Faith and Hospitality

The topic of hospitality has become big in the church of late. It is a chapter heading and one of the big "practices" in Diana Butler Bass' book, Christianity for the Rest of Us. And it is the focus of a new book by Henry Brinton, pastor at Fairfax Presbyterian, entitled The Welcoming Congregation: Roots and Fruits of Christian Hospitality. 

Hospitality in these books and in many other church discussions is about much more than being friendly. It is about a ministry to which each of us is called. It is about going out of our way to welcome the stranger, to see ourselves as hosts. And as such, it does not always fit well into the habits of typical mainline congregations.

In another of her books, The Practicing Congregation, Diana Butler Bass follows up on her aforementioned book, and in it she speaks of "established congregations" and contrasts them with "intentional congregation." (She argues that this is going to become a much more important contrast than conservative versus liberal, but that's another discussion.)  She contrasts them in a number of areas. For example she says that established congregations think of congregants as members or family, while intentional congregations think in terms of companions, pilgrims, and friends. The controlling image of church for the established folks is chapel, while it is community for the intentionals. 

An area of contrast I find particularly interesting is that of piety. Here Butler Bass says that the established are introverted, private, and devotional compared to extroverted, expressive, and spirituality for the intentional. And I can't help but think that some very different takes on hospitality emerge from these different takes on piety and church.

If I go to chapel for my personal, devotional time, I may well be convinced that I should show hospitality to a visitor in worship, but that is not likely to be part of my devotional/spiritual activity. It isn't a spiritual practice for me, and it may simply be a strategy to recruit new members.

But if my piety needs to connect with the other in order to build community, if my spirituality is about sharing a pilgrim journey with others, then I may view hospitality as an essential part of my faith life. It isn't something I ought to do so that people think mine is a "friendly church." Instead it is central to my faith life.

Now I don't know if Butler Bass is correct in her assessment of an established/intentional continuum or of its characteristics.  But I thought of her writings when I read today's gospel. Jesus has sent out 70 of his disciples on mission tour, and this is a portion of their instructions. "Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'"

The only requirement for people to be cured and to have good news of the kingdom delivered to them is hospitality. Nothing about their faith, or whether they were convinced by what the disciples say. But if they are welcoming, if they show hospitality...

Considering how often the Bible speaks of hospitality, and how frequently it calls us to welcome the stranger, it seems odd that hospitality has lost its place as a core faith practice.  "... for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me..." 

How do you engage in the spiritual practice of hospitality in your congregation?

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Priorities

Today's gospel reading opens with this line about Jesus. "When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem."  Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem and the cross. His life was organized around getting to Jerusalem and the cross. Because Jesus' life was totally centered on serving God by giving his life for us, nothing could deter him from journeying to the cross.

As Jesus prioritizes his life around this journey to Jerusalem, he becomes the living embodiment of the commandment he will speak just a scant chapter later in Luke's gospel.  "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."

Priorities, we all have them. We're in stewardship season at my congregation, and so I'm talking about what our giving says about our priorities. If almost none of our money goes to loving God or neighbor, surely that says something significant about where God and neighbor fit among our priorities.

The ways we use our money and our other resources are faith statements and moral statements. They declare, often much more clearly than our professed beliefs, what is really important to us. The measly giving of many Christians often make a poor witness when it comes to our faith, but I think such stinginess is merely symptomatic of our real problem. When it comes to priorities, human beings have a universal tendency to make ourselves the center or the universe. And this tendency seems to have teamed up with American individualism to produce some disturbing results.

Individualism has religious roots, especially from the Protestant Reformation, and it has made real contributions to our society. But it has a dark side. Unchecked, individualism measures everything based on how it impacts me. Without a larger good to which the self owes allegiance, everything's worth is measured by whether or not it makes my life better.

Even God and faith fall under such measures. To the degree that faith makes my life better or improves it, it is worth my time.  But if there are not some clear, short-term benefits for me (we Americans struggle to think long term), it is not.  In such a climate, much church activity focuses on style, on whether or not this or that style of worship peps me up, feeds me, or makes me feel better.

This is not to say that worship should not feed us or at times make us feel better. But if we measure it purely on such terms, we rob it of any power to change us, to call us to a new life with different priorities such as loving God with all our being and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

What is the absolute core, the center around which your life is organized and prioritized? Regardless of how much importance we Americans put on the individual, I am certain that the answer to this question cannot be "Me."

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Sermon audio - Not So Among You

Audios of sermons and worship available at Falls Church Presbyterian website.

