MikePaschall.com

Naked self.  Quite the character, I must say.

I don’t meet with him very often.  I see him almost every day, but most of the time I try to ignore him.  That guy has really changed over the years.

It seems like only yesterday all the hair on his chest was jet black.  And the hundreds of times he’s packed and unpacked his bags for another ministry gig seems to have left permanent bags under his eyes.  The external rearrangements are staggering to say the least.

Not a lot more needs to be said about all of that because the unglorious colloquy with naked self isn’t about personal aesthetics.   Our aesthetics (and our own displeasure of them) is just too easy of a target.  When you consider genetics, gender, and race, there are just some things about how we look that are beyond our control.

Two truths I realized when I turned 50:

(1) Gravity shifts stuff down

(2) We only think we’re in control.

Meet with your naked self often enough and you’ll realize those truths well before your ‘50s.

So dude, you ran a 4.6 40-yard dash in high school?  You still got those kinds of wheels?

Honey, you’re 28 and you’ve nursed three babies?  Things have shifted huh?  As Hindes says, “Shift happens!”

See?  This is what I’m talking about.  Aesthetics are easy and mostly fleeting.  The unglorious colloquy with naked self is about something else.  It’s more . . . penetrating.  Deeper.  Ruthless.  Invasive.

We all have external stuff about us we don’t like or want to change.  Who doesn’t?  Even the most beautiful people on this planet will find something about themselves to pick at.  Pick up any Hollywood tabloid and see for yourself.

Here is what got me thinking about all of this.  Three Sundays ago, I was sitting on the couch enjoying my early morning with Patti.  Hot coffee, comfy sweats, computer in my lap—basically just chillin’ out.  As I turned my head to sneeze, a knifing pain shot through my lower back.  Before I could readjust my position, I sneezed again.  Now a hellacious pain engulfed by lower back.  So much so, I had to fight the urge to throw up.

There was no way to get comfortable.  Standing straight up was impossible.  Laying down on my side was about the least irritating position.  This went on for two weeks!  I was walking around like a very old, hurt man.

I gave patience, ibuprofen, ice, and heat a whirl for about a week.   But after eight long days, I finally called Dr. Gary.  I’m in Texas.  He’s in South Carolina.  I needed his magic and insight.  He helped me locate a chiropractor in Waco, so I made an appointment and went.

Let me interrupt here a second.  Patti and I recognize that sometimes there is some sort of spiritual readjustment necessary to get physically sound and well.  I know this can get very legalistic and crazy in this venue, but we’ve seen inner healing bring physical healing—lots of times actually.  Not every time, but too many times to ignore the possibility.

So, about eight days into my personal hell, my wife asked me what I knew she was already thinking. My wife has never helped me develop the skills of trying to read her mind.  I’m usually told what is on her mind before I ever have a thought about what she might be thinking.

So, do you have a problem with someone or something?  You’re out of alignment.  What’s going on?

It just pissed me off when she said it, because I knew she was right.  I had already been going over that question in my mind.  I issued a generalized: negatory goodbuddy!

I frikk’n sneezed Patti!  Don’t get weird on me.  I frikk’n sneezed, I’m hurt, and I’m not too happy about it.  Just pray.

Men can be such whiney pricks.

My chiropractor appointment was that morning.  Patti left for the day and I went to the bathroom to shower and shave—AND there he was again.  Naked self.  Except, this time the dude was toting an attitude.

Any particular reason why you feel inclined to bark at your wife because she’s asking the same questions you’d be asking her if she was in your situation?

I have no defense.

What’s the matter with you?  You seem to be tense about every thing in your life right now.  You are out of alignment and I’m not just talking about your back.

Frik!  See I told you.  Invasive.  Ruthless.  At this point my nose is on the mirror and I’m staring through the dark windows.

You just left a season you absolutely loved.  You still need rest, creative space, and you’re undone with a couple of months of transition and mystery?

How the heck does naked self know this stuff?

This down time is the time to plan, think, dream (remember when you used to love to dream?) and deal with the downed fences around the pasture.

Anything else?

Stop thinking about having to do some “thing” that will change the whole world.  It’s a ridiculous notion.  Be willing to serve those around you today.  HE has already done what is necessary to change the world.  It’s too much pressure.  It’s hard to love if you’re under religious pressure.  Love and serve.  That’s it.  Love and serve.  You can do that no matter where you are.

That was the big stuff.  Naked self addressed a couple more personal items that really aren’t important to anyone else, so I’ll spare you the details.

