welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, give the thirsty something to drink, tend to the sick and visit the prisoner. So, what do you do?

Well, you could try to dial it down. The first response might be to say: Well, when Jesus said this, He did not really mean it literally. He’s just stirring us up a bit. Let’s give that a fancy theological name to satisfy our intellectual pride and call it “rabbinic hyperbole” — a little bit of ancient near-eastern sensationalism to catch our attention and make us think! Yes, that’s what we’ll call it. Except that it is not rabbinic hyperbole. What Jesus is describing here is the shape of God’s heart. “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be open-handed towards your brothers and towards the poor and needy in your land.” (Deuteronomy 15:7) And it’s a heart that we find throughout the whole Bible.

So, what standard of care toward the poor is going to make me fit for the afterlife? Jesus is again offering very little comfort here when He tells us that the standard is perfection: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) and “Jesus answered, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor.’” (Matthew 19:21.

Which brings us to the second response: dialing it up. We say, well, if this is what it is going to take, then I had better get on with this. And so, in our own strength, we begin to take on the world. The problem is that this is way beyond us, and we end up with an unsustainable counterfeit version that ultimately leads us to any number of reactions: overwhelmed, disappointed, burned out, apathetic. Or we may even become legalistic or self-righteous. We recognize that perfection is out of reach and apathy is not an option — and yet we are still called to this standard of excellence. So, what do you do?

What is left for us is to step into a process of transformation. This begins with our acknowledging our own poverty — we simply cannot do this in our own strength. We do not have the moral strength to do this. This is about recognizing our powerlessness to change ourselves or this world in our own strength. And from that place, this is about coming to the Cross of Jesus Christ. We willingly submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit to be transformed into the image of Jesus who is perfect. And we accept that this is a process.

In this place of willing submission, we are transformed into the likeness of Jesus. “And so we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”(2 Corinthians 3:18). And this is a process that is mapped out one heart-breaking step at a time. If we are to assume God’s heart for this hurting world, then we need to allow our own hearts to be broken. This means putting yourself in a position where your heart can be broken. This is about giving sacrificially — time and resources. This is about praying, Lord, show me where You are today.

Finally, it is about having faith that, together, in the power of God, we can make a difference. The problem is when we read the Bible and it says “you” we have a tendency to take it as “me” when we should take it as “we.” In God’s power and leading, we are supposed to work together in this. “We” is community. And because of Jesus – because of the Cross – we are on a trajectory that says that the heart of God will prevail. Equity, compassion, beauty, peace, hope, and justice will all prevail — despite what we see and despite what we don’t see, because of Jesus and because of the Cross. Love has and will conquer all.

The suffering of the Hebrew people must have entered Moses’ consciousness because he made the decision to leave the protection and comfort of Pharaoh’s palace to see what was going on for himself. But it was only from outside the palace gates, out on the streets, that the captivity of his people truly broke his heart. Here is where he began to feel that firestorm within himself.

If we are going discern God’s heart within us, we need to engage with a suffering world. Quite simply, we need to get out more! However, there is a caveat. If we expose ourselves to all that is broken in the world but neglect to view the brokenness from God’s perspective — which promises that everything is in the process of being restored — then I believe that we could be paralyzed by the immensity of global injustice.

For William Wilberforce, the pathway to abolition was blocked by vested interests, parliamentary filibustering, entrenched bigotry, international politics, slave unrest, his own poor health, and political fear. He could have been sucked into an impossible downward spiral of despair. Instead, through prayer and the community of God’s people, Wilberforce entered a life viewed from God’s perspective. Here is where our heads are lifted and our perspective shifts from that which our eyes can see to that which God is telling us is true. And in this reality, that which is enslaved can still be set free, what is broken can be mended, what is sick can be healed, what is hated can be loved, what is stained can still be made clean and what is wrong can be made right.

