Faith Venture

Last time I thought about focus. Reading further into Romans, we see Paul criticizing his fellow Jews. We could take that as something for us to beware of today.

“Instead of trusting God, they took over. They were so absorbed with their ‘God Projects’ that they didn’t notice God right there in front of them.”

That thought caused me to pause to reflect on the many board and committee meetings I’ve attended, local level or state level, where he could have said the same thing about us.

How often we are so wrapped up in ourselves that we lose focus of the ultimate goal.

When I was in training as a soccer referee, I had to learn to concentrate on my stride and pace, yet I had to maintain a focus on the ultimate goal and time.

Similarly, we have to have the meeting, the project, the daily disciplines, yet we must not lose sight of the real goal.

It’s focus…focus on God. This God who is paradoxically right there beside us all the way.

Anytime you’re practicing renunciation, you’re deluded. How about that! You’re deluded. What are you renouncing? Anytime you renounce something, you are tied forever to the thing you renounce. There’s a guru in India who says, ‘Every time a prostitute comes to me, she’s talking about nothing but God. She says I’m sick of this life that I’m living. I want God. But every time a priest comes to me, he’s talking about nothing but sex.’ Very well, when you renounce something, you’re stuck to it forever. When you fight something, you’re tied to it forever. As long as you’re fighting it, you are giving it power. You give it as much power as you are using to fight it.”

Anthony de Mello, Awareness

Sometimes there is a paradox in our focus. We focus on what not to do, and there is what our attention draws toward.

Jesus knew that. He taught that we follow where our heart leads, not necessarily what the Law says or what people tell us to do. Paul knew that. He taught in Romans that a problem of the Law was that we focus on it instead of the Spirit.

We become what we think about.

We can choose where to place our focus. But that takes work. And courage. And often we don’t want to work. The easy road beckons.

Therein lies the power of daily morning routines. Rise, fix our coffee or tea, focus on God for a period of time, then focus on what we wish to accomplish with these next 16 hours, and now we shall not drift aimlessly during the day.

I also write about what is called these days “digital transformation.” Magazines and company blogs tout it as something new and revolutionary. But, it is neither, exactly.

My first baby steps into that world occurred around 1978 when I entered a lot of engineering data into the company computer for the use of the materials and cost accounting departments. Note: computer == digital. I have either done that or written about it ever since.

Why did we begin “digitizing” our data? Managers and workers wanted to make better decisions. Today, companies may spend millions of dollars to accomplish that.

I thought about making better decisions that result in more effective actions while I read the Apostle Paul writing the the Jesus-followers in Rome. He discussed becoming aware of the difference between living in sin and living in the Spirit. He wished to decide for the Spirit, but, he tells us, his decisions often did not lead to actions.

Paul wants me (us) to decide to live in the Spirit…and he wants to see that my actions follow through with that decision.

I decided to lose weight this year. Have my actions through these seven weeks resulted in eating less, emphasizing healthful foods, and exercising more?

I decided to live with more kindness. Reviewing my actions of the past seven weeks as if I were a detached observer, what have my interactions with other people reflected?

My Welsh Baptist ancestors emphasized making a decision for Jesus. The question that indicts is whether my actions have changed because of that decision.

Make a decision that sticks.

We are “binging” an English/French TV series almost every evening working our way through 11 seasons. I like it because it is humorous, bordering on comic book, even. I don’t need tense drama prior to sleep.

An important visiting police investigator comes to the small island of St. Marie in the Caribbean. She is checking up on the local Inspector. In one scene, the friendly local bar owner takes the detective aside and tells her the police team often discusses cases at the bar and “I’ve even helped solve a couple of cases.”

Of course, that does not help the Inspector’s cause. But that scene points to a universal human condition—our need to feel important, our compulsion to say something to boost our own self-esteem.

I have a personality type where I have occasional painful flashbacks of stupid things I’ve said.

That should be just one additional warning building on the teaching of James about the tongue.

But at least my words are not recorded like those of James and John (and/or their mother, there are two stories) where they, misinterpreting the Kingdom (again), ask to be the most important.

Often it is best to be still.

Oh, and the TV story—just like when I teach on the Revelation of John, in the end it all works out OK.

Paul begins his journey into describing the path of spiritual formation with a list of ways we act drawing us away from God in his letter to the Romans. Before proceeding with the solution, he pauses for a warning.

I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together, and because you think you know God’s revealed word inside and out…The line from Scripture, “It’s because of you Jews that outsiders frown on God,” shows that it’s an old problem that is not going away.

Letter to the Romans, Message translation

“The Jews” were to be the light of God to the world. Their ancient scriptures criticized them. Paul, echoing what we hear Jesus say, brings it up to the his present day.

The question for me, and for you if you are part of a Christian church, is am I so convinced that I am right that I turn people off? More broadly, what part do Christians play in driving people away from God?

It’s too easy to criticize others. Especially those whom I cannot influence. But what about me? Do I lack humility? Do I cause people to turn away from God?

Questions for each of us to ponder in quiet meditation.

Paul leads us through the process of spiritual formation in his letter to the Romans. He gets to a point where he needed an example. All good writers need to pull in an example. Paul uses Abraham–father to the Jews (and many others). He talks about Abraham trusting God, even before the ritual sealing the agreement, and that trust was credited to him by God making Abraham right with him.

