Adventures in the Word

“I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.” – Mt 11:25

This post is a little late for the Thanksgiving holiday, but I don’t think it’s ever too late to think about thanksgiving itself.

What is the opposite of thanksgiving? I ask that because it always helps me understand the essence of something if I can get at its precise opposite or see a shade of its missing meaning.

Take for example:
envy – contentment
patience – aggression
faith – cynicism
hope – disappointment
love – apathy

thanksgiving – self-sufficiency.

Of course the obvious opposite to thanksgiving is ungratefulness, but that’s like saying the way to avoid overeating on turkey and dressing is to ‘under eat’ it. Not very helpful.

To see thanksgiving in this light, let’s inspect its foundations. I say, “thank you,” when you give me something or you do something for me. So thanksgiving is a response to something that I didn’t have before. But that response assumes that I’m aware that you gave it to me. For example, you might see me reading in a dim light and turn on a light for me; but if I don’t notice that you did it, it would be impossible for me to say thanks. I’ll just go merrily on enjoying my light.

So too often we fail to give sincere thanks because, we live under the illusion of our self-sufficiency. Too easily we assume that we can handle most, if not all of our needs. But what a huge deception!

But just to remind you, here’s a few things that we too quickly forget and “take for granted.” These things are mostly outside of our control; I’ll list them and then give a quick example.

economy – what if the price of oil causes a recession or even a depression?
security – imagine terror striking the US again
weather – drought hits Georgia
health – cancer incidence goes up
time/location – what if you were born in Afghanistan in the 1930s?
work – your job suddenly becomes expendable
family – an unexpected twist strikes at home

A change in anyone of these areas would profoundly affect us and radically change our lives and how ‘self-sufficient’ we feel. If we could only see that – not only are we NOT self-sufficient – we are actually pitiable and quite fragile. Thank God that he has pitied us and loves us and has come to our rescue in Jesus.

Thank God: He “remembers that we are but dust.”

People are demanding an update on the fries!
Here’s the latest:
age: 157 days old – that is, approximately 5.2 months; I bought them on June 22, 2007.

general appearance: color is still good, maybe somewhat darkened, but they appear to be ever so slightly shrunken. Perhaps all of the food content is now completely gone, or maybe there was none there to begin with. What we’re left with is still a mystery.

smell: no offensive odor, but in sniffing them more closely, I know I’ve smelled that fragrance before. Hmmm . . . déjà vu. It seems to register somewhere in my brain, maybe among the unclassified smells that I’ve encountered as I’ve walked through a newly constructed house . . . it seems to have an odd adhesive quality . . . I hope that I haven’t allowed any alien compounds into the olfactory regions of my brain where it can start boring a network of worm-holes.

Shiver. Uuugggh!

PS – Eureka! While photographing the fries I think I’ve identified the smell more precisely:
Play-doh®! or is it Silly Putty®?
Hmmm. This may explain a lot.

In parts 1 through 3 I’ve been talking about human conversation, but there’s another mode of conversation too – the human/divine kind. We usually talk about this by using the term prayer, which is a perfectly fine term, but too often it’s loaded with baggage that warps our view of it.

Can we really have a conversation . . . with God?

If so – and I think most would answer yes, at least to some degree – does our human conversations, or lack thereof, have any bearing at all on our conversations with God? If so, how?

When I think of conversation, I normally imagine sitting in a comfy chair, maybe with a cup of coffee, relaxing, sipping and casually chatting. But can we really picture ourselves doing that with God (of all people)? Can we really do that with the Lord of Lords and King of Kings? Shouldn’t we sit up a little straighter, suck in our gut, be quiet and just listen?

That question makes me think of a friend of mine who somehow got the opportunity to meet and talk to President Bush. The thing that struck me as I heard his story was just how comfortable that George W Bush made him feel. At first my friend was nervous and justifiably in awe of the man. But shortly after sitting down with him, the President had a way of putting my friend at ease. At the end of their conversation, my friend John told me that all of them – John, his friend, the President, and First Lady Laura Bush – they all literally ended up on their knees praying, at the suggestion of the President himself.

