Holidaze

This is the time of year when, travel experts tell us, the vast majority of us take our vacations. More people will hit the road, stand in line at airports, or hop a bus during these two and half months than at all the other times of the year combined. A bunch of us will head home - wherever that is and however that is defined - to spend our down time with extended family. Another huge group will head to a handful of “most popular” tourist destinations - Orlando, Florida being at the top of the world-wide pile. For some, summer vacation is hiking in and camping out beside a virgin stream that only they and a couple hundred other people have ever seen.  For others, a four star hotel with gourmet cuisine is the ticket to relaxation and restoration.

Regardless of where we end up, most of us are ready to come home when it is over - but not necessarily ready to go back to work. We return wondering about the old adage that a change is as good as a rest - and are convinced that something got lost in the translation. Vacations, we discover, are hard work! At least the way most of us do them. They may involve some resting - but by far the majority of us pack so much activity into our annual average thirteen days that they bulge at the seams - just like the suitcases that allow us to take it all with us wherever we go! Perhaps if we were more like our neighbors to the north, with twice as many annual vacation days, we would come back more rested. Two weeks seems to be just enough time to get somewhere and come back - but not enough time to recuperate from the going and coming! Of course, if we imitated the Italians, with an annual average (average!) of forty-six days, we might never get back to work - but that is another story entirely.

In all of this, it is probably worthwhile to be reminded that vacations and days off are, like most good things, God's idea. In fact, so important does He think these kinds of things are, that He built them into the cycle of creation and highlighted them in the Ten Words that outlined the joyous life of His people. Much of the third book of the Bible deals with holy days and festivals with their communal celebration of life well-lived under God. How we got from there to Orlando, I am not sure, but the story might help us understand why many of us have holidaze rather than holy days.

Be Still . . . And Know

How might God be pursued

     be sought

          be found?

Despairing of the answer,

      many give up

      without.

Others double their efforts,

      wearing themselves out with

      the increased demands of  

      search without

           find.

Press in

                  hold on

                                    let go

                  more

                                    less

                  this 

                                    that

                  here

                                    there

Until

                  Exhausted in the hunt

                  For an elusive quarry

                  They stop to catch a breath

And there

                  in the stillness of the stop

                  in the depth of the breath

                  in the surrender of weariness

He comes

He, Who has been searching

                  is found.

Those

                  still

                  giving up their

                  efforts to find

                  are, finally, found.

Those still . . .

                  know.

Pledging Allegiance

I have begun to wonder of late if it is appropriate for citizens of the Kingdom of God to pledge allegiance to the flag of a nation that is not under God. The question is occasioned by the various lawsuits making their way through the courts on behalf of those who feel their rights to non-belief are trampled when they are forced to include the phrase “under God” in their national identity, contradicting their atheism. The courts have not been too comforting to the Christian community in their refusal to take the case or in the rationale for the decisions they make to retain the phrase. As nearly as I can tell, the logic for retaining the phrase boils down to this. The phrase “under God” is a cultural icon and, as such, has no inherent religious content. It is the same argument that has been used to preserve crosses on public lands and to argue for the display of the 10 Commandments in public courtrooms.

It presents a fascinating paradox. Atheists, on one side, claim the phrase is rich and full with religious meaning. Christians, on the other side, argue that the phrase is void of religious significance. I suspect that many of the Christians who celebrate the decisions are not aware of the rationale, and that those who are think the end justifies the means – keeping the phrase is worth removing any religious content it might have.

Considering the origin of the phrase and the background of its inclusion in the pledge in the mid-1950’s, the atheists appear to have the better case. “Under God” was inserted into the pledge, in part, to differentiate Christian America from atheistic and Communist Russia. Christianity was used to sharpen the differences with our enemy during the Cold War. Even then, however, it could be argued that the phrase had more political than religious content – much in the way conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland or between Christians and Muslims in some of the wars in the world are more about politics than religion.

But it did get me to thinking. Does a country really want its citizenry pledging allegiance unless they are under God? Promises made that are not under God don't seem to have much likelihood of fulfillment. Of course, followers of Jesus can't make a pledge of allegiance except under God, whether the phrase is included in the pledge or not. And that is what makes them good citizens - they are under a higher authority that makes their pledge good, or even possible.

Prayer in Times of War

I got to thinking about this the other day after a conversation with someone who was upset with me for praying a peaceful outcome in the ongoing round of conflicts in the Middle East - Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya. He had figured out what God was up to in the region and had fit it all neatly together into his scenario of the end times. His theology did not include a peaceful resolution in Iraq. He was upset because I suggested that his theology might be wrong.

I do not pretend to know what God is up to regarding the end times. But I do think I know what God is up to regarding Muslims. Specifically, He loves them and is not willing that any of them should perish, but that they all should come to repentance - the same thing He desires for Buddhists, Hindus, “Christians”, Mormons, atheists, and anyone else we might care to name. If I want to pray as Jesus would pray if He were praying, I need to pray for the redemption of Iraq and of Palestine and of Iran and of Libya and of Syria - with the full reminder that it is ultimately the kindness of God that invites repentance.