I then dressed and went to my appointment.  It was NOT a Dr. Gary adjustment.  Holy crap!  I had to go home afterwards to see if I soiled myself.  Wow.

But I felt better the very next day.  Two days later, I went back for another adjustment.  Everything was back in alignment, and I was on the treadmill and lifting weights again the very next day.  BOOM!  Just like that!

The temptation here is to produce the formula.  There is nothing in here that remotely resembles a formula.  There is no formula.  THERE IS NO FRIKK’N FORMULA!

What I think I got out of my little baño episode is that naked self should probably have more stage time than what he or she really gets.  Not in a weird selfie-way (God please deliver us from this fad), but in a truth encounter way.  Why?  Because there are some things in our lives that can only be addressed by us.  And from deep inside all of that compacted dust and earth from which we were all created, we need to decide and make some changes—knowing all too well that change can be painful and lonely.

I’m not a professional in this sport, but I do try to be honest and forthright.  Naked self sometimes needs to get our attention because we’re not listening to anyone, including the Lord.  Naked self probably has some stuff to say.

It might be about your personal aesthetics (which usually only reveals a more serious issue if you’ve got the courage to face it).

It could be a legitimate need to readjust attitudes, postures, and spiritual hygiene.

Or even, “Hey dude… you’re wearing me out with all your vibration and fear.  Settle yo rear, would ya?  At least pretend you got some faith.”

And then there is all the stuff about our relationships and communique portfolio regarding the important people in our lives.

For me, it was time for the unglorious colloquy with naked self.  An adjustment prior to the adjustment.

It might be time for you too.

-MDP-

I’m  gonna tell you straight up, and I make no apologies for this:   I’m doing it to you again.

I posted a link to Michael Hindes’ sermon “Resolutions” weeks ago (Jan 16) with a sincere hope that you might avail yourself to that message.  As stated early, my desire was only to point you to what might be deemed significant for your development.

This past weekend, my long-time friend David Johnson and his sweet wife Bonnie, made an attempt to escape the deep freeze of Minnesota for some warm gulf air.  They did thaw some, but not much.  It’s been cold here deep in the Heart of Texas.

The elders at ECF invited David to preach and he responded with a message that was quite moving.  If you’re a person who struggles with the dichotomy of a GOOD, BENEVOLENT—GRACIOUS GOD and a sometimes MEAN, UNJUST—HURTFUL WORLD… this message is for you!  Let me encourage you to take 45 minutes and dial in to what the Spirit might be saying.  It was an incredible message!  You won’t be disappointed.

David Johnson is Sr. Pastor at Church of the Open Door in Maple Grove, MN.  You’ll not hear a more gifted Bible teacher than this guy.  I have the greatest friends on the planet.  I’m so blessed!

TO LISTEN TO DAVID JOHNSON’S MESSAGE:  Stephen’s Last Stand

(Be patient.  It might take a minute or so to load.)

Mike

xo

I recently read several articles on the intentional flaws found in Navajo art, particularly in woven products.  There might be a slight break in the pattern, or a single off-colored thread woven into the fabric.  But somewhere in that blanket, there is an intentionally-simulated imperfection that has a spiritual purpose.

Although the imperfection is usually referenced as “the door” of entrance or exit for the spirit to enter or leave the art, what is actually happening has multiple explanations or implications.

One explanation is that these artists pour their hearts and souls into these projects.  Once finished, they want their souls back.  The “imperfection” is the door through which these souls can return to their artists.

Another artist explained that the new creation needs a soul of its own and the flaw allows for the spirit to enter and take up residence.

I guess all those suggestions work just fine, but the overall message is clear:

The imperfection is embraced inside of the perfection.

In other words, this is a posture quite contrary to what we would view as excellence.  This paradigm embraces the idea that perfection isn’t the eradication of flaws, but the incorporation of flaws.

That might be helpful to us spiritual folk.

But many of us westerners can’t wrap our minds around that kind of thinking.  We want things to look perfect.  We’re quick to dismiss anything that doesn’t hold up to our external standards of “perfection.”  Even our chaos has to be managed, arranged, and propped up with all kinds of lights and smoking mirrors.

If we’re that way with other people and things, I wonder how we really feel about the flaws within ourselves?

Rohr stirred me up a couple of mornings ago about this very thing:

We are only now daring to believe, after 2000 years of revelation of the mystery of Christ, what Satan discovered at the crucifixion.  The Evil One knows that the place to attack us is in the area where we are most subject to shame, where we are most weak and truly “out of character:” OUR BODILINESS.  Satan knows that is the last place where we will expect or look for God.  And God knows that only forgiven sinners and spiritual searchers will find God there.

Here are the rest of Rohr’s thoughts.  Yes, it’s heady, but rich.  Dig in here:

So evil has found the breach in the wall and attacked each of us there with “a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan” (2 Cor. 12:7).  Unfortunately, it worked!  Much of Christian tradition has been negatively and uselessly trapped in guilt and preoccupation with our body, while the great issues of justice, gospel and grace have gone unheeded.  The result has been rigidity and repression—much of it called “holiness.”  This response has been Evil’s greatest triumph over gospel freedom.  It has horribly entrapped the positive power of human affection.

He concludes with these stretching thoughts:

Christ will have his harvest, though.  It will be through weak flesh, that least-suspected place, where health and growth will be revealed.  Richard Rohr – Sojourner’s magazine “Pure Passion”

Maybe the real benefit of community is that we have to become grace-filled in order to reside among each other.  Your deficiency becomes “the door” for the Spirit to work through me.  My weakness becomes “the door” for the Spirit to release strength through you.  Now my love and acceptance isn’t contingent upon you getting your shit together, according to my idea of what all that means.

I see you for how you really are.  You approach me regardless of how I really am.  Love manifests anyway.  It does, it sits, it moves, it swirls, it flows – regardless of the imperfections, ticks, and thorns.  People have a shot to grow up in those kinds of relationships.

A real shot… flaws and all.

Mike

xo

It sneaks up on you.  And, if you’re not paying attention, you’ll find yourself swept away in a common current of rabid measurement.  Running faster and faster on the treadmill of comparison which leads to nowhere in particular.  But it’s discretely laced in most everything.  You gotta work to stay aware and sober about it.

We back in Waco, baby!  It’s home.  Our roots.  It’s whey-co, not whack-o.  The entire nation knows it as, “that place where that Koresh guy was.”  Yeah, it’s that place where that Koresh guy was, and a few other notable mentions.

Waco is the home of Dr Pepper.   Yup, bred and originally manufactured right here in Waco, Texas.  Most of America’s Skittles, Starburst, and Snickers candy bars are also born here every day.  The Texas Rangers’ (law enforcement, not baseball) Hall of Fame is located in Waco.  Chuck Norris isn’t.  And yes, the Mecca of all Baptist institutions is planted right here: Baylor University—now aka Baylor Nation.  Ah yes, that good ole Baylor Line is sung here with many an upraised claw, often accompanied by awe-inspiring tears of joy and reverence.  It kinda gets you… right here.  Yeah… right (here).

My brother is a season ticket holder of BU Men’s Basketball, and I get invited often.  I enjoy watching the guys compete at that level.  I never enter that gold-domed building (Ferrell Center) without seeing someone from the past.  And quite honestly, the people I see are usually old Baptist church connections.

In case you’re new to this blog, I used to be a damn good Baptist preacher.  That was a really long time ago.  Probably not so much anymore (the Baptist part anyway).

So there I was last night, standing in the foyer with my free popcorn in one hand (my brother scored it for me as a member of the Fastbreak Club), and a Diet Dr. Pepper in the other.  As I was cruising towards my seat, I heard someone shout, “Mike!”

I turned to see a beautiful woman who I recognized immediately.  “Welcome back to Waco,” she said, as we embraced.  How she knew we were back is anyone’s guess, but she knew.  Waco is a very small town.  SMALL.

Her next words were as predictable as the sunrise.   And even though I knew she would ask, I was taken aback by how quickly it came up, and how loaded the question was and is:  “Where are you going to church?”

I froze.  And believe me, that doesn’t happen too often.  Sometimes I just wish I could play along nicely.  Just give a sweet answer, arouse no reaction, diffuse the situation, and just move on.  Did I do that?  What do you think?

Nope.

“I don’t go to church.  I’m a heathen.”

Nice, Mike.  Brilliant.

I was smiling as I said it, but that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.  The slight frown confirmed at least that much.  We said goodbye and went to our respective corners.  Nothing like a little sparring to get you amped up for the game!

(I contacted my friend today and gave her a proper response to the question.)

The truth is that we do go to church fairly often, EVEN when I’m not preaching.  But I’ll never understand why that is such an important question in these parts.  You can’t really go anywhere without being asked, and the question is loaded with implied judgments and profiling.

I issue no verdict towards my friend.   She was probably just gathering information.  But here in the Bible Belt, especially around Baptist Jerusalem, church stuff is serious, serious business!  People like to be identified by their church membership.  Too many like it – way too much.

