Taking A Break

Hey all. I'm going to be taking a little break from the blog while we finish out Jen's maternity leave with a trip out east to the in-laws. (these crazy grandparents feel like 720 miles is a long way to be from Asher)

This little weekly outlet has been life giving for me, but needs to have a bit more traffic to make it worth the church's time. So get the word around and encourage people to catch up on past posts over the next few weeks and when I pick it back up I'll do a renewed push for a broader audience.

Grace and Peace in this season of Lent!

Of sheep and life

"I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly"

These words from Jesus have come to reflect more and more of the mystery and glory of the gospel for me over the last few years. At it's basic reading Jesus' point seems clear. You can be alive without really living. You can spend your days going through the motions without an ounce of life in any of it.

The longer I spend with this message, the more I wonder about one word in it, 'may'. Specifically, wondering how 'may' we find ourselves alive? Really, truly, deeply, abundantly alive. I used to think it meant leaving behind all the mundane things of this world and entering into some high octane spiritual existence.

But here's the thing. Jesus says these words in John 10 in the middle of a mixed metaphor about sheep. I say mixed because at one turn Jesus is the shepherd for the sheep. The next he is the gate for the sheep to pass through. And then finally he is back to being the shepherd. See, Jesus fills different roles in the metaphor, he is many things, but we are one thing. Sheep.

The thief breaks in to kill and steal, but Jesus takes up shepherding so that we sheep may have life, and have it abundantly. Which apparently means that we will have good grass to eat and a sturdy gate to sleep behind. We don't find the fields ourselves, we don't protect ourselves from wolves, we don't build the walls of safety. We are sheep.

It seems like the only really difference between the sheep before the good shepherd comes and the sheep after, is that they have learned to recognize the voice of the good shepherd. It is like the only act required for the sheep to have life abundant is to know the voice of the shepherd so that when they are called by name they follow him and never follow a stranger (in fact they run away).


Could it be that life abundant means doing the exact same things while listening to a different voice? Grazing for grass, searching for water, teaching a lamb to walk, rubbing up against a tree here or there when the black flies settle in. Is the abundant life about doing those very sheepish things while following the voice of the one who has our best interest in mind, rather than the one who simply want to kill and steal from us?

Could it be that the life abundant that Jesus came to provide is filled with things like doing the dishes, picking up the prescription, changing dirty diapers at 5:00 am, and chatting with the neighbor over the back fence? Is the abundant life about doing those rather sheepish tasks of the daily life, but doing them with our ears tuned to the voice of Jesus so that when we are called by name we follow him and never follow a stranger (and in fact run away)?

What do you think? Is life abundant just about doing the nitty gritty to the glory of God? How would you describe the abundant life?

Hands

This past Sunday Jen and I were blessed to participate in the ordination of two good friends. Phil and Becky Pratt have been companions on the journey since entering Seminary the same year as Jen. To see them accept a call to co-pastor a congregation in New Jersey is a joy. To be in the circle that laid hands on them and affirmed them as Ministers of Word and Sacrament was shear beauty.

It's a weird thing, the laying on of hands. I remember watching the process each year as a young boy at New Era Reformed Church. I can even dredge up a memory of the morning my father was ordained as an Elder to serve that community. I was utterly baffled by the whole thing. A whole bunch of men and a few women walking forward and placing their hands on my father and on each other. I knew it had to be important, in part because only something significant could get a bunch of conservative old Dutchmen to touch each other, but more so because even as a child I could sense the gravity of the situation.

I doubt I really understood how heavy that gravity was until September 9th, 2006, the day that I knelt on the steps of New Era Reformed Church's sanctuary and felt the weight of those hands. After the invitation was given I remember watching one person after another rise from their seats and come forward. Dear friends and classmates, significant mentors and teachers, men and women who have tended to my soul along the way, and even some of the same men and women I watched being ordained as a child, my father included.

As they gathered around and placed heavy hands on my head and shoulders I not only felt the weight of those standing in the sanctuary, I also felt the weight of the hands that had been laid on them, and the hands that were laid on their parents. I remember being overwhelmed by the awareness that I was taking my place in an unbroken chain of hands that stretched back 2000 years to Paul who encourage Timothy not to neglect the gift that was in him, which was given through the laying on of hands by the council of elders.

