The Fast God Chooses

I am going to tell you something that might startle you.  Do not fast for Lent.  Do not give up anything for Lent.

Shocked?  Don't be.

Over the years I've heard many people talking about what they are giving up for Lent.  Often I hear things like chocolate, soft drinks, alcohol, and assorted other items.  One year about midway through the Lenten season at a Wednesday night dinner at a previous church, the lady in the serving line next to me commented, "The desserts look so good, too bad I can't have one.  I gave up sweets for Lent.,"  As she proudly proclaimed her Lenten fast, I think I may have stunned her a bit when I replied simply, "Why?"  I could see the puzzled look on her face as she searched for an answer, "Well, for Lent,"  she said as though that was answer enough.  "But why?" I responded.  She paused for a moment then changed the subject by asserting that the line had moved.

So have you given up something for Lent?  If so, my question for you is the same as it was for her, why?

Don't get me wrong; I am entirely in favor of fasting.  In fact, as I stand on today's 'Soapbox' I will suggest that this is one of the spiritual disciplines that the modern church most desperately needs to reclaim.  We (the church in general) in this country are, for the most part, extremely well to do.  We have forgotten, in many cases, what the generations of the Depression and WWII knew so well:  how to sacrifice.  Indeed, statistics suggest that as of last year almost 1/3 of Americans qualifies as obese.  So, yes, by all means fast - give up something.  But this is what we need to remember:  if the point of the fast is the fast itself, that is not a fast, it's a diet. 

The point of a fast is to give up something so that we can focus more deeply on God.  The point of a fast and the point of Lent is not to diet - it is to reconnect with God or to connect with God in a deeper way.  This is what my friend who gave up sweets wasn't understanding in our conversation (and yes, I did clarify this a little further down the line).  What I was asking her was how was giving up dessert going to deepen her connection to God.  Yes, we need to fast, and I am all for healthy eating, but the fast we need is a fast that deepens our connections to God.

So here is the question I encourage you to ask as you begin your Lenten journey:  what is it, in my life that is keeping me from God?  That's the fast you should choose.  It may be food.  More likely it is not - more likely giving up chocolate, sweets, or soft drinks is done for you, for your personal betterment.  But if that is what you need to do, then I encourage you to find a way to connect that fast to a deeper walk with God.  However, let me again urge you to ask the question, what is interfering with my relationship with God?  Is it TV, Facebook, internet?  Perhaps you could fast from these and use this time for devotional or prayer. But let's get down to the real nitty gritty.  Is it alcohol?  A secret porn addiction? Do you gossip?  have unbridled anger?  a swearing habit?  There is no rule that says you need to tell other people what your fast is, and if you are struggling with one of these, I encourage you to use Lent in your battle, strive to give it up for Lent, and spend that time in prayer or Bible study.  What interferes with your relationship to God?  It is a difficult question, but if you answer honestly, your Lenten fast can become one that not only builds you but builds your faith walk with the Lord.

But there is an even deeper fast that God calls us to.  Remember that Jesus summarizes all of the laws, commandments, purity codes, and oral traditions into two commands:  love God, love your neighbor as yourself.  Then he equates our relationship with our neighbors to our relationship with God.  The way we love our neighbors (and who is my neighbor? the teacher asked, and Jesus replied with a pretty inclusive answer in the Good Samaritan), the way we love our neighbor IS the way we love God.  So as you consider your Lenten fast, hear the words of the prophet Isaiah (58:6-10), "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice...to let the oppressed go free...?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?  Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; ...Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness ..."

I encourage us as we choose what we will give up for Lent - do not just give something up, but engage in a true fast, giving up something to focus us more deeply on God.  I encourage us to fast, but to engage in a fast of the Lord's choosing.  What stands between you and a deeper relationship with God?  Perhaps more time in devotional study and prayer is what you need.  But perhaps the fast that you need is to surrender time, talent, and treasure to serve at the food bank, or the homeless shelter.  Perhaps you need to fast from the abundance of your normal life to serve in a mission or on a mission trip or some other form of outreach.

I encourage us as we begin this Lenten journey toward Holy Week and glorious good news of Easter not engage in meaningless fasts or diets, but to examine ourselves deeply and ask what we need to do to deepen our connection to God.  That is the fast that we should choose, because that is the fast that God chooses.

Where does God go when we turn out the lights?

