the gospel and the poor

I just wanted to share a resource with you all. Tim Keller taught a few months ago about the gospel and the poor at a conference and gave a simple, straightforward, and very biblically based case for why word and deed cannot be separated in our ministry as churches. Many churches, incredibly enough, miss all the economic implications of the gospel, which come up over and over again in the bible, in both old and new testaments. So if you feel like there is someone in your life that loves the bible but may be missing all those parts where it talks about the poor… Tim Keller:

beyond dating the church?

I had an epiphany the other day. I realized that I feel like I’m dating my church.

I know all communities are messy, including organic little churches like mine that are very community-oriented, but I realized for the first time today that I am dating my church.

I’ve had two exceptional relationships in my life. One was my friendship with one of my roommates in college and the other one was to my husband. I have had other amazing friends and boyfriends, but these two are something special. And I realized with both of them that the thing that made these relationships exceptional was commitment, loyalty, and trust.

Relationships can only be really amazing when you are both committed to each other long term, when you know what your relationship is, and when there is trust and loyalty.

Dating is different. You are still trying to figure the other person out. There isn’t tons of trust yet. There are always possible surprises about the other person that catch you off guard. There is a lot of possibility for hurt and breakups. The two people often end up having different expectations, desires, or ideas that still need to be worked out. The commitment isn’t there and people can be fickle. It’s dangerous and difficult to invest yourself fully. And you’re often asking the question, “what are we? where are we? where are we going?” with the realization that just asking those questions can take you two and a half steps back.

I feel like I’m dating my church.

But the bigger question is, is there anything else?

A church is a community of real people living in the real world. People are always (hopefully) becoming part of that community, so the community is constantly changing. The church is full of people who are broken, sinful, and messy. We live in America where individualism grips us and true community is often beyond our grasp. We’re not very good at sacrifice and our busyness often leads us to being too overwhelmed in just getting ourselves by. We are unfaithful to God, our mission, and each other way more than we’d like to admit.

I love the church. I think the church is beautiful. A body of God’s people on earth entrusted to participate in God’s mission by God’s amazing grace. I love the idea of the church, I love the church in reality, I love the people of the church. Heck, I’m going to seminary and planning on devoting my life to serving the church because I love it so much. I am the church. I think the church is a gorgeous mess. I even love the messy gritty imperfect humanness of the church. And I love my church, the little local community of believers I think of as family, so much so that my heart often breaks for them.

So, is the church worth dating? Oh yes, it is. When you love something enough, it’s worth sticking around and trying to figure things out. It’s worth dating.

But, no matter how much we love the church, is there anything beyond dating it? Is anything else really possible?

The greatest piece of marriage advice I ever got was from the pastor who married us. He told us, “when you are in conflict, move towards each other, not away from each other.” I remember that every time I feel like running away or ignoring an issue. Instead, I try to turn around and run straight into it until it is resolved. It’s worked so far.

And maybe that’s all we can do with the church. Keep running straight into the mess.

living the STORY

Our ethics have to start with the Story. Not rules, but the Story.

What is the Story of God? What is our Story as a community? What are we trying to live in? This is where ethics needs to start. Not a list of the rules, but the Story. Instead of searching through Scripture for every reference to money, politics, sex, children, peace, violence, or justice, we have to read the whole Story, the arc of scripture, the history of God’s interaction in the world.

We realize that the story is holistic. That it is not just a story about our souls and Jesus, but a story that spans the past and present, the physical and the spiritual, brokenness and redemption.

And in this holistic Story we find ourselves trying to find our own place in the Story. Where are we in this story? How do we play our role in the Story well? How do we live our part?

We realize that it isn’t just about us as individuals but that we live out the Story together. That the church joins in the Story, not merely individuals.

And so everywhere small pockets of those following the way are trying to figure out what exactly the way looks like. And it takes…

discussion

hard questions

experimentation

and boldness

I care about my ethics, how I live and interact in the world, because of my conviction that the Story is true. Rules cannot convince me of much- just threaten me with punishment or judgment. But since I am convinced of the reality of the Story in the here-and-now, I am compelled to live out that reality.

The Story has drawn me in so much so that I want to keep playing my part.

So I may hate forgiving my neighbor, but I want to live out God’s Story of forgiveness.

And I may love spending money on myself but I want to live out God’s Story of generosity and provision.

