A Place to Be Human: Meditations on community part five

As a worship leader, I want to lead others in being authentic; because I believe that when we are authentic and real (with God and each other), our worship is authentic. I fully believe that our identity as Believers is tied up in and defined by Who God is and what He's done. At the same time, I believe that only when we are willing to come to God as humans in our sin and humanity, broken, needy, and honest, is there 'worship in spirit and truth' (John 4:23). There is the 'real truth' of God that needs to break through the false truths of how we define ourselves based on our shame and brokenness, or our self-righteousness. Every week, every worship set, every day I find myself awaking to a grey and skewed version of what creation 'ought' to be, to this place that needs a Savior, and needs new mercy...possibly even more than it did yesterday.

Brennan Manning touched this deeply throughout his Ragamuffin Gospel (1990), a snippet is seen here:

The prayer of the poor in spirit can simply be a single word: Abba...In this sense, there is no such thing as bad prayer. A third characteristic of the tilted-halo gang [ragamuffins] is honesty. We must know who we are. How difficult it is to be honest, to accept that I am unacceptable, to renounce self-justification, to give up the pretense that my prayers, spiritual insight, tithing, and successes in ministry have made me pleasing to God! No antecedent beauty enamors me in His eyes. I am lovable only because He loves me (p. 83).

And in that place He bears our shame, our false self, and sees us (somehow) as who we 'ought' to be. He sees Jesus. "Somehow," that is. I don't know how exactly, but He does it. And Christ becomes our 'true' (actual) self in His eyes. Hallelujah. And because it is truly grace, we can count on it, as we pray for Him to make that revelation true and enduring to (and in) our hearts.

Back to community. Being a place for ragamuffins clothed in Christ, I believe, is essential. My friend Mike's life message is: "being a safe place." Being a 'safe place' can at first seem slightly subjective to varying perspectives (how one defines 'safe'), but in this sense I believe that 'being a safe place' is to be a place that allows the walls come down: walls of self-righteousness, of weakness, of brokenness, and even apathy. A safe place to say "yes, I am part of the grey, skewed, world that I woke up inside of today...and I need a savior (the Savior)."

In his book Life Together (1954), Bonhoeffer wrote:

The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners 

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. "My son, give me thine heart" (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth (p. 110-111).

Being a 'safe place' is to be a place of the grace of the Gospel, that realistically approaches the Throne of Grace (Hebrews 4:16) as a Body and says corporately and in confidence: "We need Your mercy, Lord. We are in need, Lord. Abba!" And I've found that taking this message (of unconditional love), to a world of conditional love is powerful. To embody that testimony of such a love (while being honest in our failures of carrying that love perfectly), I believe, is hopeful and contagious. There is joy there. When we come to the point where we realize we don't have to perform, but be honest and laugh and cry.

The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing (Zeph. 3:17)

Reference:
Bonhoeffer, D. (1954). Life Together. NY: Harper Row, Publishers.
Manning, B. (1990). The Ragamuffin Gospel. OR: Multnomah Books.

Trust, Part Four: of transcendence and immanence

Manning wrote in Ruthless Trust (2000):

...We can no more catch a hurricane in a shrimp net or Niagara Falls in a coffee cup then we can grasp the infinity of God's reality. A one-sided focus on his Otherness reduces the Holy One to a cosmic observer, a distant outsider disengaged from the yaw and pitch of human struggle.
Immanence is not the opposite of transcendence but its correlative, immanence and transcendence are two sides of the same coin, two facets of the same divine reality. Transcendence means that God cannot be confined to the world, that he is never this rather than that, here rather than there. Immanence, on the other hand, means that God is wholly involved with us, "that he is living in all that is as its innermost mystery," that he is here in his mysterious nearness...Disregard of God's immanence deprives us of any sense of intimate belonging, while inattention to his transcendence robs God of his godliness" (p. 82).

In the swirl of the attributes of God, my contemplative mind gets lost in the transcendence of a Holy God who is so intimately passionate for His creation that it is often very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the sense that He does whatever it takes to capture the heart of His Bride. He stoops low. Lower than I would if I were Him...but I suppose that is one of the characteristics of His transcendence. The lavish wastefulness of His perfect love - a love that (I suppose) is lavish due to His otherness, and wasteful due to the nature of His other[ness]-love. His transcendence becoming immanent in the object of His affection by the pure recklessness of its selflessness. Philippians 2.

Reference:
Manning, B. (2000). Ruthless Trust: the ragamuffin's path to God. NY: HarperCollins

Trust, Part Two: the scars remain

The love of God is not a pastry - it is a meal. Or for that matter, perhaps it is the protein that makes up the food. While fame, money, self-reliance, or the many other things that we fill our lives with, may keep us going, they may substitute but cannot replace the building block for a healthy life. Sometimes western Christianity has a tendency to cast the vibe that the love of God is a garnish to an 'American Dream,' when it is so much more. Journeying beyond calorie induced metaphors, I sense more and more that the love of God is the very air that fills our lungs. Every moment is grace. Frederick Buechner wrote in his book, Wishful Thinking: a seekers abc (1973):

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 (p. 39).

As I walk through the seminary of life and repeat for the 34th time my class on Wilderness 101, one thing I can say is that I know God is good. I've experienced bad things, but know that God is good. The love and grace of God does not mean we won't get wounded, but that God is greater, and the redemption that He will orchestrate (if we let Him) gives beauty for ashes and joy for mourning.

Continuing Brennan Manning's Ruthless Trust (2000) today, I was hit by these sentences:

We are, each and every one of us, insignificant people whom God has called and graced to use in a significant way. In His eyes, the high-profile ministries are no more significant than those that draw little or no attention and publicity. On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars (p. 48).

I do have a sense (as Manning's words share) that my Beloved King and Lord recognizes my scars as worship:

• Crying out from a cabin in the White Mountains, longing to know God more - in the midst of loneliness and an unknown future.
• Moving to the East Coast with my 'life' packed into a Chevy Cavalier, not knowing anyone.
• Trusting, hoping and crying after getting the call from the hospital knowing that something went wrong with my wife's pregnancy.
• The drive to the mortuary to pick up my son's ashes the day of the funeral.
• The list goes on, but those are big ones...

The fact that Jesus walked through these times with me is hope and grace. I am known, and in ministry, He sees my faithfulness in sharing His love, not necessarily in the outcomes that I can sometimes get so hung up on. Could it be that He pays closest attention to the things that others don't pay any attention to? Affirming a young adult working to get his GED. Praying for the hearts of Jr. Highers to be open to the Gospel. Praying for High Schoolers to make decisions for a healthy future. Or praying every day to be a better husband and father. Or the other things that shall remain in the secret place...maybe that's where the most 'successful' place is: the secret place, where it is truly just you and Jesus. Where the small acts of kindness that you show throughout the day are inside jokes, delights, and victories known only and discussed only with the Creator who slipped under the radar to die for His creation...

Reference:
Buechner, F. (1973). Wishful Thinking: a seeker's abc. NY: HarperCollins
Manning, B. (2000). Ruthless Trust: the ragamuffin's path to God. NY: HarperCollins

Trust, Part One: the lesson we keep learning until we die

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections- that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God (Nouwen, 1997).

One of the reoccurring reads on my bookshelf is Ruthless Trust: the ragamuffin's path to God (Manning, 2000). This book was given to me by dear friend Jay the Pauperly Prince (sometimes it's 'Princely Pauper' depending on the day :-) the Christmas of 2000. Jay is a true ragamuffin like me. Every year I find myself back in this book contemplating trust, my life, and how no matter what happens in my life, the issue I return to is trust. For that reason, I've decided that trust is the lesson that we keep learning until we die: literally, and metaphorically spiritually. I do wish that it were one of those things that you just pay your dues on and move on to the next lesson, or 'level' (if the video game metaphors work for you). I've learned that no matter how good my negotiation skills get, I can't seem to convince God that I don't need anymore object lessons on the subject. However, as masochistic as it may seem at times, I am learning to enjoy this 'dance' in the wilderness. Manning writes, "Uncontaminated trust in the revelation of Jesus allows us to breathe more freely, to dance more joyfully, and to sing more gratefully about the gift of salvation" (Manning, 2000, p. 30).

I guess what I'm saying is that it's alright with me. The tragedies that we experience are ok - it hurts, but it's ok. The unknowing, blindfolded existence of following this invisible God, is ok. The result outweighs the momentary discomfort. I have a propensity to make sense of things and to be in control of my future, and realize that those two areas cannot be non-negotiables with me if I claim that Jesus is Lord. I'm learning to surrender in every sense of the word (to yield to the power of another, to give oneself up, etc.). I'm learning how to (as Manning puts it) breathe, dance, and sing, the way that I have been created to. Fortunately, living as a missionary right now, my daily life is an incubator for these lessons, and lately the incubator has been burning so hot that it's been burning out the dross (sorry for the mixed metaphor - I realize that it's slightly paradoxical, since incubators help things grow, and the process of metal purification is to destroy. *destroy impurity, but still. I'm sure you can see that it all works together...).

Finally, Manning wrote:
"To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness" (2000, p. 37).

"So, thank you Abba, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, for every twist and turn, stone and thorn, mountain streams and dried up river beds on this journey. I do believe that it is all worth it considering the Prize. Thank you for whispering Your sweet affections of reckless love toward me this morning. Please, in Your grace, continue to draw me close to You, teaching me to breathe more freely, to dance more joyfully, and to sing more gratefully about Your gift of salvation. Amen."

Reference:
Manning, B. (2000). Ruthless Trust: the ragamuffin's path to God. NY: HarperCollins
Nouwen, H. (1997). Bread for the Journey. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco