Faith Venture

If you hurry to get to the future, you always get a punishment for it. For example, instant coffee.”

Alan Watts

We can’t wait for tomorrow or next week or next month to arrive. Things will be better.

The young man I hired who had just graduated from the university who asked if he would be in the running for company president the next year.

The person blind to the opportunity at hand to serve and grow due to living in a future yet to occur.

They lose the opportunity of the moment. This moment. All that we have is the moment. What TS Eliot called the still point of the turning world.

What is this very moment telling us?

Before the gatherings of Jesus-followers became rich and politically powerful after 340, before bishops controlled wealth and had the ear of kings, before the law sort of made all citizens members of the church, there was an active, thriving, although underground, church.

This church performed services unheard of in ancient times. When plagues rolled through Rome and the wealthy class fled to the mountains, the Christians came out from their hiding areas and nursed those who were ill disregarding their own health. When the cultural practice of leaving unwanted babies (usually because of being female) out for wild animals to kill, Christ followers took them in and nursed them.

Because of the witness and service of these early disciples hospitals were founded and schools were started. Women were held in higher esteem.

What if we were more like that today? Not rich. Not politically powerful. But leading through service. Attracting people by what we do, how we live.

What if…

Andy Stanley and Adam Grant accompanied me on today’s walk around the community’s ponds. Grant was on the Andy Stanley Leadership podcast.

Ancient peoples discovered long ago that you are what you repeatedly do. Read early in the book where Matthew records Jesus’ long “Sermon on the Mount”. No, actually, go and read it slowly. Good. Now, what was the punch line?

Not a trick question. Jesus concludes by saying whoever hears his words and does them is like a man who builds his house on a solid foundation.

Beware of a person’s words only. Observe what they do.

Grant is a respected writer and researcher of human behavior. He looked at some recent research determining that there are three behaviors that we may fall into: preachers, prosecutors, politicians. Preachers tell you what they believe. Prosecutors accuse you of bad things. Politicians seek to divide us to gain praise from some.

These he contrasts to the person who is always curious, seeking new knowledge, willing to admit being wrong in order to find the truth. These are doers rather than believers.

Jesus continually invited people to follow him. Follow is an action verb. You don’t sit on your behind talking if you are following Jesus. You are seeking, serving, helping, washing feet.

You can listen to what people say who are trying to influence you, but most important is to observe closely what they do.

Walking around a retention pond at sunrise.

Light snow covers the grassy areas. Glistening in the bright sun reflecting from a pure blue sky.

An eagle glides easily overhead.

An otter swims across the pond.

Ducks are pairing in preparation for mating season.

Beside me a red-winged blackbird sings to me.

Beautiful morning to be alive.

Joy. Let the experience infuse while it can.

As the formula goes, forgive me, for I have sinned.

I posted a comment on a controversial subject on Facebook.

“Let’s have a good, rational, reasonable discussion on Facebook…” said no one, ever.

But it reminded me of a thought I have pondered too long.

There are two ways of reading the Bible (or many other types of books):

1. Look for phrases or sentences I agree with, compile a list, measure other people by how much they uphold that list;
2. Look for the broad view of meaning of the whole and apply the core teachings.

Practitioners of 1 are discussed in the gospels. They are even named. Pharisees. They are not the heroes of the gospels. They are the bad guys. In the end, they killed Jesus.

The practitioner of 2 had his story also told in the gospels. He was named. It was Jesus. In the end he won by losing. He returned from the execution. His followers grew so numerous that they took over the Roman Empire 300 years later.

The Pharisees? Nothing is heard of them after 70 AD (or CE depending upon your politics).

Jesus left one measure by which we know if we have the correct interpretation of scripture. I follow this line of reasoning. “Love one another as I have loved you,” he said. “By this everyone will know that you are my followers.”

There was a discussion recently about who has authority over whom—in a contemporary church and in a family. One writer missed an important sentence in the story of the last days of Jesus’ life. The story where he talked about love. He also said, “All authority has been given to me…” By all, it’s pretty obvious he means, well, all. There is none left over for me. None for you.

Roman and Judaic social structures were all about authority. Defining who had authority over whom to the minute degree. Jesus turned that all upside down when he washed his friends’ feet in the upper room. And he said that he had all authority. Love one another.

The famous story about Michael Jordan was about being cut from an early basketball team. He came back to be a star as a senior in high school and then college and then the pros. Until the end of his career what distinguished him from lesser basketball players, even elite ones, was how hard he practiced.

The young musician on her way to a performance at the famed arts center Carnegie Hall asked someone on the street, “How can I get to Carnegie Hall?” He replied, “Practice, my child, practice.”

According to Jesus and Paul and James and other early writers, our spiritual life encompasses both our relationship to God and our relationship to our fellow human beings.

How do we grow and develop those spiritual muscles?

Practice.

We must practice more fruitful quiet time with prayer and meditation. We must practice being kind—both to ourselves and to everyone we meet.

For some people, it’s almost a dynamic tension—being alone and being with others. To be complete followers of Jesus, we must master that tension. How? Through daily practice. Beginning right this moment.

An old joke in America asks, “How can you tell a lawyer if lying? His lips are moving.” (Or substitute your favorite other profession, such as politician, marketer…)

I do not feast on current event news. On the other hand, I do have a few sources I check twice a day. I saw some news this morning. I thought, “Are there no ethics left?”

Even in my most rebellious adolescent years complaining about authority figures telling me what to do and all the other adolescent rants (that we still hear people in their 30s through 70s going on), I never considered lying, cheating, stealing, killing, and so on. There was a core of ethics that I seldom breached. (I must admit I wasn’t perfect, something I regret to this day.)

I used to know Republicans with ethics. Where have they all gone? The same with Democrats. That’s an American illustration. Substitute your own favorite politics wherever you live.

We must have a foundation of ethical behavior in order to breed and cultivate trust.

We must start in the mirror in the morning. What ethical lapses have we perpetrated in the past 24 hours? What will I do today to do the right thing? Can I teach someone else today?