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Different Times, Same Human Challenges

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source: kurt-b via flickr
source: kurt-b via flickr
After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work. The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Acts 15:36-41 (NRSV)

On occasion I will run across fellow believers who hold the early church with high esteem and want today’s church to look and behave in the same way. As I mentioned in my post the other day, I think it’s a bit silly to presume that it is even possible in most respects. Today’s chapter, however, reminded me of a couple of things:

The early church wasn’t perfect nor was it some kind of utopian organization. Read between the lines and you find that the entire period was marked by controversy, politics, arguments, and interpersonal conflicts. Today’s chapter starts with a controversy (i.e. should circumcision be required of all followers of Jesus) that broils into a debate among factions. Those Jesus followers who were of the Jewish sect of the Pharisees were vocal pro-circumcision. The Jesus followers who were non-Jewish Gentiles (and really didn’t want to go through the pain of a very intimate surgical procedure for no good reason) were passionately anti-circumcision.

The church, then and now, is made up of fallible people who inevitably find themselves in conflict. Today’s chapter ends with Paul and Barnabas having a such a sharp argument about whether to bring John Mark on their trip that they part and go their separate ways. Paul had written John Mark off because of an earlier falling out (Where was the forgiveness?) and Barnabas wanted to give J-Mark a second chance. It appears that there was no sweet agreement and reconciliation. There was no idyllic conclusion of unity. There was anger, sharp argument, and division. That sounds like every group of Jesus followers I’ve ever been a part of. So,  maybe we’re more like the early church than we sometimes realize.

Today, I’m reminded of things that change and things that never change. Daily life, work, and culture have changed drastically in the last twenty years let alone the past 2,000. At the same time, our human challenges of love, kindness, understanding, reason, acceptance, and reconciliation have never changed. They simply takes on new guises in changing times and places.

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An Epic Production; A Bit Part

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2012 12 USP Joseph Backstage Grovel LR

All the trees of the forest will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.
Ezekiel 17:24 (NIV)

Ezekiel’s prophetic parable in today’s chapter is specifically related to the political circumstances of his day. Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem and carried off her royals, nobles and promising young talent back to Babylon. A royal family member, named Zedekiah, was set on the throne as a political puppet of the Babylonian king. But Zed had his own ideas and conspired with the Egyptians to deliver Jerusalem from Babylonian control. Today’s chapter is Ezekiel’s prophetic prediction of Zed’s failure and downfall.

Two things struck me this morning as I read the chapter this morning and considered the regional intrigue of Ezekiel’s day.

First, I am mindful of the Israeli Prime Minister’s controversial address to the U.S. Congress earlier this week and the reality that the political intrigue of that region of the world continues 2500 years later. The Israel of today has its capital in Jerusalem, the same capital city destroyed by the Babylonians in Ezekiel’s day. The Egyptians to whom Zedekiah pled for help remain a nation to this day. The ancient Babylonians are today’s Iraq. The Assyrian empire of Ezekiel’s day is today’s Iran. The names are slightly changed, but the peoples and the players are the same as are the regional power struggles and conflict. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Second, I was struck by God’s word through Ezekiel that there is a divine plan being worked out in all of this. God can bring down the powerful from their lofty heights and raise the lowly to positions of prominence. All the world’s a stage and there is a Great Story being played out amidst the proscenium of time. We are part of the same production.

All of this makes me and my silly little troubles feel small and insignificant. And yet, Jesus reminded us that there are no small parts. I may be a bit player and an extra in the chorus of this epic production, but the costume department considers me important enough that  every hair on my head is numbered and the Producer/Director knows my name. I have a part to play, as small as it may be and as insignificant as it may seem. It starts with loving my neighbors as I love myself, and acting accordingly.

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Endings, Beginnings

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2014 02 Caribbean Cruise26

“‘The end! The end has come
    upon the four corners of the land!'”
Ezekiel 7:2b (NIV)

This past weekend Suzanna reminded Wendy and me that it was just a year ago (on Valentine’s Day) that she and I left to go on a glorious seven day cruise. Over the weekend I have been thinking about all that changed in life since we returned from that cruise. Yesterday, as we gathered with our fellow Jesus followers, we were given time during worship to do some journaling. I poured out a list. Here’s a partial list:

  • We gave up our long-term dream of renovating 607 Columbus
  • We bought a lot and started planning to build a house
  • Suzanna finished high school and entered the working world
  • Taylor went through a divorce
  • Madison became a flight attendant
    • Moved to Salt Lake City for a month of training
    • Moved to Chicago to work out of O’Hare
    • Moved to back to Colorado
  • Taylor moved to Scotland to start grad school
  • Wendy’s parents moved
  • My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
  • We broke ground on a new house
  • We decluttered 607 Columbus and put it on the market
  • Seismic shifts in work, relationships, and directions
  • Robbery of my hotel room: Computers, electronics, photos all stolen
  • 607 Columbus sold, closed, and packed up after almost a decade.
  • Holidays without either Taylor or Madison present

