A Turn of the Chair

“It takes just a second, but that’s my spiritual discipline—turning my chair to be available for God.”

-April Yamasaki (Sacred Pauses: Spiritual Practices for Personal Renewal)*

The simple, seemingly trivial act of turning one’s chair in order to be available to God…how absurd!  And yet, how beautifully true!  There is so much in our lives today that distracts us from our relationship with God, from seeking to live as Christ lived, from walking the path of Christian perfection (thanks JW!).  All of the media outlets, the ads, the fear-mongering blogs and talking heads on various news agencies, the sheer amount of crap that companies relentlessly try and sell us, there is so much that gets in the way!  This seems especially so during the season of Advent, the time the Church sets aside in order to prepare God’s people for the Christ, both his coming as a child as well as his coming in glory the second time around.

We get so caught up in Christmas fervor, so bent out of shape when people say “Happy Holidays” (which is technically correct), so angry when the abbreviation “X-Mas” is used in place of “Christmas” (the “X” is a Greek “chi” which stands for “Christ”), so maddeningly wrapped up in the purchasing of all the right gifts and making it to the right parties, etc., etc. that we lose sight of that which we are to be preparing for.  Maybe we just need to turn our chair a bit…

And that’s just the Christmas timeframe.  Let’s not forget about all of the other things in our daily lives that can potentially distract, if not separate us, from God.  Work, family, friends, addictions and negative habits, apathy and callousness, the list is nearly infinite; some of these things are good in and of themselves, and some, not so much.  If we allow them, they can all become distractions just like the windstorm, the earthquake, and the fire was for Elijah as he was waiting to hear from God.  And yet, God came as a still small voice; God came in the quiet, the silence in the void of all that activity.

This is certainly not the only way in which God communicates with us, but it is rather telling that God can speak to us in the quiet found amidst all the commotion…if we would but turn our chairs, opening ourselves to the holy and mysterious, to the God who can speak in the silence.  We have become so accustomed to noise and activity that for many, quietness, silence on our part, can be quite uncomfortable.  It’s uncomfortable for me…to just be…to be present and open to the Lord to speak and act and move and for me to not be doing something.  But sometimes that’s precisely what we need, a little bit of divinely inspired discomfort paired with our willingness to truly listen to God.

Thanks be to God for such an uncomfortably powerful way of communicating with us.  May we be more attuned to the silence, the quiet, during the season of Advent as we prepare ourselves for the coming of our Lord.

* Yamasaki, April. Sacred Pauses: Spiritual Practices for Personal Renewal.  Waterloo, Ont.: Herald Press, 2013.  Page 35.

Light in the Darkness

 “Testimony is calling out that you have seen light in the midst of darkness.  Testimony is telling the story about how you met God, even when you have forgotten it.  Testimony is telling the story of a community over time, of a particular people, and how God has intervened.”

-Lillian Daniel (When “Spiritual But Not Religious” Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church)

So I’ve been deployed now for nearly two months, away from my family and friends…away from home.  On the grand scheme of things, and compared to most of my Soldiers downrange with me, that’s not very long. But it is real and different and ultimately…well, it’s important.  It’s real in that I don’t hear AK-47 rounds being fired off on a regular basis (even if it is in celebration) back at Fort Polk or regularly see tracers flying over the city as I sit in the tree house smoking cigars with the docs.  I don’t walk around in full kit (body armor and combat helmet) on a regular basis back home.  There is not the threat of IDF (indirect fire) back home.  This is real because the fact of the matter is that I am sitting here writing this, this blog entry, in a combat zone…on a FOB (forward operating base) halfway around the world…and that makes things altogether different.  Different from sitting in my office at Fort Polk, different from relaxing in my living room with my family watching Curious George, different from sitting at my dining room table having an engaging theological discussion with my wife.

But in this case different is good.  Different is real and tangible and lived day in and day out here on our tiny little FOB in Afghanistan.  Different means doing my job and my calling, both in garrison and now deployed.  Different is appreciating the little things that bring us joy or simply makes us smile throughout a work day, all the while knowing that home for the time being is a college dorm sized room with a few necessary amenities (bed, desk, drawers, closet, computer, Kindle).

And all of this is so very important.  That’s not to say that everything I’ve done up until this point has been unimportant.  It’s just that I know I’m supposed to be here, to (as the Chaplains Corps motto states) nurture the living, care for the wounded, and honor the dead.

Daniel’s statement, “Testimony is calling out that you have seen light in the midst of darkness” is grounding.  I have far too often heard testimony used to thank Jesus for that sweet parking space at the mall or to thank God that you’re not like all those other sinners.  Such uses of testimony end up being potentially damaging examples of the misappropriation of Old Testament deuteronomistic theology, wherein if you are good God will bless you and if you are bad God will curse you.  As a Christian, how in God’s name is this testimony?

