Monday Morning Hypocrite

I have been overcome this week by the difference between the way I live and the way I want to live.  I listen to stories of friends who have lost their homes due to flood waters, who have lost family members due to disease and war, who have lost love due to sin. I nod, I pray, I say words of comfort - as is befitting someone assigned to this role. I believe all the words I say.

Yet in my life, I am paralyzed by fear over lesser things. My mind is filled with questions and doubts: "Will we have enough? Are they okay? What if I fail? What is next?"

Everyday I watch those who do not make claims of great faith live lives that demonstrate great faith. And I am humbled. I watch those whose lives have given them an emotional kick in the stomach that would leave me broken and huddled in the corner of some dark room, and yet they get up and go on and pour their lives out for others.

I do not doubt the love of God, or my salvation, or my calling, although I understand why folks doubt those things. Instead, I live every day with a sense of nagging disappointment in myself. By this point I thought I would be further along on the journey. I thought the insecurities of my adolescence would be a distant memory by now.

I know that in one sense this is a spiritual issue. There is an Enemy who desires to distract me from the work I am called to do. And I know that if I would only spend less time thinking about myself, and more about the God who loves me, it would be better. I know that.

And I know that God uses broken people to reach broken people.

Lord, forgive me for trying to pretend that I am greater than I really am. Forgive me for twisting and turning and perverting the faith so that it seems okay to hide our true selves from those with whom we are called to live in community. Lord, forgive me for making it seem, in words and actions, that I am anything other than a man still in need of a savior.

Lord, forgive me, a sinner.

Mother Teresa Had It Easy

Sometimes I think Mother Teresa had it easy.

Well, not really ... but in one way she did.

As she walked the streets of Calcutta, the pain and suffering were obvious. Dirty, broken, thrown-away people lying in the gutter. They were everywhere, and their bruises and sores were there for all to see.

It is more difficult in many places in America. Yes, there are those people whose pain is readily evident on the outside, if we are willing to go where they are. As one of my favorite songwriters wrote, “Will you go down to the bridge by the river and meet all the folks who call it home.” And if we are looking, we will see the beggars and thrown-away people on our streets.

But most of the hurting, broken people in our society, in our community, keep their bruises hidden. Their pain is not so easy to see. Many surround their lives with enough stuff - houses and cars and toys -  to hide who they really are. 

So I have just decided to believe - and try to act as if - everyone whom I meet is just as broken and bruised and cut and battered and sad and lonely and hurt and anxious and afraid and in need of love as I feel sometimes. I have decided to see them as they might look if their pain was clearly obvious on the outside. Because if we could see clearly, I believe we would see that the only explanation for all of the weird, strange, irrational, hurtful behaviors we see around us every day is that most of the people we meet are in a great deal of pain.

Lord, help me to see people the way you see them. 

Sometimes, I think Mother Teresa had it easy.

Extroverts, Introverts, and the First Week of College

I have enjoyed reading the Facebook updates from those young scholars who are starting the first year of college. Well, I’ve enjoyed reading some of them - those written by extroverts. Updates from introverts, if they write them at all, can be painful to read. You see, the first few weeks of college are paradise for extroverts. It’s all about meeting new groups of people, and participating in social activities designed to help you fit into a large group of other new people. It’s extrovert heaven, primarily because it is orchestrated by other extroverts - those college student development staff members and student government types who are in those roles and given this task because, well...they are “people persons.” In other words, they are extroverts. And all those new freshmen who write on Facebook about how wonderful college is and how much they love it ... after just 4 days: well, guess what - they love it because it hasn’t really started yet. 

These first few days of college life are completely divorced from what the academic side of higher education is all about. Oh sure, an occasional dean or provost tries to throw in a philosophical discussion here and there, but those are few and far between, and are always led by the most friendly and outgoing young professors and graduate assistants. They don’t let the majority of the faculty anywhere near the place and the faculty aren’t complaining.

In order to become a college professor, you have to spend thousands of hours working alone or in small groups, mostly in libraries and laboratories. You have to be comfortable focusing your attention on things most other people don’t care about - and you really only like to be around folks who are interested in exactly the same things you are interested in. You don’t like social gatherings where the goal is to meet as many new people as possible. You see, most college faculty are largely - in a much higher percentage than the population as a whole - introverts. And when they think back on their undergraduate experience, they remember that the first few weeks of their freshman year was the worst time of their entire college life.

So, if you are the parent of a new college student, and he or she is a bit overwhelmed by all the new people and by all the forced social interactions - and just the idea of walking into the dining hall is overwhelming - tell them to hang on. It gets better. In just a few days, they will settle into their classes, and the focus will not be on making friends, but on the intellectual tasks of the college experience. That is usually much more in the “sweet spot” of introverts. And they can find a few people who are interested in the deep conversations and activities in which introverts thrive.