I also remember thinking that under the accumulating cloud of witnessing hands, each ordination carries more weight than the last. I will never be able to shrug that weight of responsibility off my shoulders, nor would I want to (at least today I don't want to). That gathering was one of the most powerful experiences of my life, one that has become formative. It was in that moment I truly realized that I was not "ready" or "prepared" for the office I was ordained to, I was submitting myself to be shaped and formed by the office.

And every time I ordain elders and deacons at Servant's, or participate in the ordination of friends and colleagues as ministers I am drawn back to my own ordination, the vows I made and the weight of the hands.

So why am I writing at length about my own experience of ordination? Because it is something I carry mixed emotions about. I can't deny it's power and formative effect on my life, and I will never try to. But I can't help but wonder if by affirming the gifts of some members we neglect the gifts of others in the Body.

I mean, the vows I made - to devote myself to scripture as the rule and guide of my life, to give myself to the building up of the body, to serve faithfully, diligently and joyfully, to seek the things that make for unity, purity and peace - are not these the vows that every follower of Jesus should be making and living by?

Shouldn't every disciple locate themselves in an unbroken chain of life and witness that stretches 2000 years back to those first Jesus preaching, captive freeing apostles? Shouldn't every member of the Body live with a profound sense of weight and responsibility for continuing the witness and worship of God in the world that he is reconciling back to himself?

Interestingly I am not alone in the Reformed tradition with that concern. I decided to do some homework while I was working on this blog post and went straight to the roots of my tradition, John Calvin. During the Reformation Calvin, among others, wanted to root the sacraments of the church in scripture. If there is no biblical call to a specific action it isn't a sacrament. In the end the 7 sacraments of the Catholic Church became the Two that we still hold today, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

But few people know that there was almost a third in Calvin's Geneva. Ordination. Here is what he had to say. "As far as the true office of presbyter (or elder) is concerned, which is commended to us by Christ’s lips, I willingly accord that place [that is, the ‘title of sacrament’] to it. For in it there is a ceremony, first taken from Scripture, then one that Paul testifies not to be empty or superfluous, but a faithful token of spiritual grace (I Timothy 4:14). However, I have not put it as number three among the sacraments because it is not ordinary or common with all believers, but is a special rite for a particular office” (Institutes 4.19.28).


How interesting is that? Calvin didn't do away with ordination by the laying on of hands, in fact it was something that carried huge weight in Geneva where church and state weren't all that separate. But he didn't afford it the title "sacrament" specifically because it was not something shared by all believers. Although he affirmed the authority of the clergy/elders he was always mindful of the implication their role had for the "priesthood of all believers", and when it was all said and done it was the priesthood of all believers that determined what was a sacrament and what was not.

In the end I suppose it is a tension I live with. On the one hand I see the biblical roots of authority being passed down to leaders in the church to provide for guidance and sound instruction. And I am constantly humbled and honored by my place in that chain.

On the other hand I believe with all that I am that the ministry of the church belongs to the whole body and can't shake the fear that my ordination may stand as a barrier to every member sharing in the weight of our common call.

Enough from me. Now it's your turn to weigh in. How does affirming the gifts of some in this significant way affect the ministry of the whole church?

Cleaning House

When Luke set down to write his account of of the good news he included a slew of Jesus stories that his gospel writing companions left out. One of them is commonly called The Parable Of the Lost Coin. You can find it in Luke 15:8-10. Today I want to call it the Parable Of the Sweeping Woman. Or maybe the Parable of Seeking and Finding. Or perhaps even the Parable Of Why the Hell Did It Take Loosing A Coin For Me To Clean My Stupid House?

Anyway...

Every once in a while I feel like the woman in the story. I've lost something of value and it takes working up a sweat with broom in hand before I can find it. It's just that instead of a coin, the lost treasure is my mind, or at least a part of it. Most of the time it's the part that helps me remember why I'm doing something. Sometimes it's the part that actually cares about doing something. Sometimes it's the creative part that helps me actually do something. This morning I woke up and felt like I had lost a combination of them all.

So I cleaned, I purged, and I created new space in my office.