And this is precisely why the whole concept of testimony is based on hope, hope in a God who lives and loves and forgives despite all of our failures.  There is hope in calling out that you have seen light in the midst of darkness, and naming exactly that hope.  There is hope in beginning to remember how God reached out to you and you responded.  There is hope in recalling the history of a people, a community of faith, and hope that the Holy Spirit moves in and through that community and will continue to move in divinely mysterious and transformative ways.

Testimony is simply a declaration of hope in a God who is forever faithful.  That is precisely why it is important for me to be here, right now, on this FOB in Afghanistan.  By virtue of my calling as a United Methodist Elder and Army Chaplain I am to provide help and hope, to love God and to love my neighbor, but to also call out when I have seen light in the midst of darkness, to offer guidance and share testimony.  And as with the task of preaching, proclaiming God’s word, I am both terrified of and intimately called to and engaged by such a significant charge.

Hope.  It really does all come down to hope.  Hope in whom?  Hope for what?  Ultimately, hope that “thy kingdom come[s], [that] thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Hope in daily bread and forgiveness.  Hope that we, both individually and together, can be the people God calls us to be.  Lord, in your mercy, hear my prayer.

* Daniel, Lillian. When “Spiritual But Not Religious” Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church. New York: Jericho Books, 2013.  Page 21.    

Updates!

Friends, family, readers and followers...I've clearly been away for awhile.  Or rather, I've been away from the blogging world for awhile.  I guess that's what happens when we find ourselves working long hours week in and week out for months on end.  As many of you know, I am a US Army Chaplain, which is partly where the title of my blog came from.  With that said, I will soon be taking the whole "ministry in the trenches" concept from the semi-figurative level to the actual and literal level.  Instead of trenches, it will be FOBs (Forward Operations Bases), but ministry nonetheless.

To answer the question you may (or may not) be asking yourselves at the moment, the answer is "yes", I am being deployed.  Am I a little nervous? Sure.  Am I a little stoked?  Yes.  Am I going to need to maintain some level of spiritual discipline?  Overwhelmingly, yes!  And that is precisely where this blog comes back into the picture for me.  I never meant to disappear, but now I have an outlet, a way to theologically, emotionally, and spiritually think through things while I am deployed.  I will continue to reflect on various thoughts and ideas that I come across in my readings, but the general nature of the blog may change some over the next year or so as I take time to process and reflect on real world experiences as well (thanks John Wesley!).

I look forward to sharing and reflecting, but also hearing back from y'all every so often.  I ask for your prayers and your well wishes as I embark on this new journey and I ask the very same for my family as they "hold down the fort" while I am away.  And ultimately, I ask that you pray for peace and for God's loving presence for all of our Armed Service personnel, whether they be Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, or Coast Guardsmen.  Grace and peace to you all! 

The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment

“Nicholas Carr writes in The Atlantic in an article called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (hint: yes), “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words.  Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet-Ski.””

-A. J. Jacobs – “The Unitasker” (The Guinea Pig Diaries:My Life as an Experiment)*

It’s been a while, I know.  Since I last posted my family and I have embarked on our first Active Army PCS move.  I’ll not go into details, but let’s just say that I’ve been a bit busy with the move, settling in with a new unit, helping wrangle/take care of my son, spending some quality time with my family, and reading when I can.

So without further ado, here goes:

I believe that the lack of depth in serious critical thinking in our society has theological ramifications.  As Christians, many of us skip along the sea of inch-deep theology and simple self-help answers, rather than embracing any sort of willingness to break the surface and struggle with diving deep.  A vast number of Christians prefer to hear, for example, that the Bible means one thing, and one thing only.  Questioning such ideas is declared anathema by numerous churches, or at minimum, one’s faith in God is questioned.  Millions of Christians seek “yes” or “no” answers to questions that are impossible to truthfully answer with a “yes” or “no”.  We seem to want to skim the surface of theology, of our relationship with and understanding of God rather than diving deep into the murky depths of the life of faith in a triune God.

I get it.  Life is not easy.  We live in a complex world filled with natural and moral evils, as well as all the other general complexities that goes with, well, life.  With that said, however, my family and I were driving around some of the little towns that surround my new duty station.  As we were exploring the local area, taking in all of the sites that make up rural Louisiana, we came across a church sign that basically stated that in a world filled with problems and difficulties the church (or maybe just that particular congregation) offers simple answers, that Jesus makes things easier.  I couldn’t help but scoff.  Actually, I’m still scoffing.