Clearly God can - and has - used military messengers to discipline and chastise both His children and their enemies. Judgment is clearly in His hand. But short of a specific prophetic word that over-rides the command of Jesus, our whole heart needs to be set on the discipling of the nations – primarily by immersing them into the full reality of the Trinitarian Universe. We dare not make judgment calls that are not ours to make. Especially when God himself has demonstrated his reticence to judge until mercy has had its full day in court.

So, how might we pray as Iraq lurches from one instability to the next, and Israel contemplates trading settlements for peace with an unreliable neighbor, and Iran postures nuclear defiance, and Palestine ekes out subsistence level living? We can pray for the spread of the gospel by any and all means possible. We can pray for those who make for peace. We can pray that those who devise against peace find themselves caught in their own traps. We can pray against the systemic evil behind terrorism. We can pray for our brothers and sisters caught in impossible situations and victimized for their failure to align with either side. We can pray for the innocents who are as victimized by their own armies as they are by any outside enemy. We can intercede, praying that He withhold judgment to allow as many to hear the gospel as possible before the end of the age. We can pray that God’s kingdom come - that His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. 

Yesterdays Flash

My dad, pen in hand, standing over the crib of my newborn son, writing down the statistics that mark the reality of his arrival.

Christmas Eve two weeks after his birth, I hold him and read the long familiar narrative now made alive in a new way – there’s something about a baby at Christmas.

I speak at the funeral of the man after whom he is named, praying that my boy might embody some of this good man’s gentle grace and greatness. Knowing now, prayers answered.

Watching him kneel on the bench and peer intently at the upside down music on the piano, hands poised over the keys – concentrated music making in toddler form.

He flies across the gym floor in his walker, flung with perhaps unnecessary vigor from one end to end by his two older brothers – all three of them laughing out loud.

Raking leaves into a boy sized pile into which he burrows, nothing but the top of his blond head visible – and the sudden explosion of laughter and life as he leaps up for the fun of doing it all again. And again.

A freak-out moment in kindergarten when the crayons won’t go back in the box in the right order, which only his mom knows. A sign of inherited and learned perfectionism.

A maroon flash, chasing the ball up the field, determination written all over his face.

His smile at being recognized for the hours of hard work with an older brother and friend to become the most improved basketball player on the team.

Jokes that make no sense but are funny anyway – to him, and, thus, to us.

Long legs stretching out, carrying him further than the boy in the next lane who seems to require twice as many steps to cover the same distance. He doesn’t run to win, but because he loves to be on the team.

Watching him from a few rows back, his hands raised, his head thrown back – worship flowing out of his very soul.

Delighting to talk of the kids he had played with in Mexico.

The casually cool way he sits in his car – deeply cautious and careful . . . most of the time. When he is not distracted.

And then, last night, his name called – a diploma awarded – a milestone passed. High School. Done.

Yesterdays flash. And are . . . gone.

Father's Faith

He watches

     through tears

     that will not

          stop

     his son

          drift

          away

His hand

     shakes so

          much

     knife held

          high

     above his

     son

          lying

          bound

His heart

     breaks

     holding

          the torn

          robe

     stained with

          blood

     his son

          gone

He watches

     love pierced

          hearing

          anguish

               abandon

     his son

          alone . . .

There is

     no greater

     love

          a Father’s

          painful

          release of

          son to

     what might be.

Father’s

     faith . . .

Celebrating Pentecost

Tomorrow, much of the church across the world is celebrating Pentecost Sunday - the day the Holy Spirit breathed life and power into the Body of Christ assembled in the upper room. He came to empower them to live their ordinary lives in such a way as to give vibrant witness to reality of the resurrection of Jesus. He came to break down the barriers between ages, genders, and social and economic classes, and to push and prod the fledgling church to embrace ethnicities and cultures very different than their own.

His coming is recorded by Luke as being accompanied by signs that would signal to any person schooled in the Old Testament that God had broken in - tongues of fire and the sound a rushing mighty wind. The reversal of the curse of Babel - where the nations were divided by their inability to understand one another’s language - is signaled by the empowerment to speak in tongues so that everyone can hear the glories of God being proclaimed. Speaking in tongues became the sign for the early church of the Spirit’s immediate presence, as He baptized not only those in Jerusalem, but also in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So powerful was the experience of speaking in tongues that some branches of the early church began to regard it as a mark of superior spirituality. To correct that error of spiritual pride, the apostle Paul suggests that speaking in tongues is usually a matter of prayer or praise and, if it is done in a public service needs to be interpreted so that everyone can benefit. At the same time, he wants to encourage those who have that gift to use it fully and freely - because it is beneficial personally and corporately. Of course, it must always yield to love.

At the same time, while it may be initial, speaking in tongues is inadequate evidence of the Spirit’s presence. Believers must be constantly seeking to be being filled with Holy Spirit as an ongoing process. He will partner with them to transform their natures. This change will be signaled by the growth of the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.

So let's celebrate Pentecost Sunday tomorrow, by living Spirit-filled, Spirit-controlled, Spirit-empowered lives every day!