Needless to say, life has felt a bit like shifting sand under our feet. I was reminded again by Ezekiel’s words this morning. The “end has come” for many things in our lives since Wendy and I arrived back in the harbor one year ago. With endings come certain feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and grief. And yet, I am reminded that God’s Message also tells there is a time for everything under the sun. There is a time for endings and a time for beginnings. There is a time for some things to die away and a time for new things to be born. There is a time for old things pass away and a time for new things come.

Today, I am choosing to embrace both the grief and hope that come with transitions.

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Stories Inside Stories; Wheels Inside Wheels

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In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
Ezekiel 1:1 (NIV)

Ezekiel, like Daniel, was one of the exiles taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar. The events of Ezekiel’s life, his visions and prophetic messages were roughly concurrent with those of Daniel. They were operating in the same time and space. While Daniel and his homeys were busy working in the royal administration, though Ezekiel appears to have been operating in different circles. Nebuchadnezzar took the best and brightest back to Babylon and Ezekiel, like Daniel and his trio, was clearly a man of great intellect. A priest, Ezekiel was a spiritual leader and certainly ministered to his fellow exiles in Babylon.

As I read the chapter this morning, I found myself thinking about this period of exile as it fits into the time line of the Great Story. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, this is a climactic period of time in the story line. For five hundred years the kingdom of Israel and split-off kingdom of Judah have existed, but now those kingdoms are coming to an end and there is the definite sense that we’re closing the chapter on this section of the story. But, it’s definitely not the end – and that’s a big part of the theme in the visions of both Daniel and Ezekiel.

I’m fascinated by the fact that God was extremely active among this group of exiles in Babylon. Through the visions and experiences of Daniel we realize that God is at work even in the rise and fall of these other nations. Through Ezekiel we will experience an even larger amount and greater depth of prophetic word and word pictures. The bottom line is that God has a plan, and He is working the plan. After this part of the story, there will be a long period (roughly 400 years) of relative silence before the angel Gabriel breaks the silence with personal visits to two unlikely women.

Today, I’m thinking about my own personal story as a microcosm of the Great Story. My experience is that God has been particularly active during certain stretches of life’s journey and relatively silent in others. My journey has contained distinct periods of time and purpose that seem to stand in contrast to one another, yet I sense are the working out of a larger part of a larger story that is beyond me. Stories within stories. Wheels inside wheels.    Layers upon layers. Some mornings I simply marvel at it all.

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A Time and Place for Particular Discussions

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source: Phil Renaud via Flickr
source: Phil Renaud via Flickr

He replied, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end. Daniel 12:9 (NIV)

When our daughters were small, they had all sorts of questions. They had questions about life and death, about bodies and babies. As a parent, there was wisdom required in answering appropriately for that particular time and place in their own cognitive and emotional development. Some questions received answers in simple word pictures. Other questions were deferred for a more appropriate time and place in their maturing life journeys. It is with great joy that we now get to have adult conversation with them over a great meal and a bottle of wine. And still, some questions have yet to be fully asked or answered.

There is, I believe, a parallel with how God reveals things prophetically throughout the Great Story. In today’s chapter, the phrase “everlasting life” is revealed for the first time:

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

It is the only time this particular phrase, “everlasting life,” is used in the stories and writings of God’s Message before Jesus appears on the scene. God has waited to reveal it at this moment in the story. How fascinating that it makes its appearance at the end of Daniel. The time of the prophets is coming to an end. There will be a 400 year silence before the miraculous events surrounding Jesus’ birth.

When Daniel, like a curious child, asks for more information he is put off. “Go your way,” he is told. “Go play,” I told my daughters when I had revealed all I had for them in the moment and it was time for them not to worry about the subject anymore. Daniel is told that the words are “rolled up (like a scroll) and sealed.” In other words, “this isn’t the time or place for the answer to be revealed.”

When Jesus’ follower, John, is given his vision on the Isle of Patmos some 500 years and several chapters of the Great Story later, the subject comes up again:

Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”  Revelation 5:1-5 (NIV)

There are appointed times for certain things to be revealed. This is true in life as we discuss things with our children. This is true in any good story, play, or movie. This is true in the Great Story as well. Faith is believing that things will be revealed to us at the right time. Until then, it’s okay if we go play.