And I may enjoy my place of privilege but I want to live God’s Story that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

The vision of the Story, the promise in the Story, the hope that another world is possible and the kingdom of God is approaching draws me in. Draws us in.

It goes far beyond rules. Ethics is this long process of saturating ourselves with the Story from Scripture, then sitting in real community and asking…

how do we live that?

billions

Money makes me sad. Not money in and of itself. It’s really just pieces of paper or metal that we have given a lot of meaning to. But money has huge shaping powers in our lives, in our communities, in our churches, society, and world. We’ve given money the power in how we interact with others, where and how we live, where and how we work, what we do with our time, what we value… money.

And it makes me sad. Because money often lures us to do things we don’t want to do. To live lives off-balance. To have too much or too little, but often not simply “our daily bread”. We get caught up in making more to spend more, compromising to make some because we are so desperately poor, or having so much extra money we feel guilty and want to swear it off all together.

Lately, how we spend our money, as individuals and as a society, has made me really sad. We can justify spending $30 to go out to eat pretty easily, but have a hard time giving that money to a friend that can’t make ends meet. We are so wired to think of our money as our own, to be used for comfort, protection, and advancement, that it is often so difficult to see how messed up our own priorities have become. I struggle with this every time I pay a huge tuition bill, fully realizing how much good that few thousand dollars can do in the world, and that it is all being spent on my education. I know, I can justify spending that money on my own education a million ways, and some of them probably very truthful, but in the end I find it so easy to spend money on ourselves and so difficult to spend it on others.

The “Billion Dollar Gram” is a visual way to see how all those billions of dollars we talk about compare. It makes it easy to see how much we’re actually talking about when we say $465 billion dollars can feed and educate every child in the world for five years, compared to the $3000 billion estimated spending on the Iraq War. It makes it clear how much our financial priorities, at all levels, have become about self-preservation.

Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit
About 50,000 people who are dyin’ today
Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?
-Derek Webb “What Matters More”

God, we repent of our own propensity to spend our money on ourselves, and our unwillingness to bless others as generously as you have blessed us.

confession and repentance

I have been pondering the role of confession and repentance in our lives as an essential part of Christian community. It seems like confession and repentance is not a regular practice or value we have in our Christian communities. We don’t talk about the need for confession. We don’t create atmospheres that are conducive for confession. We don’t value confession. It’s too messy and awkward and hard… and if we say that confession is important, then maybe we will be forced to come clean with our own junk.

It makes sense that confession and repentance has not been emphasized because sin, the thing that leads to the need for confession, is often not emphasized. If we don’t make it a simple fact in our Christian communities that we all screw up and sin, that it is simply a fact that we are a messy and broken people, it is hard to get to confession and repentance.

Instead, even the most amazing Christian communities I have been a part of seem to run as a meritocracy. Those that screw up less, that have it all together, that are more responsible, are the ones who are valued. They are the leaders and examples and the trusted ones.

Instead, it seems like we should value the confessors. Because those who appear to have it all together never really do. They may have it more together, but everyone is still sinful and broken and messy. The confessors are the ones who are honest about their brokenness, making them more open to repentance and transformation and community. Those who continue to hide behind the mask of having it all together are not as free from their sins and cannot be fully embraced by the rest of the community as their true messy selves. Our leaders should be the confessors. Those willing to admit their sinfulness and eager to repent and change.

Rob Bell said in his recent sermon “Confession”:

“Confession is connected to freedom. I am no longer pretending like I have it all together. I am no longer trying to project the image that I am fast enough. I am no longer carefully crafting the sort of mask to make everybody know I got what it takes, that I have it going on. I have given that up. You know what, I am kinda confused. I’m kinda lost. I don’t have the answer. I don’t have the money for that, so I am not going to pretend that I do. There is a sort of freedom that comes with that, that I don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Pastor Eugene Cho has argued that there are assumptions and agreements that maintain order and cohesiveness within any community without which no organization can function. In the church, one of these assumptions is that we are all working towards becoming the person (and the people) that God created us to be. Unrepentant sin undermines that goal and needs to be dealt with. (from Eugene Cho’s blog)

I agree with Pastor Cho. It seems like if we are as church communities trying to move towards becoming the people that God created us to be, we need to become great confessors. We do not get there by working harder and pretending we are already the people God created us to be, but to admit that we are not there yet. That we are not living as God wants for us. And in that act of confession, in admitting we aren’t the people God created us to be, we become the people God created us to be. It is one of those wonderful backwards upside-down kingdom of God things that makes no sense but at the same time makes perfect sense. We are to be broken confessors. Only when we admit we are sinful messes can we move closer to becoming the people of God.

Practice: The Daily Office

Each month my small group choses a different spiritual practice to try out. Some months we go traditional and do things like meditation or fasting. Other months we do spiritual practices outside the traditional church practices like celebration (we threw a big party together). This month we have chosen to practice the daily office together, and I’d like to share the short guide I wrote the group if others are interested in practicing the daily office.

Basically, the daily office (also known as the divine Hours, daily Prayers, fixed-hour prayer, etc) is the practice of praying at different set times during the day, normally using a prayer book or other guide. The daily office can be traced back to the first century of the church, when early Christians recited the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. The daily office was formalized by St. Benedict and his monks, which prayed when they woke up, 6am, dawn, 9am, noon, 3pm, dusk, and before bed. They used a set prayer book of written prayers and Psalms, so they were all praying the same things at each hour.

The daily office is most often done using a set of written prayers and scripture passages in a prayer book already planned out for each day. The prayer book may have different daily prayers for a whole year of practicing the hours, or it may repeat on a weekly or monthly basis (aka. your morning and evening prayers for the 1st Monday of this month will be a repeat of the prayers written for the first Monday of last month). Some of them have prayers just for the morning or evening, and others have prayers for up to 6 times a day. You pray the daily office using a prayer book to help guide your prayers and to unite with all the other Christians around the world also praying the daily office. Praying using pre-written prayers may be difficult for us Protestants not used to liturgy, but I think it will be a worthwhile thing to try.

Maria’s Short guide to praying The Daily Office:
1) Pick one of the prayer-guides from my list below.
2) Pick times you want to say the prayers. For instance, if your guide has morning, midday, and evening prayers, maybe you choose to pray in the morning after breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner, or maybe at set times- 7am, 12noon, and 7pm. It is important to come up with fixed times to pray the office to get into a routine.
3) Pick a place or atmosphere. Things like having a fixed place to sit and pray the daily prayers or music you listen to while praying may help build a routine.
4) Make it your own. Add meditation afterwards. Do only morning and evening prayers, even though the prayer guide you picked has prayers for 6 times a day. Sing a song each day as part of your prayers. Be a little flexible and make it your own.
5) If you miss a day or several days, don’t worry, try picking it back up again.

Here is a list of online resources you can check out: (If you think my list is too long, jump straight to The Divine Hours or Missio Dei and check them out- I recommend those two the most.)

Book of Common Prayer If you go to the September calendar, there are prayers for each morning and evening of each day. The prayers are long and include things like songs, but remember you wouldn’t have to do all of the prayer for each morning/evening. Definitely more traditional in style.

The Divine Hours This offers a series of short prayers and readings, often from Psalms, throughout the day. There are morning, mid-day, and evening prayers for each day. This is a great “middle of the road” option for praying the hours- traditional format written and organized by a contemporary author. Here is the website. Just go to “Pray the Hours”, pick your time zone and bookmark the website.

Anglican Prayers These are daily morning and evening prayers from the Anglican church. These are written to do with a group in a led service, so may not be the best choice, but I threw them in anyways.

Celtic Prayer There are morning, midday, and evening prayers from a celtic community, here. Simple and straightforward, most of the prayers are the same day-to-day, so good if you want a lot of repetition.

Universalis If you go here and look at the left side-bar you will find morning, mid-morning, midday, afternoon, evening, and night prayers. Lots of Psalms and prayers for each one. Good if you want a guide to practice the hours 6 times a day (or of course you could pick to do only morning and evening prayers from this guide and skip the rest of the hours).

Missio Dei My personal favorite- these are the prayers I use. Straightforward and contemporary, and the website is less confusing than others. Offers both morning and evening prayers, including short opening and closing prayers, instructions for meditating or reflecting, and readings from the bible.

Pray the Pslams Skip the online prayer-guides and just pray the Psalms. Pick set time or two each day for your Daily office, say an opening prayer (maybe the Lord’s Prayer), read a Psalm, and say a closing prayer. This is the simplest way to pray the Daily Office, but you do miss out a bit on the tradition of praying with others who are using the same guide.