Hope and simplicity are in no way the same thing; they’re not even remotely synonymous.  Yes, Jesus Christ offers us hope in the now and the not yet (hopefully) through the church and the coming Kingdom.  But Jesus does not make things simple or easy.  I’d argue that if we were to take Christianity seriously, that if we were to take our faith in God Incarnate seriously, then Jesus makes things, makes our lives, far more complicated and complex.

And this is a good thing.  We should not fear complexity.  We should fear simple answers to complex questions and problems.  As the church, the community of faith, we should be willing to struggle with the complexity of life together, just as millions of faithful Christians have done since the earliest days of the early church.  We should search the Scriptures together, just as John Wesley directed.  We should offer confession and forgiveness to one another.  We should hold each other accountable, but we should never say that the Christian life is simple or easy.  Maybe it has become easy, but its roots, its essence, shows us a beauty and depth far too vibrant and real to ever think a simple “yes” or “no” faith would (or should) suffice.  We must be willing to trash the Jet-Skis and don some scuba gear.

*Jacobs, A. J. The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.

Red Letter Revolution (Part 1)

“God, in giving humanity freedom, lends credence to a free enterprise system in which the primary purpose of production is to bless people by producing goods and services that meet their needs.  This is what loving our neighbors as ourselves is all about (Matthew 22:37-40).  In doing so, those around us “may see our good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16 author’s paraphrase).”

-Tony Campolo (Red Letter Revolution: What if Jesus Really Meant What He Said?)*

I’ll be honest, I’m no economist but this statement hurts my brain.  The theological gymnastics that Campolo has attempted to pull off in linking free enterprise to God’s gift of free will and then linking that to the greatest of the commandments (Matthew 22:37-40) is nigh impossible.  But he tries it anyway.

Admittedly, this was sort of an odd chapter in Red Letter Revolution for me.  The chapter was titled “Dialogue on Economics.”  I’m not sure what I was expecting from the authors, but I figured there’d at least be some sort of admonition against our current economic environment in the United States, especially as it relates to the drastically widening gap between the rich and the poor.  Granted, there was some talk of taking care of those in need and how God is bigger than Wall Street, etc., but for me, Campolo threw anything valuable to the wind with the quote above.

I DO NOT think Jesus affirms the selling of goods and services to people whom, at times, cannot afford those goods and services.  This concept certainly does not hold true to the commandment (and Torah law) of loving your neighbor as yourself.  This is a clear example of eisegesis, of reading one’s own beliefs, thoughts, and context back into Scripture in such a way as to mold the text to mean what one wants it to mean rather than what it actually says in its own time and place in history.  Historically, we Christians are very good at this practice.  Take, for instance, the “biblical” justification for slavery in the South during the 1700-1800s, or the German church’s affirmation of Hitler’s Third Reich and Nazi ideology.  I’m sorry, but it takes some very literalistic readings of Scripture and some very clever textual eisegeting to make those concepts gel.

Perhaps what Campolo is suggesting is that in a utopian society where everyone is relatively equal, goods and services are produced and offered in order to meet the needs of the people, thus serving the greater good.  In this case, yes, this sort of producing and offering of free enterprise goods and services would be a form of loving one’s neighbor as oneself.  But this is not reality.  Sure, it can be a goal, but this isn’t even remotely the world we live in.

The language that Campolo actually uses is that of free enterprise, not utopia and not the language of a community bound together by God.  In the current US economic climate “free enterprise” tends to translate as a sort of free market capitalism.  If this is not what Campolo intended, then he should have been clearer.  However, if Campolo’s statement is taken at face value, there is overwhelming evidence in the New Testament that flies in the face of “free enterprise” as it is manifest in our society. 

The community bound together by Christ at the end of Acts 2 is a wonderful example of how we are all still unique individuals with varying abilities, interests, skills, etc. while being joined as one for the common good.  The author of Acts states, “All the believers were united and shared everything” (Acts 2:44, CEB).  Folks in community even sold the land and excess goods they had for the benefit of others in need.  No one went without.  Everyone had enough.  This was not the result of free enterprise.  This was not the logical outcome of selling goods and services.  This was the illogical outcome of Pentecost; the breathtaking power of the Holy Spirit to work within a people in such a way as to show them something greater than themselves and their own well-being and luxury.  This is inherently a counter-cultural and counter-capitalist concept.  

My point is this: we should avoid at all cost the linking of a capitalistic production of goods and services in the modern age with the words of Jesus, particularly the greatest commandment.  After all, didn’t Jesus also advocate for his disciples and followers to offer both their shirt and their coat if someone in need simply asks for a shirt?  He didn’t say, “Feed those who have the money to be fed; give drink to those who can afford what you have produced.”  Jesus didn’t go to the wealthy business owners and kindly ask them to produce better goods or lower their prices.  What he did do was tell some successful fisherman and a tax collector, “Come, follow me.”  He told a rich young man to sell all of his belongings, give the money to the poor, and become a disciple.  He warned against greed, and the dangers of attachment to money and possessions.

Jesus’ words are utterly radical and discomforting.  Our economic systems and concepts, however hard we try, will never fit Jesus’ understanding of community.  And to be sure, we should try, but we must always confessionally acknowledge that we fall short, that we do things we shouldn’t and we leave other things undone.  God, forgive us.

In the end, may we hope and pray to actually do what Christ declares, but may we never do as Campolo suggests: essentially, linking capitalism with the greatest commandment.

*Claiborne, Shane and Tony Campolo.  Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said?  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012.

A Prayer for Returning Soldiers

As a departure from what I've been blogging about, and an embrace of my actual blog title, I'd like to offer the world a prayer for returning Soldiers.  Don't worry, I've not stopped reading, but ministry opportunities can pop up when you least expect them.  Case in point: my unit is finally coming home from a year long deployment and I've been asked to offer the Invocation for the return ceremony.  Interestingly, if you google "prayer for returning soldiers" you don't get very many hits that are useful in a liturgical or ceremonial setting.

So without further adieu, I would like to share my Prayer for Returning Soldiers:

Gracious God,

who promised to never leave your people’s side,

we give you thanks that the Soldiers of the 980^th

            have made it home safely.

Bless our Soldiers’ reunions with their families and friends;

            help them reconnect and experience joy at being back together,

                        and happiness in simply being home.

We pray that the transition back to civilian life,

            the shift from combat environments to the peaceful environments of home

                        will be smooth.

Most importantly, we pray for your grace in this transition;

            grace that transcends mental, emotional, and physical wounds;

            grace that heals and makes one whole.

We pray for our spouses and families to be patient and understanding.

            Help us all with the enormous emotional adjustment of changing worlds

            and smooth the transition back into family life after having missed

                        a whole chapter of the story.

And in the days ahead, as we move from lessons learned in war to managing

            the reintegration of our Soldiers;

            we ask that you, O God,

                        be with us, guide us, refresh us,

                        equip us to be ready, well, and spiritually whole.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

If you find it useful, by all means use it.  I could care less about copyright and the like.  My only request is that if you use it, make it your own.  Pray it and truly mean it.  

Grace and peace,

UM Chaplain

A Life Together: Wisdom from the Christian East

“Christianity is a world to explore, not an heirloom to preserve; it is something we enter into and discover therein expansion and newness.”

-Bishop Seraphim Sigrist (A Life Together: Wisdom of Community from the Christian East)*

We have turned the Church (and church with a little “c”) into a museum and trapped Christianity within.  And I’m not talking about one of those cool museums where you learn about space or natural history (Dinosaurs! Yeah!) or anything like that.  No, I’m thinking of something more along the lines of one of those roadside museums with the random assortment of two-headed farm animals, a cool rock somebody found that may or may not be a meteorite, and everything in the museum seems to have been generously donated by folks in the area.

Slap a few placards on random crap around the church and we have our very own roadside museum: the pews, the stained glass windows, everything in the chancel area (i.e. lectern, pulpit, cross, prayer railing, altar table, etc.), the Bibles and hymnals, the token pictures of Jesus, some old offering plates I found hidden away (awkward!), and even the ice maker in the kitchen (even more awkward!).  Don’t get me wrong, that ice machine is great, but a memorial ice machine?  Seriously?

Sadly, this is not an unusual occurrence in a majority of churches.  The church is more a building and all the stuff contained within than it is a people when we so ardently attach ourselves to the material world.  We seek preservation of what once was, rather than the unbound potential of what is and what may be.  We preserve it, memorialize it, thinking back to the good ole days, and we fend off anything that remotely threatens the curation of our museum.

This is precisely why Bishop Sigrist’s words are so important…and dangerous.  Christianity is a world to explore.  Combined with Wesley’s concept of the Path to Christian Perfection, we begin to understand that Christianity is, indeed, bound within history, but it is an active and living salvation history.  It is a history filled with the beautifully unpredictable movement of the Holy Spirit, with a Creator that loves us enough to allow us free will but surrounds us with a creation so breathtaking that it is difficult not to see God, and with Jesus Christ, who stopped at nothing to be in relationship with us and to reconcile us with God.

To be sure, this is not a stale and static story.  This is not a history meant to be locked up behind the fortifications of the museum church.  But this is precisely what we do.  We equate “the Church” with that worship location we attend on Sundays and call it church.

The Church is a people called Christian that are exploring, living, loving, and communing together in the name of Christ.  And I guarantee you that you can’t slap a memorial placard on that.

*Sigrist, Bishop Seraphim.  A Life Together: Wisdom of Community from the Christian East.  Brewster: Paraclete Press, 2011.