Tuesday, September 27, 2005

What is Kindness?

Chris Stewart got me thinking about the definition of kindness. It seems to me that we often accept simple politeness for kindness. In our culture we describe a kind person as someone nice. Being kind is about being nice to someone else. The definition of kindness that draws us back to the nature of God says there is more to kindness than being nice.

Taking off on our agricultural metaphor, kindness has to be some sort of ground cover vine or grass. It is a the raw material that makes up the social fiber. Kindness is at the root of hospitality. I think most of us understand how the concept of hospitality has become warped in our culture. (Jeff, you did a recent series on hospitality - any way we can see it?). In ancient times hospitality was more than just being nice. It was required by the gods. Those who didn't show proper hospitalty were as bad as horse theives. To deny hospitality was to violate the basic covenants of human co-existence. When you think about it, especially in the ancient context, it makes sense.

What is the alternative to kindness? Kenneson says it is self-sufficiency. Take self-sufficiency to its extreme and you have a sort of Mad Max Thunderdome world. I saw glimpses of this world on the streets of London. Beggars stole from beggars. It is self-sufficiency to the extreme. Thunderdome is fiction, but the Superdome isn't. One of our newest members was in the Superdome during Katrina. I asked him if it was mob rule and he corrected me. A life-long resident of New Orleans, he told me that gangs are absent in New Orleans, it is instead a city of "every man for himself." Kindness was absent.

New Orleans, kindness and pop culture are coalescing in my stream of consciousness here and I cannot avoid thinking of Blanche DuBois in Streetcar Named Desire. So often her famous line ("I have always depended on the kindness of strangers") is ripped from its context and used to compliment nice people. Blanche is adrift in the world looking for another to show her genuine kindness. But like so many she enters into relationships that are more contractual than covenantal. She gives herself to strange men so that she can get what she needs to survive - thus she depends on the kindness of strangers. (The story takes place in New Orleans by the way).

Thinking of all this I am intrigued about the possibility of "chesed"-level kindness coming to fruition among us.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Be Patient with my Rant (Post)

Patience - This is the one that gets me. We live in a world of haste and impatience. The way we have ordered the Christian life and the life of the church is impatient. I recall Robert Weber saying something profound at a worship conference: "We don't linger over the Lord's Supper."

Perhaps it was Weber or perhaps it was someone else (John Mark Hicks?) who mentioned that he had spoken to a church leader who bragged that they found a way to complete the service of the Lord's supper in 10 minutes. The response to this was, "But why would you?"

Worship is impatient. It must be knocked off in an hour. Our LIFE Groups will be impatient - they cannot linger over the word but must complete the lesson in the alotted time. We are Fed- Exxed out of our Air Mail chutes. When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. Now! Now! Now! Now! What is the call word of the age? "Git-r-done"

How many of us have gone to another place where the pace of life is slower. Some adjust quickly to it (I do). Others may find it frustrating. I recall being on the Island of Arran just off the coast of Scotland years ago. There's one bus that runs around the perimeter of the island. And it is never on time. Hurry and busy are not welcome on Arran.

Of course, I wonder if the Margarita-ville attitude to life is really patience or is it just laziness? Maybe patience is the ability to resist the anxious viruses of our age. The ability to linger at the Lord's Table while the culture screams at us to "get back to work" or to "get worried about the next great threat" is more than passivity it seems. It is an active and bold decision worthy of any of the Biblical greats. It is the bold character of Christus Victor who takes up his cross when all the rest of the world is screaming their collective heads off - some want to fight, some want to crucify, some want to gamble, and some want to go back to the business or pleasure that was interrupted by the problem of the Nazarene rabbi. But Christ is ready to linger at the table of the Lord.

Friday, September 16, 2005

PEACE Sermon - Michael Harbour

Here is a sample PEACE sermon by Michael Harbour. Critiques? Observations?

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Cultivating Peace – A Sewing ProjectSunday, September 25, 2005 Southeast

Integrity.
Integrated.
It means to have all the parts working together as they should work.
It means to be whole.

To lose your integrity.
Disintegrated.
It is to come undone. (Makes me think of the Guess Who – It’s too late, she’s gone too far, she’s lost the sun. She’s come undone.)

And I think we know some about coming undone.
We have relationships that come undone.
What happens to you when you lose your job? Or when the financial crisis wave sweeps over you? What happens when you get a diagnoses that changes the direction of your life, or somehow has the capacity the change your identity?
Disintegration. We are so tempted to come undone. Do we have a choice?

The work of God is the harmony of creation.
Everything working together, as it is designed.
It seems to me that if God is interested in having things knit together in a harmonious way, then we do in fact have a choice.

We are thinking today about peace.
What does peace mean?
We often think in terms of the absence of conflict. If you are not fighting, you have peace. The Bible, however, has a more positive idea of peace. The word that would characterize biblical peace would be wholeness. Probably, this is also what it means to be saved (being made whole, or even being healed).

The Hebrews called it shalom. Shalom (or eirene in the New Testament - Irene) is well-being, wholeness and harmony that pours out from you and is the character of your relationships. It is the ability to be non-anxious. It is a relationship intensive idea. This is not just being non-anxious in you. It is to be okay with God and with people because you are integrated- together.

Peace is not a state of mind (or only a state of mind), but is intended to be a way of life.
How common is peace, in your experience? How might we come to have peace?

