Living in the Interim - Christ the King Sunday, 2023

The interim. The in-between time. The time between what is and what will be. That’s what Christ the King Sunday speaks to.

In the latter verses of 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul spoke of living in the interim. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12, emphasis added). In this verse, the apostle drew a contrast between what is (now) and what will be (then)—seeing, knowing. He spoke of living in the interim—the time before what will be displaces what is and becomes a reality. He then identified three resources we draw on for living in the interim—faith, hope, love. “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Faith speaks of our trust in God and God’s faithfulness. It is the basis of how we relate to God. It is how we access the grace God offers. “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8, emphasis added). Faith means we believe (trust) God is who Jesus revealed God to be. We trust the steadfast, faithful love of God that claims us as beloved children, knowing such love never waivers (steadfast) or ever gives up on us or abandons us (faithful). We trust the gift of God’s grace expressed in God’s forgiveness. We believe in and trust the ways of God that Jesus taught—grace and forgiveness rather than merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking and living; a servant spirit in which power is used to serve; viewing and valuing, accepting and embracing every person as a beloved child of God. Faith means we build our lives on these truths, allowing them to guide how we think and live. (Note: faith is more than believing. Faith is believing something is true and acting on that belief.) In the interim, we live by faith.

Love—loving as Jesus loved—is what our faith produces. Loving as Jesus loved is what happens in us as we live in relationship with God as beloved children, as we live as followers of Jesus, learning the ways of God he taught. The Spirit works in us, transforming our hearts and minds, leading us to love as Jesus loved. The Spirit works through us so that we love those whom Jesus loved. In the interim, we love as Jesus loved; we love those Jesus loved.

But what about hope? What is hope? How does it shape how we live in the interim?

Hope is about the future. It is the forward look of faith. Hope is faith looking beyond what is to what God has promised will be. Hope gives us a glimpse of what will be because of the faithful love of God.

Hope is about the present. Hope is what empowers us to be faithful in the midst of what is. The vision of what will be guides us in living the ways of God today. As we live the ways of God in the midst of what is, we contribute to bringing what will be into reality.

Hope is rooted in God, in God’s faithfulness, in God’s steadfast, faithful love. It is a quiet assurance, a settled confidence that God will do what God has promised. Before God is through, what is will give way to what will be. What God has promised will become a reality.

Hope empowers us to live in what is— in the interim—as we wait for what will be. Hope encourages and sustains us as we deal with the unrelenting challenge of what is. Hope guides us as we live the ways of God in the interim.

Hope—like faith and love—is a vital resource for us as the followers of Christ as we live in what is—in the interim—waiting for what will be.

Hope is the theme of Christ the King Sunday—or, if you prefer, the Reign of Christ Sunday. This last Sunday of the liturgical year invites us to look beyond what is to what will be. It reminds us of the vision of a God-shaped world—what will be. In doing so, it calls us to give ourselves anew to being God’s partner in bringing into reality what will be when “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9).

 

Praise and Thanksgiving - Thanksgiving Day, 2023

Praise the LORD! 

Throughout the psalms, the psalmist sings his (her) praise to God while calling us to join the chorus of praise.

Praising God is an act of worship. It is a response of the heart to who God is. Authentic praise is who we are at the core of our being responding to who God is at the core of God’s being.

Praise is laced with emotion. It involves gratitude and thanksgiving, but goes beyond them to a sense of wonder and awe. It often is tied to being overwhelmed with a sense of God’s love. It, in turn, expresses our own love for God. Consequently, praise is commonly expressed in music, song, and dancing.

In the psalms, praise is commonly linked with thanksgiving. The two go together, but they are different.

Thanksgiving focuses upon what we have received because of God’s goodness. It is a response to what God has done. At its core, thanksgiving tends to be self-focused. It is about me—my wants, my needs, my wellbeing, my enjoyment, my comfort. Consider the things we name when we talk about being thankful: family, health, the good things we enjoy (i.e., wealth and affluence), the country in which we live. All are things that benefit us.

By contrast, praise focuses upon God. It recognizes and responds to who God is at the core of God’s being. Praise sees beyond the gifts God has given to the love from which those gifts came. It recognizes the gifts point beyond themselves to something greater—to who God is. By focusing on who God is, praise lifts us beyond the self-seeking, self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me nature that often hijacks thanksgiving.