A new table got cut down to size and mounted on casters. Drawers and files got unloaded and sorted. The recycling box got a few pounds heavier. A couple of dust rags got destroyed. And a few things that had been lying around for about a year finally got hung.

Then I spent some time helping Christy do the same thing in her space downstairs. The staff mailboxes got mounted in their new spot. And Furniture got moved, shifted and shimmed.

Then I headed outside. More salt made its way from Nawara Brothers to the Lighthouse. The two inch sheet of ice on the sidewalk got busted up. And the broken door bell got worked on.

And somewhere in all the activity my broom sent a few coins ringing out into the open.

It's a weird thing, cleaning, purging and creating. I found some things that simply got lost in the in-box, even though they seemed desperately important when they showed up there. Some of them were and I made a couple quick calls that were overdue. But for the most part the world kept turning just fine despite my not accomplishing everything I would have hoped to in the last half year. Kind of like Y2K playing out over and over as I sifted paper into recycling.

Somehow the filtering of my physical work space filters out the mental, emotional and spiritual work space as well. Same thing happens with spring cleaning or rearranging furniture at home. Same thing happens when I pull all the flies off their drying patch in late winter and rearrange fly boxes for the new season.

It felt like hitting a reset button where wiping away of all the clutter left me with the essentials. Remember why you walked into the office to begin with. Know your priorities and sacrifice everything else to their demands. Get back to basics.


So today I like to think that the woman in Jesus' story had a lot of time to think as she swept and searched in the soft glow of her light. I like to think that she didn't just find her lost coin, but that she also remembered what was worth spending it on. I like to think she smiled when she bought a measure of grain or a flask of oil with that lost and found coin. And I like to think that the blisters on her palms served as a reminder to be more careful with the wealth she had been blessed with.

How about you? What are the brooms you pick up when you need to find what is lost?

What's the point?

Some days you just have to scrap the blog post you had scheduled to say something else. Tonight proved to be one of those days. Tonight I sat in with worship team while Jen began her journey of maternity leave.

I should take a step back and say that 2008 was a hard year for Servant's. Anyone who is a part of our church already knows that. We've felt a lot of the growing pains that come with any transition period. Some of the pains were entirely normal and predictable. Some hurt a little more deeply because they involved losing people like George and Nancy Werkema, people we worshiped and worked alongside of.

That is what my scheduled post talked a lot about, the challenge of 2008. Maybe that post will see the light of day yet. But after worship team tonight I had to write something else. Because all of the transitions, all the hard conversations, all the planning and praying at Servant's has been to one end; growing more fully into our sense of call to be a church built and directed by the gifts of the Body.

It is the call that emerged from the interim period between Michael Mulder's departure and Jen and my arrival. It is the call that brought us here. It is a call for us to constantly be growing in our awareness of who God has made us to be, and what he is calling us to do in his Kingdom work of justice, reconciliation and hope.

That call has been lost in some ways through the turbulence of the last six months at Servant's. It has taken so much energy just to lament and listen as a church, that there hasn't been much energy to continually strive towards a new way of being in community.

For me at least, it feels like the time has come to start centering around that vision again. The primary structure we have talked about for shaping ministry from our gifts is Ministry Teams. Right now it is a pretty vague concept for most people in the church, because we haven't spent much time with the language or concepts. We will. But what I realized anew tonight was that for all the planning and restructuring work we have been doing in consistory, the core element of a team based approach to ministry can be learned in a night.

Essentially it is this.

When 9:30 came around and our meeting drew to a close I felt somewhat guilty thinking of the last three hours as work. What it felt like was sharing a dinner and a wonderful conversation about worship with a group of people I loved and respected. I had gained a broader understanding of our church and her life of worship. I had some specific things to do as a worship leader that were richer because they emerged from a group. And most significantly, I knew I was a better follower of Jesus for having been at the table on this night.

At the end of the day, that is what this sense of call is all about. I don't know how to give that away as a gift, but it is my prayer that the same experience would be played out in dinning rooms and coffee shops throughout Westown as the Body of Christ at Servant's gathers together around common calls.

