Every morning we wake up to two doors.
Open one and it leads into a wide open room of amusement. A theme park, a golf range, pinball machines, concerts, video games, virtual reality, splashy hotels, fine cuisine, movies, swimming pools, winter sports, summer sports, playgrounds, mansions, fashion, the beautiful people. Fun, frolic, amuse yourself to death.
Open the 2nd and it leads into a ward of people begging, bleeding, blind agony, open wounds, crushed hopes, crushed homes, broken families, gun shots and stab wounds, oppressor and oppressed, justice denied, no one to intervene, bones broken through the skin, people imprisoned, people without a home.
Every morning we wake up to Jesus who says to us: 'Choose you this day which door.'
Before we have any chance to say to him 'but', he enters the 2nd door and we're left standing on our own. If we remain still enough we can hear his voice saying 'follow me' but then the stillness is broken by the happy sounds coming from the room of dissipation, and we enter without him.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Don't turn the page
A street friend of mine named Iggy was telling me the other day about a meeting he had with his social worker.
The meeting was going well until the social worker suddenly excused herself to meet her next client. She had been taking notes of her conversation with Iggy, but as she got up to leave, Iggy said, ‘She turned the page. In turning the page to prepare herself for her next client, it was as though she’d forgotten me. All she could see was her next appointment and I didn’t matter anymore.’
Watching the images of the devastation in Haiti - the broken homes, the broken families, the broken neighbourhoods, there eventually comes a point where I turn the page, I change the channel, I move on to something else.
I’ve seen enough. I may write a cheque to one of the relief agencies helping the victims of this crisis, I may say a brief prayer, but ultimately I move on, I turn the page, I change the channel and watch something else.
But the people in Haiti - the ones mired in this crisis, can’t turn the page. They can’t be elsewhere. Their struggles will continue long after they cease to be a headline, long after the world’s attention has moved on to something else.
But God doesn’t turn the page.
‘Can a mother forget her nursing child?
Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?
Even if that were possible, I will not forget you!
See I have written your name on the palms of my hands.
Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.’
Isaiah 49:15,16
Always in God’s mind, is the picture of Port-au-Prince in ruins.
He does not turn the page. He suffers with those who suffer. And he works with those who give themselves to alleviate the suffering.
God is bigger than poverty and famine. He is bigger than earthquakes. He is big enough to answer every cry of anguish, big enough to embrace every hurting person, big enough to make room for the millions now without a home.
And he asks us to join him in this work.
By prayer.
Prayer takes us to the places where God is at work.
Prayer takes us to the page where God is at work in Haiti.
We pray because without God’s help - there will not be the love that heals, nor the comfort that brings hope, nor the hope needed to give Haiti a future.
We are praying to the Lord God Almighty. He was the Lord of all before the universe began. He was Lord Almighty before there were such things as earthquakes or poverty or death. And He will still be Lord Almighty when earthquakes and poverty and death are no more.
Psalm 46 tells us that God is the refuge and strength of the helpless, always ready to help in times of trouble. The Psalm tells us that we are not to fear when earthquakes come, nor are we to fear when the mountains crumble into the sea.
Rather than be afraid, the Psalmist tells us, we are to be still and know that He is God.
We are to be still and know that he will be honoured by every nation - he will be honoured in all the world.
The Lord rescues the poor from trouble
and increases their families like flocks of sheep
The godly will see these things and be glad
while the wicked are struck silent.
Those who are wise will take all this to heart.
They will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.
Psalm 107:41-43
The meeting was going well until the social worker suddenly excused herself to meet her next client. She had been taking notes of her conversation with Iggy, but as she got up to leave, Iggy said, ‘She turned the page. In turning the page to prepare herself for her next client, it was as though she’d forgotten me. All she could see was her next appointment and I didn’t matter anymore.’
Watching the images of the devastation in Haiti - the broken homes, the broken families, the broken neighbourhoods, there eventually comes a point where I turn the page, I change the channel, I move on to something else.
I’ve seen enough. I may write a cheque to one of the relief agencies helping the victims of this crisis, I may say a brief prayer, but ultimately I move on, I turn the page, I change the channel and watch something else.
But the people in Haiti - the ones mired in this crisis, can’t turn the page. They can’t be elsewhere. Their struggles will continue long after they cease to be a headline, long after the world’s attention has moved on to something else.
But God doesn’t turn the page.
‘Can a mother forget her nursing child?
Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?
Even if that were possible, I will not forget you!
See I have written your name on the palms of my hands.
Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.’
Isaiah 49:15,16
Always in God’s mind, is the picture of Port-au-Prince in ruins.
He does not turn the page. He suffers with those who suffer. And he works with those who give themselves to alleviate the suffering.
God is bigger than poverty and famine. He is bigger than earthquakes. He is big enough to answer every cry of anguish, big enough to embrace every hurting person, big enough to make room for the millions now without a home.
And he asks us to join him in this work.
By prayer.
Prayer takes us to the places where God is at work.
Prayer takes us to the page where God is at work in Haiti.
We pray because without God’s help - there will not be the love that heals, nor the comfort that brings hope, nor the hope needed to give Haiti a future.
We are praying to the Lord God Almighty. He was the Lord of all before the universe began. He was Lord Almighty before there were such things as earthquakes or poverty or death. And He will still be Lord Almighty when earthquakes and poverty and death are no more.
Psalm 46 tells us that God is the refuge and strength of the helpless, always ready to help in times of trouble. The Psalm tells us that we are not to fear when earthquakes come, nor are we to fear when the mountains crumble into the sea.
Rather than be afraid, the Psalmist tells us, we are to be still and know that He is God.
We are to be still and know that he will be honoured by every nation - he will be honoured in all the world.
The Lord rescues the poor from trouble
and increases their families like flocks of sheep
The godly will see these things and be glad
while the wicked are struck silent.
Those who are wise will take all this to heart.
They will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.
Psalm 107:41-43
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Closet Space
No room in our closets? No room to pray. The teaching about our only having one coat, one shirt, one pair of pants having given the rest to those who have none is about making room in our closets to pray. Otherwise our possessions crowd out our prayers.
Possessions are about buying and selling, about holding on to what is ours. Prayer is about giving and receiving, about putting into God’s hands what we otherwise clutch tightly with our own. The emptier the closet, the bigger the prayers.
But sometimes an empty closet still isn’t enough room to pray.
I know a man who when he closes himself into his closet enters into an echo chamber of abuse and hatred and grudges and retained memories that suffocate the possibility of speech. He can’t ask, he can’t receive, he can’t forgive nor receive forgiveness. He can’t be present, he can’t be thankful, he can’t change nor be changed...he steps into the closet and when he comes out again he comes out wizened and beaten; energized only in his vow to continue the war which has ended for everyone else.
If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:15
Closet space is about finding the strength to follow Jesus. It is about making a place where we can talk to God and God can talk to us. It is about opening our hands to receive and to let go. Neither which a closed fist can do.
To not forgive is a closed fist. It is clinging to what is past. With a closed fist we can clutch, we can punch, we can bang the table to emphasize our complaint - things we can’t do with an open hand.
To possess is also a closed fist. It is to claim something as 'mine' or 'ours' and then build an entire security system around it to make certain it stays ours.
Whether grudges or possessions we must let them go. To open our hands.
For as long as our fists remain closed, we can receive nothing from God – whether bread or forgiveness or anything else God wants to give us. That is why the petition about asking for our daily bread is as much about forgiveness as it is about food as it is about selling all to follow him.
To find the strength to follow him takes open hands. It’s about putting into God’s hands what we otherwise clutch tightly in our own i.e. our next meal, our security, our future, so we are free to follow him unencumbered by our worry about such things.
Anyone who wants to be my disciple must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. John 12:26
Where he is, is among the poor in spirit, among the persecuted and condemned, the despised and the outcast, the alienated and the weak...welcoming them with open hands, proclaiming the Kingdom, insisting we be free to do the same...
Possessions are about buying and selling, about holding on to what is ours. Prayer is about giving and receiving, about putting into God’s hands what we otherwise clutch tightly with our own. The emptier the closet, the bigger the prayers.
But sometimes an empty closet still isn’t enough room to pray.
I know a man who when he closes himself into his closet enters into an echo chamber of abuse and hatred and grudges and retained memories that suffocate the possibility of speech. He can’t ask, he can’t receive, he can’t forgive nor receive forgiveness. He can’t be present, he can’t be thankful, he can’t change nor be changed...he steps into the closet and when he comes out again he comes out wizened and beaten; energized only in his vow to continue the war which has ended for everyone else.
If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:15
Closet space is about finding the strength to follow Jesus. It is about making a place where we can talk to God and God can talk to us. It is about opening our hands to receive and to let go. Neither which a closed fist can do.
To not forgive is a closed fist. It is clinging to what is past. With a closed fist we can clutch, we can punch, we can bang the table to emphasize our complaint - things we can’t do with an open hand.
To possess is also a closed fist. It is to claim something as 'mine' or 'ours' and then build an entire security system around it to make certain it stays ours.
Whether grudges or possessions we must let them go. To open our hands.
For as long as our fists remain closed, we can receive nothing from God – whether bread or forgiveness or anything else God wants to give us. That is why the petition about asking for our daily bread is as much about forgiveness as it is about food as it is about selling all to follow him.
To find the strength to follow him takes open hands. It’s about putting into God’s hands what we otherwise clutch tightly in our own i.e. our next meal, our security, our future, so we are free to follow him unencumbered by our worry about such things.
Anyone who wants to be my disciple must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. John 12:26
Where he is, is among the poor in spirit, among the persecuted and condemned, the despised and the outcast, the alienated and the weak...welcoming them with open hands, proclaiming the Kingdom, insisting we be free to do the same...
Monday, January 18, 2010
Two Rooms
In the first room were a lampstand, a table and sacred loaves of bread. This room was called the Holy Place.
Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was a second room called the Most Holy Place. In that room were a good incense altar and a wooden chest called ‘the Ark of the Covenant’.
Only the High Priest ever entered the Most Holy Place and only once a year.
From Hebrews 9:2,3,7
Two rooms.
One holy where anyone can enter. The other even more holy where only one can enter and only once a year.
The first room has the feeling of being sacred, as though one stumbles into a sunset, something worthy of reverence, moments more worthy than time.
But the other though more holy is like a sudden hole in the floor. It is a debasement, a being seized by darkness, an engulfment of fear. Death opens her mouth and there is nothing more to say. The ritual, the sanctimony, the mitre and the robes, the sermon and the books, the institution, the temple fellowship, the congregation, the liturgy, those things you do in the Holy Room have no place here. You are in the Most Holy Place, where only God speaks and there’s no telling what he’ll say. Everything is silent but for the echo of descent.
You come with blood in your hands, blood which is not yours but atonement nonetheless. Is it atonement enough?
You shudder and wait.
Mercy triumphs over judgment, but how that might sound in words, only God can say.
You shudder and wait.
And then the Man appears.
Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was a second room called the Most Holy Place. In that room were a good incense altar and a wooden chest called ‘the Ark of the Covenant’.
Only the High Priest ever entered the Most Holy Place and only once a year.
From Hebrews 9:2,3,7
Two rooms.
One holy where anyone can enter. The other even more holy where only one can enter and only once a year.
The first room has the feeling of being sacred, as though one stumbles into a sunset, something worthy of reverence, moments more worthy than time.
But the other though more holy is like a sudden hole in the floor. It is a debasement, a being seized by darkness, an engulfment of fear. Death opens her mouth and there is nothing more to say. The ritual, the sanctimony, the mitre and the robes, the sermon and the books, the institution, the temple fellowship, the congregation, the liturgy, those things you do in the Holy Room have no place here. You are in the Most Holy Place, where only God speaks and there’s no telling what he’ll say. Everything is silent but for the echo of descent.
You come with blood in your hands, blood which is not yours but atonement nonetheless. Is it atonement enough?
You shudder and wait.
Mercy triumphs over judgment, but how that might sound in words, only God can say.
You shudder and wait.
And then the Man appears.
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