There is also another reason why we need to hold on to God’s perspective. Exodus tells us that Moses left the palace, “…after [he] had grown up.” So, was this when Moses was all emotionally, spiritually and physically healed up? No, this is a 40-year-old man with a stammer, something of a superiority complex, and a murderously violent temper. If serving God is only for those who are the emotionally, spiritually and physically fully healed and whole people, then you can count me out. Wilberforce was dogged by appalling health and, because of chronic pain, was mildly addicted to opium (commonly used as a painkiller in those days). It was, however,  in walking out their calling that Moses and Wilberforce were shaped and matured as Godly men. The day Moses was confronted with a burning bush, God instructed Moses to take off his shoes. Why? Because the ground was holy. This is an extraordinary visual demonstration — clearly God did not need a beautiful bush, a highly-educated bush, a hugely successful bush or even an extremely pious bush. The important thing here is not the bush but that it was God who was in the bush! It is as if God was saying to Moses, “I am going to use you, but it will not be you doing something for Me but Me doing something through you.” Moses would be the vessel through which God would work. And emotionally, physically and spiritually, we are healed as we go.

So, what firestorm around injustice might the Lord have set in your heart? I wonder if we can become much too religious about that question. Is it possible that the very thing that stirs your heart as you read the newspaper or watch TV, or as you drive through your community and say under your breath “somebody needs to do something about that…) might be exactly what the Lord is saying to you?

A man who, as a baby, was floated down a river in a basket as part of a wild and crazy plan to save his life, grew up to lead a whole nation out of slavery. A village just outside of London called Clapham, hosted a community of friends that brought down the global slave trade and eventually outlawed slavery. I guess when you look at the overwhelming odds that were against Moses and Wilberforce you would have to conclude that God was with them.

If you knew that God had planted His divine firestorm within you, if you knew that God was with you, promised faithfully to work through you and had set in place people who shared your passion, would it make a difference to what you did next?

By the late 1700s, the economics of slavery were so entrenched in the British Empire that only a handful of people thought anything could be done about it. That handful included the English aristocrat William Wilberforce, who was to write,

“So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.”

With this firestorm for injustice in his heart, Wilberforce and a group of trusted friends (called “The Clapham Circle”) mobilized the public and took on the slave traders and the British Parliament to end the slave trade in the British Empire — eventually leading to the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833.

A few thousand years before, another well-educated, wealthy and powerful man had a similar conversion that brought about the eventual emancipation of a whole people group from the oppression of a powerful regime. Like Wilberforce, young Moses was accustomed to the finer things in life but, despite all his surroundings of being raised by the daughter of Pharaoh, Moses knew that he was a Jewish boy living the Egyptian dream. At Exodus chapter 2, verse 11, it says, “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor.” Enslaved for 400 years, a thriving economy was being built off the backs of Hebrew slaves. Moses’ heart was ignited with rage as he witnessed firsthand the oppression of his people and in a passionate outburst, he killed an Egyptian slave owner who was beating a Hebrew slave.

Forty years later, having fled from Pharaoh and now living as an outcast in the desert, Moses noticed a bush that, although burning, was somehow not consumed by the flames. It is easy to have the misconception that the miraculous sight of a spontaneously and perpetually burning bush caused Moses to transition from shepherd to patriarch, from criminal in hiding to the leader and liberator of God’s people. I wonder if there was a little more going on? I wonder if it is possible that the burning bush was, in fact, the means by which God got Moses to slow down long enough for Him to get his attention and convey a level of empathy most of us never think to ascribe to God.

Might we paraphrase the Lord’s conversation with Moses in this way: “Moses, I completely understand the rage you feel. I too have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have felt their anguish as they suffer. And for what it is worth, I hate the sorrow and suffering as much as you do. If you can believe me, I hate it more. I am stirred in my Spirit, Moses. I have decided to intervene from heaven. I have chosen to rescue my people and I want you to help me. If you will participate in my plan, then I will harness the internal firestorm that rages inside of you and channel it into Holy action that will set my people free from slavery.” This encounter was a powerful, spiritual congruence or connection that linked Moses’ priorities to the priorities of God. We witness the same divine congruence over William Wilberforce’s life.

Does your heart burn with a passion for some local or global injustice? If so, is it remotely possible that God is meeting you in this place? If so, how would you know? In next week’s Saturday blog we will attempt to answer this question.