A Labyrinthine Journey

For quite a few years I’ve been refocusing the lens of my preaching and teaching the gospel. I am seeing it more and more as God’s great invitation to life that is full of light and wonder. One of the implications of that reshift of focus is an internal set of translating the language of church and faith. Some I am sure would cry foul, but I find the new language liberating. So, here is a beginning (and very brief) guide to this Gospel of Invitation.

Command => Invitation

This is the basic translation. To me the whole command language sets up our relationship with God as one of servant/master, which Jesus changes when he talks in John 15:12-15 about we are no longer servants, but friends.

This also clears up for me the mixed messages of all the commands to love one another. Being invited to a life of loving one another makes a lot more coherant sense then the implied idea of “love one another, or else…”

What happens if I don’t => What happens as I do

This follows from the previous conversion. If the focus is primarily on what are the results of not doing something then we are concerned with reward and punishment. Here we come boldly in to the realm of works righteousness. Yet, if we offer the invitation to what happens in life as we follow the path of life then we are no longer thinking about linear causality of fear, but we are instead focused on the ways were a participants in God’s life as we respond to grace.

If => As

Did you catch that little translation? This is one of the first ones I noticed on my journey into this Gospel of Invitation. The word “if” has that idea of “don’t.” “If I do this” carries with the real possibility and assumption that I won’t do it. Whereas “as I do this” begins and carries with it the idea of being involved. As we forgive one another, we participate in God’s forgiveness.

Compulsion => Desire

You might notice, that a lot of these translations move away from a culture of control into a culture of participation. Compulsion and control are all external source words. The force for the action come from somewhere out there. Desire and participation are internal source words. The springs of life are planted inside us and the Holy Spirit inspires desire within us and that is what leads us to act within the imagination of God’s Grace.

Surrender => Consent

Here is another one that doesn’t seem like it needs to happen at first, but I have found myself doing this one a lot more lately. Surrender is a fear-based word. It is an act of giving in and giving up. The battle of life has been joined and we have lost. However, consent is a love-based word. We have been invited to join our hearts with God’s heart and we choose to freely give our lives to God as an expression and response to that great Love.

Prove => Witness

This is reflected in my previous blog entry about the parable of two doorkeepers. A basic assumption of the prove it perspective is that God and God’s ways are somehow understandable by our great and massive intelligences. Yet, I don’t believe that. All we are able to do is to witness to the mysteries of Life and Love. All we are called to do is to keep pointing to what God is doing in our lives. So we can stop adding notches to our belts of those we have “converted” by our eloquence as we keep proving how great God is (or have we really just proven how smart and charismatic we are). Instead a Gospel of Invitation is all about celebrating what God is doing in life. As God transforms lives we rejoice with the company of saints and keep on inviting people to “come and see.”

That’s it for now. Let me know what you think. Can you see how this moves us a God’s people from being messengers of shadow into being bearers of light? As I find myself shifting my thinking in this way my life system moves from one which is closed and feels empty into one that is wide open and spacious, fillable and filled with the fulness of God’s Spirit and Light.

Psalm 84 is up for the lectionary this week. Verse 10b stimulated a little parable.

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God…

Doorkeeper #1: Let’s call him Frank.

Frank tends the door at the most exclusively club in town. Inside the door one can find the most exquisite decor, the most delicious food, and the DJ spins the best music in the country. It is a wondrous and magical place to be. And only the best people are allowed to enjoy this place.

That is Frank’s job. He tends the locked door behind the red velvet rope.

If you come to the club you have to show Frank that you are worthy. Your name has to be on the list and only those A class girls and boys can gain entrance. So you have to prove to Frank that you are who you are and that you allowed inside. If you can do that, then the wonders inside are for you to enjoy. If not, then you can only stand outside and wonder. But most people after a little while just give up and think no longer about even trying to enter this place. They go along with their lives outside the door.

Doorkeeper #2:  We meet Francis.

Francis is the Doorman at the finest hotel in town. It too is a place of wonder. The lobby is spacious and filled with marvelous visions and images of beauty. The restaurant off the lobby is known to sell the simplest yet most filling foods and most refreshing drinks. It also is a wondrous place to be. And anyone who enters finds themselves most blessed.

Francis’ job is to tend the front door.

Yet, for Francis his joy and delight is to do all he can to open the door and welcome everyone who walks past. As people walk by, he smiles at each one and gestures toward the door to invite them in. If they keep walking, he waves and invites them to return anytime, the door will be opened for them. If anyone stops and turns to enter, he rushes to the door to open it wide for them to enter. If they have coats, hats and umbrellas he makes sure they are relieved of their burdens at the check room. He loves to make the way clear for everyone to come in and enjoy the wonders of this beautiful place.

Which doorkeeper are we?

As I think about the church, I think we have found it too easy to be more like Frank. We see ourselves as the gatekeepers to the kingdom. What we have is the most wonderful thing in the world, but we somehow think it is fragile and easily spoiled. We see ourselves as the protectors of the faith and believe that it can become lost or damaged if those unworthy are allowed to enter in. So we set up all kinds of rules of righteousness and ritual to make people prove themselves worthy. Trouble is, those we allow in usually end up being, dressing, acting, and talking just like us-those already in.

Yet, I think the Psalmist and Christ invites us to be more like Francis. The Gospel message is the most wondrous thing in the world and we do believe that anyone who finds the presence of the Loving God has found all the blessings they desire. However, we believe it is so marvelous that we want to do all that we can to bring everyone into that Presence of Life. So we radiate that open invitation to all we meet. And when anyone decides to respond, we joyfully do whatever we can to welcome them into the Grace of Christ. We look for and seek to remove all burdens and obstacles that keeps them away from enjoying the abundance of God.

I know I said last month that I was going to be more intentional about writing. I blogged a lot right away and then grew increasingly silent. Life and other projects have stepped in the way. But, I’ve been writing. In fact, I picked up a used Thinkpad just for writing that is much lighter, smaller, and has great battery life. This way, I don’t have to become a hermit from my family to work on things.

I have two major writing projects in my head. Both have peeked their heads into the blog. One is going deeper into the Enneagram from a distinctively Protestant Christian perspective. This project has joined forces with an old writing project using the images of the ancient elements as spiritual growth tools. This one is more deeply in the research stage. I still don’t have the Enneagram “cold” enough to be bold in writing much about it yet. The research is active and background.

The other writing project is the one that I am spending time with. In May I preached a sermon series on the United Methodist “Rethink Church” marketing campaign. The way it came together has led me to want to devote more time to writing more fully about the ideas. Yet, for the longest time, I was stuck in getting started. I recorded the sermons and they have given me the basic document to work on, but that hasn’t been enough.

I realized that I didn’t yet want to write it. I hadn’t sold my own internal publishing board on the project. I wasn’t clear enough on why I thought my ideas were worth writing about yet. So for the past week, I’ve been working on my own book proposal for “Rethink Christian” (my working title). At the moment this has nothing to do with trying to find an agent or a publisher, but it has everything to do with getting me to turn off the television and get up earlier in the morning to make the time to show up as a writer.

Part of me wonders if that is normal for other writers: to have to sell themselves in writing. Another part says that doesn’t matter. If this is what I need to do to get myself into the game, then let it be.

I’m closer to my selling point then I was last week. For that I am grateful.

An excerpt from my Soul Writing from a few days ago.

Dear God,

Thank you for inviting me into your abundant life. I don’t always hear the invitation clearly, yet you keep on knocking on my heart’s door and calling my name. Sometimes I do hear it but I turn away from it. I don’t know why. Those seem to be the times when I think the little I have is all I deserve. The shadow voices convince me for the moment that I am only worth the lesser portion. You have to admit it, this life you invite me to is pretty amazing. It does go far beyond imagination.

Sorry, but I live among a people who are used to dreams dying. I’ve been a Chicago Cubs fan. It is very common and almost normal for us to find disappointment and to live discouraged.

I get so excited about some dream idea and then it doesn’t come. That excitement turns to grief and pain. Or maybe I get what I want, but it doesn’t live up to those hopes. What’s left is emptiness and even resentment. Or sometimes I will have fun starting to follow a wonderful dream, but then it gets hard or it changes too much from what I thought it would be. I give up.

I become disheartened.

That’s a good word for it: disheartened. With time and the accumulation of more disappointments I have learned to protect my heart. A few times in I can actually picture my heart encased in a hard shell. I stop getting excited about things. I learn the cynical path is the easiest one to take. I stop imagining things. I settle.

