So, pretty funny how much attention gets paid to numerous issues. In fact, it is sometimes rather surprising what people notice and what people do not notice. There are times when I have often have thought something was absolutely obvious and turns out no one noticed. Other times, I thought something was inconspicuous and it turns out that everybody noticed.
For example, I have allowed my facial hair to grow basically every year during the winter. It is a family tradition I recall from childhood. Men in the family were hunters and fishermen. The beards began in October and stayed through ice fishing until March/April. I usually wear a goatee anyways. The beard would often be kept closely cropped, but was there none-the-less. I thought it was obvious....until this past year.
This past year, I decided to give it freedom to grow without limits. The purpose to this was prophetic, basically. With many things, certain issues come out of my childhood. One of those things, that relates to this, is my need for close cut, very neat, items. For example, I once allowed my hair to grow and was able to get it to a point of a pony tail. Yet, as I look back, those days of having a ponytail included always pulling back all my hair as tight as possible. I used multiple levels of hair product in order to keep it from having any "fly aways" or extraneous curls. There is one picture I have of my hair being loose. It was wild, out there, completely untamed. I thought back on that day and if I recall correctly, my mood was similar to that; untamed, wild, a bit out there. Eventually, I had to cut my hair short. The amount of product combined with the tension I was putting on it in order to make sure it complied was causing breakage and balding.
I, being who I am, had to take it to the other extreme. So, for a time, I intentionally shaved my head. I liked to cleanness to the look. It was easy maintenance. With urging from others, though, I eventually grew it back and now maintain a closer cropped head of hair.
The Beard:
Many seemed to notice the beard more so this year. As I thought about it, I think I know why. The closeness of the cut I normally keep was less outstanding given normal men's fashion. I would go a couple of days between shaving even with the goatee--sensitive skin plus dulling razor equals breakouts. So, in the end it is far more reasonable that it is so noticed.
It is even more noticeable to me. As noted earlier, I have an issue with things not being in place. You wouldn't know it by my office, especially my desk, but lack of organization plays havoc on me. Yet, this year, the beard was allowed to grow as it would. I resisted the temptation to get it under control. I outlined the "flyers" to grow periodically grooming with comb or brush to bring them into something resembling unison. This would never last of course. Beards are beards. They grow without any sense of care for each other, the individual whiskers only caring for their self development and sustainability on the field of "face". Talk about messy! The discord on my face was amazing.
Yet, let it grow I did. It continued to gain size and shape. Colors came through. Flyers grew out. Some whiskers came in straight. Others had varying degrees and directions of curl. Looking at it, I was going crazy. It was course. It was messy. It was a distraction. Until the day I allowed my perspective to be changed. I took a step back from a mirror and looked. The mess was less noticeable. I took another step backwards and another and another. Eventually, as I got a newer perspective, I was able to see that the mess was not as messy as I thought. There was shape to it. There was a sense of the way that it now had a purpose. Suddenly, the messiness wasn't gone, it was now purposeful. A whole new sense.
I continued to let it grow, and will do so until the end of March. I am now looking forward to next fall already when I reengage in the same "experiment".
So, what's the purpose?
The Church.
Yes, the Church. As I looked. As I pondered. I prayed. I sought what it might be that God might be saying. Though, not audibly, I know now what I heard. The Church looks messy when you put it under the microscope. There are places where it is "colored wrong". There are other places wherein the twists and turns fight against each other. It appears unruly as you compare one to another and expectations are in conflict with each other.
All too often, it seems that we approach the Church in the way that I too often approached my beard/hair. We label, have expectations, a desire to control and harsh reactions to that which we do not approve of. Yet, if we allow the quilt work of the church to be seen from our heavenly Father's perspective, this would all change. He does not see all the mess, or should I say, he is far less concerned with the mess, than he is with the overall effect. He sees the beauty of the widow putting the mite in the temple box. He also sees the beauty of the many streams of the church coming together for varied purposes. He sees the beauty of all those inconsistent hairs coming together to form one whole. This is the bride. This is his hope.