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Rambling Thoughts on Time, Suffering, and Eternity

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Source: Pink Sherbet via Flickr
Source: Pink Sherbet via Flickr

The groans of the dying rise from the city,
    and the souls of the wounded cry out for help.
    But God charges no one with wrongdoing.
Job 24:12 (NIV)

My thoughts feel kind of disjointed this morning. Oh well.

I had a great conversation over morning coffee with my friend Matthew yesterday. We began to press into the concepts of time and eternity as God reveals it in His Message. I don’t often stop to realize how transformative the concept of eternity truly is. I say I believe in eternity, but I wonder if I truly comprehend what that should mean to my daily life.

If I believe in eternity, I realize the span of my earthly life is a mere speck on a time line that goes on forever.

If I believe in eternity, I will invest time, energy, and resources in matters of eternal value.

If I believe in eternity, I know that this life is a mere shadow of what is truly real.

If I believe in eternity, I know that all suffering is momentary in a grander scheme, including injustice.

I returned to that conversation in my thoughts this morning as I mulled over Job’s observations. I do not have to look farther than my television or smartphone to be confronted with the hard realities of suffering and injustice. I can scroll, click and view it in the palm of my hand 24/7/365. It’s depressing and it lends itself to the feelings of hopelessness and despair that Job communicates. But, then I found myself thinking about eternity once again.

Eternity does not negate pain or diminish the feelings and emotions which emanate from suffering and injustice, but it does provide context. My suffering is a small part of a larger reality which I cannot fully see or perceive in this moment. Faith in eternity as God reveals it transforms my suffering from senseless to purposeful, even if I can’t quite grasp exactly what that is amidst the painful chaos of this moment in time. That’s what faith is: evidence of that which I cannot see.

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Worthwhile Things Take Time

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From thought to reality in less than a year.
From thought to reality in less than a year.

[Solomon] had spent seven years building [the temple]. 1 Kings 6:38b

Worthwhile things take time.

In the nearly 50 years of my lifetime I believe the greatest change in our culture has been the speed with which we live our lives. Our technological age has pushed the envelope of speed in nearly every area of life.

When I was a kid, I delivered the afternoon edition of the Des Moines newspaper on four square blocks up Madison Avenue from Lawnwoods Drive to Lower Beaver Road, south to Douglas Avenue and then back up Lawnwoods catching the side streets of Garden, Seneca, and Fleming Avenues in between. There were two papers printed each day back then to get more news out to the public faster. News traveled at the speed that my eleven year old feet could carry it in Chuck Taylor high-tops.

My "Paper Route"
My “Paper Route”

When I got home, I read the newspaper myself. I was always fascinated by the small “blurbs” that newspaper editors used to fill space on the page. “Blurbs” were small articles just a sentence or two long. Usually, it was a news story from the far reaches of the world that had little relevance to anyone in Des Moines such as a massive earthquake that struck a remote province in China.

Today, my phone would notify me of that same earthquake minutes after it happened with links to photos, videos and eyewitness reports. Suddenly, everything that happens is newsworthy and we are aware of everything that happens in an instant. Everything happens faster than before. Things get old quicker. Things are obsolete almost as quickly as you purchase them. Fads come and go in a day (remember the “Harlem Shake?”).

Today, I’m thinking about Solomon’s seven year effort to build the temple, and thinking about the house that Wendy and I are watching emerge from a vision in our heads to reality in less than a year. I’m thinking about some of the great building projects of history that spanned generations, and I wonder what it was like for a craftsman to dedicate his whole life to a building project that he knew he would never see completed.

I love all that that technology has afforded us. I love that I can have a coffee date with Taylor in Scotland via FaceTime. I love that Madison can text me from whichever airport she happens to be in at any moment and I can instantly communicate with her from anywhere. And yet, I am aware that having the world at our fingertips 24/7/365 has not made us better people, nor wiser, nor more satisfied.

Worthwhile things take time, but we increasingly steal time from our lives in search of worthwhile things.

 

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Rain Gives Way to Sun

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source: fulinhyu via Flickr
source: fulinhyu via Flickr

If clouds are full of water,
    they pour rain on the earth.

Light is sweet,
    and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.
Ecclesiastes 11:3a, 7 (NIV)

The weather over the past two weeks, and the forecast going into next week, have been picture perfect here in Iowa. After a long stretch of what seemed to be endless rain, the rain has departed and given way to sunshine. It has, indeed, pleased these eyes to see them and my entire spirit feels a bit of a lift.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that life has been full of transition for the VWs. Both Taylor and Madison have launched on new stretches of their own respective paths, and have been experiencing both the anxieties and thrills that a new road can bring. Suzanna has transitioned from full-time student to full-time work as she runs between three part-time jobs. Wendy and I, of course, are transitioning from one house to another along with other shifts in life.