Of course, walking into the dining hall will probably never be their favorite thing, and dorm life is not near as much fun for some as it is for others. But it gets better, especially if someone sends real mail,  and that mail includes brownies or an occasional check.

Fat Babies

I participate in several ongoing conversations with pastors from around the country. Most of the time we talk about spiritual blessings, sermon topics, theological complexities, and the practical aspects of pastoral ministry. The conversations, and the people, are a blessing.

And there are times when we share frustrations. One of the greatest, and one of the most common, pastoral frustration, is as old as the church itself. The Apostle Paul spoke of this frustration in 1Corinthians 3, and the author of Hebrews referred to it in Hebrews 5 - believers who continued in their immaturity, and who desired spiritual “milk” when they should have been ready for “meat.”

Should pastors respond to people at the point of their perceived need, ministering to them as the immature folks desire, which may in reality be encouraging and even enabling them (to use the popular psychological term)  to continue in their immaturity, or should they confront the immaturity and encourage them toward spiritual maturity - which could result in them leaving the church?

This answer seems simple - in the abstract. It’s like the parent who continues to treat the grown child as if they are still young, providing for all of their needs. What was appropriate and healthy parenting when the child was little is no longer healthy and appropriate - yet it can be difficult to stop. From the outside, for those who are not the parents, it seems simple - just stop enabling the immaturity and demand a change in behavior. But for those in the middle of it, it is more complicated. A fear of losing the child’s love and a broken relationship lead some families to continue in the dysfunction.

The immature believer - no  matter how long they have been in the church -  demands that everyone meet their needs. Every pastor is familiar with the person who constantly wants to be recognized, to be affirmed, who wants their needs met while not focusing on the needs of others. Parents who want the youth group to take care of THEIR kids, even to the exclusion of kids not in the church. Folks who keep score about how many times they are thanked, how many calls they get if they miss worship, how many times they are asked to lead. Folks who need a personal conversation with the pastor EVERY Sunday. And these folks let everyone know that their needs are not being met.

Pastors struggle with how to best address the increasing demands of needy people. When folks are new to the faith, new to the church, such needs are expected. When folks are at a difficult place in life’s journey, the church should come alongside them at their point of need. Yet when, as one pastor told me, a long-time member keeps track of how many people come over to greet her on Sunday morning, yet will not move to greet others, there is a spiritual maturity problem. And simply trying to do better next time to meet the wishes of this milk-drinking saint is a recipe for constant pastoral frustration. 

Which part is for you?

Today I was reading from my devotional (Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals), and read this quote from Frederick Buechner:

"The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you. There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too." (from Wishful Thinking, 1973)


As I was reading, I began thinking of people in my life. I thought of a specific person for each statement.

Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.


Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you.


Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us.


It's for you I created the universe. I love you. 


There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.


Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.


I don't know if Buechner thought of it that way when he wrote it. Perhaps, in his mind, he wrote it as a complete thought, and would be offended if he knew I was breaking it up into little pieces - like the musician who doesn't want someone to listen to just one song on his album, because he wrote and recorded every song to be listened to with every other song. Or when I hear someone take a single sentence from one of my sermons or lectures and say, "That part spoke to me," and I want to say, "But I didn't mean it to be taken alone! If you do that everything will be out of balance. You have to take it all together or not at all!" Okay, I don't get that upset - I'm usually glad that someone got something out of what I say - but I am often concerned that when they take just one phrase and claim it as truth for them, they will miss something really important by removing it from the context.

We do this with scripture. We claim a verse or a passage, and make it ours - and claim it, not just as truth, but as TRUTH! Sometimes, there is great blessing there, but there is also danger. We may be tempted to build an entire belief system around one statement, and by removing the context, we miss the big picture -  the really important, big picture.

All that being said ...

I think it is okay, once in awhile, to do what I just did with Buechner's statement, and with other writings. It's okay to take a scripture passage, like Jeremiah 29, and knowing full well the historical and cultural context of the passage, still offer it to a friend as a gift from God for them, for today. It is even okay, occasionally, (and those of you who know me know how much this pains me to say), to take a passage like John 3 (You know - the passage that includes verse 3, the one about being "born again"- and that some folks say as long as you've banged your head on the altar at teen camp, well you can detour around everything Jesus said about how we are called to live, including and especially Jesus' hard teachings such as Matthew 5-7 )  and offer it as a gift from God, as a description of how our relationship with God may sometimes look and feel.

Once in awhile, we don't have to make sure we draw the big picture, we don't need to offer a complete, systematic theology. Just give a gift. A small gift. A gift that can be just the right words for today.