Sermon - Not So Among You

Mark 10:35-45

Not So Among You

James Sledge                                                                                       October 21, 2012

I’ve been reading a new book by MaryAnn McKibben Dana, the pastor at Idylwood Presbyterian just west of here. It’s entitled Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time.  If you’ve ever thought about Sabbath keeping, or simply thought about how life is too busy and distracted, I highly recommend it.

MaryAnn has young children, and in the book she tells of a time she attended a parenting workshop where the leader asked them to write down their goals and dreams for their children, to say where they hoped their children would be at age twenty-one.

She writes, “It was a heartwarming experience to imagine our children on the verge of being launched, all full of glowing potential without the messy inconvenience of reality mucking up the fantasy.  My list was filled with lofty goals—that they would understand their strengths and limitations, that they would have a spirit of service toward others, and so forth.  (Later, I asked Robert what he would wish for our children—what success would look like at age twenty-one.  Without hesitation he said, ‘Their own apartment.’)”

After writing our lists, the workshop participants read them to one another and basked in the radiance of all these self-actualized Eagle Scouts and lacrosse captains, confident yet humble.  They were like young adult ghosts, beaming all around us. Then the leader said something that made them all disappear: Poof!”

“ ‘This list is for you,’ she said.  ‘You want your children to have a spirit of service?  A sense of the Holy?  A curiosity and openness to the world?  Cultivate those things in yourself.  Let them see you do it.  Become the person and parent you want to be.  It’s one of the most important things you can do for your child.’ ”[1]

The book goes on to say that if we want our children to have a different sense of time than most of the world, some sense of sabbath or holy time, we will need to practice it ourselves.  And the point is easily expanded. If you want your children to have a real sense of generosity, be truly generous yourself.  If you want your children to adopt some of Jesus’ priorities over those of the world, adopt those priorities yourself.

Jesus is pretty clear that following him is about a different set of priorities.  He says that we are to love God will all our heart, mind, soul, and being, and we are to love others as ourselves.  And much of his teaching is about fleshing this out, talking about what this looks like in various settings and contexts.  I think that’s the case in today’s passage.

Although they have been with Jesus for quite a while, the disciples still seem very much caught up in the patterns of the world.  They understand that Jesus is the real deal, but they try to shoehorn that into the ways of the world.  You see that with James and John.  They act just like any career consultant will tell you to do.  “Use your connections to get ahead.”  And so when the get a moment where they have Jesus to themselves, they make a move.  “Rabbi, let us be your right and left hand men when you take over.” 

Pride and Forgetfulness

I've always thought that Hosea was a remarkable book of the Bible. Its picture of God's anguished relationship with Israel, of God's inner conflict over how to respond to repeated unfaithfulness, is moving and poignant. In one moment God's anger seems to boil over. It's there in today's reading. "So I will become like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk beside the way. I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs."

But at other times God's tender mercies overwhelm divine anger. Following a moment of anger, God pivots.  "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?.. My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath."

This view into God's heart, into the internal struggle that seems literally to cause God anguish and pain, grows out of God's desire for relationship with Israel. But the particulars of relationship with Israel can easily be transferred to God's desire for relationship with Christians, Muslims, and others.  God reaches out in love, but gets suffering for the trouble.

It's there in the heart of today's reading. "When I fed them, they were satisfied; they were satisfied, and their heart was proud; therefore they forgot me."  It's an old story, one repeated over and over.  People cry out to God in moments of distress, begging for help. But when the danger is over, the storm past, or the crisis navigated, we begin to imagine we made it through alone. We have triumphed, and our successes are a testament to our hard work and determination.  In short, we are proud.  And pride leads to forgetfulness.

When an actor gets up to accept his Academy Award, he will sometimes pause to thank the people who helped him win. At times this seems a genuine act of remembering that works against pride. At other times thanking these "little people" only serves to highlight how insignificant they are next to the great actor.

I imagine that being a successful actor tends to encourage pride in a way most of us rarely experience.  And perhaps that is a reason that so many actors struggle with personal relationships. It really is hard to remember where they came from.

And God knows all about being forgotten.

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Functional Atheists

Modern day Christians have sometimes been a little embarrassed by the miracles found in the Bible, and modern commentators have sometimes offered rational explanations for those miracles.  For instance, today's feeding miracle is interpreted by some as a "miracle of sharing." Many people in that crowd had a little food tucked in their robes but kept it hidden lest others wanted some of it.  But when Jesus begins to share the meager provisions his followers had, that prompts others to share, and before long there was more than enough to go around as everyone brought out what he or she had.  If you're familiar with story of "stone soup," it's the same idea.

