Ministry Musings

Confusion and Peace

"For God is not a God of confusion but of peace." (1 Corinthians 14:33, ESV)  So writes the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth.

Here is a Christian community (and I use that word loosely!) which should make any modern day church feel okay about its life together.  This church was in a state of disorder.  It was a church in conflict.  It was a church with multiple divisions.  It was a church where the "have's" were separated from the "have not's."  It was a church with multiple tables and table assignments.  It was a church where everyone had the spiritual answer to all the wrong spiritual questions in their individual and corporate life.

No wonder Paul wrote what he did.

This verse is preceded by a litany of instructions for orderly worship. It follows Paul's great teaching on spiritual gifts, the greatest of which is love, and really digs in over the two spiritual gifts that seem to be a source of contentiousness - prophecy and tongues.  Paul's instructions are centered around a core idea that no gift is useful if other people, especially unbelievers or new believers, don't understand or get the point.  Imagine, he encourages, what it would look like to an unbeliever or new believer to see the body all speaking in tongues with no interpretation.  "[W]ill they not say that you are out of your minds?" (vs. 23)

Paul reminds us that people are watching.  Unbelievers and new believers are watching those of us who claim a long journey in following Jesus.  They are watching to see how we live our personal lives.  They are looking at how we make decisions.  They are paying attention to how much time we spend with our families.  They are taking note of that on which we spend our money and moments.  They consider carefully all of those things and more when they look on the whole body of Christ followers.  How we treat one another and take care of one another is important.  How we handle disagreements with one another and make decisions with one another are not lost in their eyes. How we spend our time in program offerings and spend our budget dollars is indicative of the state of our interior lives.

All of which is to ask, do we serve a god of confusion or a God of peace?

"Peace," speaks Jesus to his disciples on the third day after his crucifixion, "be with you."  And then he breathed on them. (John 20:19ff.)

He speaks words of peace and then offers those fear-filled disciples that peace which only he can give.  Jesus offers a peace that only comes from God.  "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."  (John 14:27) It is a peace which the world cannot understand.  It is a peace which the world cannot give.

It is a peace that people still seek earnestly in our day. It is a peace that can only come from the one who is Peace and who offers peace to those "who were far off and...to those who were near."  (Ephesians 2:17)  It is a peace that people are looking for in you and in me as we live out our faith and work out our "own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12) everyday of our lives.

Pray for peace.  Pray for peace in your life.  Pray for the peace that others still seek which passes understanding and can change the world.

 

Love and Pain

Each day brings us closer.

In a less than two weeks we will once again walk the way of the Cross with Jesus.  We will walk the way of suffering.

Via Dolorosa.  The way of pain.

On Palm Sunday and Good Friday we will once again be confronted with the story of Jesus' unjust trial and subsequent death sentence.  We will once again be subjected to his savage beating at the hands of soldiers.  We will once again have to endure the betrayal of his friends and the crowd in general.  We will once again hear the awful thud of hammers piercing flesh and blood with nails.  We will hear the awful words of Jesus:  "Why have you forsaken me?"  We will witness the darkness that comes over his world - and our souls - as he let's go of his spirit and dies.

One of the important questions that will be asked by those who are unaccustomed to this story is, "why does Jesus have to suffer?"  To put it another way, "Just what exactly is God doing in the midst of this painful, painful story?"

A friend of mine said that great love leads to great pain.  My friend was not speaking of the crucifixion of Jesus but may as well have been.  For this is the answer to what God is doing in this story.  This is why Jesus embraced all that he embraced that day on that hill so far away.

God's great love for his creation, his people brings pain - to Him.  God desires "not the death of sinners" but rather that they turn around and return to Him.  Out of his great love for his children he sends his Son, Jesus Christ, to embrace the pain of separation and sin, the pain of broken hearts and dreams, the pain of loss and death, that we might accept God's loving embrace in our own lives.

The great pain that Jesus endures is because he loves humanity greatly.  With love comes pain but that pain also leads to great joy.  Joy in the new life that begins to bloom in and through God's people.  Joy in the reconciliation that comes when those who have been separated are reunited.  Joy in the healing of our hearts and dreams.  Joy in knowing that this "life is not ended, but rather it is changed" by the reality of the empty tomb Jesus leaves behind.

Each day brings us closer.  Walk the way.  Feel the love.  Let it bring joy.

By the Lake

It is a beautiful day at Canyon Lake!

It is a bit too cold to go swimming or boating but that is okay.  Anyway, I am here to pray, read and write.  So as I sit at this coffee shop (with  wireless internet access and pretty good coffee) and look out over the lake, I am appreciating why Jesus might want to teach so much around water.

Seems like so many of Jesus' stories that grab me happen around water.  Fishing stories, fish frys on the beach, walking on water and calming storms are all stories that have captured my imagination.  I guess it is those stories that keep attracting me to bodies of water when I need to recharge and renew.

I was born and raised near water.  I spent so much of my early life in the water.  My best memories have usually occured near water.  I love the water.

I am captivated by the life that lies just under the surface of water.  I am aware that just out of my view is a whole new world brimming with life, life that is beyond my own imagining.

Maybe that is why Jesus taught by the water.  He wanted his followers to become aware that just under the surface, just beyond their view, a whole new world was brimming with a promising life that was beyond their imagining.  Jesus wanted his listeners, including you and me, to understand that a new way, a new kingdom, was breaking into the world that could calm the storms of their lives, feed them spiritually and physically, help them accomplish more than the could ask or imagine, and help other people to see the new possibilites God has for them.

Water has power.  Power to open us.  Power to teach.  Power to cleanse.  Power to make us new.

Jesus is inviting us to the water so that we can remember all that God has done to create and re-create his wonderful world and, even more, his wonderful people through and by the water.

Jesus is always inviting us to the water.  Let's go there and find a whole new world that brings us new life today and for eternity.