"We seldom, if ever, allow the Holy Spirit to interrupt our plans and lead us to worship so that we might see Jesus." Max Lucado in When Christ Comes

A friend shared a thought with me the other day. He suggested that the mark of a deepening spirituality was allowing things to happen instead of making them happen. I think this is an excellent understanding for us to embrace as the people of Christ. Too often we are intent on a purpose defined and goal driven life. Even in our faith, we live with a goal: get to heaven. Now I am not saying that it is wrong to desire a place in heaven. I am not suggesting that it is somehow inappropriate to set goals or to work with purpose. It is not. But if we truly embrace the grace filled love of God that we claim as followers of Jesus, then do we need to pursue heaven? Is it not freely given as part of the grace we receive upon our confession of faith in Jesus?

Goal oriented, purpose driven faith is counter productive to a deeper spirituality. "Wait a minute, Pastor Al, what about books like Purpose Driven Ministry and Purpose Driven Life?" I believe these have value to us as we shape the way we live, and I am not suggesting that either goals or purpose are bad. Rather, I suggest that there must also be a time and place when those are set aside to further our spiritual growth - a place and time where we allow things to happen instead of striving to be in charge and to create events. If we go full throttle all the time, with our eyes fixed on the goal, then what do we do when the Spirit interrupts our plans and our purposeful path? Do we allow the Spirit to distract us so that we might encounter God in a real way, or do we begrudge the distraction from our own goals.

Do we stop and interact with the God who has overtaken us, or do we relegate his Spirit to some attic corner of our spiritual house in order to stay focused on our own goals, desires, and purposes?

As you read the gospel writers' accounts of Jesus it is difficult not to notice that Jesus goes away by himself from time to time. He goes to the quiet places to pray, we are told. And while none of these writers actually say it, it is not difficult to infer that the quiet places are where God overtakes him, where God speaks into the depths of his Spirit.

We have all heard the old saying, "Stop and smell the roses" or Lennon's admonition that "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." We learn from a very young age to set goals and fix priorities and to focus on achieving our goals. This is defined as success. But do we understand that faith suggests that we must also take time to stop and to find the secret, quiet place so that we allow God to overtake us?

Our modern fast paced world makes it easy to put on spiritual blinders so that we can stay focused on our own goals, objectives, and plans. Lucado's statement should haunt us. Do we allow the Holy Spirit to interrupt our plans and lead us to worship, at home, at school, at work, at the stop light on Main Street or waiting in the checkout lane at the big box store, so that we might see Jesus? Do we find a quiet place where God can overtake us and the Spirit can speak to us?

One of my daughters once asked, as I was turning out the lights to the sanctuary after the Sunday service, "Where does God go when we turn out the lights?" I think the question is a good one for us to reflect on. Does God go to sleep in the darkened sanctuary until the next worship session, or does God go with us into our lives? Do we relegate him to the dark corners until next week, or do we allow him to tap us on the shoulder from time to time so that we might truly worship God with our hearts and our lives?

I pray that we will allow God to overtake us and the Spirit to distract us as we strive to live our lives each day. I pray that when we turn out the lights in the sanctuary on Sunday morning that the Lord will accompany us into the world so that we let Jesus lead us to worship in a variety of ways, every day.

The Beat of Hope

The death of Davy Jones of the Monkees had a much greater impact on me than Whitney Houston's death, or some of the other losses to the music industry in the last year or two. Perhaps, as I told one friend on Facebook, that is because my age is showing. Certainly that 60's pop sound is what I grew up with, and it has helped shape who I am. The Monkees, the Beatles, the Stones, the Animals, and many others. They sang love songs, yes, but they also sang of social ills and addressed issues that needed to be changed. It could be very dark music, but it also could be light-hearted and even when offering a social critique, it could be upbeat.

Since Jones' death, I have found myself revisiting much of this music that speaks nostalgically of my youth and my formative years. I have dusted off old CD's, LP's (vinyl records for those who do not know the term) and found myself hitting old presets on my radio to visit stations I haven't been to in a while (yes, they call them 'oldies' stations).

And while we were very aware of racism, the Red Scare, nuclear threats, Viet Nam, drugs, and other issues, there is still something to this music that is uplifting. I believe it is hopeful. It speaks of the fact that we can overcome our problems, we can learn to love one another, we can build a better world. It encourages us to dream of what is possible, even when it seems to be patently impossible. It was the rhythm of change and it was set to the beat of hope. It challenged us to dream about possibilities and called on us to envision a better world and a new tomorrow that we could create if we could only all get together. It didn't deny the problems, but in naming the issues, it often suggested that there was hope. I admit that I don't listen to a lot of contemporary music and perhaps it does this as well. But as I look at the landscape of contemporary culture and modern politics, I am not so certain that the message of hope is still present. In fact one political person asked the President in a speech some time ago about how the hopey changey thing was working out.

I was disturbed by that remark. It almost suggested that hope is somehow not part of the process. Unfortunately, in the modern political process that might be true. I listen to the political hopefuls and the incumbents suggest all the things that are wrong and then add all the things that the other party is not doing to fix them. We get a laundry list of the problems and the ills, we get a recounting of the broken promises and broken issues, but I am not hearing positive solutions - I am not hearing hope.

There is a growing presence on the internet that promotes fear - fear of the President, of his politics, his ideology, and of his faith beliefs, and fear of the liberals who align themselves with him. There is fear of the conservatives, of their ideologies, policies and faith beliefs. But where is the hope?

As Christians we are called to be a people of hope. Does that mean we bury our heads in the sand and ignore what's wrong? No, but it does mean we are called to work for hope in a world lost in hopelessness, to work for peace in a world filled with war and violence, and to work for wholeness in a world that is broken by racism, poverty, ignorance, and oppression. We cannot do this by spreading fear and hopelessness. We must recognize that these things are the antithesis of God (reference 1 John 4:18ff). We are called to be agents of love and hope in the name of Jesus Christ.

I continue to be drawn to the music of my youth, not because it avoided the difficult challenges and problems (and today's music may confront them as well), but because even as it identified the issues, it sought to be hopeful. I would welcome a political process that avoided fear and hopelessness and offered ways to embrace positive and hopeful change. I would welcome a political process that stopped drawing lines and picking sides and sought compromises that would promote social change and economic growth and unity. I would welcome a politician who stood up and said, "I don't agree with _________'s agenda, but I see promises of hope in it" instead of one who denigrated the very idea that we can hope, or who opted for repressive social policies that solve economic problems but belittle people.

And I would welcome my brothers and sisters in Christ who would put aside their party loyalties and ideologies long enough to quit spreading fear and embrace our calling to be a people of "faith, hope, and love." No, we don't need to ignore our problems, racism, economic struggles, pollution, greed, violence, and war, and on and on, but we need to work together, as followers of the Way of Jesus, to build compromise, love, and above all, hope. I believe it was Tony Campolo who said, "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!" As we approach Easter it is time for those of the Way to reclaim it's promise to build hope. Sunday's coming - let's march toward it to the beat of hope.

Living Large or Living God

Myrna, a lady in the congregation I serve, was in the office the other day and we were talking about gardening as we are prone to do when she comes in. She was telling me about some 'moonflowers' that she grew from seeds that a friend gave her. The flowers grow quite tall, almost as tall as she. But she noticed the other days that the leaves were eaten so badly that only the veins were left. She discovered that there were hornworms on her beautiful flowers. They had apparently been there a while, but had gone unnoticed until they ate enough of the leaves to catch her attention and by then, they had grown quite large, living in ease off of the greenery that Myrna had worked so hard to grow. The hornworms were living large, they were prospering and enjoying their prosperity, that is until their comfortable and prosperous lifestyle brought them to Myrna’s notice. In the same way, sometimes people become so prosperous that they begin living large, sometimes without noticing it.

The man was a C.E.O. for a large corporation. His employees loved him because he was generous with bonuses and celebrations for achieving their goals. We are a team, he said, we share the work and the rewards, they liked him and looked up to him. He was driven back and forth to work in a chauffeured limousine, and he lived in a beautifully landscaped, new and modern gated community. He was content and had as much security as one could hope for in life. Outside the gate of his beautiful community lived a homeless man – we’ll call him Lazarus – who was crippled and could not work. There was perhaps a government grant he could receive, but he did not know how to apply for it. He was hungry. Not just today and not just occasionally – it was a constant hunger. He often searched through the garbage for the scraps of food that were thrown away. The rich man had noticed Lazarus, but had looked through and beyond him, after all he paid taxes so people like that could be taken care of – he gave money to the church so that people who were gifted for that sort of thing could minister to the homeless and poor. So his limo passed through the gate and it closed behind him and he was secure on the inside from the Lazaruses of the world.

