Ministry Remnants: Miracles in Everyday Life

The fruit of the Spirit is enough everyday miracle to change the world.

Learning to serve the church as the preacher is a peculiar calling. Very earthy to be sure, for the preacher's humanity is on full display. And he dare not be self-conscious for then he merely adds to the cacophony of reasons to wonder about his calling and it's peculiar mode of being. But I digress.

This morning I tried to preach from the wonderful, brief story in II Kings 6. The school of prophets -- young men under Elisha's tutelage -- call for the building of a new ministry training center. Elisha approves and they begin felling trees and erecting a log structure. In the course of the work an axe head falls into the water. The worker is alarmed, especially because the axe head was borrowed. Elisha plunges a stick into the water, the axe head "swims" and is recovered.

Wow! I talked about the real down to earth nature of walking with God, and especially the neediness we always have. This is pretty plain and simple in the story. Then I troubled over how to handle the miracle. Even if I were able to challenge everyone to "Expect a miracle!!" or "Bring your lost axe heads to God and believe the iron will swim!" I wonder.... Would that be the right approach?

Careful exegetes and expositors will ask, as closely as one can with narrative, this simple question: "What is the intent or core meaning of the text?" To my mind the core meaning is as follows:

• We have real-life problems which we can bring to God.
• God sometimes does miraculous acts to aid our efforts.

That's all I have but as I tried to see the clear implications of the story I thought it made sense to deal with miracles more broadly. With that in mind I spoke of the everyday miracles we have in the ordinary of life: love of children, friendship, a sunrise, genuine love. I tried to think about it this way: "Sometimes we see the miracles already there; sometimes God's gives us miracles to help us see." If we open our eyes we will see the touch of eternity in all of life and be encouraged that God is at work all the time in countless ways.

This brings me to the reason for this "remnants." My main concern is that we not think God only does miracles in dramatic, clearly supernatural ways, like making iron swim. The signs and wonders He wants to make real in our lives are daily expressions of the Gospel at work. In a word, the fruit of the Spirit is enough everyday miracle to change the world. And it should be everyday -- the seed of the Gospel continually growing.

That's the remnant. Don't feel lesser-than if you have no dramatic miracle, and don't strive for one. Asking is ok of course and hoping is the human wont. But best to lean in to being transformed by the grace of Christ. This is active daily grace, the miracle in our everyday life. 

The Allure of 'You Too!:' Can we quell, or spell, tu quoque?

"Shut the door, Randy!" My older sister could be bossy sometimes and I could certainly be lazy. The sliding door on the VW van hung open and I wasn't about to leave my comfortable seat to close it. "You've left it open before!" I said, happy with my logic. Her retort was immediate, full of primal reason: "That makes no difference!"

Fast forward too many quick years and I am up late reading a fascinating story about chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen. My wife, concerned my lack of sleep and absorbed psyche will ruin the day, sweetly and sleepily expresses concern. My inner response? "You do it, too!" I can't say what I think so I argue within: "She is up late from time to time doing what she enjoys!"

But there is a problem. That is entirely beside the point! Whether she does it once or a million times has nothing to do with whether I should do it or not. As the philosophers might say, "P is P, not something else." In common language, the door is the door and sleep is sleep. That is the only thing on the table, so deal with that, not perceived or real inconsistency with the challenger.

This fallacy is called "tu quoque" and means literally "you too." We see it all the time in political discourse. Perhaps it is easiest to see in the inverse: "Because Nixon lied (to borrow an ancient story) so can I." We know this is wrong on its face, but it's the same fallacy. We justify our behavior because someone else did it: "You too!"

Of course the normal pattern is when an opponent tries to make a charge stick, say in the morass of sex-related scandals in DC these days. The hue and cry is all over: "Bill did it, too. And you said nothing about it then." True enough but it only speaks to hypocrisy, not the issue at hand which is -- you-name-it -- let's say Roy Moore's alleged abuse of power. Is his in any way lessened because of the other party's easy treatment of Bill's behavior?

"You too" is tenacious as a carnival monkey except its head seldom gets wacked. Like too many fallacies it feels so right we just plunge on. But poor thinking is still poor and never leads to a good place.

How to fix it? Address the problem at hand and forget the rest. Refuse to press the argument beyond the terms. News flash: this makes arguments less fun, less frequent, and diminishes the thrill of moral indignation. And it means we all have to deal with our own front porch instead of someone else's. Man, that's hard! I'd much rather point out your problems. It is so much easier and fun to say "you too!"

But don't you see? When we say "you too" we catch the ricochet full in the face. If our opponent is in some measure wrong for doing it, saying "you too!" means we implicate ourselves as also wrong! Since I didn't want to do the right thing, I faulted my sister for having not done it. It is one of a thousand ways we shoulder off responsibility for moral misbehavior. If someone else didn't do it but somehow suggests we should, instead of dealing with the suggestion, we deal with them. We say "you, too", and we are still stuck in our bad behavior.

And that's why, much chagrined but rightly upbraided, I am laying this silly laptop aside and going back to bed. She's right. Whether she follows her own advice all the time is simply beside the point.

But I might check Facebook one last time. She would!

Ministry Remnants: You can Rely on God

The very gifted Malcolm Muggeridge said, "Writing isn't hard: you just sit down at the typewriter, slash your wrists, and bleed to death." A suitable metaphor no matter the particular difficulty one has with writing. Mine are multi-faceted, arising in too many ways to deter the simple lifelong love I have had for writing, coupled with the human wont of lack of discipline, motivation, ability. We are born with deficits and we feed them such that they make themselves known. And we have the soul-making task of overcoming, refusing to let various normal lacks dim our vision and drag us down. And so the best among us demonstrate that mettle by normal daily means and the worst sometimes are not so pronounced in their failings but are failing nonetheless. Someday the tide will go out and, as one Warren Buffet says, "We will then know who was swimming naked." Or to apply an apt western metaphor: "We will know who was 'big hat and no cattle.'"

All that to address the problem of writing, in a blog about ministry remnants? I suppose, because it is always easier to think about writing and see where that goes than to actually write about the matter at hand. Diversion is so much easier. Could we play a trick on ourselves so we allowed the diversion to be the thing we actually needed to produce? No doubt that is the sum total strategy of many a very successful person, and plumbing that strategy would be fascinating indeed, while very difficult. At base it seems the diversion, for some reason, is something more appealing. Maybe, then, my own writing, such as it is, should be all about the random diversions that come up when ever I sit down to write. I may be on to something there!

For now I will continue this path, itself a diversion from other necessary work, to muse on the Sunday message from a week ago. I described the largest of the enormous trucks used in strip mining: weighing over 600 tons empty, 25' to top of bed, 13' tall tires, 84 gallons of oil in the motor, able to haul payload of 366 tons. In a word, grande! My point was these trucks can be relied upon to carry a load. 

I used a bag of salt pellets to illustrate a burden and talked about what that burden is like for a truck of that size. The bag weighs maybe 40 pounds. The bed of the truck is about 1/3 the size of the congregation seating area. Setting the burden down in the bed of the truck would be like dropping a leaf in the back of my neighbor's F-150.

These trucks are large with a scale of capacity that boggles our mind. But compared to God's ability, they are child's play. Reckon God can handle our burdens? Reckon we can rely upon Him? Reckon when Jesus says "Lose your life for my sake and you will be OK" he meant what He said because He can handle anything that comes our way? Not only is He more capable than the truck, He made all things that go into that truck, including the ability of the geniuses that engineered it.

They say a sermon is supposed to have one main idea. The main idea I worked toward was this: God is reliable. He will not let you down. He can handle any burden you have. And I closed, as I began, with the incomparable piece from the oratorio Elijah, echoing several verses of Psalms:

Cast thy burden upon the Lord; and he shall sustain thee.
He never will suffer the righteous to fall:
He is at thy right hand.
Thy mercy Lord is great, and far above the heavens.
Let none be made ashamed, that put their trust in Thee.

It feeds me now as I remember it, and I pray it may do some good for someone reading from some distant place or time. 

Bring your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

A Poem for Father's Day

 

Those Winter Sundays

by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

I Almost Died Today

 The Day I Almost Died

Reflections after a Near Drowning in February 2018

If you swim in the ocean you know the push of water. Water allures, and like all powerful things, deceives.

I was going far out forthefunofit. Overweight, I was still strong in mind if not body. I could touch bottom easily between swells and was not concerned. It was fun to go further a bit. I swam but grew tired quickly. I knew the current was pushing sideways but didn't worry as long as my toes could reach the sand.

Deciding to return to shore, I lay face down and swam for 15 strokes or so. I stopped and could not touch bottom. I dog-paddled for a minute or so, unaware I was going nowhere. Soon I realized my right leg was caught in a fisherman's line. He was waving his annoyance, about 80 feet away – no more than 100 feet away beyond pounding surf. I kick and paddled but could not loosen my leg, though the string was the least of my worries. After about 2 minutes' effort I was free of the string but moving sideways still, drifting beneath another fishing line as I paddled.

Unknowing, I was caught in a sideways rip-tide. I could not touch bottom and my paddling toward shore produced only exhaustion. I realized I may need to cry for help. “Surely I can make it!” I thought. My muscles ached and I tasted seawater. I thought of floating, but I have never been able to float. There was a most dim awareness I might die. My lungs burned as I treaded water.

Devin, my 12-year-old nephew, was 25 feet away on a boogie board. Dare I cry for help? Would I pull him down with me? I didn't want to be needlessly dramatic. But somehow I knew I must wave and cry for help.

The first time he didn't hear me. I waved with one hand and yelled weakly. From the shore no one could hear. I knew by the time I was truly desperate there would be little energy left for flailing and shouting. I struggled on, going nowhere. I learned later that drowning nearly always happens quietly. The fight exhausts the swimmer and all that remains is to sink beneath the waves. In a few minutes I would have done exactly that. By the time anyone noticed my absence it would have been too late.

Devin was still not far off and he was watching me. Devin is an unusual young man, one of those people who knows more than most, and knows it in ways unavailable to most. His care for people is plain and real and on the surface. He knows what matters without trying, and he is a gift to all who know him.

I think he knew I may need help and so he stayed nearby. He was looking at me intently as he drifted with a hand on the boogie board. I raised a hand and called for help. He heard me and called back, “Uncle Randy do you need help?”

“Yes. Please!”

He quickly pushed his board in my direction. We met in about 30 seconds and both held to the board. I was worried I might drag him down but the board did its job. After a minute or so of kicking I felt bottom and better, the push of a wave lifting me toward the beach and life. A minute later a crashing wave pushed me forward and I knelt in the rocky sand as the undertow returned without me. Barely able to stand, I shuffled toward the frustrated fishermen and tried to explain. Then I half stumbled, half walked the 200 feet to my wife, son, friends and family, sat down, still breathing heavily, and told them what happened.

What does this mean? I have spent the last many hours shuddering at what almost was. My wife and youngest son were there, as well as a niece, 3 nephews, and their friends. At minimum my drowning would have traumatized the afternoon and radically changed life for my wife and sons as well as my relatives; and in a much lesser sense, all who shared the beach that day. I almost died. It is certain I would have without help. It is unlikely I could have gotten anyone's attention; certainly in another minute I would have been unable to stay afloat to flail and cry for help. Pride – and a normal reluctance to cause undue drama – nearly cost me my life. And this is right enough. No one wants to cry out when it is not warranted. And we seldom encounter such near-death experiences – how would we know when to call for help? I certainly didn't. So I struggled, almost to my death.

Lack of knowledge, lack of awareness, lack of strength – all together these lacks would have cost me my life, except for the provision of Devin, my nephew. He knew without knowing that his Uncle needed help and he lingered near, saving my life.

I can barely process it. It is easy enough to speak the hubris: “I could have made it.” But that's false. And I ponder what my death would have meant. While I grieve deeply for what I would have missed in future years, I feel more the loss my loved ones would have felt. What is this gaping hole and emotional onslaught we call death. It rips loved ones from our hearts and crushes us with unalterable realness. And when I think how my untimely death would visit that upon them, I grieve.