It is my dream that we would all enter into that experience of being a part of something bigger than ourselves. And that we would be more whole from the process. It is my deepest hope that we would gather together, not around class, or race, or age or the cliques we can become so comfortable in, but around Jesus. And that around Jesus we would hear the call of the Spirit that leads us into something bigger than we could ever imagine. Something that demands the best of us and then blesses us with the strength to give it.

Even so, come Lord Jesus in our midst.

Life, life and more life

Life, life and more life. It is the story of God's word going out and bearing fruit. It is the picture of God's "let there be" and all creations response. It is the gift of glory embodied in every sunrise, apple blossom and nursing infant.

This weekend Jen and I received a refresher course on life. It came in the form of Asher Philip Petersen. Fearfully and wonderfully made Asher. Made in the image of the Living God Asher. Full of life, life, and more life Asher. New life. Life abundant, overflowing, bursting at the seams. We welcome Asher, and people will call us Happy.


Like all parents some of my earliest hopes and dreams for Asher involve a world that is more full of the "life abundant" that Jesus promised than the world we live in today. I want more for my sons. More justice, more beauty, more love. I want more than this world could ever give them.

We don't have cable at home. We do in room 208 at Metro Hospital. So it has been interesting to me that the few times we turned it on Monday we were awash in images of both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and soon to be President Barack Obama. Along with those images we have been hearing sound bites and commentary that reflect a lot of the hope that Asher kindled in my heart already this week.

There was so much being said about Dr. King's dream and rightfully so. His dream is one of our best national treasures. If you've never heard the whole speech that held it, do so. today. here. seriously.

For the last 40 years his dream of a nation where his children, and your children, and Eli and Asher are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, has inspired and moved us to be a better nation. I am glad that Obama's election has raised that dream to a new level of public discourse. And I am glad that we can acknowledge victory even as we recognize how far we have to go before his success translates into equality in education and opportunity for every child.

I think President Obama generates so much hope in us because he is a canvas that we can paint our own dreams on. Regardless of our agreement or disagreement with his political ideology or decisions we can all understand that his presence in the White House reflects something more just than what our society has previously known.

I am glad that people are asking if Obama embodies the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream. But even as the media coverage was reminding me of Dr. King's dream of racial equality, I was struck by the absence of so many other words of Dr. King.

Where was the King who said "nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time, the need for man for overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression."? Who is asking if Obama embodies this dream for our nation and her foreign policy?

Where was the King who said "The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" Who is asking if Obama will encourage this dream in his call for public service?

Where was the King who said "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."? Who is asking if Obama will put forward this dream in his re-regulation of the business and banking sector?

And especially, where was the Preacher King who spoke not just of a national promised land, but a coming Kingdom that would encompass all creation? The King who said "I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."
I could write a couple thousand words on my sorrow regarding America's selective memory of Dr. King's words and domestication of his challenge, but not today. What I will say is this.

Today I will watch Barack Hussein Obama become the 44th President of the United States of America. While I watch, I will hold my son Asher, I will think of my son Eli and I will be glad. Glad that in their most formative years the most powerful person in their world looks more like their black neighbors than their father. Glad that equality will be more of a reality because of one mans courage to lead. Glad that a word like hope has returned to the American conversation too often dominated by fear and prejudice.

And I will also be glad that they are growing up in a community that claims that our hope rests in Christ alone. Glad that they will look to no man or woman as a savior but him who died for them. Glad that they will learn to strive not just for a better America, but for a coming Kingdom that is filled to the brim with life, life and more life.

Embracing the Wilderness

"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him."
Mark 1:9-13


"Kai Uthus." "And Immediately." It's a phrase that repeats over and over in the gospel of Mark. "And immediately the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness." It's a phrase of energy and urgency. It moves the good news story along a dizzying clip, but it is nowhere as jarring as the first time Mark used it.

After the heavens realign and angel choirs welcome the Christ child into the world, we have a 30 year silence before Mark begins his account of the gospel. John prepares the way for the one who will wash us in the Spirit. Jesus begins his ministry by going under with all those in need of repentance and emerges to a Divine word of affirmation. Kai uthus. And immediately.

And immediately the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness. Matthew and Luke both have Jesus being "led" by the Spirit into the wilderness, but Mark won't have any part of something so gentle. No, Mark has the Spirit driving, thrusting, propelling Jesus into the desert, the wilderness, the barrenness.