Then one morning Lazarus, who had been slowly wasting away for months, lay down in a puddle in the alley near the garbage cans and died. Unknown to him the rich man was finishing his preparations for work and at that moment had a massive heart attack and died. Death is the great equalizer you see. It doesn’t care who you are or what you have; it simply claims you when it is your time. Now for most of us what we could know of the story would end there, but it doesn’t. Lazarus went to be in paradise where he found comfort and contentment, and the rich man went to the lower darkness where he yearned for some touch of human contact, some touch of comfort.

Our first thought as we share this parable is that the rich man was not a good person. That is not the case however, for his employees loved him, and I am guessing his funeral was well attended with many flowers and the wake was lavish with many to offer comfort to his family. He was generous with his employees, he paid his taxes and he even gave to the church. So, why does Jesus suggest, and this is a modernized version of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, that the rich man didn’t make it to paradise?

I think that Paul’s admonitions to his son in the faith, Timothy (1 Timothy 6:6-19), can help us to understand the parable, and our own perspectives on material goods. This pericope includes one of those scriptural references that is often misquoted and I first of all want us to truly hear this – it is not money itself that is the problem; it is love of money that is the root of evil. So if the problem is not money, then what is it that sends the rich man to the lower darkness?

Paul urges Timothy to godliness with contentment. This is a difficult passage to translate and without going into a long discussion of Greek grammar, let me simply tell you that contentment in this context is a description of godliness – it is an aspect, an attribute, of godliness. In the prior verses Paul suggests that some pursue godliness for their own gain, and this he says is wrong, true godliness requires contentment: we are imitators of Christ when we live by an inward sufficiency through the Holy Spirit. That is in opposition to the world which teaches us that bigger is better. Modern consumerism opposes the old saying that less is more. A recent issue of “Good Housekeeping” had an article entitled ‘Clutter Cure’ in which they suggested ways to overcome the clutter in our homes. The article outlined organizational strategies and storage solutions, but nowhere in the article did they suggest getting rid of stuff and not buying more – that would be countercultural. We are overburdened by the pursuit of the material and living large, perhaps without realizing it. And while we should be aware of the dangers inherent in the accumulation of material goods, this is not a call to poverty. It is not money or material goods that create problems; it is the improper perspective on them – the love of them.

The danger is that in loving money and material things we wander away from the faith. Money and material gain should not be the focus of either our life's journey or our faith journey, nor should they be a distraction from it – we are to pursue a godliness that is defined by contentment that is rooted in Christ

Paul suggests that the things of the world can cause us to lose sight of the Lord and to drift away. When we decide to live large, instead of living God, we are admired by the world, but perhaps we lose sight of God. Paul contrasts this with the active pursuit of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness; and to take hold of the that to which we have been called – life, life abundant, and life eternal. Paul is not suggesting here that we earn salvation, what he is directing us to is the mystery of living in the already, but not yet of salvation. We are saved by grace, but we are also saved for discipleship, for service, for participation in the radical Kingdom of God that comes into being through Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of Life. It is Christ who holds the key to real life, eternal life, a life that counts. His is the only path to this life. Paul uses a formula that was familiar to the early church when he suggests that Jesus is king of kings and Lord of lords, he is making a political statement. In this text Paul is suggesting that life cannot be found in economics or politics, but in Jesus Christ, who is Lord of life. The economics and political structures of his day, and of ours, are not God’s kingdom or God’s economy. We are to be, he says, tekna fotos, people of the light, the indescribable and unapproachable light of Christ.

And so, he suggests, with money then, comes great responsibility. Money does not buy contentment or security, but is given to us that we might enact God’s economy. And when we do, we declare in our words and our actions that Jesus is Lord, Lord of the world, Lord of life.

When we see our money and material goods with the proper perspective, not as permanent, but as temporary, we engage in discipleship that proclaims Jesus as Lord of our lives. We also engage in a faith statement that says we understand the difference between temporary and permanent. You’ve heard the old saying; you can’t take it with you. We are blessed to be a blessing, and when we focus on our money and material things they become a gate that stands as a barrier to community.

The name Lazarus means “God heals.” One of the ways we share that healing that we have received is by rejecting our culture’s call to living large and intentionally living out God’s love and compassion for others. Our cultural mindset is about living large, but living God is about contentment and sharing - it is about understanding God's economy as revealed in Jesus Christ. As people of faith, we are not called to live by cultural norms, but to live in a radically new way that calls attention to the Kingdom of God on earth. It is about contentment - an attribute of Godliness.