But if you are embarrassed by miracles, you have your work cut out for you in today's gospel. Not only does Jesus feed the crowd but he heals people and also gives his followers "power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases."

Can Jesus really give power and authority to his followers?  What about present day followers?

I have to admit that very often I act as though my answer to the second question is "No." Some have referred to this as "functional atheism." Functional atheists don't deny the existence of God. Christian ones don't deny the divinity of Jesus. It's just that such beliefs don't much impact how they live, how they function. They can't do anything they couldn't already do all on their own, and their churches can't do anything beyond what the combined abilities and efforts of the members could do on their own.

The term "leap of faith" is a familiar one to many. It usually refers to the need to accept something for which there is not empirical proof, such as religious belief. But while believing in God may indeed be a move made without much empirical evidence, I'm not sure it involves much leaping, and a leap of faith seems to imply an action taken in hope or trust that things will turn out differently than suggested by the empirical evidence.  An individual or congregation trying to do something beyond what seems possible for instance.

But can Jesus really confer power and authority on us?  Or are we really all on our own?

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Sermon audio - Because of Love

Audios of sermons and worship available at Falls Church Presbyterian website.

Sermon - Because of Love

Mark 10:17-31

Because of Love

James Sledge                                                                                       October 14, 2012

In 1889, James Bryan graduated from seminary and became pastor of Third Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, AL, having served there part time while still in school.  He would remain there for the next 50 years, becoming a beloved figure in Birmingham known simply as Brother Bryan. He was well known as an evangelist and for his work on racial reconciliation.  But he was best known for his work with the poor and homeless. 

There’s still a Brother Bryan Mission in Birmingham, and a Brother Bryan Park, and a statue of Brother Bryan kneeling in prayer that is one of the city’s better known landmarks. 

Brother Bryan was pastor of Third Presbyterian, but he thought of himself as pastor to everyone he met, and one day he happened to strike up a conversation with a well to do businessman.  At some point Brother Bryan asked the man about tithing.  The man neither tithed nor knew exactly what it was, so Brother Bryan launched into a stirring biblical argument for tithing, for giving the first 10 percent of his income to God. 

The businessman said, “Oh you don’t understand.  I make a lot of money.  Ten percent would be a whole lot more than I could afford to give to a church.”

Brother Bryan responded, “Well sir, I think we ought to pray about this.”  He got down on his knees and cried out to heaven, “Cut him down Lord, cut him down!  Lord, please reduce this man’s income, so he can afford to tithe!”

In our gospel reading today, Jesus meets a well to do businessman who can’t afford to tithe.  Actually, Jesus asks a great deal more of him than a tithe, but the man’s problem is similar to that Birmingham businessman’s.  Other people could toss aside all that they had to follow Jesus, but not this fellow.  And our gospel reading is quite clear why; he had many possessions. It was too much to let go of, and so he went away grieving. 

Us, Them, and Christian Identity

I attended a presentation by Brian McLaren last night via Twitter.  By that I mean I read the Twitter feed of someone who was at the presentation. It's a little like reading the notes someone takes as she takes them. I had not known about this event in advance, but when I saw this from Debra, "Live tweeting @brianmclaren in PHX," I perked up.  I love Brian McLaren's books and think he is the best conference keynote speaker I've ever run across.

As the Tweets of McLaren's presentation appeared on my phone, I was especially drawn to a string about Christian identity.  Here they are (combined and slightly edited to remove the abbreviations and shortcuts necessitated by Twitter's 140 character limit).

Christians know how to do 2 things 1) have a strong identity and be hostile to others with different identity. The correct people have the right to be here but everyone else is taking up our space. 2. We know how to have a weak identity in the name of tolerance. Weak/tolerant identity is less harmful to the other, but is also hard to pass on to the next generation. We need a third option: strong Christian identity that is benevolent toward other religions.

I couldn't agree more. Obviously these are generalizations, and don't apply to every individual Christian or congregation.  But in general, more fundamentalist, evangelical churches have tended to have a very clear and strong identity, but it often emerges from an "us and them" view of the world. And any positive view of the "thems" is largely limited to their status as potential converts.