James 3:16-18 (NRSV) 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

Envy and selfish ambition are integrity issues. They speak that inner voice language, that whispers in your ear that says, “What I have and who I am, is not enough.”

And I think this comes out of the story that we tell ourselves about the nature of life.
We think that the story is about establishing ourselves.
What is the life-story about? Is it about getting fed?
I am going to perform at work so that I can get fed.
I am not going to rock the boat, because if I do, I won’t get fed.
Or: I am going to rock the boat, because if I don’t, I won’t get fed.

Sometimes I think that the story that we live by is one of power and privilege.
When we are not worried about survival, we are spending our time and energy doing what we want.

We rub up against other folks who have other interests, other ideas, other opinions.
We put those interests, ideas and opinions out there as a contest.
This is the culture war.
It is hard to be integrated with folks who have strongly held, dogmatic opinions. I grew up a Democrat. My grandfather was so adamant that he once said that he would not vote for Jesus, if he was registered as a Republican. When I was a restaurant manager, I was a Republican. Now I describe myself as something different.

Labels are hard…but I think I could see myself as a Christian Anarchist. Anarchy sounds horrible. It means that no one is above. When modified by Christ, however, I think we could find a very peaceable place. We have a king, but it is not Caesar, not earthly. Our allegiance is not, finally, to the flag. Not to one nation, under God. Our allegiance is to God.
God still has the rule in place….that knowledge of good and evil.
God is still the One who knows and determines what is right and wrong.

We are one in Christ, where there is neither Jew nor Greek (cultural divide), male or female (gender divide), slave or free (class divide). The rich are not above the poor. Skin color, or language has no clout, or credit, or demerit. Weak and strong, we spoke of when thinking about love. The strong yield. We are one. At least that is what we say. That is the ideal. We fall short.

Paul says to the Christians in Rome…and to you and me…

Romans 14:15-19 (NRSV) 15 If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. 16 So do not let your good be spoken of as evil. 17 For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. 19 Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

Peace.

How can you cultivate peace among you? We will have to plow up some fallow ground, some untilled soil.
We cultivate through…

1. An Enriched Understanding Of Our Baptism. In baptism, we are all called to die.

  • Baptism is not just for individuals. We are being incorporated into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27; Gal 2:20). We are dying to self-interest and proclaiming Jesus as Lord.
  • Parts of the body are not more important than the body. Parts exist to facilitate the well-being of the whole. “You are not your own” (1 Cor 6:19). A finger has no utility without a body! A finger does not have unmitigated access to the head.
  • As a central and abiding practice of the church, baptism is a public and political act that announces to the world our change of allegiance and proclaims to our fellow members our interdependence as members of the one body of Christ.
  • If you have not been baptized….you need to be…to live a different kind of story for your life….the Jesus story.


2. Build One Another Up – our freedom is not our personal private possession.

  • Why should Christians not have lawsuits among them? (1 Cor 6:7) Self interest is not central to the Jesus story.
  • Use your words and actions for edification (Eph 4: 29). Our primary mission in life is not to guard our own well-being.

3. Admonish One Another. If community wholeness was a mutually held interest, we could be bold to speak to one another in a way that was challenging without people running away. Jesus did not come to bring cheap peace (lack of conflict), but to bring shalom.

4. Forgiving One Another…we can have no wholeness unless we are willing to be received back into community…and to receive others back into the fabric of our lives. We fall short. Until we learn to have our hearts and arms open, knowing that it can be painful to do so, we will not know peace.

Integrity.
Being knit together into an amazing fabric, our lives being whole, and your communities being whole.
That is what we are seeking.


Shepherd’s BLESSING: 2 Thessalonians 3:16 (NRSV) 16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with all of you.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Joy and 9-11

At first glance, it seems inappropriate to bring up Joy on 9/11. After all, this was the day that the tone of chapel at ACU changed significantly from what I heard. The theme of preaching following 9/11 was sobering. There were calls to go to the house of mourning rather than laughing. Also, 9/11 and the following days were days in which David Letterman was very chastened. Dan Rather was the first guest on the show and he cried.

But in truth, the odd coincidence of Joy and 9/11 asks us to reflect on the nature of real joy and where we are now. . .

We have left "the house of mourning," but is our society any more joyous? Were we joyous before? (9/11 was big, but we had all been through Columbine just two years earlier).
I think this reflection causes us to differentiate between joy and entertainment.

When everyone was asking if things would return to "normal" after 9-11, I think they were hoping to return to the pseudo-innocence of frivolity, irony, and entertainment. I think this gives us an opportunity to name true joy. True joy isn't a fragile fruit that withers in the heat of the day or is susceptible to blight. It is a hardier plant that blooms in the most unexpected places.

Final Two Small Group Lessons Posted

All ten lessons have now been posted on the Quail Springs site. Please reply to this blog posting if you have any trouble accessing the material there.

The lessons may be accessed by clicking on the link provided below at the post "First Two Small Group Guides" or by following these instructions:

Our website is located at www.quailchurch.com
Click on "Ministries"
Choose "Connections Groups"
Click on "Downloads"
Click on "Life on the Vine Discussions"

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

First two small group guides

Great news! The first two group lessons are posted on the website of the Quail Springs church in OKC. Thanks to Trey Finley and Quail for loaning us the space!

Here’s the URL. It’s messy, but it does the job.

http://www.quailchurch.com/cgi-bin/DownloadList.cgi?section=connection&cat=Life%20on%20the%20Vine%20Discussions