Do I really want to be a Christian?

Lord, I want to be a Christian…in my heart

                Or so goes the old hymn.  Many of us who have gone to church know the song and we sing it with mild enthusiasm.  The idea behind the song is that we need God’s help in being a Christian, so that it permeates our very heart and soul.  There is just one big problem.

                Christians irk me.

                Not just a little, but a lot. 

                I mean A LOT!

                We can be bigoted and self righteous towards other people.  We can tolerate some sins, but absolutely not others.  We can be conceited and treat each other like dirt.  And we fight….about EVERYTHING.  Clothes, tattoos, tobacco, sex, worship styles, politics, theology, and about everything else we drag each other through the mud and we do it in the name of God. 

                I know this is nothing new.  This has been going on since the Church was established.  In fact, most of the New Testament is about Christians fighting each other.  Just about every other page is a new heresy or bad decision (usually by Peter) or about food sacrificed to idols.   It’s amazing that there never seems to be a period of agreement in the Church. 

                With all of the fighting that goes on and has gone on, we tend to forget the clear and central claim of the gospel that Jesus offers: “Follow me” (Mark 1:17).  In fact most of the gospels seem to be about expanding that call and discovering what it means for a disciple to come and follow Jesus.  This call seems to have dire consequences on the believer because Bonhoeffer writes, “when Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.” Bonhoeffer wrote his book Discipleship around the central issue of following Jesus.

                But can we really do this today? What does it mean to ‘Follow Jesus’? The disciples were lucky in this regard because they could literally follow Jesus from place to place.  We don’t have that luxury. 

                When I think about the call of Jesus, I certainly think it extends way beyond the paths of fighting about dogma and about deciding what side I am on concerning sexual orientation. I get the sense that Jesus is calling us to something higher, something more productive, something….bigger than our traditional squabbles. 

                Perhaps it’s time that all of us Christians look at ourselves and really begin to question what it means to follow Jesus.  Maybe the question is not do I want to become a Christian? But perhaps the question comes to be: what sort of Christian do I want to be?

                And for me the answer is, “I want to be a Christian that follows Jesus”.   What that means, however, has yet to be fully explored.

Are you Somebody?

Nuala O’Faolin recently wrote a book whose title, Are you Somebody?, says it all.  She takes it from a question she was asked one day.  In her account of her life, she attempts to answer the question…maybe not the answer the person who asked the question was looking for, but an answer nonetheless.

            Are you somebody?

            Isn’t that a question that we are asked…and we ask ourselves…a thousand times a day.  The question may be asked in terms of “are you somebody important?”  Or maybe the person wants to know, “are you somebody I know…or I should know.”  Perhaps underlying all of this is the unspoken assumption, “are you somebody I should care about?”

            Are you somebody?

            How would you answer that question about yourself?  Are YOU somebody?  Perhaps it might depend on what you meant by ‘somebody’.  I mean, aren’t we all somebody? We all have our own personality, our own interests, our own quirks and our own habits.  Maybe you might say, “well, I’m somebody to some people” I have a family that loves me…and if they don’t love me they at least acknowledge that I belong to them. But am I somebody important? Am I somebody valuable? Well now we are getting into dangerous waters indeed.

            Are you somebody?

            Our Gospel lesson today introduces us to somebody who might have been asking this very same question.  In John 4, we meet this unnamed ‘Samaritan Woman’ who epitomizes the question we have been asking.  And even though we don’t get to know much about this woman, we find out what it means to be somebody through her eyes.

            It seems like an ordinary day.  Jesus has been out preaching and he is thirsty and tired.  He sits by a well in a small town in Samaria while the disciples go off and do…disciple things.  As Jesus is sitting there, this woman comes up to him.

            This woman…this unnamed woman coming at the well at noon.  Not in the morning, when everybody else would come to the well.  At noon.  So she wouldn’t be noticed by other people.  So she could avoid the other women in the town.  So she could be alone.  As she comes to the well, Jesus begins to talk to her.

            Are you somebody? Ok…not the question he asks.  Rather he asks with the benign request for a drink of water. 

            She responds, “How is it you a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (4:9).  She responds, “Are you somebody?”  She is confused because it was a social custom that Jews and Samaritans would be kept separate from each other.[1]  Not only this, but this is a man asking something from a woman.  There is a high wall of social norms, laws and regulations that are being overcome and it understandably makes the woman uncomfortable. 

            The best part of this story comes with Jesus’ response to this.  If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘give me a drink’… What a great statement.  Essentially Jesus is saying “Well I actually AM somebody…in fact I AM” but then goes on to bring the conversation back to her again.  “I could give you ‘living water’.” 