I see the same thing played out everywhere really.  It’s not just here.  Over the holidays, I was with my kids on a Starbucks run up in the Rockies, when the girl behind the counter said, “Hey, you’re Jon Egan!”  Like Jon didn’t know.  Smiling and cordial, but half embarrassed, Jon greeted her warmly.  My son is much more gracious than yours truly.

Then she introduced herself.  “I’m a [name of church] – er.”   It turned my stomach a wee bit.  I thought to myself, Hmmmmmmm.  That’s it?  That’s how we identify ourselves in spiritual culture?

Obviously, I’m still thinking about that.  Even though I don’t believe for one second that I’m above these potential entrapments of religious identity, I don’t want to be guilty of using these kinds of vain broad stokes to categorize God’s people.  I have in the past.  It’s counter-intuitive to lean against it.  It’s built into the system and you have to consciously resist the urge to indulge in this kind of spiritual profiling.

Does where we go to church (or not go to church) really reveal everything about our personal walk with God?

Do the “ites,” “isms,” and “ers” at the end of our church identity labels benefit anybody or anything?

I don’t have the answers here.  I’m just asking questions.

I sincerely hope that we can move past these tombstone markers of identity.

When Jesus told the boys he was closing up shop and moving in another direction, He mentioned to them that He wanted one thing to be their identity.  He plainly said, “Everyone will know you belong to me if you love one another” (John 13:35).

That was it.  Nothing was mentioned about theology, denominations, sects, partitions—nothing like that.   Those sneak “ers” at the end of our designations, that we’re so concerned with now, were something so totally different back then.

Broth-ers, sist-ers, lov-ers, pray-ers, worship-ers—all held the prominence back then.  Maybe it’s time we remember them again.

Paul said, “I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Cor 6:12, NASB).  Of course he meant bondage, but it could also mean the pressure of identity or reputation.  Paul didn’t belong to one group, one house, one thought.  He belonged to no one—he belonged to everyone.

Wonder what that feels like?

Mike

xo

I work hard to keep from posting sermon’s on this blog.  There are a multitude of reasons of why.  One such reason is that we probably have heard way more sermons than is really necessary for healthy kingdom living.  A good portion of the body is addicted to sermons and teachings from their favorite spiritual superstar.  Oh, don’t get me wrong… there is a ton of good teaching out there.

BUT, ARE WE APPLYING ANY OF IT INTO OUR LIFE SKILLS PACKAGE?

Even with a healthy dose of hesitancy… I’m posting the link to the message my dear friend Michael Hindes preached at ECF last Sunday morning.  He poses a great question:  “If 2014 is it for you… the end… that’s all folks, how would you live it?” 

Then he lays it out there.  Please forgive me for doing the very thing that I dislike done to me:

GO LISTEN TO THE MESSAGE!

Michael’s message “Resolutions” – Click Here

It’s one of the best I’ve heard in a really long time.  I think it will bless you!  I really do.

Mike

It was just too much.  Too much temptation.  Too much potential.  Too much opportunity.  Just too much damn money not to play.   Yeah, I bought a ticket this week for the second largest Mega Millions Jackpot ever!  To all of my anti-gambling friends and advocates, please pardon me!  It was just too much.   $648 million to be exact.  After taxes it’s only $324 million… so, don’t get crazy on me.

As I stood in line at the local CEFCO, waiting to buy my ticket, I started fantasizing about what I would do with the winnings.  I thought of ALL the people and ALL the ministries I was going to bless with my new fortune.  How much fun would it be to dress up like a hobo, wander into the BMW dealership, spit tobacco juice onto their leather furniture (I don’t chew… not yet anyway), and order three dozen cars “to go,” like they were donuts or chicken tenders?  Then I’d be Santa for sure!   That would so rock!

I’d sprinkle $10 bills in the streets like frikk’n Johnny Appleseed.  I’d buy a home for the guy outside of Walmart, who’s holding his little cardboard sign that reads, “I have faith in your grace.”  Dude, I’m so gonna rock your world one day!  I’d buy out Jerry Jones, invest in a car wash, build orphanages, help hospitals, finance missionaries, own a tattoo parlor . . . and a classy cigar bar too.  It’s gonna be awesome!

I made my purchase, folded my ticket, tucked it away in my wallet, and headed back to my truly awesome minivan to move on to the next chore.  But in that moment, as I shut the door—sitting in that muffled silence—right before I put the keys into the ignition, HE asked me a question.

The Holy Spirit can so poke into a moment.  It wasn’t brash or even abrupt.  It was like a velvet tongue depressor.  “Open wide son.  Let me take a look here.”

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

“Do you really believe it would be good for you?”  That was it.  I honestly wished there had been more elaboration, but it didn’t take long to work the metrics in my mind.  He didn’t need to elaborate.  I got it in a moment.

Listen, I’m ALL about wealth and the unbelievable blessings that flow from heaven, humanity, and industry.  Each is capable of incredible means and substance!  Like I said, I’M ALL ABOUT IT!

Generous people with sensitive hearts subsidize most of the ministry that happens in this world.  So, this isn’t a “money is bad” discussion.  Patti and I have seen God make His provision gloriously evident through the love and support of His people.  I don’t believe money is bad for one second.

But the question He was asking me struck another nerve.  The older I get, the more sensitive I seem to feel about the value of dependence upon God’s provision and protection.  Maybe it’s the natural decline of my aging physicality or the loosening grip of having to climb another mountain just because it’s there, but I don’t think I’ve had much appreciation about living in faith for much of anything.  Honestly, I’ve slain a lot of dragons.  But John the Beloved had something most dragon-slayers don’t.  Prophets and priests are much more about the heartbeat than the drumbeat.

Our religious bent is always looking for the big payoff.  The formula.  The easy way through.  And when religious men asked Jesus technical questions about religious technicalities, He rarely answered in the way they wanted, if He answered at all.  It was always so simple and blatantly hidden.

I think it requires another kind of rhythm to really savor the deep waters of trusting God.  In that prayer, the one that Jesus taught his disciples, are things that we still don’t get.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

Honestly, I don’t even know where to start with this part of that prayer.  And, if I don’t know where to start, considering the way that I am now, how far would I be from this kind of flow with the Lord if I had the winning Mega numbers tucked away in my wallet?   “Give us this day our daily bread.”  Talk about blowing up sensitive dependence.  Wow!

So let’s say you won that Jackpot.  $324 million becomes your instant blessing – or devil-racked curse.  What does that do for your “dependency factor” in how you relate to the Lord?  How much of your day would be spent protecting, investing, giving, loaning, stewarding, expanding, building, counting, and enjoying your money?  How many new friends and greedy enemies would you suddenly acquire?  Would you be ready to tackle that kind of responsibility?

I can’t say I’ve done any real research on this, but I did read one time that past lotto winners don’t have a very good track record of maintaining or growing their new wealth.  In fact, it’s not a pretty story… at all.

Do you think you could live unchanged and unchained by that much money?  Do you think you could remain sensitive to His voice, whether in a minivan or your new Escalade?

Hey, don’t get me wrong!  I DID buy a ticket.  Maybe you did too.  Most of us would at least give it a whirl I think.  I didn’t win and neither did you.  But that might be a good thing.  Probably.  Maybe.

-MDP-

x

(Oh, if you do play again… and win… please remember me when you come into your kingdom.)

I’ve never been one to peruse devo material spouting just Advent themes.  The Gospel texts have always provided all the inspiration that I’ve wanted or needed.  But this year… I got crazy.  I’ve been venturing outside of my traditional norms and tapped into a collection of Advent writings that I have absolutely loved!  Coupled with rich reading in the book of Isaiah and a sprinkling of other passages throughout the Gospels have provided a wonderful adventure of preparation and yuletide focus.

The guy (Fr. Richard Rohr) laying it down in this material (Preparing For Christmas – Daily Meditations for Advent) speaks my language and I absolutely love it!  Here are a few examples:

We do the Gospel no favor when we make Jesus, the Eternal Christ, into a perpetual baby, a baby able to ask little or no adult response from us.  One even wonders what the mind is that would keep Jesus a baby.  Maybe it was ‘baby-Christianity’.  We might cuddle or coo with a baby, but any spirituality that makes too much of the baby Jesus is perhaps not yet ready for prime-time life.  God clearly wants friends, partners and images, if we are to believe the biblical texts.  God, it seems, wants adult spirituality and a mature, free response from us.  God loves us as adult partners, with mutual give and take, and you eventually become the God that you love.  Take that as an absolute.”

I would have used the Ricky Bobby video instead of the picture… but I just couldn’t do it.  –smile-

Did you like that one?  Here’s another:

When we demand satisfaction of one another, when we demand any completion of history on our terms, when we demand that our anxiety or any dissatisfaction be taken away, saying as it were, “Why weren’t you this for me?  Why didn’t life do that for me?” we are refusing to say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  We are refusing to hold out for the “full picture” that is always given by God.

 “Come, Lord Jesus” is a leap into the kind of freedom and surrender that is rightly called the virtue of hope.  The Theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution, and still be content and even happy because our Satisfaction is now at another level, and our Source is beyond ourselves.  We are able to trust that HE will come again, just as Jesus has come into our past, into our private dilemmas and into our suffering world.  Our Christian past then becomes our Christian prologue, and “Come, Lord Jesus” is not a cry of desperation but an assured shout of cosmic hope!

See, it’s not the soft-served baby Jesus that we usually sprinkle on our Christmas crumpets.  Let’s look at one more example and then I’ll stop badgering you.  I love chewing on this stuff!

(The context is set here by the author candidly sharing his experiences as a result of ministering to incarcerated women.   I like the images because we all know people in prison (even though they may not be locked up inside of a functioning penal facility).  Vulnerable brokenness fuels a desperate journey back to their foundations of faith—which is what I think we’re all sensitive to—especially now as we near Christmas.)

Women in jail carry a lot of guilt and shame.  They often asked me, “Why am I here?  What is wrong with me?”  The women feel so guilty because their children were at home, and these mothers were in jail.  How could a mother tell her children that she is in jail and let her children think that Mom is a bad person?

These women must dig into places inside of themselves that you and I don’t have to dig into.  Religion of itself is not enough for such women and men.  These women and men must scratch their way back into faith, and when they get there, it’s often the real thing.  We always said that, “Religion is for people who are afraid of hell, or afraid of God, whereas spirituality is for people who have been through hell and ‘undergone’ God.

We nice guys don’t usually have to scratch our way back to faith.  We’re comfortable with external religion and polite morality for a long time.  God will lead each of us, I’m sure, but by a different path, so that all religion one day has to be faith, love, humility, and surrender—or it’s not true religion. “

I’m not sure exactly how it happens for everyone, but most of us look at the broken things in our life and automatically default to a belief that God rejects us because of our defects.  Those thoughts rolled in on me again this morning.

Most of you who read my stuff know that I have spent this last year emailing devos to a small group of subscribers.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many times the material has been looked over, edited, screened, washed in spelling and grammar programs, and now the manuscript sits at the publisher and is about to be available for purchase.  But, the last two days, I’ve noticed obvious errors that somehow escaped all the corrective processes, and now it’s too late to make the needed repairs!  IT IS BEYOND IRRITATING!

So, I’m sitting here sulking about it—ranting internally, bemoaning the fact that I’ve tried to do something helpful for others and now I feel like Jed Clampett because my masterpiece is now ruined and everyone will soon know how flawed it really is.  Did I mention how irritated I feel?  Grrrrr!

Then the Holy Spirit speaks, “It’s no different from you.  (What?!?!  What do you mean?)  Why would you expect it to be perfect?  (Because I’ve spent 3 years working on this frikk’n project.  I’m not an idiot.  I’ve tried my best to make it right!  Sorry for the yelling, but I’m upset.)  You’ve got warts, flaws, and broken pieces, and I still use you regardless… I still like you… I still love you.  (Yes, this is true.)  Then believe what you preach son.  (Lord, this is always an awkward moment.  I can’t tell if you’re trying to tell me something simple or if I’ve got other issues working here that need to be addressed.)  Both.  Have a little faith.  (Which means what?)  Surrender your control.  Believe I’m doing some things that you are not yet aware of.  Know that our definitions of perfection are quite different from each other.  (Ok… I’m trying.  Thank you.)  You’re welcome.”

Merry frikk’n Christmas!  lol

-MDP-

I once read about a successful young business professional and his wife who were house shopping.  They looked at many homes.  Once they had thoroughly worn out their realtor and settled on what they wanted to purchase, they called and asked their pastor and his wife to come and see the home before they put a contract on the house.  The pastor and his wife came and viewed the house with them.

After a complete walk-thru of the property, the pastor gathered them all together (including the realtor) in the den and prayed over the potential purchase of the property.  Even though this particular house was 3 times the size of the parsonage, the pastor and his wife were extremely excited for the young couple’s choice of residence.  He asked God to bestow wisdom and favor to the young couple in the coming transaction.  It was a good time in prayer.

A couple of weeks later, the young couple dropped by the parsonage to visit the pastor and his wife.  After the hugs and hellos, the young man handed the pastor a large envelope.  Inside were the keys and a filed deed to the newly purchased property.  The young couple had bought the property and signed it over to the pastor and his wife.  It was theirs—free and clear!