On the other hand, mainline churches, and especially the more progressive wing of the mainline, often is very tolerant and accepting of others, seeing less of an "us and them" world and more of a one big "we."  But this inclusivity is often achieved by minimizing the differences and particularities of  Christian faith.  There's an old joke about about the liberal, UCC denomination that plays on their initials but could probably be applied to other liberal Christians. It goes, "What does UCC stand for?  Unitarians Considering Christ."  In reality it's the United Church of Christ, but the joke works because liberal Christians sometimes sound more like Unitarians than followers of Jesus.

That's no knock on Unitarians.  But if we prefer being Unitarian to being Christian, we should come clean and say so.

Today's readings from Acts and Luke remind us that Christian faith is rooted in the specific and messy particularities of the man Jesus. They speak of "a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous," and of sinners who are in need of forgiveness that Jesus can and does give.  And this is just the tip of the messy, particular iceberg.  Basic Christian identity includes a  bloody cross, a resurrection, an insistence that God is actively at work in human history, and more.

A few years ago, Kenda Creasy Dean authored a book entitled Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church.  The book is largely rooted in a massive study of adolescent spirituality in the US done from 2003-2005.  This study concluded that the faith of the typical American teenager was not really Christian, but something they labeled "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." And Dean says that this "Christian-ish" faith is a parasite draining the faith of its vitality. And the tenants of this Christian-ish faith are remarkably vague and innocuous, not in the least offensive to anyone. The is a god. God want people to be good and nice and fair. The main purpose of life is to be happy. God is uninvolved in our lives except to solve the occasional problem. And good people go to heaven. 

And the most troubling aspect of this study and book is that the Christian-ish faith of our teenagers is not the result of their misunderstanding something or perverting what they learned at church. Rather it is an accurate reflection of their parents' faith and the faith of the churches where they grew up. It's also a faith that does not bind teenagers to the church in any significant way.

I take it that this is precisely the sort of thing Brian McLaren was talking about last night when he spoke of a weak identity that was very tolerant but did not transmit well to the next generation.  And in fact, the study behind Dean's book found that typical teenagers had not rejected the church nor were they hostile to it. Rather the faith they had learned there was so vague and short on specifics that they saw little reason to continue participating. They could be moralistic, therapeutic deists without attending some anachronistic worship service.

And that brings me back to the challenge McLaren issued, to come up with a Christian identity that is strong, particular, and vital without any need to denigrate others. It is easy to build an identity using hostility, by defining us in contrast to "them." (Partisan politics is a good example.) But that is not the only way.  And I do not think it was the Christian way in the beginning. Only after Christians gained political power a few hundred years after Jesus did anyone begin to suggest forcibly converting people or killing those who would comply. Only when Christians resided in places of power did societies begin requiring conformity to a strong Christian identity under threat of the sword.

Progressive Christianity correctly rejects such coercive faith. It correctly champions freedom of religion and the denial of the sword to those who would say, "Believe as we do or else."  But these stances do not require us to water down our faith. The particulars of our faith are not the problem.

There is a concept from the world of business referred to as "the culture of mediocrity." It refers to a process where ideas or proposals are tweaked and modified in response to objections or concerns, but in the process of removing anything that bothers or upsets anyone, the end product is gutted to its core, leaving something that doesn't bother anyone, but accomplishes little. 

This process has a parallel in many churches, where proposals to do something new get whittled down to mediocre or worse.  And a similar process seems to have happened with faith itself. We have whittled it down and sanded off its corners and reduced it to something that offends no one but speaks to no one either.

I think that the challenge Brian McLaren issues is the big challenge facing Progressive Christianity. Can we articulate and proclaim a bold, vibrant, Christian faith and identity - emphasis on Christ - that is distinct and requires alterations to one's life to be a part of it, while at the same time remaining open, hospitable, and benevolent to those of other faiths and practices?

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Dysfunctional Family Torn Asunder

If you have been reading the Daily Lectionary lately, you've been following the Apostle Paul as he journeys to Jerusalem where his presence provokes a riot, he is arrested, and, while under arrest, narrowly avoids a plot to kill him.  "The Jews" are the ones plotting against Paul, and on first glance, these Jews would seem to be those same Jews who opposed Jesus.  But it is more likely that these "Jews" are in fact Jewish Christians, Christians who were upset that Paul was baptizing Gentiles without requiring them to be circumcised or to adopt Jewish dietary restrictions and so on.