Conclusion: I need to back off from judging the messiness and allow myself to see through His eyes the beauty He sees. I have to let my sense of judgment be altered. I have to allow for a dramatic shift in perception. I have to allow my heart to become the same heart that Jesus has....please join me in doing the same
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Our Calling?
Yes, been a while......
This is a basic challenge to my priestly peers as well as a general shout out to the Priesthood of All Believers. Are you a shepherd or a pharisee?
I figure no gradual lead in. Let's just jump right in. After all, this speaks to so much of what we in the church are truly dealing with--a dangerous realization that faith levels have plummeted. Why? Maybe you don't care. Maybe you do care that your average Sunday attendance (ASA and the 'gold standard idol' of the Episcopal Church) is dropping. Maybe you don't.
Many years ago now I was sitting in Deacon's School on a Saturday afternoon. The teacher for the day was Arch Deacon Harvey Huth. He was expanding upon the understanding of shepherd as it related to the pastoral duties of our callings. He shared about growing up on a sheep farm. He talked about how you could always tell those who took care of sheep. How? Was it some convenient name tag with titles? Was it on their driver's licenses or non-driver's license id's? No....the way you could tell was a little more simple than that.
You could smell it.
He noted how, true shepherds, the ones who truly care for the flock, smell of that flock because of the time spent with them. It did not matter the number of showers they took or how the clothes were washed or what they were washed in. There was always a certain smell that permeated everything. As a result, you can know the shepherds. And, as a result, you could tell the ones that were in it for show or only "part timers". They didn't carry the same level of scent to them.
This story has always stuck with me. Since the first time I heard it, it has sunk in and occasionally bubbles up to the surface again.
This morning, was one of the times.
You see, if we are truly called to be pastors, the same word in Greek also being shepherd, we are then probably going to smell like the sheep we tend. Does this frighten you? What might get in the way of this? How might others react?
To truly step up, as both a pastor and as part of the priesthood-of-all-believers, is going to require something of us that we may or may not be able to be overcome in a singular moment--we have to stop being afraid of hell.
Yes, I'm going there.
We need to stop being afraid of hell, the devil and the world.
When Jesus offered up his "high priestly prayer" in John 17, he asked that we not be taken out of the world, but that we no longer be a part of the world. He also, when Peter offered his confession of faith, Jesus said this (the confession of Jesus as the Christ and Son of God) would be the rock upon which he would build the church and, here's the kicker/gut punch/whatever you care to call it, the gates of Hell would not prevail against it.
Do gates move? Not that I'm aware of. Last I knew, gates are stationary. They sit and guard a stationary locale of a physical place. Even as a city might expand, the original gates still remain and new gates are merely added as the walls are expanded further and further out.
So, why would Jesus make these kind of statements regarding the gates of hell? Perhaps he had lost his mind for a moment? Or, perhaps, just maybe, Jesus was expecting the kingdom/the church, to move in such a way as to push against those gates? Ponder this for a moment. What does that mean for how we are to pastor our flocks? Behind closed walls in sanitized buildings with beautiful decorations? How does that push against the gates of hell? If anything, that allows hell even more building room.
I was trying to come up with some fancy way of articulating this. I am currently unable to. So, here it is in plain speak:
Our churches are failing because faith has been replaced with fear and pastors have been replaced with pharisees.
We fear the world and all that it has to offer. We fear pastoring those who may not be like minded or may struggle with numerous challenges that are "offensive" or maybe they are young and raw in their faith and this is something that feels prickly and uncertain. It raises anxiety and that anxiety bleeds out into the congregation and the congregation becomes more and more anxious. Rather than our focus being on introducing and cultivating a relationship with God, we focus on trying to create good church goers who will help out at the bazaar and give a good image to the local grocery store.
We don't smell like sheep. We smell like myrrh and fabric softener.