It was a staggering announcement!  The pastor and his wife were accustomed to giving—receiving something like this wasn’t going to be easy for them.

The young woman explained,

We didn’t think we could truly enjoy all we’ve been blessed with, knowing that our pastor who has fed, loved, and cared for us all these years, didn’t even own a home.  We felt it was time for us to serve you as you have served us.”

This story is so preposterous that it’s not easy to tell.  Stuff like this does happen, but it’s not normal.  Not even close.  It might even be borderline ridiculous.  Why in the world would anyone do such a thing?  They weren’t related to the pastor, and there wasn’t anything funky going on in the relationship.   It was an authentic gesture.  Yeah, it’s weird.

I’m also aware of another strange but true story.  It so happens that there was a young wife and mother who put her diamond wedding ring into an offering plate one Sunday in order to contribute to a growing church’s building campaign.  Yes, it was a ridiculous thing to do, but what might be more ridiculous was the fact that a friend in the same church found out about it, wrote a huge check to the church in order to purchase the ring back, and then proceeded to have a leader return the ring to the young woman, telling her, “Don’t ever do that again.”  Yeah, crazy shit.

So what is that?  Genuine faith or false religion?  Love or vanity?  Some kind of sick brainwashing or just an honest expression of gratitude and thankfulness?  If the truth were to be known, it might not be totally possible to decipher only by looking at the externals.  You’d have to know more about the minds and hearts of the people involved.

In the case of the latter of these two stories, I know the persons involved.  There could have been some performance involved, but overall, that isn’t how these people groove.  Maybe it was impulsive (do it quick before I change my mind), but I believe all of it had been bathed in prayer beforehand, and the heart motives involved were predisposed to give and give lavishly.

There are stories in the gospels that prime this kind of thinking.  There was the single leper who returned to give thanks in person when the majority didn’t even bother to say thanks from afar (Luke 17:12-19).  Then there was the woman with the alabaster jar (Matthew 26:6-13).  I love that story because the guys were freaking over what it cost them for her to pour out her thankfulness.  And what about that other soiled woman who kissed Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair (Luke 7:37-39)?  Talk about awkward!

When was the last time you lost your composure because of how good God has been to you?  Or are you always mired in the thought that He’s not doing enough because of all the crap you got floatin’ in your river?

All of those little stories are amazing and spot on.  But the one that currently has my full attention is the one we affectionately call the widow’s mite.

“And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites.  So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had” (John 21:1-4, NLT).

Chilling.  “But she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”  Oh man!  It kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?  This woman was at the end of her sustenance and did it anyway.  Those two copper coins (the lĕptŏn, pronounced lep-ton´, means small coin:—mite) together were worth about a fourth of a penny in today’s economy.  Frik!  It’s either terrible, or awesome, or maybe it was both.  I can’t see her doing this knowing that Jesus was watching.   But He was watching.

Unlike all the other offerings, those two tiny coins didn’t even make a sound when they landed in the bottom of that box.  Just like her very existence, she was in and out of there like a vapor.  In the world of faith (and I realize we have a love/hate relationship with faith), she rang Jesus’ bell.  This was a woman He had to talk about.  So, He acknowledges her in front of all those who were hanging on His words.  It was a simple salute that we’re still talking about 2000 years later.

We began this piece with a story about absurd generosity, and we finish with lavish giving out of poverty.  Laced in both is simple gratitude and thankfulness.  Both stories have the main players returning to something more solid, bigger, supposedly more important than themselves to offer their heart and their “thing” that says, Thanks.  No really, thank you!  It should give us hope that thankfulness can be real and genuine in a wide variety of formats and settings.

So as we sit down at the table this year for, no doubt, a grand Thanksgiving feast, can we bow our hearts in honest reverence for the things we’re most thankful for in our lives?  God has been good to us.  Most of us have it better than we deserve, and possess more than we actually need.

Can we honestly do the u-turn and open ourselves in revealing gratitude that remembers just how blessed we genuinely are?

We should, don’t you think?  Be Thankful!

Mike

xo

Watch this 3 minute video first and then let’s talk about it.

I guess a case could be made that sometimes the church house is nothing more than a festering cesspool of hypocrisy and shenanigans of pretense.  Or it can be the place where everyone (and I do mean every person) can come and partake of the mystery we know as the body and blood of Jesus.

This particular scene in the video is the final 3 minutes of the movie:  Places in the Heart.   The setting is Waxahachie, Texas during The Depression.  Sally Fields’ character (Edna) is a young widow because her husband (Sheriff Royce Spalding) was killed in a freak accidental shooting by a black kid (Wylie) who was highly intoxicated.  The very last frames of the video show Sherriff Royce and Wylie sitting beside each other in church.