This part of the story has caught hold of me the last few weeks. I brought a question that was born out of that driving Spirit into worship Sunday, and I've received more feedback from it than any sermon for a while. So, I thought I would pick up my wondering here.

The question is pretty simple. What if bouts in the wilderness are an essential part of life in the Spirit?


Wilderness and desert themes play big in scripture. Jesus' ministry begins with a Divine affirmation, but immediately leads to an extended stay in the wilderness. He's in good company with Abraham, who wandered in the desert between the promise and the birth of Isaac; with Israel that wandered 40 years between the liberation from Egypt and the enterance of the promised land; with David who hid in desert caves between finding God's favor and stepping to the throne; with Elisha who dwelled in the wilderness between recieving Elijah's spirit and bringing God's word to his people...
You get the point.

And the theme doesn't end in scripture. Throughout the history of the church the "desert" or "wilderness" has come to represent all the barren and harsh places in our lives. They are the places of trial and abandonment where we are forced to realize that we are not in control. The wilderness is the terrifying space where we are completely vulnerable and completely dependant.

From Adam onward, the wilderness has been a part of the journey.

But this doesn't fit with much of what we are told in North American Christianity, does it? We are led to believe that "life in the Spirit" means constant joy, creativity and energy. We are left to assume that any period of wilderness is the result of Satan's activity or our own sin's alienating power. But what if that's not always the case?

What if there are seasons when the Spirit drives us out? What if there is a Divine Wisdom in wilderness that can be learned nowhere else? What if seasons in the desert are simply part of the path we are on following Jesus? What if the wilderness is an essential part of life in the Spirit?

The church throughout the ages certainly seems to affirm that this is the case. We have a rich history of writing on the unique role wilderness plays in the life of the church. It is a history that includes the desert fathers and mothers of the early church and St. John of the Cross with his "Dark Night Of the Soul". But it also includes some great modern works that speak of "The Solace of Fierce Landscapes" and "The Wisdom of Wilderness."

So if those wilderness experiences of abandonment and loss of control are a part of life in the Spirit, I wonder what it means to embrace them? I think this is where the whole question gets interesting for me. I mean, I want to follow the Spirit and trust in God's provision wherever that leads me. But what does it look like to really embrace the wilderness? Not just endure it, or pray to be out of it, but to accept it and allow it to shape me.

What did Israel need to learn in the desert before they were ready to be planted in a land of their own? What did David need to learn cowering in a cave while Saul searched him out before he was ready to assume the throne? What did Jesus need to do in the desert before he could stand on the street corner and proclaim that the Kingdom of God had drawn near?

Whare are the wilderness places in me? In you? In our church? In our world? What does it mean to embrace them? What do we have to learn from them? And what might they be preparing us for?

It's been a week of questions for me. I invite you to add any questions or answers from your own journey. And good luck embracing the wilderness.

A Christmas/New Year Prayer

Every time you move you are given the gift of examination. You need to take the time to figure out what things are worth moving, what things are worth passing along or leaving behind, and what things need to meet landfill. Hopefully at the end of it you are left with a tight grip on the things that reflect and shape who you are.

Two and a half years ago Jen and I moved, in just about every way a couple people can. We moved into our home on Pulawski SW. But we also moved into parenthood, into a new season of life, into new friendships, and we moved deeply and irrevocably into The Church. In that last move we tried to be very careful about only holding on to those things that are closest to our hearts as followers of Jesus, and leaving everything else open so we could learn from the community we were joining at Servant's.


One of the things that we carefully wrapped in newspaper and tucked away for the journey was the quite rhythm of the church year. We knew that our own worship needed guidance from the shepherd's staff of these old movements of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany; Lent, Easter and Pentecost. When we got to Servant's we talked with Ben about his commitments for our worshiping life and with the elders about theirs, then we tentatively unpacked the rhythms observed by saints throughout the centuries.
For the third time we'll spend half the year treading the well worn path of these seasons, trusting that with every lap around the calendar their ancient lessons work deeper into our life and witness.

It is interesting how often the themes of the Church year line up with the calendar and the seasons of creation. Easter's empty tomb enters into call and response with the budding trees, Pentecost sets the Spirit fire anew when the city heats up for summer, and Christmas sets us up for boundless hope and possibilities as New Years resolutions are made (and often broken).