Then Paul tells us that God is always there for all of us. He uses the images that we throw open our doors to allow God in and discover that God has already opened his door for us.

That’s sort of weird. But it’s something I can picture. I’ve decided to trust God and allow him to enter a relationship if he wishes only to discover that he has opened his door already and is waiting for our door to open.

The way I look at it is like this–God has always existed, even before what we call time, and God is around us at all times. It is up to each of us to open our awareness and allow the spirit in. It’s like Jesus telling people that the Kingdom of God is all around us just waiting for us to enter.

Theologians will devise all manner of fancy words. Some will add rules, rituals, regulations. In the end, it’s really very simple. Open your spiritual eyes and see.

By the time I had left home for the University of Cincinnati at 17 and was befriended by a group of black guys in the dorm, I had met and talked to a grand total of one black man. I had a Jewish friend at university—the first Jewish person I had ever met.

I struggle to think of a single black, Asian, or Hispanic person at the second university I attended—a small Liberal Arts college in Ohio. The village I grew up in had no ethnic minorities. The county where I lived was 8% non-white. I’ve moved to a community in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago. I think there are two Asian families and one black family among the 1,000 plus population.

Contemplating Black History month, I thought about how little diversity there is and was where I have lived. I bet that is similar for many, if not most, of us. Even in cities people gather into areas of similarity.

My social media connections are highly diverse. There is some broadening of views there. That is a help.

As the pandemic winds down, I shall make it a priority to find ways to meet a diverse group of people.

Adding diversity of age, gender, ethnicity to groups whether business or nonprofit committees or organizations makes them stronger and more creative.

This is one of those posts that began with an idea with no vision of an end. I guess I’ll leave it there—with a call to action and no idea how to do it.

Paul writing early in his letter to the Roman churches boldly tells them “it’s not what we do, but what God does.” Then he repeats it just a bit later. When a writer repeats a thought, it must be important.

Let us put this in a context. Discussing spiritual formation, Paul began with a litany of the ways we humans (read I) fall short of living the kind of life God wants. This way of life (remember, lust, grasping, groping, evil thoughts…) separates us from God. We call that sin.

The Jewish people following from Moses, developed rules, or laws, that if we follow them to the letter, we will re-establish that close relationship with God.

It didn’t work.

Paul was brought up in that tradition. He devoted his life to studying it and trying to follow it.

Then came Jesus. He talked with Paul. Told him there was a different way.

It’s not what we do. It’s what God does. We call that grace. I think Jesus called it love.

How many of us say that we are under grace yet try to live as if under law? We set up lists of rules. If someone doesn’t follow them, then they cannot be part of our organization.

Paul, after his conversion from Phaiseeism, devoted his life to explaining what Jesus meant by “love one another as I have loved you.” And also the two commands Jesus left his followers, love God and love your neighbor.

After Paul repeats “it’s not what we do, but what God does”, then he tries to show us that we will naturally do those things that put us right with God. Not because we are trying to follow laws. No, it is because we understand that God made us right with him also making us free to live a good life.

Later, Paul will give us a glimpse of what it means with examples.

It’s a matter of attitude.

When we read spiritual writing or scriptures or even health books, whom do we picture in our minds as the audience?

I’m reading Pauls’s letter to the Romans in the Message translation to get a new perspective. It shakes up your thinking when you read in a different translation that changes words around a bit.

Paul said early in the letter after he listed all the bad things humans are capable of doing, “whatever is written in these scriptures is not what God says about others but what he says to us.”

That really hit.

Now go back and read those paragraphs about lust and rampant evil, grasping, groping, backstabbing…

That is not other people. As the lead character in the old comic strip, Pogo, said, “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”

During some of my meditations, God has shown me quite graphically how I am capable of all manner of evil and sinful acts and thoughts.

When I read those lists of sin and evil, it is I who is described. Pull out John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent, reading through his lists of emotions and realize that I am described. The point is not that others share those faults. The point is to take it personally.

That is where Paul begins his discussion of the growth of spiritual formation. Until I realize that in me, I’ll never progress.

[Spoiler alert: Paul (and God) shows us the way out.]

Paul opens his Letter to Christ-Followers in Rome with greetings (like any thoughtful letter writer) and then jumps into his spiritual formation teaching.

First, he hits lust. Following what in English is rendered as an entire paragraph on that topic (it must really twang his chord), he proceeds to list a number of bad ways people behave and bad emotions people allow to control them.

I thought, “Hasn’t Paul pulled out this list of bad things in other letters? Does he dwell on these thoughts?”

But, wait a minute. He also writes many lists of good things. Lists of how a mature follower of Jesus, someone living with God in the Spirit, lives.

Paul likes lists.

We can remember lists. They make for a simple outline for teaching or presenting. I do that when I’m preparing a speech.

Beginning each day with a list of things I need to do today helps focus the day. I can tick off each item accomplished. That’s a good feeling.

A little list of the characteristics of the life we want to lead reviewed early every day also helps point to the better path for focusing today. Maybe instead of giving vent to some frustration at someone or something, there is a reminder of the type of person someone living with God will act.

While reading the New Testament, pay attention to lists. Writers don’t compose them accidentally. They have put thought into them. We should repay their work by also putting some thought into them.