The Klan executes immediate punishment on Wylie and drags him to death.  From that point on, we see the hardship that Edna must face as she attempts to keep the farm, raise two kids, get the crops to market, and face a future without her husband.

The entire movie brutally deals with racism, unforgiveness, and the chauvinistic elitism of that time period.   Any young white widow, who was receiving the only help that was really offered, from a blind guy and a black handyman drifter, was asking for a lot of trouble.  The movie tells a hard story well.

I’m not going Ebert on you… just setting the stage.

I love this video mainly because of the people on the pews (villains and saints) and how the sacraments were being served (passed from person to person).   Regardless of what you think is actually happening theologically as they ingest the bread and the wine, the common-union in that moment sews each one of them together into one single organism.   It’s quite beautiful.

Laced into those sacraments is the explosive component of forgiveness.  It is only right that it be passed among ourselves.  As HE forgave us, we in turn forgive others (Col 3:13).  As we receive the sacraments, we in turn give the sacraments.  It’s a continuum of grace and forgiveness that heals and sets us free.  That is the true purpose of a sacrament:  a heavenly transaction that becomes a genuine expression among mankind.

The gospel is only a story until we mediate grace and forgiveness to each other.  That is what makes it credible… real… immediate… alive.  The perfect opportunity to pass along what we already possess.

Shelve the bullhorn.  Forgive.

“The Peace of God”

Mike  xo

WEBSTER: Eucharist / noun

The Christian ceremony commemorating the Last Supper, in which bread and wine are consecrated and consumed.    The consecrated elements, especially the bread.

The bread and wine are referred to as the body and blood of Christ, though much theological controversy has focused on how substantially or symbolically this is to be interpreted. The service of worship is also called Holy Communion or (chiefly in the Protestant tradition) the Lord’s Supper or (chiefly in the Catholic tradition) the Mass or (chiefly in the Eastern Orthodox tradition) the Divine Liturgy. See also: consubstantiation (the doctrine, esp. in Lutheran belief, that the substance of the bread and wine coexists with the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.), and transubstantiation (esp. in the Roman Catholic Church, the conversion of the substance of the Eucharistic elements into the body and blood of Christ at consecration, only the appearances of bread and wine still remaining.)

 DERIVATIVES

Eucharistic |ˌyo͞okəˈristik|adjective,

Eucharistical |ˌyo͞okəˈristikəl|adjective

ORIGIN late Middle English: from Old French eucariste, based on ecclesiastical Greek eukharistia ‘thanksgiving,’ from Greek eukharistos ‘grateful,’ from eu ‘well’ + kharizesthai ‘offer graciously’ (from kharis ‘grace’).

The central symbol of the Church is the Eucharist.  The Church keeps giving the bread of Jesus and saying, ‘This is who you are, you become what you eat.  You are more than the many.  You are one, but you are broken.”  That is the mystery we constantly celebrate and try to understand.

I don’t think you become Catholic (Protestant, Denominational, Spirit-Filled, Pentecostal or any other ‘ism’ or ‘ite’) to get mystical, to get metaphysical, to get transcendent, to achieve some kind of nirvana.  That might be Buddhist or Hindu holiness, it might be some of the sects and groups today who remind me of unidentified flying objects.  That’s not the traditional understanding of the Church.

The traditional understanding of the Church, at it’s best, does not emphasize how to get you into the skies, but how to get your feet on the ground, how to get in touch with the real.  Truly the Church tells us how to get into society, into history, tied to the common good, how to be part of the muddiness and fleshiness of it all.  We eat the body of Christ; we don’t just reflect on his ideas.  That’s primal, archetypal, transformative energy.”    

Richard Rohr

Jesus didn’t really lay down that many imperatives.   But what he did that night when he took the cup, broke the bread and shared the significance of it with his mates (the first of us), has been the source of our greatest condemnation and criticism with each other… maybe only surpassed by how we handle baptism.

Maybe if we tried to understand more of what we’ve learned, and dug in less, our appreciation for what we have now would mean more to all of us.  How can having a greater understanding, a deeper appreciation, or receiving more of Jesus be a bad thing for any of us?

We capture a butterfly and stake our claim on knowledge of the entire insect world.

How do we really allow this holy mystery to be our common-union?

“We become what we eat.”   Bread and poured out wine.  God, I love that!  Lord, give us the faith to believe for more!

-MDP-