One of the biggest blessings of my job is when families give me the gift of walking into a hospital room to pray over a new born child. Every time it happens I am overwhelmed with a sense of wonder and hope for the little person in my arms. They seem to literally burst with life. Everything, right down to their shallow breathing, is so new and unknown.



I get the same feeling for the church every year when we have these two precious weeks of the Christmas season. After my Advent longing for God's people the newborn message of Christ's coming is fertile ground for joy and expectation for what God has in store for his bride. Combine that newborn expectation with the close of another calendar year and all the budgets and ministry plans that go with it and it serves as a pretty good time to reflect and look forward. You'll hear a bit more of that next week from me. For today, a Christmas/New Year prayer

I'd like to invite you to post a comment with your own prayer for the seasons to come.


God of glory, God of grace
Fill this year with the power of your presence
As you came so long ago, come anew
Be born in us today and every day

So that the brightness of your beauty
might be reflected in your bride
So that the goodness of your grace
might be given from our receiving hands
into the waiting hands of the world

Meet us, O Lord, in our lives of worship
and change us in the meeting
Call up from our deep and hidden places
the gifts that you knit into our being
and grant us the vision and boldness
to be the incarnation of those finger prints of the Spirit

Help us to be more than what we are
Help us to see with eyes more true than our own
Help us to walk with purpose deeper than we plan
Help us to grow in gratitude for your love that precedes ours

Teach us to Live.

In the name of Emmanuel, Amen.

The Slip

Well, coming off vacation into Christmas week caught me a little busier than I expected. So this week I give way to another trusted voice. Wendell Berry is one of the most prophetic and challenging voices in the American church. His writings on the biblical concepts of sabbath and jubilee have left me uncomfortable many times. But, for all his great essays, I love him for his poetry (found in some of his best collections like this, this and this). So this week an Advent poem from Wendell Berry.

Please take a minute to post a comment on a favorite line or image from the poem. Whoever you are, however often you read this blog, if you are a part of Servant's or not, let us hear your feedback.










The Slip
The river takes the land, and leaves nothing.
Where the great slip gave way in the bank
and an acre disappeared, all human plans
dissolve. An awful clarification occurs
where a place was. Its memory breaks
from what is known now, begins to drift.
Where cattle grazed and trees stood, emptiness
widens the air for birdflight, wind, and rain.
As before the beginning, nothing is there.
Human wrong is in the cause, human
ruin in the effect–but no matter;
all will be lost, no matter the reason.
Nothing, having arrived, will stay.
The earth, even, is like a flower, so soon
passeth it away. And yet this nothing
is the seed of all–the clear eye
of Heaven, where all the worlds appear.
Where the imperfect has departed, the perfect
begins its struggle to return. The good gift
begins again its descent. The maker moves
in the unmade, stirring the water until
it clouds, dark beneath the surface,
stirring and darkening the soul until pain
perceives new possibility. There is nothing
to do but learn and wait, return to work
on what remains. Seed will sprout in the scar.
Though death is in the healing, it will heal.

~Wendell Berry

Eat This Book

Jen and I are taking a week of vacation to get a little breathing room this week. That makes for a great time to link you all out to a respected voice.

As I blogged last week, we Christians are people of the book. I have thought a lot about what that means and how scripture does its work to form us. Perhaps my most influential guide in that thinking has been Eugene Peterson. Some people from Servant's have been reading his book "Eat This Book" in which he delves into questions about the way we engage scripture. This week I want to send you to an interview he gave soon after that book was published. Hopefully it gets some juices flowing.

Eugene Peterson on Scripture

Let us all know what you think.

People of the book

"People of the book."

Four years ago in January of 2005 I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit the Sultanate of Oman with a group from Western Theological Seminary where I was studying. There is a group of donors connected to the school who highly value the experience of the gospel in different cultures, so they make sure that every person studying pastoral ministry at Western has the opportunity to do so. So with nine other students and one ethics professor I flew 22 hours to spend some time with Michael Bos, an RCA missionary living in Oman. (where, by the way, the RCA has an amazing history including providing doctors for the Sultan and starting the first school and hospital)

I could write about that trip for a long time, but there is one phrase that got me thinking about my time in Oman again. "People of the book." I heard this term a couple of times as we were welcomed into conversation with some of the highest governmental and religious leaders in this Islamic Sultanate. It would pop up in a sentence like, "it is only right for us to work together towards peace in our region, because you are people of the book."