We can cultivate a spirit of thanksgiving by being intentional about naming and giving thanks for God’s gifts. We become thankful by giving thanks. Similarly, giving thanks helps us to cultivate a spirit of praise. Giving thanks trains us to see beyond the gift to the hand giving the gift. It leads us to recognize and respond to the love that gives so generously and freely. Giving thanks teaches us to recognize and value the Giver more than the gift. It paves the way to praise.

We open the door to praise when our focus shifts from the things for which we are commonly thankful—family, health, the good things we enjoy (i.e., wealth and affluence), the country in which we live—to how our lives are different because of the grace of God. What in my life can only be understood as the result of God’s grace at work, transforming my heart and mind? The answer to that question is a reminder that we are God’s beloved children, claimed by God’s grace in Christ Jesus. Our answer points to the steadfast, faithful love of God that never gives up on us or abandons us. It reminds us of the self-giving, servant nature of God out of which such love flows. Naming God’s transforming work in our lives cultivates within us a spirit of praise—a response of our heart to who God is and to what God has done in our lives.

Let me be clear: God does not need our praise. Praising God benefits us, not God. As we praise God, our hearts begin to be captivated by a love for God—for God’s servant nature, for God’s ways of self-giving, servant love. Praise trains us to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength (Matthew 22:34-40).

During this Thanksgiving season, may our thanksgiving lead us to praise!

That Stage of Life

I’m doing it again this week. It seems I am doing it a lot, lately. I am joining others in remembering and honoring the life of a colleague and friend—someone who touched my life with gentleness and grace, someone who had a hand in shaping the trajectory of my ministry as a pastor. In the same timeframe, I will visit a friend who is dealing with cancer and, in it, is facing the inescapable reality of the end of her life.

These experiences are just a part of my stage of life.

I am in the stage of life in which I must repeatedly deal with the reality of death—the death of colleagues and friends as well as my own death. Most of my life is behind me. I am now in the stage of life in which I have to come to terms with what I have done with my life.

This “coming to terms with” is one of the disturbing aspects of celebrating the life and ministry of a colleague and friend. As I listen to how my friend’s life touched and impacted others, I walk away wondering about the impact of my own life and ministry. I face such questions as “What difference in the world have I made with my life? What significance has my ministry as a pastor had in the churches I served? How has my ministry touched the lives of others and contributed to their spiritual journeys?”

In addition, at this stage of life, the reality of my own death can no longer be denied. (Death is something we all acknowledge—at least, with our heads. Yet, when it comes to the reality of our own death, most of us push that reality out of our awareness. When we speak of our death, we generally say “if I die” rather than “when I die.”)

As I deal with the questions inherent to this stage of life, it strikes me that I am asking the wrong questions. I am asking merit-based questions that measure success in terms of accomplishments. The questions I am asking are rooted in the ego—my egocentric self. This egocentric self is the persona I built based upon what the world said I needed to be and do if I wanted to be valued and accepted. The questions I am asking are about being valued by the world, based upon the world’s standards of success. As a follower of Jesus, I am called to die to this egocentric self. I am called to reject the world’s ways of functioning and how the world measures success. “If any want to become my followers, let then deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8: 34.

The better questions are significantly different. What difference has God’s grace made in my life? How is my life different today because of the transforming work of God’s Spirit? How has God worked through me—using the gifts, graces, and passions God gave me—to be a blessing to others?

These questions are not about the ego. They are not about success as the world defines it. These questions are about God and God’s grace. They invite me to view my life through a different set of lenses.

Humility - the Often-Forgotten Character Trait of the Followers of Jesus

“All who exalt themselves with be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). This teaching from today’s lectionary reading turns things on its head—as Jesus’s teachings commonly do. It also reminds us that humility is a natural—though often-forgotten—character trait of those who follow Jesus.

The reason this teaching turns things on their head is because Jesus taught the grace-based ways of the kingdom, not the merit-based ways of the world.

Exalting oneself occurs when we engage in the game of comparing and competing. It allows us to feel superior to others—better than them. It is always expressed in judging and condemning—finding fault with something about the other that, in our minds, makes us better than them. Exalting oneself always involves looking down on another, considering them less than us. It is a not-so-subtle game of one upmanship.

Comparing and competing is a dimension of merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking. It is generally tied to conformity to some kind of standard of behavior (law), resulting in a higher social or religious status—at least in our own minds. It feeds the egocentric persona we present to the world. It is what we do to validate our own sense of importance and value.

