Jim Street

I remember Johnny.

How could I forget him?

For three or four years in elementary school Johnny haunted my very movement.

Johnny was the meanest person I have ever met.  I say that in my late 50s...  Johnny was the meanest person I have ever met.

Johnny had a prison tattoo by the sixth grade.  His older brother gave it to him.

I saw Johnny almost beat one of my classmates to death.

Johnny almost sent me to the ER once because I had the nerve to laugh at him when the wind blew his well-oiled hair.

Johnny was anti-social and greasy.

He struck fear into the heart of every 4th, 5th and 6th grade boy I knew.

You would have thought Johnny and I were best friends...the way I shadowed Johnny.

Fear can do some strange things to you. Fear can make you do some strange things.  

Dr. Freud would have had a field day with me.   He probably would have called it a "reaction formation."   In a reaction formation, which was one of Dr. Freud's classic defenses against anxiety, you do things that are polar opposite to how you really feel: the child porn politician champions laws against child pornography ...the preacher who visits prostitutes rails against adultery...The kid who fears the anti-social bully embraces him.

When Ahaz saw Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, king of Israel, outside the walls of Jerusalem flanked by their armies and intent on toppling his throne, his heart and the heart of his people "shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind."  (Isaiah 7:2)

God sent the prophet to him to tell him that the Kings Rezin and Pekah did not amount to a sneeze.  He encouraged Ahaz and told him to pay attention, keep quiet, resist fear, keep on keeping on.

God would fight for him.  God would take care of him.

But young Ahaz was afraid and, like I said, fear can make you do some strange things.

He was also hard-headed, stubborn and intent on "doing his own thing."  As the history book tells us, "He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God...He...made his son pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. He sacriced and made offerings on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree." (II Kings 16:3-4)

Ahaz did not follow the way of the Lord from the get-go.  He did some abominable things.  He was ill-prepared to deal with the threats of Rezin and Pekah.

Ahaz turned to "Johnny"...the ruthless warrior king of Assyria, Tiglath-pileser.  He even offered sacrifices in the presence of Tiglath-pileser and gave him the silver and gold from the house of the Lord. (II Kings 16:8ff.) 

In his stubborness, faithlessness and fear, Ahaz rejected the promise of God and sidled up to Satan.

Such "leadership" led to destruction.

When Isaiah came to Ahaz and offered him a sign to confirm the faithfulness of God, Ahaz refused him.  Feigning piety, Ahaz said he did not want to test or trouble the Lord.

And... he did not want to change his well-laid plans.

What irony!

In a fire we grasp at straws.  In the face of threat, we forget the God of our fathers and mothers, make our own plans and sometimes sidle up to Satan.

"If I stand close enough, if I feign friendship, if I become one of them, if I join-'em-because-I-can't-beat''em, if I can't quit shaking any other way...."

We often fall when we take our stand...our stand....our stand

During Advent we hear the promise of a son..a son...A Son...whose name shall be called "God with us."

God with us.

God with us.

God with us.

But in our fear we do not wait. We tremble and make our plans...the best laid plans of mice...

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For resources related to the season of the church year or the Revised Common Lectionary go here.

For a series of questions for personal reflection/small group discussion on the RCL texts for the week go here.

"I will not ask and I will not put the Lord to the test." (Isaiah 7:12)

The words sound good.  So righteous.  So pious.  So noble.

They belong to Ahaz, the young king of Judah (8th century B.C.)  Ahaz is in the midst of a political storm.  Assyria is a threat to the north.  The kings of Israel (the northern kingdom) and Aram have approached him to join an alliance against Assyria.  If he refuses to join them, they threaten to topple his kingdom and set up a puppet king who will do their bidding.

Isaiah, the prophet, has promised Ahaz that God will shield him from the two "smoking firebrands."  He has assured him that the kingdom will stand if he, Ahaz, resists the temptation to take matters into his own hands and puts his faith in God.