At the time of Paul's arrest, the Christian movement still existed within Judaism. But as Gentiles began to join the movement, a huge conflict broke out over how Jewish these converts had to be. The book of Acts reports this conflict, though in much more subdued tones than Paul's own words in his letters. But Paul hopes to mend the rift that had developed between his Gentile Christianity and the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, heading there with an offering to assist the Jerusalem Church. But Paul is clearly not confident of success. He seems to know that his trip will not end well. And indeed, there is no report of the Jerusalem leaders ever receiving Paul or his offering. In that sense, his trip is a failure, but while Paul's Christianity lost out in his lifetime, it became the norm not too long after his death.  (Paul Achtemeier wrote a wonderful little book on Paul and Acts that covers this: The Quest for Unity in the New Testament Church.)

It is somewhat sobering to think that only 30 years or so after Jesus' death, fights within the Christian community had already turned so bitter that people thought it necessary or justified to kill members of the "other side."  But Christians killing other Christians over faith differences has been commonplace in history, along with Christians killing non-Christians and non-Christians killing Christians. And it continues right up to this moment. It is much less common in America, especially nowadays, but that does not mean our divisions are any less bitter.

My current congregation hosted an Episcopal congregation for over five years after they were ejected from their property when the pastor led the church to break away from the denomination and join an African Anglican union that was more to their conservative tastes. A long and bitter legal battle ensued with the Episcopal diocese finally prevailing, allowing the congregation hosted here to return home. I can only guess at the amount of money and energy expended on the long battle.

My own denomination has fought over issues of gay and lesbian ordination for decades. The divide over the issue was often extremely bitter, so much so that those on the left distrusted anything proposed by those on the right and vice versa. It looked remarkably similar to the partisan political divide in our nation where if it comes from the other side, our side's against it.

Lost in all this is any real sense of a unity in Christ. We say that in our baptisms we are joined to Christ, made his brothers and sisters. And so we are brothers and sisters to all those other Christians who disagree with us.  But our loyalties to positions seem to have superseded our family loyalty.  Brothers and sisters are now our enemies, our opponents. And when we get really riled up, we sound like political partisans who insist their opponents want to "destroy America."

My congregation's experience of hosting that Episcopal congregation included many practical and logistical difficulties to overcome, but it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. And we now have a much closer relationship with the Episcopal congregation than was historically the case. A small victory for Christian unity.  But we are both progressive, liberal congregations with no great theological gulf separating us.

We are now entertaining a request from a local, Russian language congregation to hold worship and classes here. Because they are happy to worship in the afternoon, the practical and logistical challenges are considerably less than they were with the Episcopalians. However, they are not liberal or progressive, far from it. They aren't ordaining women, much less gays, and their theology might be described as something along conservative, evangelical, Southern Baptist lines.

Can they worship here, or does their theology make them unwelcome? They are our brothers and sisters, but we have some significant disagreements.  Are our disagreements and differences sufficient to undo the family bonds? A question that biological families sometimes wrestle with.

I have considered myself a liberal or progressive for all of my adult life. I have been a longtime member and supporter of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, a group that has worked toward the full inclusion and ordination of those in the LGBT community.  But I have always been somewhat uncomfortable identifying myself primarily by such things. And that discomfort has only grow in recent years.

I am not a liberal or progressive who happens to be a Christian.  I am a follower of Jesus who happens to be a liberal or progressive. And I fear that the Christian right and left do grave damage to the Church universal, that vast family of all the baptized, when our primary identity comes from our place left or right, our denomination, our style of worship, or anything else other than Christ.

There was an article in the local paper yesterday about Protestants no longer comprising a majority in the United States, something no one would have predicted 50 years ago. Meanwhile, we Presbyterians have created yet another denomination, splitting again, largely over the issue of gay ordination.

God sure has one dysfunctional family.

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Two Miracles and God's Compassion

Two miracles; and what a contrast. In the first, a centurion comes to Jesus, seeking healing for one of his slaves.  In this story the focus in on the man's faith.  He comes to Jesus and asks for his help.  Jesus is astounded at the man's great faith, and grants the centurion's request. Presumably the healing and the man's faith are related.

But then comes another miracle, this one more impressive than the last. Jesus raises a man from death.  But this time there is no request for help and no demonstration of great faith. Jesus sees a widow whose son has died. He is filled with compassion, and he acts, going so far as to violate purity laws by touching the funeral bier. (Luke tells the story in a way that points us to 1 Kings 17, where another widow's son is raised.)

In Jesus' time, in a day before social safety nets, widows and orphans were among the most vulnerable.  The frequent admonitions in the Bible to care for the widow and orphan are a call to care for society's most vulnerable.  And a widow without a son was in a most precarious position. In a time when women did not have legal status as persons, being widowed and without a son left her totally defenseless, and she might well be reduced to begging.