As I read through Ecclesiastes, I have been received a much needed reminder of life’s big picture. Rain eventually gives way to sunshine. There will be dark times along the way, but light is sweet when eucatastrophe breaks through the darkness. Life has been filled with the anxiety and uncertainty of transitions, but like the rain clouds departing it will eventually give way to more peaceful, stable places.

Our jobs are to keep pressing on.

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Hit Your Cue

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southpacificThere is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

       a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
       a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
       a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
       a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
       a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
       a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
       a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV)

 The musical was South Pacific and I was playing Captain Brackett.  One particular scene in the show begins with a meeting in Brackett’s office between Brackett and three other characters. As the lights came up on the scene that night it was clear that someone was not at the meeting. It happened to be the gentleman playing Commander Harbison, Captain Bracket’s next in command. There are few experiences more terrifying to actors on stage than when someone misses his or her entrance. My fellow actors, aware that something was desperately wrong, held their focus well, but I could see in their eyes that they were having the same “Oh shit” moment that I was.

So, I did what military officers do. I started screaming. I stood, slammed my hand on my desk, and went into a full out crusty sailor rant.

“Where’s Harbison?! WHERE THE HELL IS HARBISON!?”

I knew that Dayrel Gates, who played my admin Yeoman Quale, was standing just off stage because I’d passed him during the scene change.

“QUALE?! QUALE GET IN HERE!!”

Dayrel immediately ran in and stood at attention like a terrified sailor.

“FIND HARBISON AND GET HIM IN HERE NOW!!”

Dayrel was brilliant. He picked right up on what I was doing, gave me an “Aye Captain!” salute and exited. As soon as he exited the stage he started yelling in the wings. “Commander Harbison!? FIND COMMANDER HARBISON!” Others cast members who realized what was happening started yelling for Commander Harbison as well and you could hear their screams in the hallway outside the auditorium as if an entire platoon of personnel were scrambling around the camp looking for the tardy Commander. It didn’t take long before the actor playing Commander Harbison came running on stage. He was out of breath, sweating profusely, and in a full panic. It turned out he had stepped out between scenes for a smoke and didn’t realize it was his cue.

When you’re on stage you learn that one of the fundamental essentials is to hit your cue and make your entrance on time. It’s critical to the success of the show. Bad things happen when you miss your cue.

Solomon’s words are brilliant and powerful in the simplicity of the truth he communicates. Timing is critical to almost every season and to every element of life. There is a time for everything. I have learned, however, that attention, observation, introspection, and wisdom are required to discern the time you are in and to respond accordingly.

All the world is a stage, as the Bard said, and we are all players in it. It’s fundamentally critical to success that we hit our cues in life. Bad things happen when we don’t.

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Seed, to Sapling, to Shade

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source: Ikonotekton via Flickr
source: Ikonotekton via Flickr

Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.” Luke 13:18-19 (NIV)

I am notoriously bad at growing things. I often feel ashamed of this. When you are born and live in Iowa nearly your entire life you tend to think that a green thumb should naturally be bred into your DNA. My paltry attempts at gardening and growing houseplants over the years have been an endless string of dismal failures (not unlike the Cubs attempts to win a World Series).

I am, nevertheless, increasingly appreciative of the time and patience it takes for things to take root, grow, and develop over time. I have observed over my lifetime how our culture has become focused on things happening instantly. I marvel to think how fast thing happen. We have fast food, faster downloads, a library at our fingertips, digital photos without developing, news from around the world popping incessantly on our smartphones, video calls with loved ones on the other side of the world, and on, and on, and on.

Along life’s journey I have come to realize that, unlike our consumer society, God is not a slave to the demands of the market He serves. He remains concerned with seasons of cultivating, planting, growing, pruning and harvest. God’s Kingdom is less about instant gratification and more about perfect timing. Chained to this concept we call time, I observe that we are incessantly focused on striving to pack in as much as we possibly can, as quickly as we can make things happen. Existing omnisciently outside of time, present in all moments at once, the Creator affords a perspective we can’t quite grasp in the moment.

I find this dilemma affects even how we want things to happen spiritually. I watch the effects with my fellow Jesus followers in our institutional churches. We want quick decisions, instant repentance, immediate life change, and the fruit of the Spirit produced post haste. We want attendance to explode in our services or we consider it a failure.

This morning I am reminded that God’s Kingdom is comparable to a tree that is grown from a small seed. A tree requires time to progress from seed to root to sapling to fruitful maturity when many can benefit from the shade of its branches. It requires patience and must persevere through difficult seasons and less than ideal circumstances. It will suffer from branches that don’t make it. I am encouraged by this truth. Progress, not perfection, is the prescription of the day. It gives me reason to have a little more grace with myself and to extend a little more love and mercy towards others.