Isaiah even offers the guarantee of a sign: "Ask of the Lord anything you want, Ahaz.  Ask for a sign in the highest heavens or even in the depths of Sheol.  The Lord wants you to know beyond all doubt that He is faithful to you.  All he wants is for you to be faithful to Him."

That's when Ahaz replies that he will not test God in that way, that he will not ask for a sign.

So noble.  So pious.  So righteous. 

The truth is that Ahaz does not want assurances from God.  Ahaz does not want a demonstration of God's faithfulness.  Ahaz does not want to "risk" faith when he has already decided what he will do.

Why place your faith in the unseen God when you can trust your own abilities, your own plans, your own agenda?

Ahaz has already plotted to join the king of Assyria against the kings of Israel and Aram.  (II Kings 16)  Ahaz already knows what he wants and what he will do.

We might think that Ahaz is a fool.  Why any one of us- when given the option of trusting God or trusting ourselves- would trust God...wouldn't we? 

Well...wouldn't we?

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For resources related to the season of the church year or the Revised Common Lectionary go here.

For a series of questions for personal reflection/small group discussion on the RCL texts for the week go here.

"When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, 'Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?'" (Mt. 11: 2-3)

We do not know why John asked sent his disciples to ask the question of Jesus.  Matthew does not tell us.  Indeed, Matthew doesn't even seem interested in knowing. 

However, that does not stop us from wondering and speculating.  As a teacher once told me: "We believe in the maxim 'where the Bible speaks we speak and where the Bible is silent we are silent.'  However, we also apparently believe in the maxim 'where the Bible speaks we are silent and where the Bible is silent we speak.'"

I know my own doubts and uncertainties.  And, as a pastor, I often hear others express theirs as well.  Sometimes life can be so hard that doubting is the best we can do. I read this text with those doubts rolling through the back of my mind.

I do not know whether John doubted or not.  I do not know whether uncertainty crept into his dank cell or not.   It may have been that John saw his destiny written on the prison wall and sent his disciples as a way to quell their doubts about the identity of Jesus.  Perhaps John was engaged in a bit of "succession planning."

Whether it was because of his own doubts or because of the questions of his disciples, John did send them to Jesus with that question: "Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?"

My guess is that it is very hard to see the inbreaking reign of God from within the walls of a damp prison or as you are perched precariously atop a three-legged stool and straining to peer through a tiny, barred-up window.

I recognize the dangers of going beyond the text.  Anything I say about John's motives in asking that question would be "arguing from silence."

However, I also recognize what happens to us when we are cut off from the world, imprisoned (if only for a time) in the darkness of doubt, shackled in the chains of despair, and fettered by fears.   What seemed so clearly the case in the carefree daylight is lost in the shadow of the terrifying moment.

"Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?"

John had heard what Jesus was doing.  (Note: Matthew says that John heard what the Messiah was doing!) But John heard about it in prison.

Perhaps from his own vantage "what Messiah was doing" was not what John thought the Messiah would or should be doing.  Given his wilderness sermons, John may have imagined something more...earth shattering.  After all, John had drawn terrifying word pictures of the ax being laid the roots and of days of wrath coming over the horizon.

Jesus did not say "I AM the ONE" to John's disciples.  Jesus appealed to the words of the prophets, to the images of Jubilee and to the songs of Israel: 

"Tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them." (vs. 4-5; NRSV)

Tell John that miracles abound but also tell him who the recipients of those graces are: the blind, the deaf, the dead, and the poor.  The overlooked, the outcast, the forgotten are being seen, brought close and remembered.

And all of them...these poor...are hearing good news.

God is at work-perhaps in unexpected ways -but working nonetheless.  Look closely and listen...you are locked for a time in your cell of despair but your experience is not the breadth and depth and height of God's working.  The kingdom is breaking through and things spoken of by prophets, indeed the words of John are coming to pass...the world is being turned upside down as the kingdom of God breaks through in Jesus.

We don't know what the disciples of John did after that.  We don't know whether they returned to John or not.  We don't know whether John was satisfied by the reply of Jesus.