I was so intrigued by this phrase that I started asking more about what it meant. My favorite answer came from a young Arab Muslim scholar who met with our group. I have, unfortunately, forgotten his name, but I haven't forgotten his response. He said, "being people of the book means that you do not found your faith on something as tentative as personal experience, you are rooted to a text." You can get a more expansive answer here or here.

I started to claim that phrase by the end of the trip. That's not to say I agreed with what it meant for our Muslim hosts who used it. Although I appreciate their willingness to find common ground to work upon, I believe with all I am that Genesis and Revelation are the book ends on God's written revelation. And while I am comfortable working with people of other faiths towards peace and justice in our communities, I make no apologies for my faith that Jesus is the only anchor for my hope and the only source of peace and justice in the world.

What I claim is the truth in my host's answer. We Christians remain rooted to a text or we are rooted in nothing. We submit all our experience and insight to the light of scripture or we wander in the dark. We are people of the book and that is why scripture is my top signposts for finding the Jesus Way.


But in what ways do we let scripture do that work? How do we turn to it for direction, both individually and as a community? How do we let it shape our imagination and those of our children? How do we live as people of the book?

Help out all of us who read this blog and take a few minutes to share your thoughts. As I said last week, I have to ok all comments to keep undesirable content off the blog, so if you don't see your comments immediately give it a little time.

Signposts part two

Something in my heart awakens every time I see one of the three highway signs marking my exit for home. On the eastbound Ford it's Lake Michigan Drive, on the westbound it's Lane Ave. If I'm coming from the south it's Wealthy Street off 131. Most of the time I don't even notice them. They are are there for others who may not know the way yet, but for me they slip into the backdrop of a drive my muscles take care of without much help from my brain.

When I do see them, I mean really see them, it's usually because I have been away from westown long enough that they seem novel again. And when that happens, something wakes up and I remember that I love this neighborhood. Not the idea of it, or what it represents, but the actual dirt and concrete of it. That ability to really see things carries me from the off ramp to home. Something triggers and it's like, Oh yeah, Wealthy Street. I notice the colors of the sign for the Big Chipper and the faded outline of "The Loading Zone" at Butterworth and Straight, even though it is now "The Hot Zone".

All that to say, when we talk about signposts for the Way of Jesus, we talk about finding them in a particular place, namely the places, we live and work and play in. Eugene Peterson speaks to this well in the book I mentioned last week, The Jesus Way. Here is how he starts the book.

"This is a conversation on the spirituality of the ways we go about following Jesus, the Way. The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal: nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal. Incarnate, flesh and blood, relational, particular, local.

The ways employed in our North American culture are conspicuously impersonal: programs, organizations, techniques, general guidelines, information detached from place. In matters of ways and means, the vocabulary of numbers is preferred over names, ideologies crowd out ideas, the gray fog of abstraction absorbs the sharp particularities of the recognizable face and the familiar street...

This is wrong thinking, and wrong living. Jesus is an alternative to the dominant ways of the worlds, not a supplement to them. We cannot use impersonal means to do or say a personal thing - and the gospel is personal or it is nothing."

This is one of the main reasons Jen and I fell in love with Servant's. This church is bound by a sense of common mission to a particular place. It is westown in all of her complexities and diversity that we find ourselves and it is in this neighborhood that we walk out our journeys on the Way.

Last week I asked about our personal signposts, the things that help us find and walk on the Way of Jesus. This week I wonder how we, as the church, stand as a signposts for the "recognizable face and familiar street." How do we stand as markers of the Way for the neighbor we shovel snow by and the cashier in the grocery store? How do we encourage others to join in the journey?


Let's continue to get momentum going in the comments here. Thanks for the responses last week, both on the blog and in person. Sorry for the delay on comments. I have to moderate them to prevent unsavory spam from popping up, so once you post a comment I get an e-mail where I must approve the comment before it is posted. I try to check a couple times a day.

