Broken Pilgrim

Answering God

Today I read Eugene Peterson's Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer. Whereas Miller's book left me somewhat cold, this was the exact opposite … deep nourishment and the promise of more.

Peterson shows how the Psalms are answers to God's initiating word to the psalmists … and to us. He explores, in his own rich way, the many shapes and facets of the "answer to God." I can't begin to capture the fullness of this book and so I'll leave you with but one quote:

We can, of course, pray in a frenzy, thrashing about. Much prayer necessarily begins that way, but we pray better, and best, when we let the rhythms of the creating word of God work themselves into the rhythms of our living, and then find expression in the psalmic rhythms of prayer. (p. 60)

Good toolkit. Get it. Read it. Use it.

(um … er … I'm referring to both Peterson's book and the Psalms … but if you gotta pick one … duh …)

Bringin' It

Throughout my time in the UK, I had the beautiful opportunity to attend a number of traditional services, in particular several Choral Evensongs.

• Mon 1/7 - Choral Evensong at Westminster Abbey
• Th 1/10 - Morning Eucharist at St Bartholomew-the-Great
• Th 1/10 - Midday Sung Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook
• Th 1/10 - Choral Evensong at St Paul's Cathedral
• Sun 1/13 - Choral Evensong at St Paul's Cathedral
• Sun 1/13 - Choral Evensong at St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Fri 1/18 - Midday Eucharist at Durham Cathedral
• Fri 1/18 - Choral Evensong at Durham Cathedral
• Mon 1/21 - Choral Evensong at St Paul's Cathedral

Quite honestly, my soul was moved towards God, significantly in each of these services. But I've been continuing to reflect on why.

The fact is that I was hungry to meet with God, to respond to Him in worship and to allow the beauty of the services to be a vehicle for giving God glory. I was particularly blessed on Thursday the 10th … three services!

But in many ways I was doing this alone. I did not sense or apprehend a communal desire that God be lifted up. Rather I saw a going through the motions. I noticed a preoccupation with the beauty of the music and not with what the music pointed towards. I was surrounded in some cases by almost no one (there were three of us at the morning Eucharist at St Bartholome-the-Great) and in others by tourists who had come to gawk at the quaint museum of Christianity. In short … there was little to no life in all of these services.

And yet. Yet. I met with God. I came in faith, with hunger and expectation and God, yet again, met me.

Great worship is not primarily about doing things in right and specific ways (although these can be important issues as well). Focusing there is the pathway to becoming another museum.

Great worship happens in the meeting of faith and the faithful One.

Hunh!

Advent. Hunh!

Looks like I'll have to wait until next year …

Depression

I've always been a little manic. Anyone who knows me, knows that. There are many times of enthusiastic joy and delight. And the converse of course …depression has flowed in and out of my experience over the course of my whole life. I imagine some of it was clinical, even. Whatever.

At times I've struggled with wondering is depression a sin? Does it show a lack of trust in God? Aren't we supposed to always have the "joy of the Lord"?

Don't think those questions are really helpful, though. This past year or so I've struggled with more frequent times of depression than I have for a couple decades. While I don't know what to do about that, I have been learning something new.

Depression can be the occasion for a unique meeting with God. I've found that the Psalms of Lament have taken on new power in my inner being. David even seems to be … dare I say it … a little manic.

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"Psalm 42:1-3 (NIV)

Well, that view of meeting God is one option. Here's a second:

Okay, okay. Let's go with the first option.

Tradition

I just recently reread The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). I had bought the Everyman's Library hardback edition awhile ago and finally picked it up to read. These really are American classics.

Early in the book, Tom is attending church. He's forced to go and very much hates being there. None of what the church does has any meaning for him. I particularly noticed this following paragraph, especially the last sentence:

    After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into a bulletin board and read off 'notices' of meetings and societies and things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of doom – a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities, away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.

I'm sure that we can easily see how Rev. Sprague's extended announcements aren't really a good idea for worship.

But we're like fish in water when it comes to our own unncecessary traditions. We don't notice 'em because they're just the place that we swim in.

Often the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.

Now I'm not knocking traditions in their own right. They help us connect with the past. They give shape and form to our present experience.

But sometimes, sometimes I believe, they become a barrier to being the very people that we long to be!

Traditions can either help the Light of Christ shine freely through His Church OR be the fog or haze or shutters that keeps the Living Christ from being seen at all.

Lord, grant us the wisdom to know the difference, the courage to choose the best, and the grace to realize that we're not all going to agree. Keep us one in You, for in You, we'll still more than muddle through somehow. Soli Deo Gloria.

Church or Churchy?

Premise:

The church should unabashedly be The Church.

But what does this mean? Certainly that we should not be ashamed of the gospel. Certainly that there must be no compromise in who we are and what we stand for. Certainly that people shouldn't have to wonder what it is that we're all about, for it should be plain as...well...you know...a light of the world, a city on a hill (Matthew 5:14).

Problem:

The church IS unabashedly churchy.