            The story then takes another turn when Jesus tells her to go get her husband and come back to talk to him.

            Then comes the truth.

            I have no husband.

            Jesus replies, “You are right in saying that you have no husband. In fact, you have had five husbands and the man you are living with now is not your husband.”

            Five husbands.  That’s a lot.  But it is also the reason why the woman is out at noon by herself.

            No matter what the reasons are for having five husbands, the fact of the matter is that in a small town like Sychar, having five husbands meant you were somebody.  You were that woman ( you can feel free to fill in what ‘that’ meant).  You were that woman that five men couldn’t stand so they left you.  You were that woman who was cursed by God and had her husbands die on her. You were that woman that you couldn’t even make the current guy marry you.   

You were somebody…but you were really nobody.  You were nobody that anybody wanted to be around.  You were nobody that anybody cared about. You were nobody that anybody wanted to see.

You were alone in the world and you can imagine what this felt like. 

She might have felt that she had been cursed by God.  She might have felt unclean because of her current circumstances.  She definitely felt alone.

Cursed.  Unclean.  Alone.

The nature of her five (failed?) marriages doesn’t really matter.  What really matters is how she felt.  Ostracized by her community, forsaken in love, abandoned by everyone and everything important.  It is no wonder that when given the opportunity to talk to Jesus, she talks about an old theological dispute.  Something that’s not personal, not about her.  Something that’s safe.

Cursed.  Unclean.  Alone. 

I bet that we have all felt like this at some point in our lives.  One of the memories I have of growing up was being called a “waste of air”.  But so many people have had to endure so much more.

I think of Anna, who grew up hated by her father only to marry a man who cared even less for her.

I think of Dan who gave his life over to drugs at an early age, kicked out by his family and lived his life on the streets.

I think of Mildred, the elderly woman that nobody wanted to visit and nobody wanted to listen to her pain.

Cursed.  Unclean.  Alone.

When we find ourselves like this.  We may ask ourselves, “Am I somebody?”  And the answer comes back in our heads and nestles in our hearts, “I am nobody worth listening to, I am nobody worth being with; I am nobody worthy loving.”  “Am I somebody?”  “NO” the answer echoes in the stillness of our rooms with only ourselves to hear it.

But when we consider this story, a different answer must be given. 

At its’ heart, this story is about the man who did pay attention, who did listen, who did care.

At this point in John’s Gospel, the reader knows fully well who Jesus is.  In fact, we cannot avoid this fact.  John’s Gospel begins, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was With God and the Word was God”.  John makes it pretty clear that Jesus is the Word, that Jesus is God.  “All things that were created were created through him.”  Jesus is God, He is the creator of the universe, of all that was and is and will ever be.

Reimagine this story.  Here is a woman, a broken, lonely woman going to the well one day.  Who does she meet? I AM.  The Beginning and the End the Alpha and the Omega, the CREATOR of the universe and all that is. 

This God became flesh, became man, and sat at the well with this woman.  He took an interest in her.  He offered her ‘living water’, everlasting life and life with hope.  He offered her a future where the God of the Universe loved her and took an interest in her.  In Her! 

This may not seem like a lot…but it is EVERYTHING.  It doesn’t matter what the other people in town are saying.  It doesn’t matter that life hasn’t worked out according to plan.  It doesn’t matter that our hearts are broken (it does, but hear me out).  What matters is that the GOD of the Universe, the one who holds worlds in the palm of His hands, is uniquely interested in YOU.  He wants to hear from YOU.  He wants to know what is going on in your life.  He wants to know your pain.  He wants to know your joy, he wants to know your life.

Are you somebody?

Yes, yes you are.  You are somebody of great importance to the great God of the Universe.  You are His beloved child.

You are somebody, and of slightly greater importance is that He is somebody.  He is God Incarnate.  He is the Christ.  He is the one who offers you living water to drink, both now and forevermore.

---

[1] Jewish people of Judea (southern Israel) considered themselves to be ‘pureblood’ while the Jews of Samaria (Northern Israel) were descendands from mixed races.

Forgive and Forget?

Here is a tale of two ways.

The first way is described at the beginning of Dexter Filkin’s book The Forever War.  A group of people have come to witness a trial and sentencing of a murderer.  Under Islamic law, the accused could go free if the victim’s father will forgive the murderer.  While the accused’ s father begs for his sons life, the victim’s father is unmoved.  “I am not able to forgive him.”  With that, the sentence is handed out and the accused murder is beheaded.

On Oct 6, 2006 a horrific event happened in Nickel Mines, PA.  A lone gunman entered a one room Amish school house and shot 10 girls and killed five, the worse shooting in the town’s history. But what happened next amazed the world: the families of the girls who were shot came to the shooter’s house and forgave his family.  

This illustrates two ways: the way of justice and the way of forgiveness. This is not an indictment of one culture and praise of another, because justice and forgiveness belong to all cultures.  Rather, this reminds us of the important tension that exists in our world whenever tragedy happens and whenever bad things happen in our lives. 

This week we are reminded again of this tension and provided with a choice of which path we should take.  The bombings in Boston and the actions of Dr. Gosnell are just two examples of the horror that exists in our world.  In both events, innocent people were brutally murdered, lives were irrevocably changed and the world again tasted the horror that undergirds much of our daily existence.

Already the internet is cluttered with calls for these men’s blood.  These are echoes and reminders of calls to war from the recent past and throughout human history.  Can society heal

The question at the heart of this, is can we and should we practice forgiveness? Can we forgive the Boston Bombers for their actions that took the lives of three people and injured close to two hundred? Can we forgive Dr. Gosnell for the brutal murder of innocent children? Or on a closer level: can we forgive those that have wronged us today? Can we forgive our wives and our husbands for the things they do to us? Can we forgive bosses and co-workers for being insensitive? Can we live on the path of forgiveness?

To suggest that we should does not negate the justice question in anyway. The surviving Boston bomber must be put on trial and sentenced.  Dr. Gosnell must own up to his crimes.  Each of these must pay the consequences for their actions.  Forgiveness is not about ‘forgetting’ that a crime happened, or letting someone ‘off the hook,’ and to look the other way.  It is not about ignoring the consequences of behavior, but rather dealing with the consequences in a healthy and positive way.

While forgiveness may not be a uniquely Christian grace, it is a central one.  Forgiveness has played an important role in the Christian faith from the beginning. It may not have always been practiced as much as it should have been, but it is at the heart of the Christian life. 

Jesus taught the path of forgiveness.  In the heart of the Lord’s Prayer, we read, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matt 6:12). When Peter asks how many times he should forgive someone, Jesus responds, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:22). He reiterates to his disciples, “forgive and you will be forgiven.”  And most importantly of all, in the face of even his own death, Jesus not only taught the path of forgiveness, he lived it, for as he was being crucified, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34).

The Amish believe that forgiveness should be practiced as much as possible. They understand that their forgiveness is bound up with the forgiveness that we display to others.  They understand that if they do not forgive, God will not forgive them. While this may and does seem self-serving the other side of this is that if they truly forgive a person, then God will forgive that person as well (Matt 18:18).  In other words, they believe that there is a real correlation between the forgiveness we practice here on earth and the forgiveness that God grants in heaven. For an unbeliever, this may seem an inconsequential thing, but for believers, this is extremely significant. This is where we put our lives to the test and allow forgiveness to rule in our hearts.

If we do not allow ourselves to forgive, then unforgiveness and the sin of others will rule our lives.  When we forgive, we free ourselves from the sins of other people.

When we forgive someone, we acknowledge that there was a wrong done and hurt was the result.  With forgiveness, we restore the relationship we had, but in the light of the hurt.  We can’t pretend or ignore the events, but nor should we dwell on them. 

This may seem easy when the infractions are less serious, when a person has missed a date or misplaced some important information.  But what about when we are talking about serious offenses, like murder, terrorism and acts of violence.  Can we forgive then? Should we forgive then?

I am not directly related to either of these events, nor directly involved with the major tragedies of our day.  I do not, for a second, want to minimize or trivialize anybody’s pain.  I do not want to say that I have experienced similar things, because I haven’t.  I do not want to say that I can even imagine the level of suffering that has been present in people’s lives.  I do not want to gloss over their pain and their suffering. 

But at the same time, I have been the object and victim of cruel things.  I have been betrayed, I have been rejected, I have been abandoned.  I understand pain and the desire for revenge.  On the other hand, I have betrayed, I have rejected and I have abandoned, and I recognize the desire to be forgiven.  I stand as one who has betrayed God, abandoned God, forsaken God, and yet at the same time has been forgiven by God, welcomed by God, loved by God and accepted by God.

Christ calls us to forgive one another and the way of peace is the way of forgiveness. Imagine if we could, on an individual level, forgive those who have wronged us.  Imagine if we would heed the prayer that we pray every week and ‘forgive our debtors.’ Imagine what good could happen in this world if we could do this.    Imagine, if we could, as a country, and as a culture embrace the grace of forgiveness.

I am not a ‘pie in the sky’ idealist. Countries have interests to protect…namely their people.  And while the State must do what it needs to do, the people who make up the state can practice the art of forgiveness.

The work begins, as always, with us, with individuals. We must work to cultivate forgiveness in our lives.  When people wrong us, especially in the small and ordinary things in our lives, we must work to overcome our pride and forgive them. This leads us to be able to forgive people for bigger crimes against us.  Most of us will never deal with the events like the tragedies we have mentioned, but if we forgive for smaller things, we can work at forgiving the bigger ‘stuff.’

Forgiveness is a path that we can walk.  We might not be able or ready to forgive people for everything right away.  But with time, we can work at it and to forgive people as Christ as forgiven us. 

The Road to the Cross: Moving On

"The Road to the Cross" is a series of thoughts for the Lent season.  These convey some of my hopes, prayers, and even fears as we traverse this season and prepare for the celebration of Easter.

Years ago I made a very intentional and difficult to leave my home, the people I had known, the familiar sights, sounds and smells, and head out to a different part of the country.  Since then, I have moved frequently and every time it is difficult for me to leave and to say goodbye.   I feel like I get settled in, begin to understand the people and the routines, get to know the best restaurants (who has the best pie!), and where the best parks are, and then I am uprooted to a new location to find new people and new situations and yes even new PIE.

As much as we may say we are, we are not open to change...at least very easily.  We groove patterns in our hearts that continue long after we forget why they are there.  These patterns set a course for our life and before we know it we are living a life that seems to be an echo of what we thought it should be.  But even though we know we are not where, or what, we should be, the idea of change creates a momentary panic and we find our resistance growing inside our gut as we contemplate the very idea of change.

And this brings us to Lent.

Lent is the season in which we celebrate and commit ourselves to change.  Some of us do it by trying to change some of the things we do (eat fish) or don't do (don't eat chocolate).  Some of us try to spend more time in contemplation or attempting to pray more often. Some of us try to change our habits and hearts by helping others.

Why do we do this? Because during this season we set aside some time to reflect the reality of Jesus' call on our lives.

Nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus began to call his first disciples.  They weren't rich or powerful.  They were blue collar workers, people who knew more about how to gut a fish then how to parse a verb, people who the world would have overlooked.  But not Jesus.  Jesus looked at them and saw what they could be if they would just follow him.  Jesus didn't care about their academic pedigree or their current employment.  Jesus cared about their ability to follow...their ability to change and their ability to say goodbye to their old life.


[16] Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. [17] And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” [18] And immediately they left their nets and followed him. [19] And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. [20] And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

Can you imagine this scene? James and John leave their father in the boat! Talk about leaving all they knew behind them! (I can also imagine Zebedee's conversation with his wife: "do you know what your sons just did?").  James, John, and Peter all left the comfort of home to follow Jesus on a mission that might have well gotten them killed.

In the process, God opened their eyes and they saw powerful and magnificent views: Jesus' transfiguration, the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus walking on water.  Imagine if they had stayed home and missed out on these experiences and these lessons in life.

Following Jesus has a cost.  It is and has never been about comfort.  When people would ask to follow Jesus, he would respond, "foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matt 8:20). Or has Dietrich Bonhoeffer so eloquently put it, "When Jesus calls, he calls us to die."

As I look back on my life, there are a lot of things that I miss....and I am sure the disciples miss as well.

I miss my friends...those people I hung around growing up: Chris and Juli Rosser, Kris Petrillo, Bryan Bantle, Sam Pizzo, and a whole host of other people I haven't seen in decades.  I miss Geet's Diner.  I miss Jackson road and crazy nights

I miss Jamestown, PA and Lake Pymantunig (or however you spelled it).  I miss the Jamestown Presbyterian Church, the Jamestown Fair, and small town life.

I miss Downers Grove, IL  and Horizon Church and Chicago traffic, along with Gioardano's pizza and Chicago Bears football.

And I am sure I will miss Groton CT and the people I have known around here.

But every time I move...or every time God commands me to move...I am reminded of God's call on my life as his disciple.

This call goes beyond our physical location.  It goes to our very soul and our very life.  God's call on us is complete and our response to Him is one of discipleship.

And that is where the Road to the Cross leads us...it leads us to discipleship.  It leads us to say good bye to the things of our past life and to walk on and to continue on with Jesus. It means finding home in Him...a home that you never have to leave and you never have to say goodbye.

As we walk the Road to the Cross, we are reminded that we do not walk this path alone, for our Lord is with us every step of the way.

