“Jesus Christ wants you to glow – not just to see his light, not just to talk about the light of God, not just to reflect his light, but to be transformed into light.”
“Sometimes we do not prepare ourselves for aging; we are uncomfortable, perhaps, thinking about the unknown, or fearing it. We fear a picture of aging that we paint for ourselves in which we look unrecognizable in the mirror, face an obsolete existence and are marginalized from the “real action” of living. But that great inspirer of John Wesley, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, counsels us: “let us prepare our minds against changes, always expecting them, that we be not surprised when they come.” Curiously, this excellent advice comes in the middle of his discussion on contentedness. “
It’s not likely we’ll ever get back the things that were taken – especially those intangibles like “peace of mind.” Things are just things (maddening at first, yes, but in the end moths and rust doth corrupt and thieves break in and…well, apparently, they steal). But I can’t get back the blissful pre-break-in peace of never having had my home violated. There are many clichés about lost innocence. Are those instances just a bite-sized serving of the tragedy of Paradise Lost? Theologians have analyzed the fall of Adam and Eve ad infinitum. There’s a simple truth, however, that the average preschooler is capable of comprehending: Eve and Adam both took something that didn’t belong to them. As simple as that.
We humans can only be happy when we face the reality of evil. We can’t be happy without the truth. Despite being surrounded by the truth of ugly facts – genocide or beheadings or crowded refugee camps or grotesquely contagious diseases – we have the inner impulse to reach also for the truth of reality, of existence, the Truth that transcends current events, that tunes the music of the spheres and absorbs everything into the unity that is Triune love.
To have Psalms read to me (which somehow feels so different than opening my own Bible to read a Psalm myself), to be led in prayer and meditation, to be guided through the movements – what blessed relief. I can turn off the responsibility switch in my brain and simply follow and receive. And what an important role to inhabit for a while: that of learner, of follower, of recipient.
For Wesleyans, the Bible matters, becoming more and more like Jesus Christ matters, the freedom to exercise the will matters, the means of grace matter, and people matter, from the least and the last to the prominent and powerful: it is full-orbed, Spirit-driven engagement with the Word of God and the world, soup and Scripture, Ebola medication and intercessory prayer.
If you don’t face your own suffering, how will you ever find rest? Real, true rest for the mind and spirit? To face your own suffering is to come uncomfortably close to Christ in Gethsemene: does the idea of Christ, the suffering servant, comfort or trouble you? The fully divine, fully human being sweating drops of blood from anguish…
Imagining glory keeps us human. To glimpse glory is to receive grace, the kind that results in plain, sunburned lips uttering “truly this was the Son of God!” To glimpse glory is to receive grace, the kind that cauterizes and compels.
And in the past year, my young son has put on his beloved fedora and accompanied me to the hospital – twice. Once when he was three, once when he was four.
I can hear the gasps. “You’re a pastor and you took a three year old on a hospital visit? You’re brave!” Or even, “but that’s unprofessional!” Or “I’d never have the nerve to take my kids on hospital calls, what if they act up?” So here’s why I think it’s valuable to take kids with you to hospitals, and a few tips on how to have a good visit.
Examine your roads. They shape you when you’re not looking. And as pilgrims, we’re called to be mindful travelers.
Have we fallen prey to the idea that others can’t do without us? After all, the world – not to mention the Kingdom of God – will continue, UMC or no UMC. It would be egocentric in the extreme to suggest otherwise.
In this age of Starbucksation, small local churches often feel they’re unable to offer anything of worth compared to large, shiny metropolitan churches pastored by impeccable grins; which is tragic, because both churches offer Jesus Christ; and that is the only thing of lasting worth that either church has, no matter what the insurers say.