Watch The Office Head over to hulu.com and watch one episode of The Office each day. Be sure to start back a season or two so you have at least one episode a day to go the rest of the month. You are going to need to set aside about 30 minutes a day for this one. (I am of course kidding about this one.)

If any of you have any tips or other resources to recommend (online or in books) on the Daily Office, let me know so I can share them!

Meeting the Neighbors

Sorry for the long blog hiatus. I don’t really have a reason for it, except that lately I have been trying to be more present in the real world, which means the world of blogging has gotten ignored. Sorry, world of blogging.

A few weeks ago one of the leaders at my church, Don, preached on “The Descending Way.” I was gone on a two week backpacking trip in Yosemite when Don preached, so I just got around to listening to it now. Don had some great thoughts and ideas on how to be missional and get to know people in your community, which I thought were well worth considering. Many of them sound basic, but making a point in being intentional about a few of them could go a long way in being connected and missional in our communities:

Frequent: Frequent the same gas stations, restaurants, and coffee shops, go around the same time, and get to know your baristas and checkers.

Get a Hobby: Join a group in your community centered around a hobby (volleyball league, cyclists, take a class etc) and meet some new people who are different than you.

Meet People on the Street: Walk your cute dog or kid around your neighborhood and meet neighbors as you go. Be willing to step out of your comfort zone and start some conversations.

Work it: At work, invite co-workers to eat lunch with you, walk around outside on a break, or go out after work

Volunteer at a Non-Profit: Volunteer in your community and get to know both the other volunteers and members of your community.

Meet your Neighbors: Ask for sugar even if you don’t need any, make some cookies, and bring them cookies back. Start a conversation.

Go for a Prayer Walk/Ride: Walk or ride your bike around your neighborhood and pray for your neighbors as you pass by their houses.

Know the Poor: Get to know the poor, handicapped, disabled, elderly, refugees, immigrants, single parent families, and orphans in your neighborhood. Get to to know them, their stories, and their concerns in the neighborhood.

“look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others…”

the 10th commandment

“It’s the 10th commandment that truly kicks us in the ass… it’s the coveting that’s gotten the entire Western world in the mess it is in now…”

-John Goldingay, my Pentateuch professor

producing

Some things in life can be broken down into two categories- consuming and producing. Sometimes we are consumers. Other times we produce things. Sometimes we do both, like when we cook a great meal and then eat it

My busy seminary life often feels like consumption. I sit in lecture, discussions, and read a lot. I consume an overwhelming amount of information. From there I either (a) forget it, (b) chew on it for a while and remember it, or (c) write it in a paper or memorize it for an exam. I do produce a lot of papers, but one professor or one teaching assistant is the most they get read. It doesn’t really feel like ‘real’ production of anything useful.

I have realized all this consumption has lead me to two new hobbies that are about production. This year I have started playing the guitar a lot and drawing. Maybe it’s a left-brain vs. right-brain thing and my creative side is just itching to get out. Either way, I have found myself taking periodic breaks throughout my hours of studying or reading to pick up my guitar and learn some new songs or take out my moleskine and sketch a few things. I’m not very good at either playing the guitar or drawing, but I have decided that I shouldn’t let my artistic mediocrity stop me from enjoying myself and producing something others may enjoy. Maybe I’ll even get good at it some day!

a tomato

It’s finals this week, and it has been a very very hard finals for me. The papers and exams aren’t really more difficult, I’m just lacking the motivation and energy to get through them well. Everything in me just wants to rest. To have some fun. To step away from the laptop screen and spend time with my husband, neighbors, friends, and church community. There is something so twisted about the imbalance and stress of finals as part of preparation for ministry. I get the need to spend time studying to learn, and I embrace it. Finals just seems like a time to pursue all that is wrong with the world. Competing with others in performance. Being successful and smart by the standards of the world. Severing ties with family, friends, and community for an individualistic goal. That may be an overstatement, but every finals week those thoughts gnaw on me.

But today I came home from a long hard exam. And there was one red tomato. I don’t know when it turned red. It wasn’t there a few days ago. But there it was. The first little red tomato.

The neighbors in my building got together and we planted tomatoes, herbs, and other good things a few weeks ago. And today our first tomato was red.

Water, sun, some dirt, and the plan of a tiny seed… a few weeks later there is a tomato.

There is rebirth. There is new life. There is the awe and wonder and miraculous.

There is a tomato. There is hope.