I had hiked to the top of the hill to catch the sunset and found a very tall, wooden cross planted at the summit. In the wood, folks had etched their names, scripture verses, words like “Christ 4 Life!” or “I love Jesus!.” Others had etched crosses into the cross, which seems.. well, like quite a redundancy.  And while I didn’t actually scoff at anything on the cross, I might as well have.  I often don’t notice until after I’ve done so, but I have a natural propensity for filing certain expressions of faith under categories of “unhelpful” or “juvenile.”   

Earlier in the day, I had written about the grace upon which the christian community is founded. During the piece, I wrote that “if God is planning on judging His children according to the rightness of our theology, we ought to all be very concerned.”  The line was bouncing around my head and on my walk down the hill, it came collided with the list of judgements I’d made about those etchings.

I was reminded that I belong to a tradition in which even the most juvenile expression is, on some level, accepted; that it is by the same grace that my expression is accepted.  After all, what is more juvenile than being judgmental?
 

Several of the songs that make up the CMY(K) project are written for and about friends. I am posting the letters I’ve written to these friends letting them know about their song.  Below is the letter I wrote to a young man I’ve had the chance to teach and pastor. I wrote the song “Reticent” for and about him. The song appears on the EP “C” and you can listen to it at the Vimeo player below.

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I wrote the song “Reticent” for you. I hope it serves as a marker in your history; a way to remember what seems to be one of your life’s more pivotal seasons.

You have the ability to see clearly. Your analyses are generally accurate. Unfortunately, much of what you end up concentrating on is what is dark or broken.  This has often led you to crises of identity.  At times, your disappointment in the brokenness of things has led you to close your eyes and stop seeing… or at least want to.

Because of this kind of vision, you have often sought solitude and isolation in order that you might see and commune with the “Something Else” to which discontent always points. You had been convinced for a time that this Something Else was other-worldly and that in order to remain in touch with It, you would have to remove yourself from the “rest of world”… away from the emotional and the physical..

But on your journey toward the desert, you ran into other men. Men in whom you saw something deeply reflective of the “Something Else” you sought.  Men like Thomas Merton, who, in seeking a clearer vision of and connection to God came to realize that such a connection would lead them right back into the mess of life-with-others.

“I must look for my identity,” Merton writes, “not only in God but in other men.  I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from be rest of mankind as if I were a different king of being.”

For Merton, the Goodness of God, in which he desired to root himself, was not found only in solitude, away from the mess of humanity. It was also found in the mess of Humanity. Merton’s escapes or retreats served the purpose of learning to see both God and God’s creation more purely.  Put simply, learning to love God also means learning to love those God loves. And those God loves are not conceptual persons. They are emotional and physical persons.

And so, for you, just as for Merton, the question is no longer “is there good in the world?” or “where must I go to find it?” In fact, the question isn’t about the nature of the world at all; it’s a question about the posture of your heart in relationship to the world.

The question has become “Can I love?” Can you choose to engage patiently with those who “don’t get it.”  Can you choose to remain with people who frustrate and disappoint you? Can you sit still not just in silence and alone but over the long-haul with those messy ones to whom God has given you? Can you love?

The odd thing about this question is that its answer is not static; It is not a simple “yes” or “no” given at one particular moment in your life. It is an answer that is revealed (even to you) through a lifetime of choices to engage, to listen, to guide, to help,.. to remain. It is an answer you will work out in fear and trembling.. one that will be established by grace, just as it has been started.

“I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart,..” -Philippians 1.6,7

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You can pick up the EP at iTunes.
It is also available at my web store.
For more on the whole CMY(K) project, read the artist statement.
I’ve also  written about the songs “They Don’t Mean What They Used To” and “Take One For The Team“

Reticent
I hold these truths to be so good
That they cannot be understood
Were I to hold them in my grasp
Then surely they’d no longer last

I’m reticent to sign my name
To something that won’t last beyond the day
I’m holding out for something real
Something I can’t feel

I feel so close to everything
It’s all lit up here on the screen
(I’ve found) What’s best in life cannot be seen
Will never be. Has never been

This is the way I save my own soul
I stay disengaged and stay in control

So bring on the new thing…

Earlier this week, I posted a short piece not so much on the death of Bin Laden but the nature of the response to his death, particularly among christians. A few conversations I’ve had since then, as well as a few of the comments on the blog entry itself, led to this further thought… 

In the shadow of a common enemy, our idea of who “we” are tends to become a bit more inclusive. Unfortunately this kind of inclusion is predicated on a common decision on who “we” will exclude.  It is self-defeating.

One of the more pervasive sentiments throughout the recent aftermath of of Bin Laden’s death was the sentiment that ‘we’ shared in the event. “We” were safer, many wrote. “We” could breathe easier.  This was (is?) true because “we” are all Americans.

But tomorrow, something one of “us” will say or do will be the cause of our becoming a “they.”  Our inclusion of “others” can be quite fickle.

We are all Americans… until we our politics don’t agree. Just as, in certain contexts, we are all christians… until our theology or sociology come in conflict.

The life and work of Jesus points at and exemplifies a kind of inclusion that is predicated not on circumstances and commonality but on choice.  “We” become a people chosen and called together by God… a choice that comes at great cost to the chooser.  Our differences are by no means diminished but become part of the way we understand the depth of grace in the heart of God, who chose “them” just as he chose “us” to be “His.”`

Belonging to one another comes at a cost. This is part of why I love the way the Communion meal lies at the heart of christian community; it is symbolic of the sacrifice that makes family actually work.

I sat in a service recently that was not at all my cup of tea.  Between the style and execution of music, the topic and conclusions of the sermon and the general demographic of the congregation I felt about as out of place as I have ever felt in a church.  These were not at all ‘my people’ and more to the point, I am certainly not one of theirs.

But as I sat there settling comfortably into my “otherness” I remembered a scene from CS Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters” in which the tormenting demon was bid tempt his charge to examine his fellow church-goers and see their lowliness and otherness;” to conclude that he could not belong to “those people” for many of the same reasons I was mentally disassociating myself from the christians I was sitting with that morning.

When the band struck up again, I still noticed and disliked the song selection and even moreso the horrible electric-drum-kit sound.  But I opened my mouth and joined the congregation in song, moving to the aisle with the others in my row. I walked down to towards the stage behind a woman who was wearing a perfume that must have been named “Wild Berry Menthol Mist.” She turned and smiled after having taken the bread and wine that was now being offered to me.

“The body of Christ, broken for you.”  I took it and ate
“The blood of Christ, shed for you.”  I took it and drank.. and realized it was juice rather than wine.. but whatever..

And walking back to my seat I stood a bit closer to the pudgy, middle-aged man next to me who couldn’t stay in the same singing key for more than a phrase or two.. and sang with him.

One of the great challenges of the christian life is actually belonging to people you don’t like, don’t understand or with whom you do not fully agree.*  We spend much of our social energy trying to surround ourselves with a tribe of people more fully reflective of ourselves. Then, in christian teaching, we are asked to do something quite dramatic: to dissolve those expectations and receive into our lives anyone God gives us to.

This costs us.

It costs our levels comfort. It can cost us in our other relationships to be associated with someone who is politically or theologically outside the lines for the rest of our immediate tribe. It surely costs us to belong to people whose lives implode repeatedly due to their own foolish decision making. On and on.. Belonging to someone else, much less a community comes at a cost.  We call that cost “sacrifice” and it lies at the heart of healthy relationships.

And so the communion meal stands at the center of christian community, reminding us that being family means sacrifice. Real sacrifice.  A shade of the sacrifice that makes our community possible in the first place.

Belonging to One Another (3:43 Sermon Clip)

* (It’s a fallacy that christians are, on the whole, entirely like-minded. I’d argue that the range of sociological, political and religious thought within christian culture is at least as diverse as almost any other identifiable people group around.)

Hate Meetings? Yeah, I get it. But.. you should probably go nonetheless.

“Why” you might say. “I don’t need that meeting.”

And you don’t. You are gifted and motivated as it is.  You don’t need the meeting to remind you of what you care about; you naturally care about those things. You don’t need the meeting to inform you; you are self-taught. You don’t need the meeting.

Furthermore, the meeting is irritating to you because it is made up of people who actually do need the meeting; They aren’t self-taught or self-motivated. They suck the life right out of you.  They need to get motivated. They need to get informed.

They need.. well.. they need someone like you.

So go to the meeting. Not because you need it but because you are needed there.

For the past few years, my wife and I have had the honor of leading a community of men and women called the “Justice League.”  As a community, the Justice League has committed itself to seeing God’s justice brought about in four areas of focus: Local Poverty (primarily homelessness), Global Poverty (in partnership with grassroots organizations in Liberia and Mexico), Human Trafficking (primarily in the way responsible consumerism impacts the issue) and Public Schools (primarily in partnership with educators already working in local schools).

Having served with these men and women for the past few years, I’ve seen the honest transformation of many lives, as well as our own. Some are men and women who were moved by the idea of serving the local poor are now men and women who have sacrificed their comfortable living situation and moved downtown to live among the poor. Some are men and women who were shaken by the plight of underpaid and enslaved workers now will not buy products made by slaves.  In fact, in each area of focus those involved have begun to embody their ideals.

I shared the above encouragement with the Justice League at a recent gathering. But I also shared with them this thought to remind us all why we continue to gather around our ideals as a community rather than just coddle them on our own:

“One of the odd downsides to embodying our ideals is that, in the process, we can easily lose sight of those ideals. In other words, it’s easier to see whatever new work is at hand because it is new and unusual; it stands out.  What is harder to see is the everyday pattern of a life in the process of transformation. We are a community of men and women who truly live differently than we did two years ago. We spend differently, we read the news differently, we plan differently and measure our successes differently.  We are a more just, more compassionate, more aware and even wiser a people that we were before, though at times those changes may be difficult to see in ourselves.

So, in order that we do not lose sight of the distance we have come, we gather.

We gather to remember where we’ve come from and who we are becoming.

We gather to give others the opportunity to encourage us on our journey

We gather to encourage others on theirs.

We gather to be reminded to care about the things we care about.

We gather to see ourselves more clearly.”