I've watched my own particular church become churchier and churchier over time. I suspect that this is an entirely regular occurence as churches grow and people become more and more settled in the community of faith. But this settledness often means a turning inward and a holding on to traditions and jargon and attitudes and a whole churchy subculture that actually has little to do with being The Church.

I'm sure that I have inadvertantly contributed to this increased churchiness, in particular through my own unreflected use of church jargon and theological language that might alienate rather than embrace (I'm talking here about choice of words and NOT the concepts!).

All of this makes me sad. We are saddling the life changing Christ with the baggage of churchiness so that He becomes nearly unrecognizable. Under the banner of "the church is SUPPPOSED to be different" (and it is supposed to be), we simply are different in the directions and styles and activities that we like and that let us live in a place of Christian nostalgia. And we wonder why the world doesn't flock to our doors?

And you know? A call to be go out there and extend the gospel is not enough. We need to be out there extending THE GOSPEL, not our brand of experience. And maybe even this language of "being out there" itself is inward looking churchiness. We need to be truly incarnational where our experience is embedded in Christ AND in the real world. That means stripping away the baggage to allow Jesus Christ to be clearly seen.

So what can we do? I like Paul's words in I Corinthians 2:2 (NIV):

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

This seems a good place to start.

I'm feeling particularly inarticulate with this post. I suspect that it's rather churchy in tone and language. But I'll probably continue to messily stumble around this theme, for the reality I see and experience is breaking my heart.

The Winter of My Discontent

I am discontented.

Almost all of the time.

Now, I've been discontented before. I've experienced many different causes for my discontent. Some of the key (read that as "happen over and over") ones are:

• Disconnection from God and the rhythms that keep me connected to Him.
• Lifting up things or activities or people as idols and trying to find my contentment in them.
• Circumstances that are difficult.

This last one is the hard one. What does it mean? Am I supposed to be learning anew the lesson of experiencing the presence of God in difficult times, of finding my contentment in God and God alone (Philippians 4:11-13)? Is God using the difficult circumstances to call for a change, to pursue new directions, to leap out in faith? Or is it both? Or is it something else entirely?

I don't know what my discontentment is all about. I'm thinking a lot. I'm praying a lot. I'm journaling a lot. I'm continuing to pursue those spiritual rhythms that give life.

But I haven't been blogging a lot. I hope to change that … again. The last thing I want, though, is to turn this blog into "Oh, poor pitiful me." That's not what this is about.

This I know. My life is what it is under the sovereign, loving hand of God.

This I know. God is still present.

This I know. I sure as hell need Him.

He's Not

God is not a hobby. He can't be and won't be.

I Got Rebuked

Yes, it happens. Of course it's never thrilling, but I'm a little bothered by this.

See, evidently when we're on stage leading worship, we've gotten too casual in our dress for some people in the congregation. They complained and I ended up getting rebuked, both for allowing the casual dress and for participating.

Point of fact, though, I was given the "go ahead" to start wearing jeans. In fact what I wore on that Sunday is exactly what I wore on at least 3 different Sundays over the last 3 months or so. Also in fact I had decided to just let people dress as they would dress and have it fall out as it may.

Now, I don't have a problem choosing to dress differently or asking the worship team members to sharpen it up. If we're being a distraction, then it is not loving for us to flaunt our freedom of dress in others' faces. So I'm limiting what I'll wear and I'll have a conversation with a couple people. If this helps keep the focus on Jesus and serves the congregation, I will do this more than gladly.

But I'm disappointed, very disappointed that this is an issue. The Gospel is astounding in its call to "come as you are". The Gospel is glorious in the extent of its call to people of all kinds. When we make dress a mark of spirituality, we are living inconsistently with the Gospel. We are modern day Pharisees adding a hedge about the law and subtly preaching an anti-Gospel message. When we seek to make the Christian experience homogeneous, we're forgotting that people from every tribe and language and people and nation are being called into the Body of Christ.

So I will gladly neaten things up. But I'm still sad for the deeper loss.

[What I am NOT saying. I know that for many people, to dress up is a way for them to show honor, to mark a special event, to be more "present". And this means that when they dress up for church, it is actually an act of worship. I applaud and support this. But to make the jump that this dressing up should in any way be normative for all goes far beyond the call of Scripture … but rather it is dead smack in the middle of American Cultural Christianity.]

Discuss.

I Am a Hypocrite

One of the things that I love about John Piper is his love affair with Jonathan Edwards. In God is the Gospel he often quotes from Edwards. Here is one such quote taken from The Religious Affections:

"This is … the … difference between the joy of the hypocrite, and the joy of the true saint. The [hypocrite] rejoices in himself; self is the first foundation of his joy; the [true saint] rejoices in God … True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures … But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order: they first rejoice … that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them."

This is me. This is pretty much everyone I know. But thanks be to God that I live in the Already but Not Yet. I may be a hypocrite but I see signs, abundant signs, that God is making me into a true saint. Bit by bit. And someday …