So, I want to invite you to go back and read the quote from Buechner. Which part is for you today? Which part is a gift for you?

Reach out and take it.

Keeping Score

Playing mini-golf with my family, I‘m the one who keeps score. No one else cares, and no one ever asks “Who won?” or “How did I do?” So, even though we are there just to be together and enjoy each other’s company, I like to keep score.

Keeping score must be pretty important, because we try to do it for just about everything. We need to know who is winning, and who is a success, and who is best. 

Even when it comes to church.

Which church is the best? 

Which pastor is the most successful? 

How many members?

What is your attendance? 

How many small groups?

How big is your building? (or buildings? or campuses?)

How big is your offering?

Even when we know that churches are about being together, enjoying each other’s company, learning to love one another, and making a difference in their community.  Even though we are supposed to show people how to follow Jesus, and not really focus the attention on ourselves. And even though by just about every worldly standard, Jesus was not real great at all the measures we use to define ecclesiastical success - well, we keep on keeping score. 

Because if we don’t, how will we know who is winning? 

I wish I could figure out a way to measure significance - whether our church, or any of us, are making a difference that matters. I would like to be able to say that folks are growing closer to Jesus, becoming holier, and reflecting the love and grace of God everywhere they go. I would like to be able to say that the kingdom of God is more evident, and that people are seeing Jesus in the world because our little church is on State Road in a little corner of southeastern Pennsylvania, but I really can’t, because I have not figured out how to measure it. 

So, we keep counting members, and attendance, and buildings, and offerings. And those with bigger numbers are considered successes, and the rest of us are ... well, you know what they say about winning being the only thing.

And even as I try to convince myself that all these numbers don’t matter, I feel like I am just trying to justify and rationalize. Maybe if I worked a little harder, prayed a little more fervently, and maybe if I bought more books and videos and went to another conference to hear one of those successful pastors ...

Protect - - - - - - - Prepare

For a number of years Esther and I have spent time in conversation with parents about parenting... Not as experts, of course, as that would just be silly, but as fellow travelers, sharing what we have learned, are learning, and hearing the same from others. It is one of the things we enjoy most.

Many times, our conversations involve the idea that our goal as parents is to help our children become healthy adults who are making a difference in the world, rather than some other things, such as being popular kids, or kids that have everything they want, or cool teens. With that as our purpose, we make decisions as parents, and we create environments where such an outcome is more likely.

Inevitably in these conversations, there comes a point when my need for a white board, or a big sheet of paper, becomes unbearable. I walk up to the white board and draw a long horizontal line. I then write a word at each end of the line. 

At one end of the line is the word Protect and at the opposite end of the line is the word Prepare. I then say, "I am about to tell you something really hard. It may be the hardest thing we have to learn as parents, but it is absolutely essential. It is not complicated, or particularly insightful, but it is very important."

"Notice the relationship between the words protect and prepare. They are at opposite ends of the line. This is because, and here comes the important part, in order to prepare our kids for what life is like, we must protect them less. There is a time when our focus is on protecting, and most good, loving parents know how to do this. However, there comes a time when we must choose to prepare them for life, which means protecting them less.  Sometimes this is counter-intuitive. We want to jump in and protect, but we must fight against it. We risk them getting hurt, but it is a risk we must take. Yes, we must protect, but if our goal in life is to prepare them for healthy adulthood, protecting cannot always be the most important thing."

My speech is usually met by some positive nods of the head, usually by those parents who have not gotten to the difficult moments of parenthood. Some of those difficult moments are anticipated: leaving your child with a sitter for the first time, putting them on a school bus, giving them the keys to the car, dropping them off at college. But most of the difficult decisions of "protect/prepare" come by surprise: dealing with a bully, stepping in when we think a teacher or coach is being unfair, watching our child deal with relationship issues, etc. While we have all laughed at the stories of "helicopter parents," who hover over their kids' lives, ready to jump in at a moment's notice, when we are honest we admit that we have been tempted to do so ourselves.

As I have talked with parents for many years, I am surprised that we seldom make the connection to our lives of faith. You see, God also has to deal with the "protect/prepare" continuum in  our lives. There are times when God protects us, and sometimes we may not even be aware of the danger. But there are other times when, in order to prepare us for our present, future, and eternal lives of significance, God does not protect as much. We face difficulties that challenge us beyond what we can bear alone. God does not remove or deny the challenge - we are forced to face it, head on. But we do not face the challenge alone. As Jesus said in John 14, we have a Comforter.

So even while we as parents find it necessary, in order to allow our children to become healthy adults, to step back and allow them to face the challenges of life, we are called to follow the example of our Father. We step back, but we do not step away. We are right there, ready to encourage, comfort, and support. As Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12, "For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory."

Grace and peace