However, I cannot help but wonder: Did it cross John's mind what Jesus did not say? Did it strike him that Jesus did not say, "and the prisoners are set free"?

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For resources related to the season of the church year or the Revised Common Lectionary go here.

For a series of questions for personal reflection/small group discussion on the RCL texts for the week go here.

I am often put off by some of the Christmas songs because they are so sentimental, so romantic and so not-my- experience.

Sometimes I feel as if I am going to blow if I hear one more song about holiday cheer, faces all aglow, happy shoppers on their way down glistening, snow covered city sidewalks.

I live in the Atlanta area.  The last time we had snow at Christmas was around the time the Magna Carta was being signed.  And as for happy faces all aglow....ha!...I say, "Ha!"

I see harried faces (even hairy faces!), distracted faces and most of them anything but "all aglow." 

I live in the suburbs.  You see tail lights all aglow.  You see strip malls.  You see enough concrete and black top to cover Rhode Island.  You see power cable, telephone lines and litter.

To many Christmas songs I say, "Bah!"

Unless....unless I hear those lyrics not as descriptions of what is but as yearnings of what could be.

Maybe there could be a day- even here in the 'burbs of HOTlanta"- when there is snow on the ground, happy people scurrying here and there with nothing more than a "Merry Christmas" on their breath.

Hearing those songs in that way may just rescue me from my humbuggery.

Reading the Isaiah texts in the Revised Common Lectionary is really what has rescued me from another season of singing, "Bah, bah, bah, bah, baaaah.." instead of "Fa la la la laaaa."

Listen to these words about the coming the Day of Lord...

"He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn more any more." (2:4)

Or read these words and just imagine...

"The wolf shall sleep with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall graze together, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the adder's den.  They will not hurt or destroy on my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (11:6-9 NRSV)

I suspect there were those who first heard Isaiah's words with a "bah" and a "humbug."  They read the paper like everyone else; they watched the evening news.  They worked in the sweatshops and traversed the market places.

No more war?  No more studying war?  No more tragedies?  No more "nature red in tooth and claw."

Bah!

All those folks are gone.  However, the words of Isaiah still stand and give their hope.

Isaiah expresses a vision.  However...and this is important...Isaiah's vision is not simply the poetic expression of wishful thinking or overwrought romanticism.  Isaiah is not Mel Torme sitting at a piano in California in the heat of summer writing about "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Isaiah speaks to human yearning, yes.

But the word Isaiah speaks, the vision that Isaiah describes is not Isaiah's word and not Isaiah's vision.  His word and vision are not simply the yearnings of one man or the whole people. 

This is the word and the vision of the God who is faithful and who will do what God promises. 

Advent is the time of yearning...ours and God's! 

Advent is the time when we are reminded that our deepest longings, the ones we offer up to heaven, will be met (and then some) by the God who never leaves us nor forsakes us!

I recently created a little blog site where I will post questions on the upcoming texts of the Revised Common Lectionary.  The questions (which I hope to improve on a weekly basis!) can be used for personal reflection or to engender discussion in a small group or Sunday School class.

You can get the questions here.

You can also get to them by going to my ever-expanding RCL site on Squidoo and scrolling down to the module called "Small Group Resource."  Check that out here.

I wrote a brief article today called "What Time Is It?"  What shapes your sense of time and how is that shaping you?

You can read it here.

And, to explore more about what I'm talking about...here is a little resource I created.  Check it out here.

As you may know we are experiencing a drought in Georgia, USA.  Although we've had a good rain on this Thanksgiving morning, we are far behind what is needed to fill our reservoirs.

Indications are that within a few months the Atlanta area will be in a real water emergency if something drastic doesn't occur. Our governor, Sonny Perdue, has taken it on the chin from critics for leading "pray for rain" sessions on the steps of the state capital building.

To say that things are getting  desperate would be an understatement.

As a result of the drought many of us are thinking more about water conservation.  To this point, we have been so blessed with water that most of us took it for granted.   That was wrong and you can be sure that our sins are finding us out.

For the past couple of weeks I have been thinking more about the matter of gratitude and have been trying to remember to articulate my thanks as often as possible. 

A couple of days ago I wrote that giving thanks on a consistent basis helps us to realize that our lives and everything that comprises our lives is a gift given by the hand of God.   I see the offer of ongoing thanksgiving as a practice that opens our eyes to the gift and gifts of life.

I think in the past I have thought that the way to become more thankful was to grow in my understanding of this "life-as-gift" idea so that I can be thankful.  I am now beginning to see that it really is the other way around: we learn to see life and everything in our lives as gift when we undertake the practice of gratitude.

Continual thanksgiving helps us to remember that.  (After all, how often do we give thanks for the things we believe we have earned?)

This "gift" awareness that is growing from the practice of gratitude touched me in a small way yesterday.  I got into the shower and when I glanced up at the streaming shower head I saw that water as a gift and I immediately began to think about what a precious gift it is and how much I have to grow in my stewardship of it.

Later I was driving in my car thinking about that brief flash of insight when I began to say to myself: "Well, of course you see it as a gift NOW!  That's called 'supply and demand'.  Water is in short supply and that is why you see it as a gift."

I then thought: "No..that's why I see water a valuable.  However, I do not think of all things that are valuable as gifts.  Someone might work hard and believe that their home is a product of their hard labor.  They would see their home as valuable but they would not necessarily see their home as a gift."

I don't think you can think about water or anything else in this life as gift without simultaneously thinking that there is a Giver. 

The water flowing from my shower head?  Yes, I pay for it.  Yes, it is valuable and I am seeing its value grow everyday as the supply diminishes in this part of the world.

However, I see it primarily as a gift, a gift given by a loving God, a gift over which I am a steward.

Working on expressing gratitude is helping me see the world in a new light....the light of grace.

If we would become "gratitudians", that is, people whose lives are characterized by gratitude, we would do well to practice gratitude.

We become what we do.

Consider the words of Paul in Ephesians 5:20: "...be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."  (NRSV)

Focus on those italicized words.  Paul uses a participle, which denotes continuing action, underscores it with the word always, and underscores that with the phrases "at all times" and "for everything."

Do you think maybe Paul thought that giving thanks ought to be a constant practice among followers of Jesus?

I read that this way: Always keep on giving thanks all of the time for everything and in ever situation.

Paul doesn't seem to think there are occasions when we should not offer thanksgiving!

His call is for constant, consistent, ongoing, thanksgiving at all times and in every circumstance. 

Now does that mean that we must constantly walk around repeating the words, "Thank you, thank you, thank you?"  Well, that wouldn't be a bad practice would it? (It might get a little tedious, especially for those of us who are not multi-taskers!)   But maybe that's what it would take for us to develop the habit of thanksgiving as we journey toward becoming gratitudians.

I think the deeper point is to become someone whose life is marked by gratitude, whose very being exudes gratitude, whose every gesture and word is filled with grace.

Such a person is a constant offering of gratitude. 

Let me add one other thing here that goes beyond this text, something I just realized this week-end...More often than not, far more often (maybe even always!) Paul directs all thanksgiving to God.  

While a few examples may exist of Paul offering thanks to a person, his practice seems to be to thank God for the person and for their actions.  "I thank God for you.." is more often on the lips of Paul than a mere "Thank you..."

I had not noticed that before this week-end when I was flipping through my trusty Strong's Concordance and noticed time after time when Paul employed that kind of language.

I think that kind of 'thank you' is better than a straight to the face thank you. 

When we thank God for someone (and/or for what they have done) we rightly name them and their action as "gift."   They are not just accidentally in our lives and their presence and their action are not accidents either. 

They are signs of God's grace. 

In thanking God for others and their actions, we place ourselves, the other,  and their their action toward us all within the province of grace. 