The Road to the Cross: Giving Up

"The Road to the Cross" is a series of thoughts for the Lent season.  These convey some of my hopes, prayers, and even fears as we traverse this season and prepare for the celebration of Easter.

I talk too much.  This is and always has been a character flaw and an occupational hazard.  Preachers often find themselves in positions where people look to them to say something and we feel that we must have exactly the right words to say--to comfort, to explain, to heal.  Other times I say things I oughtn't...words to harm, to maim, to hurt.  

I would love to say that I talk...or that I try to talk...to show respect to God and to show guidance in all things. But to say that would be to lie and to misuse even more words.  

The truth of the matter is that I talk too much because I am prideful.  I think my words mean more than they should or that people should hold them more in respect.  I have studied the Bible, I say to myself, surely people should want to hear what I have to say about "_____________".  Or I may think, "well I have the answer to this, because I know about _____________" and I am frustrated that people won't take my advice.  This is pride, vanity....foolishness. 

In the past couple of years, I have tried to be more intentional about listening, about not speaking up and not interjecting my own point of view, my opinion and my suggestions.  By doing this, I hopefully can learn from others and see insights into life I have never seen before and learn to put others before myself.  

And this brings us to Lent. 

Lent is that time of the year, when we try to force ourselves into putting ourselves second....or even third.  It is that time of the year when we try to discipline our bodies into submitting to a more normal and rational diet of life. It is that time of the year when we are confronted face to face with the love of God poured out on the cross. 

For me, one of the major forgotten heroes of the Christian Church is John the Baptist.  John was clearly a popular preacher, a model for what mainly preachers (including myself) search for.  He was so popular, people came to him from hundreds of miles around.  Not only this, they came to hear what miserable sinners they were and how they needed to get right with God.  I can only imagine if God had blessed me with a ministry like that what I could.  Imagine the small groups we could establish and the books we could write (I can almost see the campaign "40 Days of Repentance"), and the youth ministries we could establish.  But John does none of this.  

In fact, John wastes a great opportunity.  Some people came to him and asked if he were the prophet.  John replies with a hearty "NO!" and says that there was another person coming.  Later on, when Jesus was gaining in popularity and his followers came to him and complained to John, The Baptist replied with one of the greatest statements in all of Scripture: 

"He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30 

In that one sentence, John captures the essence of Lent, which is the essence of the Christian life.  

I must decrease--these words are the opposite of what my prideful nature says to me.  In fact, my pride tells me the opposite of this statement: that I must follow the path of Nietzsche and do everything in my power to increase in my life.  I must increase my dominance over myself, over others, over nature.  I should not and ought not to say 'no' to myself and I should have everything that I could possibly desire.  

But no truer words have been spoken than that I must decrease.  I must decrease my desires.  I must decrease my exertion over other people and I should seek to dominate control over my own life.  I am not important. 

He must increase--the path to the cross begins with these words.  It is the place of Jesus that must increase.  The will and desires of Jesus must begin to control my heart and my life.  My time must be spent not on my desires, but Jesus' desires must become my desires.  Instead of exerting my control over others, I must desire to serve and to love others by whatever means possible.  Instead of seeking to spend my time on my own pleasures, I need to seek His.  

Jesus himself teaches us this by example.  He willingly came to serve those who did not love him.  He came to die for those who did not know Him.  He purposely chose the cross to appease the wrath of God in our place.   

At a Bible study recently, a woman came up with a powerful observation.  In discussing communion, she was struck by Jesus words, recited every week at the Eucharist: "This is my body, given for you." She said, when Jesus says that to us, and we accept, we say the same thing back to Him, "This is my body, given to you."  This is not in the sense of of a saving death, but an acknowledgement that we must decrease but He must increase in our lives.

And so the Road to the Cross begins with an understanding that we must give up.  We must give up our pride, and we must give up on exalting ourselves.  The Road to the Cross is the Road to Humility, and there is no better time to start on that road than the season of Lent. 

What is humility? Humility is to look on oneself as dust and ashes. The humble says, "Who am I? And who considers me to be anything? Who am I to deal with people for I am powerless?" He does not say, "What" or "What is this?" but walks submissively in his ways, never deeming himself equal to others. And if he is despised and rejected he does not get angry.

Humility is to hold oneself as guilty and to find that one has done nothing good before God. It is to maintain silence, looking on oneself as nothing. It is to reject one's inclinations, to look down to the ground, bearing death before his eyes., safeguarding himself from lying. It consists in not speaking, falsehood or arguing with someone who is older than you are, enduring insults joyfully, detesting comfort and training oneself in hardship, never distressing anyone. 

~ St. Abba Isaiah