I settle for the lesser life.

I can tell when I am in that settling place by the echo of my heart. I read, hear, and even write or preach your words of hope and love, and inside I hear those words echo in emptied spaces. The shadowed chambers of my soul ring the deep notes of that disappointment. My hearts feels the pre-creation void as an echo of that old shadow. And those days feel so small.

I wonder though, why would You torture me with this vision of abundant life if you had no intention of truly providing it for me. You wouldn’t do that would you? That wouldn’t be fun or fair. It would be so much easier to just stop dreaming, to accept that this vision of abundance is just illusion and that this little life is all I will ever get. The dying inside will hurt some at first, but then after a while I won’t know or care anymore. have accepted my small life while still yearning for abundance.

I think of my Grandmother. As her dementia began she was terrified. She had watched her Mother disappear before her eyes and recognized within herself the same progression. Then she reached that part of the disease where she forgot and was no longer afraid. Her world had grown small enough that she again felt safe.

Is that what is available? Spiritual dementia? Accepting the lesser “vision?”

If that is all you are ever going to give me, then in your kindness and grace take these extravagant dreams away from me.

However, you still invite me to this abundant life.

I will not accept the shadow idea that you are cruel and arbitrary. I will not accept the idea that you would offer us only empty promises. If you invite us to live your abundance, I will trust that you will make it real.

Strengthen me when the siren song pulls me toward the rocks of Less. Carry me through the times of transition and transformation to the place of grace.

God, help me to always remain open to your invitational knock. Don’t let me slip into my little world where your dreams are all dead. Resurrect my soul, illumine my heart, and free me for your life abundant.

Over the last couple days it has been my turn to celebrate communion at two of our local care centers. There was a time early in my ministry, I am ashamed to admit, when I would have seen those times as impositions on my time. Yet by grace and through the Holy Spirit’s changing my heart, that attitude has been changed.

I see the time as a simple gift with surprising and mostly unseen fruit.

The time is short, it is not much more than reading scripture, sharing the prayer of institution and the Lord’s prayer and personally sharing the elements with each person who comes. Even when we celebrate communion in larger church worship, I seek to look each person in the eyes as they come up. A look that I fill with all of God’s grace that I can allow to flow through me.

Here my celebrating communion in care centers happens 20 times.

For some reason, today was different.

I was feeling tired and empty today, so the old resentment tried to raise its objection to going, but no-one listened. And when I got there, the elements were prepared, but only 3 residents had gathered. This is about a third to a fourth of the number who usually attends. Besides, the activity director could not be found. But that wasn’t a problem. We just waited for a few more to come. When we had 7 of us, I started the reading from Psalm 130.

“My soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.”

Then the prayer of thanksgiving:

“Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts, that in the breaking of this bread and the drinking of this wine we man know the presence of the living Christ.”

Followed by the Lord’s Prayer. While we are praying a couple more residents come to join our small circle, I smile at them to welcome them to the group.

Then sharing the gifts. I have to pay attention now. Will she take the wafer or will she want me to place it in her mouth? Will he be able to hold the small cup of juice or will I need to help him drink?

I partake last, mindful today of my own sense of void and emptiness. I am grateful.

As soon as I prnounce the benediciton, the last woman to arrive jumps up as fast as she could jump with her walker and comes over to me apologizing for being late.

“I’m just glad you made it”

By now she has made it to where I am standing and she grabs hold of my arm and leans up against me and begins to cry. “I am so glad I made it, too. Thank you. Thank you.”

I give her a hug and she moves down the hallway to her room. I then go to each remaining person and shake each hand and smile with each grateful face. Each one echoes the thought, “Thank you so much for coming.”

As I finish gathering my Bible and prayer book, I am thinking how different today feels. One woman hasn’t moved yet. As I stop to talk with her, she says that they have lost quite a few residents in that facility in the last couple weeks. So we talk for a few moments about grief and the seasons and cycles of life and death. She thanks me and begins moving down the hall back to her room.

As I leave, I find myself thinking that in my prayers, I rarely pray for a whole care center. I might pray for individuals and for larger communities, but not for those smaller communities.

And I realize that I am leaving a feast of the body of Christ. It may not have been 5 loaves and 2 fish, but the 8 of us were gathered and Christ’s presence was felt by my heart today.