We are thus living the moment in the domain of ultimate reality, that is, in the domain of the sacred.  The ordinary give and take of life becomes charged with the grandeur of God.

I thank God for you!  I thank God for your many kind words of encouragement.  I thank God for good and patient people who read what I write because I have little choice but to write (or speak!)  I thank God for you because without you I could not be me.

You see?  My simple act of writing and your simple act of reading is a gift- a sign of grace, a sign of the love and presence of God!

Now what if we saw everyone and everything with those eyes?

More tomorrow.

When I first became pastor at North River Community Church, I was invited to the home of Robin and John for dinner.  Robin was one of the sweetest, most loving people I have ever known.

She was also one of the funniest.

Robin was most funny when she was not trying to be funny.  She was one of those folks who was just offhandedly funny.

Several people were at Robin and John's that night.  Kelly and Lori were there and Robin started bragging on Lori's skills at showing hospitality.  After providing a litany of Lori's hospitality skills with examples of her skills in practice, Robin paused for a split second and said: "Why Lori is a real hospitalian!"

I thought that was a great word and a real compliment to Lori because it suggested that Lori was not only good at demonstrating acts of hospitality, Lori was someone whose character was marked by hospitality.

In Robin's eyes, "hospitality" was not just something that Lori did, "hospitality" was something that Lori was.

Sadly Robin passed away in September, 2006.  However, much of Robin has stayed with me including her word "hospitalian."

The word has stayed with me because it is such a neat way of describing what happens when someone has passed from just performing certain kinds of moral actions to becoming a person whose very being is marked by those actions.  

For me, the word "hospitalian" opens up a world of possibilities as we think about what it takes to become a whole person and uncovering the meaning of a "well-lived life." 

Following Robin's lead, I have created another word that may serve to describe a kind of character that marks a "life well-lived." 

That word is "gratitudian."

Gratitudian

Gratitudians are people whose lives, whose character, whose very being is marked by gratitude. 

Gratitudians are those who have made (and who continue to make) the practice of expressing gratitude such a part of their lives that they have become the very embodiment of that virtue. 

A gratitudian is someone who is graceful, gracious, grace-filled, congratulatory, gratuitous, and yes...grateful.   Such words suggest elegance, kindness, a propensity toward showing favor, a willingness to honor others when such honor is due, and a habit of offering good to others without expectation of reward or recompense.

Gratitudians are large-souled people.  They are maganimous, unselfish, generous toward others and free of pettiness and resentment.

Gratitudians become themselves by means of grace.  The word itself suggests the necessity of grace.  After all, the word "gratitude" is derived from the Latin word for grace, "gratis." 

However, claiming that grace is necessary to becoming a gratitudian does mean that there is nothing one can do to become such a person.   

To become a gratitudian one must practice the skills necessary to becoming such a person and we only know what skills to practice because we have been told by God what they are. 

We only know the practices because of grace.  The hard line between doing (practicing) and receiving (grace) is softened as we realize that....That we have any idea what we may do to become whole is itself a matter of grace.

Practices are gifts.

The central practice of gratitudians is, as you might expect, gratitude.  Becoming a person whose character is marked by gratitude (i.e. a "gratitudian") is a matter of expressing, showing, displaying gratitude.

You might say that the way to goal is the goal itself.

The way and the destination are one.

Or, to borrow a quote attributed to Mahatma ("Large-Souled") Ghandi..

"Be the change you wish to see."

More tomorrow.

Please go here to vote for Zach Hunter for CNN's Hero.  Zach, who is a 15 year old abolitionist, stands to win $25,000 to apply toward his work called "Loose Change 2 Loosen Chains".  (You can see it over there on the right among my links). 

Zach has been an abolitionist since he was 12.  He is the author of a book on abolition for young people and a spokesman for several abolitionist groups.

You can vote as often as you like but must do so before 11/12/07.

Again, vote for Zach right here!  It's quick. It's simple and it's a good, good thing.

Thanks!

I'll be blogging again before long.