The cross itself

Some people feel like love is okay, but what we really have to do is love God over the humans He made. Others feel like love is okay, but what we really have to do is love the humans God made over the God who made them. You can think of loving God as the vertical beam of the cross. And loving our neighbor as the horizontal beam. To make the cross - Jesus needed both. All that refers to Jesus’ teaching that the two greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbor. (Matthew 22:36-39, and Luke 10:25-28) And how can we have TWO greatEST commands anyway? - Doesn’t greatEST automatically imply that there' can only be one? What’s going on here?

This thinking - in short - is referred to as “dualistic” thinking. It is not the greatest example of dualistic thinking … but it works well enough.

Dualistic thinking is great when you want to know a very simple answer such as “who’s got the best price on gas in my neighborhood?” It falls short of giving a satisfying answer to the really hard questions that people like you and me and those we love face every day. Questions like, “I prayed, and God didn’t answer”, “my relationship’s over and I’m heartbroken”, “why’d my child get this diagnosis?” Some might feel tempted to give a “just do this” answer, or a “all you have to do is bla bla bla” answer - but those responses don’t usually work. They don’t really read the full situation and fall flat.

Truth is most of what I learned in Sunday school left me thinking if I just knew about Noah, and the shepherd boy King, David - I’d always know what to do. Maybe I did learn how to to always know what to do in Sunday school - and just didn’t get it because I was a really bad Sunday school student … but I don’t think so. I needed a Sunday school or youth group that talked about the fact that being adult means the vast majority of my decisions - the “right” decision is the one that’s only 1-2% better. Which major, internship, apartment, car … what to say to my friend, bae, or family member when they’re having a hard time, or they’ve hurt my feelings, or when I feel like I have to let them down. So often really hard situations don’t even have a yes or no/go or stay.

If one of the two greatest commandments was “better” than the other - we’d only have that one. God could’ve made that happen. But that’s not how God set it up. Why?

What if having TWO greatest commandments is a gift for us. What if God did this on purpose - so we’d really get it. What if God knew we had it in us to do more than zero in on one of those. After years of watching students’ grow their faith - I’ve come to appreciate that some are “better” at loving one or the other. It just comes easy for some to put one of those first. It’s having two greatest commandments - both loving God and others that really pushes each and every one of us into a place where we have to give up the idea of “looking smart, or wise, or whatever - because we came up with an easy answer. Being called by God to live by both of those commandments means we are all dealing with a lot of complication all the time - which means we really feel and know our own need to pray for one another, and we really need one another’s help, perspective, wisdom, compassion, patience and on and on and on. And it all reminds us every step of the way that none of us has all the answers - and the journey is so humbling. But there are few things sweeter than watching Jesus’ people live out vertical and horizontal love over and over again. It heals us of our wounds as we follow Him this way. It restores us to a better relationship with God and one another. It’s richly connecting. It’s beautifully genuine - and it grow us up, makes us better than “strong” - it makes us good, kind, and more aware of when our ego is trying to lead us into trouble. It expands our awareness of just how much God loves us that He gave us the cross - with it’s vertical and horizontal beams to remind us how to find our path. I love it.

The Two Greatest Commandments

Every student knows that when your instructor says, “This will be on the test.” you’ve got to understand it. Simple. Maybe not easy, but simple.

In Matthew 22:36-39 we read

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

And very similarly we read in Luke 10:27-28

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Ever wonder - why are these called the 2 greatest commandments?

According to some, Jesus gave us at least 6 and some say that the grand total for all commandments in the New Testament is over 8,000. Christianity is a 2,000-ish year old faith and whether there’s 6 or 8,000 - it’s complicated.

I believe these are the two greatest commandments because these tie it all together. Jesus came according to John 3:16 because God loved us. God’s commands teach us to love God too - because this is good for us. They also teach us to love one another - because that’s good for us too. This is not a self-indulgent love - but something genuinely healthy, good, and beneficial. When we love God and our neighbor - we live out all of the seven heavenly virtues (charity, chastity, diligence, humility, kindness, patience, and temperance). The more loving we are - the more we live and walk in the virtues. The more we walk in the virtues - the more loving we are to those around us. If we do not love God or our neighbor - we live and walk in the seven deadly sins (greed, lust, sloth, pride, envy, gluttony, and wrath). These are called deadly sins because they have an addictive quality. They are easy to fall into because at least in the moment they feel good. But they have a dreadful power to harm our souls and make our hearts hard.