Jesus sees the situation and he springs into action. There are no questions about her faith or worthiness. There are no questions at all, but rather two commands. "Do not weep... Young man, I say to you, rise!" after which "Jesus gave him to his mother."

If Jesus is indeed a window onto God's heart (and that would seem to be a most fundamental Christian notion), then it seems that God is moved more by God's own compassion than by our faith. That is not to make light of faith, but I have heard too often that God didn't heal someone because people didn't pray enough or didn't have enough faith. Yet in this story, deep compassion leads Jesus to raise the dead. And of course Jesus goes to the cross, not because of anyone's great faith, but because of God's great compassion.

There are times when I cannot understand why God's compassion does not seem more evident. I have no good answer for why God does not intervene when children are being slaughtered or entire villages are wiped out in ethnic cleansing. Nor do I know why God permits horrible personal suffering that leads people to take their own lives.  But if Jesus is my guide, I can only trust that God's compassion is at work in some way I cannot discern. Children are not being slaughtered because someone prayed the wrong prayer or had faith that failed to soar like the centurion's.

And me, as a part of the body of Christ, what about my compassion? At this moment, I'm thinking less about large scale compassion for the poor, the prisoner, etc. Instead I'm thinking about how hard it sometimes is for me to feel compassion for those who irritate me or make life hard for me.  Very often, I don't see people's hurts or brokenness if they inconvenience me very much. And people who actually make my job difficult may get no compassion at all.

On one occasion Jesus says that he comes to serve, and whoever wants to be great must first be a servant to all. A servant tends to the needs of others. Not a job many aspire to, and being a servant to all sounds impossible. I suppose it is, unless one is moved by compassion and love.

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Love, Security, and Freedom

"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you? "Every time I hear Jesus say this, it cuts me to the quick. I say, "Jesus is Lord" without much hesitation.  It is one of the most basic Christian affirmations, and it means many things at the same time.  Jesus is master, boss, due great honor, the ultimate authority, and more. And thanks to the peculiar Jewish use of the word "lord" as a substitute for the divine name, it also means Jesus is God.

So if I easily say "Jesus is Lord," why do I find it so difficult to act like it?  Clearly Jesus anticipates this problem, and in Matthew's gospel he addresses it even more bluntly. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." (I hope this statement is at least partly hyperbole on Jesus' part.) Jesus couldn't be more clear about the need to do as he says, and I embrace him as Lord.  So why is it so hard to actually live as he commands?

I like to think that Jesus is sometimes less than clear about what he wants me to do. And certainly there are times when it's difficult to know just what a disciple is to do in the face of complex situations. Clearly Jesus wants me to be for the poor, but exactly what policies and programs would be most helpful is not always clear.

However, I think my biggest problem with following Jesus is fear. If I did what Jesus says, even most of the time, lots of "bad" things might happen.  People might not like me. Worse, they might tell other people not to like me, that I was a troublemaker or stupid or misguided. And I want people to think well of me. Following Jesus also might cause me to invest myself and my possessions in things other than myself. But if I did that, I might not have enough. And I'm afraid of not having enough. I'm afraid of being insecure. And if I don't look out for myself, who's going to do so?

There's a famous line from 1 John that says "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear."  I have known a few people who seemed to have no fear, and it gave them a remarkable freedom. (I'm not talking about the bravado that comes from the "immortality of youth" or from not realizing the risks involved.) These people could take a difficult stand without worrying about what it might cost them. They could be generous beyond what might seem prudent. They could take great risks that might not pan out and did not seemed crushed if things went poorly.

I once thought that such people were simply braver than me. They were better able to screw up their courage and do difficult things. They were more accomplished at fighting their fears. I no longer think that. Rather I think their remarkable freedom to do difficult things comes from being remarkably secure. They are not much worried about what others will think or say. They are not greatly concerned about not having enough.  And with most of them, this is a matter of feeling secure in God's love. God loves them even if no one else does. God cares for them and will provide for them. The resurrection assures them that finally, nothing is stronger than God's love, the love in which they rest.

One of the great pitfalls in my faith life is a desire to makes sense of and understand everything. That makes me good at theology but not always very good at knowing God. Too often, I know about rather than know.

I suppose that with enough scientific study and research and analysis, it might be possible to explain the things that happen to someone when they fall in love. It might even be possible to predict whether or not two people could fall in love and under what circumstances. But even if all this were possible, I don't think knowing it would be anything like actually falling in love.

"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you?" Jesus, help me know you and your love.  Help me really know, so that I can be secure and free.

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