Self-exaltation was what Jesus identified in the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23. “They do all their deeds to be seen by others” (Matthew 23:5). Ironically, we are generally blind to how we exalt ourselves over others and the attitudes our self-exaltation fosters. That seems to have been the case with the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’s day.

In contrast to self-exaltation, Jesus spoke of humbling oneself. To humble oneself is to surrender comparing and competing along with the egocentric self which that game creates. It is to live out of a spirit of humility.

Humbling oneself is only possible as we—moving beyond merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking and functioning—embrace the grace of God. We understand—with our hearts as well as with our heads—that life is not about deserving. Deep within, we rest in the reality that our worth and value are rooted in our identity as beloved children of God, those claimed by God’s grace. All that we are, all of our abilities, all that we know and understand, all that we have accomplished and achieved, all that we have—all are gifts of God’s goodness and grace. We have nothing to boast about other than the grace of God.

The spirit of humility is expressed in gratitude and thanksgiving for God’s goodness and grace. It is rooted in a deep trust in that goodness and grace. It leads to a teachable spirit that is willing to learn what the Spirit wants to teach and in a receptive spirit that is willing to receive what God has to give. The spirit of humility allows us to view and value, accept and embrace others as beloved children of God rather than treating them as competitors in life. It produces a servant spirit that gives freely of what God has entrusted.

The spirit of humility is a defining characteristic of the followers of Jesus.

Those Who Came Before Us - All Saints, 2023

“Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses …” (Hebrews 12:1).

The writer of Hebrews recounts a long list of those who came before—those who walked by faith (Hebrews 11). He described them as individuals “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38). They were not the so-called great men of history— kings, emperors, generals. (Sorry, ladies—it was a patriarchal world.) Rather, they were the great men and women of faith. (Women were included in his list because patriarchy does not overpower faith.) His list reflects the stories found in the Hebrew Scriptures—Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the parents of Moses, Moses himself, Rahab (a Gentile), Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. These were not deemed great by worldly standards yet great in the eyes of God because of faith.

These were the ancestors of faith who came before us. Although we did not know them—other than their stories as told in scripture—they guided us, contributing to the formation of our lives. They helped to shape our faith. They helped to shape who we are today. They touched us without knowing us. They shaped us without knowing they were doing so.

Thanks to the work of kinfolk I do not know, I can trace my family on my father’s side back to England and the 1600’s. His mother’s maiden name indicates Irish heritage although we have not traced the ties back to those who immigrated from that country. The links to my mother’s side of the family go back to the Civil War. To me, most of these ancestors are only names on a page. I do not know who they were beyond their names. I do not know their stories. (What stories they must have been—immigrating to a strange country, pressing west in search of land, fighting in the American Revolution and the Civil War, etc.) Yet, I would not be here today if they had not lived. I am the product of their lives, their adventures, their efforts, their love. I doubt that any of them looked forward in time to imagine my birth much less who I am today. Yet who I am today is because of them.

All Saints Day is about recognizing those who came before us. It is a reminder that who we are is not the product of our own efforts alone. Others contributed. We know and can name some of those who helped us on our journeys. We readily give thanks for them as we speak their names in our own list of our cloud of witnesses. Others, however, lie outside our awareness. They shaped us in ways we do not recognize. All Saints is acknowledging these touches on our lives—both known and unknown. It is giving thanks for those who shaped who we are today.

All Saints is also a reminder that we are shaping those who come after us. It calls us to be aware of—dare I say intentional about—how we shape them. All Saints calls us to be intentional in sharing who we are and in telling our stories. It calls us to be intentional in nurturing those who come after us that they may live out of who God created them to be more than who the world has shaped them to be. It calls us to share our faith stories that they too may know the God of grace revealed in scripture and supremely in Jesus of Nazareth.

All Saints reminds us that one day we, too, will be among those who have gone before. We, too, will be a part of the cloud of witnesses for those who come after us—those we know and those in the distant generations whom we cannot even imagine. It calls us to live as the followers of Jesus in such a way as our lives today will shape their lives and their faith in the future.

And so we pray: for those who came before us, shaping us in ways we do not see, we give thanks, Abba Father. We recognize their touch on our lives as your touch, shaping us into who we are today. We pray for those who come after us. Use us in shaping their lives as your Spirit works to conform them to the likeness of Jesus your Son. Continue to shape us in the likeness of Christ Jesus our Lord that your kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven.