So I was driving in my car with a family friend who comes here to church.  She told me (sort of in a half joking way) that since we’ve been doing the 10 Commandments she realizes that so far she broken the first 5 we’ve talked about.   But the consolation for her she said,  “was that we’re getting to Thou Shalt Not Kill soon right?  “At that’s good – because I know I don’t do that one.”

Some of you may be feeling the same way.  How many of you have been arrested for murder lately?  No one.  Whew!  Ok then, finish your coffee and we can all go home!

Oh how I wish I could tell you that.  I wish I could say this is the easy commandment.  The one you can emotionally skip over and tell yourself you don’t have to worry about because there “ain’t no way I’m killing somebody”. Well, don’t relax so fast.   The problem for us is that this commandment is about much more than we think it is.  Even if we stick with the literal meaning of this commandment you’ll find endless debates over what constitutes murder and what is justifiable killing.  For many of us even those things seem far away and removed to many of us.  So I’m not even going to go there today.

I want to talk about the part of this commandment that effects everyone of us, the part of this commandment that’s going to leave everyone of us saying, “Uh oh, I do that one too” because we all do.

Behind every murder is a thought.  A thought that can sometimes lead to the literal murder of someone but more often lead to just plain hurting each other.    You know it’s possible to kill a person in little tiny ways by chipping away at their self-esteem, trust, joy, sense of worth, security and sense of self.

So maybe you’re saying “When have I ever done that?”   We all have times in our lives when we let our anger rule us or when we let those things that emerge from our anger like resentment, jealousy, competition or even our self-centered drive to survive entice us to treat each other without dignity. When we do that, we compromise the chance that the person we hurt can have the abundant life that God wants for them.  In other words, we take a life and we commit murder.

Yes, I am saying that a hand gesture at a car that is annoying you is just as bad as murder, because it comes from the same place, anger.  That does not diminish the act of murder in any way, but it does increase our understanding that everything we do has the potential to chip a way at someone’s soul.   I believe there is a real death that occurs in people whenever we speak unkindly about them, throw thoughtless insults at them.  Or make little digs in our conversations with them, often disguised as humor.

In case you’re wondering, I’m not the first person to bring this up.  I’m in very good company.  In the book of Matthew Jesus says,  “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’  But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire”.

Jesus tells us that he came to embody the law, to fulfill it.  The way he is going to fulfill the law is to practice it, not just at its face value, but to dig in and uncover the spirit of the law.  When we kill whether literally or figuratively we do so because we allow feelings of rage, jealousy and inadequacy to over throw our desire to embody the will of God.

Jesus knew that we humans are capable of chipping away at one other, bruising souls, crushing dreams, taking away life.   Although he would see it first hand but Jesus was unshakable. Even amidst harsh criticism and threats Jesus continued to love, comfort, teach, liberate and reconcile people back into the community from which they were shunned or at odds.  He lived not only the letter of the law, he lived the spirit of the law.

So today I’m asking all of us at our church to become more mindful of embodying the spirit of this law.  That may sound easy but I assure you it’s not.   Unfortunately we find ourselves in a social climate where it is acceptable to put down, undercut and put people in their place (where ever we think that might be).  We disguise our snarky comments as wit and we our blatant leveling of others as ambition.

In a book about his success, a popular rap artist said, “It’s not enough to bat someone down. You must annihilate them so they don’t come back stronger”.  The creators of Survivor say, “If you want to succeed, you need to vote off everyone that doesn’t agree with you or they will get in your way to achieving your goal.”  Kanye West thought it was OK to pull the mic out of someone’s hand during their acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards because he thought she shouldn’t have won.  Spurring of course a debate over who’s video was better Taylor Swift or Beyonce.  That is not the point!

Lord help us we’ve even found a way to disguise tolerating intolerable behavior as advanced parenting.  In the parent tips section of a parenting magazine, I was shocked to find a article that proposed, “Don’t interfere when your older child pushes your younger child off the slide in the back yard so that the younger child learns how to fight back.”   Now, I’ve been to a enough parenting groups and on enough play dates to know that in some circles such techniques might make me appear to be a better mother, but I fail to see how that makes me a better follower of Jesus.

Unlike celebrities we cannot bounce back by appearing on the Jay Leno show the next night to apologize for the demeaning stunts we pull.  Unlike scenarios in modern magazines, we are not raising fictional toddlers.  We are dealing with human beings and we are in the position to steer them in the direction of either pushing each other around or being peacemakers.

It’s time we take this argument out of the hands of reality TV writers and out of the pages of magazines and place it right in the context of our lives as disciples of Christ.  The God I know and follow calls us, both pushers and pushees, to be peacemakers, merciful and meek.  The playground slide of this world we find ourselves on stands on Holy Ground.  It’s all Holy Ground.  There is no special place to be kind.  In this world, we are called to lead people to a Christ-centered community.  A Christ-centered community upholds the dignity of every human being because we are all made in the image of God.  Those are more than just words. Unless we’re intentional about changing this behavior, that community will never flourish. When we don’t lead by example, we alienate people, hurt relationships, forget to teach each other the way of Jesus and we kill one another bit by bit.

In a Christ-centered community, an insulting remark is something to be corrected not laughed at. In a Christ-centered community, putting someone down doesn’t really ever make you look bigger and takes its toll. In a Christ-centered community, pointing out someone’s shortcomings is never appropriate. In a Christ-centered community, people are less envious.  They know that someone else’s success does not mean that you cannot be successful yourself and someone else’s good fortune does not mean that you cannot be fortunate.  Someone else’s public attention does not mean that people don’t pay attention to you.

In a Christ-centered community, we take the time to get to know one another and don’t assume everyone wants the same things we do in life, or be like us. When we make assumptions about people, we don’t see who they really are.  All of us need people to know us as we truly are.

Jesus said that the meek shall inherit the earth and we should rejoice because we’re getting meeker, more humble and gentle.  They cheer each other on, not slap one other down. In a Christ-centered community, the people accept that there can be more than one strong women, or one strong man, or one strong teen in the group. In a Christ-centered community people are not evaluated by what they do but loved for who they are.

God did not call us merely to be friends. God called us to truly love one another.  There is a difference.  If you’ve been through middle school you know what that difference is.   Friendship can be based on purely self-gratifying needs.  Sometimes friends use each other and even kill each other.  On the other hand, love is willing to be used and die for the other.

This community, Vision, is on a journey of becoming a Christ-centered community. We’re not there.  We’ll never be there but we can try.  Throughout our attempt we will encounter a lot things.  Sometime everything will go just the way we want and all the people we know are easy to love and sometimes not so much.  However, it’s in the decisions we make in those difficult times that define us as a Christ-centered community and show the world that we are not takers of life but life-giving.

So I went to this thing called Christianity 21 this past weekend.  A lot of my friends joked that I should get away somewhere tropical with my husband since it was our 20^th wedding anniversary.  But no… this is what we chose.  A 3 day conference in Minneapolis about what we dreamed for Christianity in the 21^st century. This trip was no tropical paradise.

Believe me, I’ve come to expect the last place you’ll find the emotional equivalent to sand between your toes and Pina Coladas is a Christian conference.  Honestly,  I’ve been to many of them before and have found them to be rather “chilly”.  But here in Minneapolis amidst early warnings of snow (as a matter of fact it even snowed over Friday night)  I felt somehow thawed out.

I could first feel my toes moving when I heard the initial concept of the weekend.  There would be 21 speakers, all women who would speak for 21 minutes each. Yes, that piqued my interest, mostly because it wasn’t a women’s conference.  How refreshing for at least part of the Christian culture to proclaim women had something to say to everyone.  Something Jesus knew.

From theology to personal stories of faith to opinions of what church should be, these women brought it.   Each in their own way, they spoke of a God that welcomes change and a faith that transcends preconceived ideas.   Diana Butler Bass recounted the constant change that the church has undergone and how the church has always persevered.  With her example, “Protestantism didn’t kill Catholicism” maybe we can chip away at those frozen parts of guilt and fear of destruction and search on knowing that we are only adding to the understanding of this God we follow.

A God, I believe that can deal with our nagging questions because God purposely placed Godself within the human context of doubt and rejection and persecution and death.  As Debbie Blue said, “our stories are not stories that lift us out of our bodies, but stories that meet us there.”

So if God can meet us amidst all our unsavory humanness why can’t the church meet its people wherever they are?  And this is where the body thaws on the inside and the heart starts beating again.

Ah, to imagine a church as Seth Donovan says, “where it is less important to be right than to be loved.”  or a place that Alise Barymore described as “a church available to both the curious and committed.”

These people were speaking my language – thaw, thaw, thaw and  I didn’t perceive one secret handshake or whispered password.  That’s comforting for someone like me who has known the cold breeze of judgment when I somehow picked the wrong word, analogy or Bible passage when talking with other “religious people”.

But now I lay on this warm sandy beach of challenging theology amidst reflection of our Christian tradition and I felt I was not alone.

There are people grappling with the same issues I do and there are people who also feel compelled to do something about it.

In 2001 my husband Don and I  set out to start a church that was different from all the churches we had been to or visited.  We took our wacky step-sister of a service out of the conventional church we were in and planted it in a run down, under-funded community center not at all in the center of town.

There we attempted a church that was welcoming from the time you parked your car to the moment you left.  Not welcoming in a slick system or church logo’d polo shirt kind of way but welcoming because the community genuinely wanted you there.  You – no matter who you were, how you lived, what you thought, where you worked, what you looked like or who you hung out with.   We envisioned a place with a two-way conversation.  A place where we offer you food, talk with you and not talk at you.

We are not alone.

How warm the water is when you leave the frigid waters of accusation, piousness and code words. When you give in to the freedom to splash around and throw all that crap to the side of the water and discuss what it takes to make our churches a place of authentic community where people can be themselves, wrestle with their faith and bask in the warmth of God’s love.

Pina Colada anyone?

My mother has this obsession with bags.  Not just nice bags any bags.  She’s been saving bags my whole life.  She would fold them into tiny little squares and shove them in her pantry between some box and the wall. waiting for when she needed one.  The bags didn’t have to be particularly pretty or even study.  They were all used, and sometimes marked up, crinkled, water marked, food stained, it doesn’t matter..  You know why it didn’t matter what her bags looks like.  Because  “You never know when you need one.”    That’s what she would say.

It seems that my mother always needs one of her bags,   primarily because she can’t bear to send me home after a visit without giving me something to go home with.  I say this in complete love and affection – It’s quite sweet and a little weird.

You see the things she chooses to give me as I leave her home can sometimes be a little odd, odd because they are not particularly valuable.  It not like I can’t go to the corner convenience store and get those things myself – like a bag of barbeque potato chips or one can of Diet Coke.

Sometime the bag is so full of things that I don’t even get to look through it all the way to see what ‘s in there.  There are times I’ve left it overnight.  I know I shouldn’t have.  There was those days I woke up with melted ice cream sandwiches on my counter.  Who know mom would pack  ice cream sandwiches in her bag.  It’s not like I asked for them.  But I am thankful.  I understand she loves me, and my family and that’s why she bags us.

One day while visiting my mom she caught me as I was leaving her house.  “Pam, I have something for you”.   I knew it was a bag and don’t you know my mom came out of the kitchen with this crumbled up brown paper bag.  This particular bag looked like it had been through the mill.  It had wrinkles down both sides and was frayed at the top and ripped at the beginning of a crease where it had been folded for a very long time.

“Ok, ok I said taking the bag and kissing her on the cheek”  I didn’t even wonder what was in it.  It sat in my kitchen overnight and eventually the next day I thought to empty it.  Inside with the usually bag items, half of a frozen pork roast, because she though we might need one, a coffee scooper because she had two and a small box and an envelope.

The note read, “I made my original old warn out wedding ring into earrings for you.”  And inside the box were two diamond earrings.

I was taken back that something so beautiful and thoughtful could be hiding in a package so damaged.  I thought of my mom and how she slid it in there without mentioning i.  Why in the world would she put two beautiful diamond earrings in a food stained bag next to half a frozen pork roast.

It reminded me of what Paul says to the church in Corinth.   He tells them that we carry God’s message of love in clay jars, imperfect and easily broken.

Yes, we are imperfect vessels but we can be just sturdy enough to carry that message.

What I really love about bloging is that anyone can talk about all sorts of things in an open format. The other day I wrote about my reluctance to evangelize in the traditional sense because of the bad rap us Christians have been getting. Some of which I admit is deserved. Believe you me, this is an occupational hazard of mine.
Lulu, a reader of mine reminded me that evangelism comes from our actions not our words and it reminded me of the St. Francis quote “Preach the gospel at all times, use words when necessary.” Possibly my favorite Christian quote (if that is a thing).
Most of my life I’ve lived by that rule. I believe in doing. I’m one of those people who feels most close to God when I’m in the dirt – getting my hands dirty. But lately I feel called to proclaim his name. I’m not really sure why, just that I am. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel the need to convert people from other religions. I have a profound respect for other religions and have many friends that are not Christian.
But here it is straight out. As a Christian, I feel we’ve done Christ wrong. We’ve made his teachings inclusive and untouchable. We’ve made our Jesus part of a secret club that you need some kind of secret handshake to share his wisdom. I don’t think that’s done Christ any good. As a matter of fact I think it’s made people down right adversarial.
Over and over I hear people reading books that sound awfully Christian but are missing Christ. His teachings of love, forgiveness, abundance of life, victory over oppression all spelled out in the language of vague spirituality. Have we thrown Baby Jesus out with bath water? I wonder.

Lately I’ve been grappling with the whole idea of evangelism. The truth is I keep running into people who are down right adverserial when it comes to discussions about church or Christianity or even Jesus and that has made me more reluctant. As a matter of fact recently when I mention my devotion to Christ I keep getting interrupted by someone mentioning the latest self help book they read or better yet the most recent spiritual journey by someone who dropped out of their life for a year and traveled the globe writing an account of their spiritual escapades.

I think because I’m in ministry and work as the Director of Ministry and worship leader in a NY church people expect me to pounce on them and overload them with Christian talk. A language I just don’t speak. Nonetheless, I seem to encounter people that tell me exactly what they think I think as a Christian – before I even begin to talk about Jesus in my life.

Often the conversation becomes a rhetorical categorization of what Christians are, talk like and how they act rather than an expression of my experience as a follower of Christ.

I want to yell, “Would you be quite and listen while I tell you we are not all like that.” But I don’t. I control myself because the last thing I want to do is come off like the Christian bullies that some folks expect me to be.

I struggle with this because Jesus said not to deny him and because I just can not  do ministry without saying who I do it for?  What kind of church are we if we don’t proudly proclaim our discipleship to Christ?  What kind of Christian am I?

Paul says if you are looking for a way to measure how good you’re doing as a church and a Christian get out your resume of how many people have seen Christ through you and how many people have come to believe because you believe.

The more I give in to this bashful nature of mine the less of a disciple I am.

You know this beer with the President thing makes me wonder who I would want to sit down and have a beer with (or coffee for non-beer consumers)  It wouldn’t just be any beer the President would be there – moderating.  Just imagine if the President of the United States could moderate my beer with a person with which I  have had a difficult situation ?   We could sit together, on our best behavior and just talk it out.  I mean really, who in the right mind would be inappropriate first.  The President is watching.

But who would it be?  I could think of a bunch of people that I have had misunderstandings with or unfinished business or even hurt feelings.  Picking one would be difficult.  There’s that girl from 7th grade (will call her AS) that had an end of the year party and invited everyone in the class but me.  Still don’t know why.  There’s that lady at Motor Vehicle that I swear was trying to start a fight with me and there’s my father, who I have never been able to get through a conversation with without fighting.

I think I’m going to go with my father.  How about you?

I’ve done a lot of thinking about whether I raise my kids according to my faith. It seems like it would be an easy thing to do but the culture keeps telling us that there is a better way. I’ll explain.
I signed my son up for recreational soccer in our town. After about 2 practices the coach calls a meeting of all the parents and tells us that her 8 year old son does not want to play any longer and therefore she does not want to coach the team.
She continues to say that as a professional teacher with a plethora of childhood developmental degrees she “knows” that it’s not right to “force” a child to do something they do not want to do.
I stood there feeling like I had been clobbered as she hurled her degrees at us. How was I going to explain to my son that there will be no soccer this season because the coach is quitting and no other parent stepped up. I knew I would have made a total mess of it having never been an athlete.
Still, I kept thinking DR. Mom is missing 2 very important components in all this – community and commitment. Is it really that bad to explain to our 8 year old that they made a commitment and should abide by it until the end of the season?
It reminded me of an article I read in a parenting magazine once. it said that if your older child is pushing your younger sibling off the slide you should resist stepping in so the younger child learns to defend himself.
Sure, I understand the importance of learning to defend yourself however what are we inadvertently teaching the older child? Are we saying you can be a bully while Mommy watches? Will they grow up thinking that behavior is ok until the smaller kid stands up for himself. This is completely against what jesus taught.
I had always known that Jesus’ message was counter cultural but I hadn’t realized how much until I became a mother. It has invaded every moment of everyday.

A couple of days ago I played the song Levon for my 14 year old daughter. I know I’ve played it for her before. It is possibly one of my favorite songs and one made famous from my most favorite performer, Elton John. To my dismay every play through was greeted with a yawn like reception.
“How could she not LOVE this?” I thought. “My own flesh and blood.”
Until this day, driving along on the way to her piano lesson I slipped the CD in my car stereo. We listened to “Tiny Dancer” and then it came on. I saw her perk up. She became quite and just listened. When it was over she said, “Can I put this on again.”
I breathed such a ridiculous sigh of relief. Why in the world was it so important to me that my daughter appreciate this song?
Since that day she has been playing not only Levon but the whole album daily. I hear her blasting it from her bedroom just like me so many years before.
My favorite line bellowing once again throughout my house, “He calls his child Jesus “cause he likes the name.” I was a teenager when I first heard it. Once again the simultaneous irreverence and provocative brilliance of that Bernie Taupin line sticks in my mind just like it did as I sang it in my bedroom night after night so many years ago. Why name someone Jesus if it means nothing more than a name?
Years later I am still transfixed by that line and the story that surrounds it. A story of 3 generations of men all disillusioned by life but carrying on. However Jesus is always dreaming, always wanting more than the ordinary and pushing the conventional until it became extraordinary. Perhaps there was more to that name than Levon thought.
I wonder how many of us still think about lines from a song of our childhood and what it means? I would love to hear!

Today is my birthday.  Having a birthday in June is usually pretty pleasant.  I can’t remember the last time the sun didn’t shine on my birthday.  I woke up knowing that even though this was my day I would spend most of it helping out my parents.  My mom is suffering from joint damage in her foot due to her diabetes and my dad has severe dementia and is confined to a wheelchair.  Now, with my mom in a leg cast times are hard for them.  I have become their connection to the outside world until this cast on my mom’s leg is removed and she can drive again.  So I set out this rainy morning to their house to pick up her grocery list.

If I am honest with myself, I would admit that there are a multitude of other things I would rather be doing on my birthday.  But you know,  this day 48 years ago she did more work to get me here than I did so why not, right?

By the time I got to the Shoprite it was pouring and there was no sense in waiting, it seemed like it would go on forever.  So out of my car I dash to the metal cage area in the parking lot that houses the wagons.  When I got there I instantly realized that you need a quarter to detach the wagons from their chains insuring that you return it to get your quarter back.  Frantically I searched for a quarter knowing that I most likely wouldn’t’ find one because I had given every last quarter I had to my daughter before she got on the bus only hours ago.  Nonetheless I kept looking.

Out of the corning of my eye I see an old man crossing the parking lot with an empty wagon.  I noticed him because he reminded me of my father.  He was wearing a quilted flannel jacket and a blue baseball cap that covered most of his white gray hair.  As he got closer he appeared to be about the same age – mid eighties or so.  He shuffled just like my dad used to before the dementia make walking impossible.  Still digging through my purse I watched him walk past caged carts and minivans.  I began to get the impression he was heading for me.

Slowly he shuffled across the lane I was standing in.  Soon, he was met by a small white sedan, driven by a grey-haired woman.  

“Did you forget something?”  He leaned over, meeting my eyes with his from beneath his #1 Grandfather cap.

“Yes, I don’t usually shop here and I forgot all about the quarters”.

“Take my cart.”  He said.

“Oh, well,  let me find a quarter for you.  I must have one” I responded continuing to search through my purse. All the while, I was in disbelief that this elderly man had crossed an entire parking lot in the pouring rain to give me his cart.

“No.  Don’t worry about it honey.  You’ll pay me back some day.”  With that he got in the white sedan with his lady and she drove away.

He made me cry.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps because I couldn’t imagine how I could ever pay him back.

When my daughter came home from school I told her the story and she said to me, “Mom, I don’t think he meant the quarter.”

“Me neither,” I replied.

Why is it so hard to let go of the words floating around in our heads. You know the ones I mean. The ones that represent mistakes we made so many years ago. I remember when I was a young adult I had a friend who held on to a great deal of shame and self blame in her life. She told me that she knew deep down inside that she needed to forgive herself to ever have a happy normal life but she just couldn’t do it. She told me, “Every time I try I have this conversation in my head I end up reliving the whole situation, all the facts come up in my mind, the why’s and the why nots, the pain and the blame. I begin to think “I wouldn’t have done this if they hadn’t done that. I just can’t seem to let it go.”
Learning to forgive herself had taken on the same untouchable desire as learning to love herself. Both things she thought she was failing at miserably.
And isn’t funny I said to her that the often people in your life are more willing to forgive you and you can forgive them easer than we can forgive ourselves. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just take ourselves out of the equation? We are our own worst enemies aren’t we?
I can blow off something someone does to me much easier than I can stop being made at myself for something I shouldn’t have done. I have come to realize I just don’t have the power. I guess I realized at some point in my life that I needed divine intervention. Asking God’s forgiveness is the same as asking God to relive you of the burden of your own mistakes. Your saying I can’t make this go away on my own.
The important thing is that even if you never get to the point where you forgive yourself, God forgives you. The past is gone there is nothing left to hold on to. The only stipulation with God’s forgiveness is that you forgive others.