Simple Words, Earnest Ashes

They said the case worker was a jerk. I wanted to tell them that he anticipates being lied to (and about). Folks usually say “whatever-they-think-he-wants-hear-to-get-what-they-want”. You wrap yourself in a crusty, cynical veneer to avoid something worse. These two strangers before me are not yet wounded enough to know that.

“You are dust and to dust you shall return”. Simple words profound enough to cut through the veneer. They’re a reminder that too much time is spent chasing “wants” or defending against what others might want. I am also reminded by the mark of earnest ashes on my forehead. It speaks truth and nudges toward what’s real.

With enough time and honesty the words and ashes leave an inner mark. The kind of mark that carries you out late at night to help two young strangers who might be less than honest. It reminds that we will soon be no more and these two clueless kids will then be beyond our reach and we beyond theirs.

Another Epiphany

Epiphany was different this year. It’s a feast day of the Church which (in some traditions) focuses on the visit by the Wise men to honor the Christ child in Bethlehem. In “Church-speak” that translates into “the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ”. But it was different this year.

-          Ira needed a ride and a friend. Who is giving and who is in need of receiving sometimes gets confused. We split the difference and met some place near the middle.

-          Robby, who is frequently lost to us and the world went missing for a week. We went looking. Jimmy found him hiding in plain sight. We were happy and healed a little by that.

-          A call came in about Marty who was drunk-as-a-bicycle again and too stubbornly broken to accept anything other than “what-I-want”.  We were bruised a little by that.

-          Neil has little or nothing but healed us with his laughter and smiles. Ashley is on the fence. She wants to leave this wilderness for another one where the friends are less hit-and-run.

-          There was a late evening call from a dear soul fighting desperately for life and family. She called to say “thanks”.

Like those Wise guys from long ago we were compelled to go out by something inside us that cannot be understood or explained, only obeyed. It carried us along and we wandered into places and with people foreign to us and for a while became alien among our own. We were blessed.

Epiphany was different this year. We didn’t observe the feast as much as we were seized by it. It wasn’t a past revelation celebrated as much as God-present in flesh and blood.

Border Crossing

This year l tried to approach the season of Advent and Christmas as a “thin place”, a space where the border between heaven and earth is blurred. I’m not sure the experiment was a success but at least it helped me get through the prescribed “watching a waiting”. I am not a patient person.

Unfortunately the border crossing did not go according to plan (should have seen that coming). God did not show up on time or at the pre-arranged (and conveniently located) check point with required Tourist Visa in hand. The crossing was clandestine, occurring somewhere along the remote frontier. A few stragglers (what where they doing out there?) allegedly stumbled upon the scene. They acted as if they had deliberately been included in the event.

It makes no sense.  There was no limo or stretch SUV. No arrangements were made for military escort or photo ops with political dignitaries. State authorities and local vigilante patrols went on full alert due to unconfirmed reports that God was smuggled across the border by a poor immigrant couple (disguised as an infant!). The religious establishment was outraged by the total disregard for established protocol and blatant violations of liturgical tradition.

In the future, if I get the urge to “watch and wait” for God along the border I will go with radically different expectations.

 

It Happens

I saw God today, unexpectedly. My friend said he wasn’t sure who would show up. Well, over a dozen friends did. They are extraordinarily ordinary people who showed up and brought their spouses, kids and God along with them. We laughed and loaded the moving truck to the brim with boxes, furniture, toys and odds and ends. Then we shared pizza, prayers, tears and hugs to carry our beloved family (friends) a little further up the road.

God appeared again, unexpectedly. When that same truck pulled up in front of the new house there was an even larger group of extraordinarily ordinary people waiting. They are seminary students who showed up and brought their spouses, children and God along to meet us. Everyone helped in one way or another. The children stood in line at the back of the truck to carry what they could and the entire job was done in no time flat. It was joyful and miraculous. It was “God-all-up-in-there-amongst-us”. One seminarian was heard to say, “It’s just what we do”.