No one wants to die, and somehow we make death distant and irrelevant, all the while knowing it comes to all. My great-grandfather drowned about 95 years ago. He was in his mid-20's with a wife and young daughter, my grandmother Freida. While his death was a great sadness to his family and close community, it is forgotten by most and will someday be gone even from the record books. Our lives are that way. The most important people die and are forgotten. Take a figure such as Alexander the Great – known of by countless millions over 2300 years of human history. Still his death remains unknown to most who ever lived.

So what matters – being known on a large scale? Nope. Being known at all? Yes – that matters a lot. I do not know what all of this means – I am pushing a rope, trying to understand. If I would have died today, the people I know would have suffered. I would have suffered for a short time, grieving, hopeless, muscles giving out, painful asphyxiation and death, drifting lifeless to sea or shore in time. I would have been no more for this world and those who remain would have been heart-broken. This is the weight of being, the weight of knowing, the truth of 'better to love and lose than never love at all.'

Why do we go on marrying and birthing, rearing and loving, building and caring and working and dying, only to do it again in the next generation? Are the endless waves a picture of this life, landing on shore with no end, no apparent reason except the cycle of being and life, water with mind-boggling volume and power and depth, yet able to sweep a simple human into its lapping arms and lull him to sleep?

Here is Ecclesiastes, of course, a wisdom one cannot know as well before near-death as after. It is easy to see how pointless life can be because, as the writer says, no matter what you do or what meaning you  contribute, it all goes down with you at death – you can't keep it or prolong it for yourself after you yourself are gone. And gone you will be.

I almost died today and I have no fancy words. I only have words struggling to find meaning. I believe in God, the One who made all things, who gives and takes away, who cares, who holds funerals for fallen sparrows. That God saw a man almost fall today and sent a nephew to rescue him. "Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!"

My Nephew Devin

Truth is "Written In": or, "All Truth is God's Truth"

“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an intelligent man in other matters, says that there is only a ‘theological’ opposition to divorce, and that it is entirely founded on ‘certain texts’ in the Bible about marriages. This is exactly as if he said that a belief in the brotherhood of men was only founded on certain texts in the Bible, about all men being the children of Adam and Eve. 

Millions of peasants and plain people all over the world assume marriage to be static, without having ever clapped eyes on any text. Numbers of more modern people, especially after the recent experiments in America, think divorce is a social disease, without having ever bothered about any text. It may be maintained that even in these, or in any one, the idea of marriage is ultimately mystical; and the same may be maintained about the idea of brotherhood.” (The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. 4, 230-1.)

Musing

Musing speaks of thinking, used perhaps when one hopes it is fruitful, peaceful, right. Not all musing bears good. Some merely repeats, going nowhere. Some breeds and feeds anxiety. Some puffs with pride of reason, hubris compounding its own pretensions. Or something like that.

I have (almost) nothing to say these days. I read alot, mostly online news and Facebook posts. Much important reading goes begging, as my stalled Kindle account attests. I am nearly done with my second time through the Bible this year, so that's a plus. And an Alaskan summer is nearly over, with its relentless demands on mind and body.

God is good. More than ever I feel the need of grace. "Without Him I would be nothing." This is no 'worm theology' as it is often disparagingly called. Of course we are special creatures, made in God's image though fallen. But without Him -- intrinsic image and daily sustaining -- we are nothing. 

I browsed a bit in William Law today, a book on the Holy Spirit in which he challenges us to surrender our reason. With plain sense he said reason, too, is part of who we are and if we are to give all to God, reason is included. Really? Must I? "Lean not on thine own understanding."

What a death knell this is, for how do we let go of reason and still function? "But God expects you to use your brain!" True that! We use our brain as the gift it is, and it helps bring us to the Giver where we submit it to Him, for "the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge." He takes all we surrender, makes it new and whole and clean and gives it back to us.

That is more than two cents, but it came around to sense for me, and I am grateful for a musing that leads me to prayer. That is always a fruitful musing.