Signposts

I've found myself using the phrase "signpost" quite a bit lately. It's one of those things that you don't really think about, you just all of a sudden notice one day that you've been dropping it left and right in conversations. Realizing my frequent use of the term has me thinking more about what it reflects.

As city dwellers, those of us in westown, have no shortage of signposts. Some of them I always notice; A&B Party Store, Parkway Tropics (the neighborhood strip club), The Other Way Ministries. They serve as a reminder of who is in this neighborhood and what they are about. Some of them slip into the back ground; West Fulton Parking, Marion St., McDonalds. They are so much a part of the landscape I just stop noticing them. There are other signs that come in and out of focus depending on the season, like "no parking odd dates november 1st-april 1st," the even-date/odd-date plow schedule that you ignore in the summer but notice again when the snow flies... Or at least some people on the block notice when the snow flies.

As a hiker, signposts have at times meant the difference between a warm tent and a long night in the middle of a national park. When hiking there are few things more beautiful in the gathering darkness than a wooden post with a number and an arrow on it. Between that and a good map you can figure out which way to turn to get back to your campsite. Sometimes signposts even help you figure out how to avoid trouble to begin with.



Our lives are full of signposts, but I haven't been talking about the metal and wood signposts of our city landscape or back country trails. I've found myself talking about signposts as a metaphor for the life of faith. In fact, last week I used that term in this blog referring to some words from our website. And every time I use the term I recognize echo's of Jesus in the background saying, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."

I am not looking for just any signposts, I am looking for signposts that help me find The Way. It is a powerful image for me. An acknowledgement that following Jesus, is about more than believing the right things, it is about walking the right way, the Jesus Way. In fact that is what some of the first Christians saw themselves as doing, they were "followers of The Way." Last year my favorite author Eugene Peterson put out an entire book about this metaphor called, "The Jesus Way." It's a great read.

But the point, I guess, is this; if following Jesus is about following in The Way of Jesus, we'll need some help to understand what that way is, where it is taking us, and how we stay on it. I can tell someone to get to our house by heading east or west on Fulton, turning south on Marion at the McDonalds then east on Pulawski (at least I could before someone stole the lovely street sign in the picture) and park on the side of the block with odd address numbers.

I want to be able to do the same for people that want to move through life on the Jesus Way. So I'm always on the lookout for signposts of The Way. Those markers and guides that help us find our way forward.

My hope for this blog is to get some dialogue going, so give me some help this week and post a comment about the signposts you rely on.

How do you learn what the Way of Jesus is? Where do you find hope in where it is taking us? And most of all, what signposts help you figure out how to stay on it?

big words

"As we follow Jesus we may not always know what God is calling us to do, but we are pretty sure of what kind of people God is calling us to be. People of hope, so compelled by the healing and justice, the grace and reconciliation of the gospel that we guide our lives by it. That is at the center of who we long to be as Servant’s Community Church, and we believe that everyone God calls into this community brings with them unique gifts and a unique role to play as we partner with that gospel work that God is doing in our midst."

I wrote those words earlier this summer in response to a nagging need to simplify what this whole church thing is about. They sit on the home page for Servant's website now as some sort of signpost for finding our way forward.

The words that make up that short paragraph are big words. Hope. Justice. Grace. They are big like a blazing Lake Michigan sunset, where your eyes get lost somewhere between the endless shoreline, the sprawling eastward sky, and the line where reality and reflection meet at the horizon. In other words, too big to take in.

But at the end of the day, I guess those big words are not ideas to be understood and tamed. They are more like the tools we have to tell a story. We borrowed those words of course. They come from a redemption story that is bigger than our story, yet one we find ourselves in. When we use those words it's a lot like taking a snapshot of that blazing sunset. Like all snapshots it's dissapointing when compared to the real thing, but it none the less gives enough of the color and contrast to get you back on the beach.



Our journey together as the people of God is an attempt to take those big creator words like hope, justice and grace, and create a little beauty ourselves. Hopefully this blog helps tell that story.

So every Tuesday when you fire up the computer and settle in for the day, take a swing over for a new post. Comments are highly encouraged, and hopefully those of us who are already a part of the Servant's family can pick up some of the conversation face to face.