We seek uniformity rather than unity and, like the early Jewish counter parts, we teach the precepts of men rather than the word of God. How could I be so bold to proclaim this? Where in the bible does it say that men have to have short hair and women have to have long hair? Where does it say that a man should not have an earring? Actually, to that, the bible says the opposite. The levitical law included a provision for piercing the ear of a slave that did not want to leave his master's home.
My challenge to us, myself included, is to become more fully open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Paul was driven to the gentiles and preached to them a strange new belief. They were not circumsised, ate crabs and munched on bacon. They did not follow any of the rules. Yet, he went boldly to them in order to share the message of the good news of Christ and the restoration of the relationship between Creator and creation.
Patrick went back into the very place in which he endured slavery in order to bring the good news. He did not stop their practices. He did not stop their songs. He did not stop their prayers. He offered to them the opportunity to turn these over to God. Thanksgiving prayers were given each more at the kindling of the fire. Now, rather than offering up that thanks to some other deity, they offered up the thanks they already had to the new light in their lives, the light of Christ. Celtic Christianity is filled with this. Patrick worked side by side with them in the fields, hauling wood, tending flocks, getting water, preparing meals, mending fences and roofs and all of the other day to day chores that went into life. Only when they would go to worship would they separate out.
We have sterilized our faith which has led to it losing all power and presence.
Brothers and sisters, it is time to begin walking by faith rather than hiding in fear. It is time for us to use our worship time as a time of refreshing only to empower us to more boldly spend the rest of the week in the world. How will they hear if no one is sent to them? How will they know that the love of Christ is available if the only thing they encounter in the world is our sneers and disdain for those who "are like we used to be"? How will they ever step foot into a church/worship service if all they know of it is how judged they already are on the outside of the building?
I have never ever seen one person successfully shamed into belief. I have never seen any one person sustain faith that is birthed in fear of hell (whether now or in the afterlife). I have seen time and time again that faith birthed out of desperation all too often fades when the pressure is taken off.
I have seen whereby someone comes to a different understanding of God as a result of my relationship with Him and with them.
Join me as I accept this challenge to live my faith boldly following the leading of the Holy Spirit unafraid of hell. After all, scripture says that He who is in me has overcome the world. The victory has been one. Time to stop living in fear of defeat.
God's peace and blessings to all.
This is a basic challenge to my priestly peers as well as a general shout out to the Priesthood of All Believers. Are you a shepherd or a pharisee?
I figure no gradual lead in. Let's just jump right in. After all, this speaks to so much of what we in the church are truly dealing with--a dangerous realization that faith levels have plummeted. Why? Maybe you don't care. Maybe you do care that your average Sunday attendance (ASA and the 'gold standard idol' of the Episcopal Church) is dropping. Maybe you don't.
Many years ago now I was sitting in Deacon's School on a Saturday afternoon. The teacher for the day was Arch Deacon Harvey Huth. He was expanding upon the understanding of shepherd as it related to the pastoral duties of our callings. He shared about growing up on a sheep farm. He talked about how you could always tell those who took care of sheep. How? Was it some convenient name tag with titles? Was it on their driver's licenses or non-driver's license id's? No....the way you could tell was a little more simple than that.
You could smell it.
He noted how, true shepherds, the ones who truly care for the flock, smell of that flock because of the time spent with them. It did not matter the number of showers they took or how the clothes were washed or what they were washed in. There was always a certain smell that permeated everything. As a result, you can know the shepherds. And, as a result, you could tell the ones that were in it for show or only "part timers". They didn't carry the same level of scent to them.
This story has always stuck with me. Since the first time I heard it, it has sunk in and occasionally bubbles up to the surface again.
This morning, was one of the times.
You see, if we are truly called to be pastors, the same word in Greek also being shepherd, we are then probably going to smell like the sheep we tend. Does this frighten you? What might get in the way of this? How might others react?
To truly step up, as both a pastor and as part of the priesthood-of-all-believers, is going to require something of us that we may or may not be able to be overcome in a singular moment--we have to stop being afraid of hell.
Yes, I'm going there.
We need to stop being afraid of hell, the devil and the world.