These are really, really old ideas, and while theologians, philosophers and the like can complicate them - even a child can understand that when we live lovingly - it feels much better than when we live unlovingly.

So - when we follow these two commandments - we get all the other 6 or 8,000 - or however many you count. And if we try to live by all the others - but not these two - it’s not only extremely complicated - but it feels awful. To me - it feels “legalistic”

So why doesn’t every one live by these? It takes courage to love like that. And that makes sense. I mean - who can read about how Jesus and those who followed Him lived and not see their courage? It also takes an awful lot of humility. Humility can be tricky to define - but the kind of love that loves God and loves our neighbor “to life” (an old Benedictine idea) will love us to life too.

Learning to live by these two commandments takes a whole lifetime at least. But it is a beautiful life. The seven deadly sins - even if you know nothing about Jesus, the Bible and never heard the word sin - will wreck all your most valued relationships. The virtues - are the opposite. You could be the least theological and philosophical person in the world - and yet if you treated those around you according to those virtues - they would feel good. And I believe you’d feel good. Even better - God would recognize you as trying to follow Him.

Simple. But not remotely easy. But definitely a really, really beautifully strong and courageously gracious way to live.

Cave of Whispers

Also known as Elijah’s cave. (you can read all about this passage in 1 Kings 19)

So often we don’t hear one another because we don’t even listen to ourselves. Sometimes we don’t just have ourselves and those coincidentally around us on “ignore”, but we have our closest loved ones on ignore - and even God on ignore.

Elijah - as a prophet of God - was someone whose whole calling was to hear what God was telling him. Sometimes even he needed help though. So in this account - Elijah, worn down and literally running for his life, hides out in a cave on Mount Horeb. While he’s there - God tells him to go to the mouth of the cave because the Lord Himself is going to pass by.

A gale force wind hurled by breaking up the rocks - but that was not the Lord.

An earthquake shook the mountains - but that was not the Lord.

A fire scorched all that was left - but that was not the Lord.

and then a gentle blowing came - and Elijah covered his face, because he knew this was the Lord.

And what did the Lord say to Elijah?

“What are you doing here?”

Did God not know what Elijah was going through?

The Lord was not asking Elijah for information - He was giving Elijah His ear. He was inviting Elijah to unburden his soul before the Lord.

How often do we long to be heard - but no one will just listen. Or how often does our heart ache to help someone we love - but we struggle to not gush with advice and solutions?

So often - we imagine that going to God to unburden our souls will be calamitous - stormy - or tumultuous. And yet - this is God as we imagine Him. So often - it’s not the “acts of God” that God uses to get our attention. It’s His whispers. He is our Shepherd, not our cattle driver. He isn’t the God who screams in our ear. He’s the God who whispers into our hearts.

This is another thing altogether to listen for though isn’t it. We have to still ourselves. We have to humble ourselves. We have to go to the mouth of the cave and answer His question, “Why are you here?”

Whether you have one minute or one hundred - I pray you take all of what you have to go to Him with all you feel on your heart - and allow yourself some time of being heard and hearing Him. Go for a drive. Go for a walk. Go sit in the tub and soak. Or take a long shower. Lay on the floor with your pet - or just a good pillow. Regardless - lay your burdens down as you share your heart and then let Him carry you and what you carry.

The Healing Power of Hearing

Last week I posted about the healing power of listening. Today I want to keep pressing forward with this idea how healing it can be to be heard – really heard.

But first I must confess. Sometimes the idea of being heard leaves me feeling nervous. It seems like there are just too many ways of not really being heard. You know when you’re not being heard because the energy of the conversation starts to get weird, and suddenly all you can think of are all the other things that need to be done in all the other places you’d rather be.

What happened?

The treasure of connecting purposefully got lost. Why does it sometimes get lost? Why does it feel so empty and pointless when it does get lost? Why does it feel so magical when we catch it? No. Not magical. It feels sacred.

Can we do something to make this happen more easily?

Can we stop the thing from happening that derails these moments?

How come it seems easy to imagine this working with some folks but not with others? What’s the thing that’s different between those with whom this back and forth happens naturally – and those with whom it just keeps falling flat?

Listening to someone who’s really listening to you – hearing someone who’s really hearing you – this is how we experience deep belonging. Real connection. In a delightfully human way of mixing senses – this is how we felt seen. This is how we experience being genuinely accepted. We feel ourselves belonging in these moments.

This takes a bunch of courage.

But how do we find our courage in these moments? Where does this courage come from? Can we get more of it? And is getting more of it going to involve something dreadful?

What if the very thing that helps us be heard – helps us become better hearers? Wouldn’t that be like a miraculous provision?

The Healing Power of Listening

Studs Terkel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote incredible oral histories from the biggest events of the 20th century, was a dedicated listener. He excelled at sitting down in front of someone who’d lived through unimaginable times and just listening. He knew just how to get them to recount their experience. Just at moment most of the rest of us would disrupt the conversation or shut things down – he’d pose a real “whopper”, a “doozy” – and then they’d be off. It was like he’d used all of his interviewees’ previous responses to zero in on a simply dead-on question that had been hanging around – just outside of the spoken. His conversation partner, often wouldn’t even realize how deeply they’d just been heard. But they would respond to being heard. And like a newly tapped underground spring, just start gushing one memory after another in a torrent of a flow. In the river of words, we’d hear a crucial moment being deeply humanized and BAM – we feel connected to the people going through that time.

This past fall I started two programs, spiritual direction in September and clinical pastoral education (that’s “chaplain training” to the uninitiated) in October. The center of the Venn diagram between the best of these two programs is listening.

When among the all relationships in your life, have things not turned out as you’d hope – despite everyone actually being fully heard – or fully hearing the other?

There is in both spiritual direction and in clinical pastoral education (CPE for short) the idea that sitting in front of someone who’s listening to you – really, deeply listening to what you’re saying is so rare – that just being deeply listened to and deeply heard has healing power. They’re right.

Getting ready to head into Lent this year into what feels like a very different world than the one we were living in not so long ago. I’m listening to myself and realizing that I feel like I’m running to just keep up. Just the other day I caught myself feeling uncomfortable and vaguely irritated and realized that I worked straight through my last couple of days off. Why’d I do that? Because instead of listening to me – to my soul – I let myself get harried by a whole bunch of externals.

Isn’t it funny how easy it is to kinda listen to just the pervasive din of disorganized media chatter shouting millions of voices at once and yet tune out the actual important stuff?

Yet in the space of a breath, we can pause and tune into the conversation within – the one between us and God.

I’ve usually begun Lent with a firm plan, plopped into place well before Ash Wednesday. This year though, I am beginning with a different plan. The plan is simply to listen to ourselves, one another, and of course, God. Who knows what could happen? What if it changes us? What if we heal?

Thinking Like Jesus

So there’s that lovely passage in 1 Corinthians 2:11-16 that talks about the Spirit of God knows the mind of God and lays out that there is a connection between accepting God and understanding His mind - and which ends with the stunning verse “but we have the mind of Christ.” Wow. What a statement!

Philippians 2: 5-8 that talks about having the mindset of Christ and goes into detail about what His mindset actually was - and again - what we read is some very heady language and the character of Christ as it’s laid out in this passage is just as mind-blowing as it is in the previous passage.

Brilliant theologians have written whole books on just these verses - and I am not going to attempt to add to that.

What I do want to do is ask you if you have the voice of God in your head? Seems that the first step we can usefully take towards understanding God’s ways and His will for us is to listen to Him. I don’t know about you - but for me that meant surrendering the voice that used to be in my head, you know, the voice with which I speak to myself and maybe you have a voice with which you speak to yourself in your head. I’m told not everyone thinks this way, but many do. I’m just talking about your internal monologue.

And regarding that I’m asking, does it sound like God? Does it sound like the sorts of things God would say? God calls Himself our loving father, and Jesus is our Good Shepherd (Matthew 5-7, Luke 15, John 14) - among many other references in Scripture to God’s love for us, John 3:16 being perhaps the most famous.

Comparison is called the “Thief of Joy” - and I agree with that assessment.

Training myself to think the way God thinks has been a huge Bringer of Joy in my life. It’s also been an excellent way to catch temptations when they’re just a little tiny thought, when they’re easily replaced with truth. Tiny changes in any moment may not seem significant, but they are the building blocks of a transformed life. Much of how we suffer in this life, particularly in the West where we live relatively secure lives free from war and famine, results from being tricked into seeing things differently from how God sees them. We might feel frustrated with how God made us or the life He gave us, but all this has been done in such a way as to perfectly compliment His calling for us and opening our eyes to this can help us see His generous preparation and provision for us in a whole new way. This is another way to describe the way God transforms us. He leads us away from thinking about ourselves, our lives, this world in worldly ways and towards thinking about these things His way.

Got questions? Let’s grab a cuppa and chat!

2020 - Year of Experiencing God's Love

Over thirty years ago I started meeting with college students for Bible study, discipleship, encouragement and accountability. In all those years I’ve never met a Christian who said, “Gosh. I guess I just have too much of God’s love.” Usually, the reality was closer to the opposite, people in trying circumstances and eager to sense more of God’s love and comfort. These weren’t people who lacked faith, rather, these were people with strong faiths who invest in building their faith. I’ve felt this myself, and however much of God’s love I might have ever felt, I’ve never felt so much that I didn’t wish for more.

Christians love challenges to grow in all kinds of ways, Scripture study, service, prayer, accountability and more - all good things of course but I’ve never heard of anyone offering a challenge to help Christ-followers grow in how much of God’s love I walk in on a daily basis. Maybe that was for some good reason but I haven’t heard one yet.

You could say that every spiritual act we engage in connects us with God’s Love but I believe that there’s more available from God for us. Much more. You could essentially say the same about worship and yet every church service includes specifically a worship portion, a sermon from Scripture, giving, and so on. So it strikes me as strange that Christian culture isn’t permeated with a number of practices focused on God’s love. That was after all God’s “raison d’etre” - or at least I believe John 3:16’s declaration that “for God so loved the world is His reason for sending His Son and I believe this plan was begun at the very beginning of everything.

One of the most important passages of the Old Testament is Deuteronomy 6:-9: which includes the words “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” NASB. This isn’t just how God wants us to think of Him this mirrors how His own motivation. It’s how we calibrate ourselves along with His purposes if you will. Jesus’ own reference of this passage not only appears in three of the four Gospels (Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34, and Luke 10:25-38). The two greatest commandments are to Love God and Love others. We spend a lot of time talking about so many other commandments, but these often get glossed over or spoken of as if they’re “impractical”.

Jesus raises the bar quite a bit in His teaching as He goes on to say “Love your enemies” in Matthew 5:44, and by the end of that first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount implies that loving all even enemies is essential to the Life God sent Jesus to teach us how to have. Oh, my word! Enemies too? What if there’s a connection between this Love and the Abundant Life He promises us (John 10:10). That abundant life Jesus talks about is another thing I would like more of, how about you?

Some might consider so much love to be indulgent and a way to get out of obedience, but this is not a Biblical reading of Love as Jesus taught it to His followers and as they further wrote of it in their Epistles instructs us that obedience is as essential to love as love is an essential act of obedience. In fact, I believe that they balance one another. Love without obedience loses purpose and focus pretty quickly. And I believe we’re all familiar with what the kind of legalism that results from obedience without Love. I think the best way to see these is as the left leg and right leg, or even left-brain and right brain.

In our wider culture, in our individual lives, I’m afraid I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard students and alumni struggle with facing legalism and judgment but it’s not been difficult to count the number of times students and alumni have experienced remarkable love.

And yet I am convinced that God has an enormous abundance of His Love ready and available to give us - directly in our times of prayer, study and meditation with Him, as well as in our interactions with one another.

Seems to me like one leg is significantly stronger than the other.

What could happen if we had two equally strong legs? What would it be like to have not just an abiding sense of the value of obeying God’s commands, but also a profound and life-giving sense of His eternal love for us? Can we do this? What if being strong in Love made obedience easier?