In a word, “it” is community. Community is not just a word. It is not just the hottest hipster way of doing churchy stuff. Community is people showing up and sharing their hearts, lives and love whenever and wherever. Community happens when extraordinarily ordinary people “do” community. It crosses every boundary and breaks down every barrier we create to contain it. It is where God shows up. It is real. I saw it happen.

Learning all the time....

I intended to grab a quick breakfast with a friend before work. It’s something that I rarely give a second thought. But on that particular morning my typical, distracted, fog of “busyness” was disrupted when my friend offered a prayer before we ate.

His words were not remarkable. That’s not what got my attention. It was the simplicity and fierce sincerity of his words, as profoundly holy as any I have ever heard spoken in a Church. His intimate knowledge of poverty had taught him that “our daily bread” was truly a gift. Through his gratitude and thankfulness for that ordinary bacon-egg-and-biscuit breakfast he shared that sacred knowledge with me.

Jesus once told a group of wealthy party guests: “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind” (Luke 14). I don’t believe his goal was to move the poor into more exclusive social circles. The aim was to save those affluent guests from their spiritual poverty. It was an attempt to break through the camouflage of polite convention and reorient them toward God’s new reality (kingdom).

I like to think I am different but that isn’t true. Although I'm not as influential and well connected as those first century party animals, I can be just as oblivious. But I am learning. I am learning that any significant amount of time spent among people who struggle against poverty and hunger changes your perspective on reality. It also radically changes your experience of God. I wonder what our experience of God would be like if we took half of our meals at a table with God’s poor?

Jim told me that’s Neil’s shoes were tattered and full of holes. To be honest, I was embarrassed that I didn't notice myself. It’s winter and raining a lot. How could I not notice? A few days later we went to see Neil with a pair of new shoes.

He was perched high above the street underneath an interstate overpass. Jim said, “That embankment is too steep for him to come down and I don’t think you can climb up there”. “What are you trying to say?” I asked (maybe I’m too old and fat for this?). “You don’t have the right kind of shoes” he replied. Jim would know. He’s an expert. Until a few weeks ago, he lived across the street underneath the same overpass. When he moved indoors, Neil inherited his sleeping bag.  So Jim grabbed the shoes and climbed up the steep embankment without a problem. He sat down with Neil while he tried on the shoes and then scurried back down, again with little visible effort.

He was right. I often don’t have “the right kind of shoes”. The “shoes” that frequently trip me up are long cherished assumptions, the illusions that allow me to feel insulated and separate from what is happening in the real world. They allow me to pretend that people like Neil are invisible. I am thankful for prophets like Jim. They point out my willful ignorance and walk with me to the places where God is waiting.

Giving Consent

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit…” John 15:16

The “you” chosen and appointed to go in John 15:16 is plural (i.e. “all of you” or “community” - not individual religious rock stars). Of course I like the idea of missional community, of being part of the God’s kingdom as it emerges in new places. But I am not yet comfortable being missional, because the kingdom often appears in places I would rather not go. I eventually witness things I would rather not see. It is a difficult path to follow and not one I would readily choose.

God’s kingdom is real and I know where to look for it: among the poor and destitute, among those who are oppressed and suffering. That is where Jesus went and announced “the kingdom of God has come near”. Jesus said “Blessed are you who are poor” because that is where God chooses to be found (“for yours is the kingdom of God” – Luke 6:20). Being in that place, following that path is not so much a choice as it is giving consent to being “chosen” and “appointed to go”.

Jesus also said, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me”. When have we done those things? “Inasmuch as you have done this for the least of these, you have done it for me”. I don’t believe those words are a polite suggestion to do nice things for poor people. I do believe they tell us we cannot find or follow Jesus if we separate ourselves from God’s poor.  Being “missional” means moving beyond our own comfort and security and stepping out into the places where God is waiting. It is difficult. It is so difficult that is requires community.