When Jesus offered up his "high priestly prayer" in John 17, he asked that we not be taken out of the world, but that we no longer be a part of the world. He also, when Peter offered his confession of faith, Jesus said this (the confession of Jesus as the Christ and Son of God) would be the rock upon which he would build the church and, here's the kicker/gut punch/whatever you care to call it, the gates of Hell would not prevail against it.
Do gates move? Not that I'm aware of. Last I knew, gates are stationary. They sit and guard a stationary locale of a physical place. Even as a city might expand, the original gates still remain and new gates are merely added as the walls are expanded further and further out.
So, why would Jesus make these kind of statements regarding the gates of hell? Perhaps he had lost his mind for a moment? Or, perhaps, just maybe, Jesus was expecting the kingdom/the church, to move in such a way as to push against those gates? Ponder this for a moment. What does that mean for how we are to pastor our flocks? Behind closed walls in sanitized buildings with beautiful decorations? How does that push against the gates of hell? If anything, that allows hell even more building room.
I was trying to come up with some fancy way of articulating this. I am currently unable to. So, here it is in plain speak:
Our churches are failing because faith has been replaced with fear and pastors have been replaced with pharisees.
We fear the world and all that it has to offer. We fear pastoring those who may not be like minded or may struggle with numerous challenges that are "offensive" or maybe they are young and raw in their faith and this is something that feels prickly and uncertain. It raises anxiety and that anxiety bleeds out into the congregation and the congregation becomes more and more anxious. Rather than our focus being on introducing and cultivating a relationship with God, we focus on trying to create good church goers who will help out at the bazaar and give a good image to the local grocery store.
We don't smell like sheep. We smell like myrrh and fabric softener.
We seek uniformity rather than unity and, like the early Jewish counter parts, we teach the precepts of men rather than the word of God. How could I be so bold to proclaim this? Where in the bible does it say that men have to have short hair and women have to have long hair? Where does it say that a man should not have an earring? Actually, to that, the bible says the opposite. The levitical law included a provision for piercing the ear of a slave that did not want to leave his master's home.
My challenge to us, myself included, is to become more fully open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Paul was driven to the gentiles and preached to them a strange new belief. They were not circumsised, ate crabs and munched on bacon. They did not follow any of the rules. Yet, he went boldly to them in order to share the message of the good news of Christ and the restoration of the relationship between Creator and creation.
Patrick went back into the very place in which he endured slavery in order to bring the good news. He did not stop their practices. He did not stop their songs. He did not stop their prayers. He offered to them the opportunity to turn these over to God. Thanksgiving prayers were given each more at the kindling of the fire. Now, rather than offering up that thanks to some other deity, they offered up the thanks they already had to the new light in their lives, the light of Christ. Celtic Christianity is filled with this. Patrick worked side by side with them in the fields, hauling wood, tending flocks, getting water, preparing meals, mending fences and roofs and all of the other day to day chores that went into life. Only when they would go to worship would they separate out.
We have sterilized our faith which has led to it losing all power and presence.
Brothers and sisters, it is time to begin walking by faith rather than hiding in fear. It is time for us to use our worship time as a time of refreshing only to empower us to more boldly spend the rest of the week in the world. How will they hear if no one is sent to them? How will they know that the love of Christ is available if the only thing they encounter in the world is our sneers and disdain for those who "are like we used to be"? How will they ever step foot into a church/worship service if all they know of it is how judged they already are on the outside of the building?
I have never ever seen one person successfully shamed into belief. I have never seen any one person sustain faith that is birthed in fear of hell (whether now or in the afterlife). I have seen time and time again that faith birthed out of desperation all too often fades when the pressure is taken off.
I have seen whereby someone comes to a different understanding of God as a result of my relationship with Him and with them.
Join me as I accept this challenge to live my faith boldly following the leading of the Holy Spirit unafraid of hell. After all, scripture says that He who is in me has overcome the world. The victory has been one. Time to stop living in fear of defeat.
God's peace and blessings to all.
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