I think that may give us a window into how the Lord can be in our conversations with Him – if we let Him. Yes, He’s the God of the Universe, and like the President, He has a lot on his mind. But somehow He finds the time to shut out everything else and is completely ‘present’ with us. Being who He is, He doesn’t have to ‘put on any airs.’ He’s ‘comfortable’ with Himself and can easily condescend to us without being condescending.

My friend was completely blown away by the fact that President Bush appeared to be genuinely interested in him and apparently didn’t see their conversation as an imposition OR a photo opportunity. His meeting lasted about 20 minutes and was completely behind closed doors without one camera.

Hearing about President Bush in this light surprised me and I found myself drawn to the man, George Bush. But then I also found myself admiring and respecting him even more. But why? Shouldn’t his ‘self-humbling’ have brought him down a little closer to my level? No. Actually it’s just the opposite.

I hope this helps us see the paradox that God is both transcendent and imminent. Somehow He’s able to oversee the movements of the entire universe while at the same time, sit down with us and have a cup of coffee.

Awesome.

I don’t know about you, but I’m turning the snooze off this time. That aroma from the kitchen tells me that Someone’s in there making a fresh pot.

One way that love is expressed is through the sincere simplicity of our words. If I could have added one line to Paul’s masterpiece, it would be, “Love . . . doesn’t have to be dramatic.” It’s in the everyday averageness of our day with others that love is shared (or not shared).

So I wanted to pair some common conversational phrases to Paul’s characteristics onagape. See if you can hear yourself in these lines. Some may sound a little sappy or superficial – I don’t know, maybe they really are – but I don’t think they have to be. If we can’t imagine ourselves saying these words, maybe we just need a little deeper agape.

Love Agape . . .
is patient makrothumei

“It’s okay, I’ll wait for you.”

is kind chrasteuetai

“Here, let me do that for you.”

isn’t envious ou zaloi

“It wasn’t just me.”
“No. He did it.”

isn’t conceited ou phusioutai

“Oh thanks, I hadn’t noticed.”

isn’t rude ouk aschamonei

“Please be quiet.” [not: ‘Will you shut up!’ ]

isn’t just looking out for his own things ouk zutei ta eautas

“I’ll wait up for her.”
“I’ll make the time for it.”
“It’s all right; you go ahead first.”

isn’t reactionary ou paroxuvetai

[silence]

doesn’t automatically assume the worst ou logizetai to kakon

“Oh – I never imagined that it could be that bad.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Honestly, I could be tempted, but, I’m just not going there.”

doesn’t celebrate the wrongs done to others ou chairei epita adikia

“Oh, how terrible.”
“[weeping] Oh no!”

smiles when truth wins out sugchairei detzolytheia

“Wow! That’s great!”
“Wonderful!”
“I was hoping you’d win.”

keeps all confidences panta stegei

“You can trust me.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“I won’t say anything.”

isn’t naïve or cynical panta pisteuei

“I still think it’ll work out.”

perseveres panta elpizei

“Don’t give up!”
“It’s not as bad as you think.”
“You can still make it!”

puts up with everything panta hupomenei

“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
“I forgive you.”
“Oh, it used to bother me, but not any more.”

never withers oudepote ekpiptei

“I’m still here.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Call me anytime.”
“I’m ready to listen when you’re ready to talk.”
“ . . . whenever you’re ready.”
“I still love you.”

This is a summary of a message that I shared at Nora Christian Fellowship on November 4, 2007

“Then he said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.’” — Luke 9:23–24 New Living Translation

Crux – noun 1 a vital, basic, decisive, or pivotal point: 2 a cross.

The crux of Luke is the cross. If you put Luke and Acts together (and Luke wrote them to be companion books), the cross is in the middle and forms the heart of both books. Luke is the story of Jesus and his cross; Acts is the story of the twelve disciples and their crosses.

At the end of Luke chapter 8, a strange thing occurs with the number twelve. Consider:
• Luke records the twelfth in a series of Jesus’ healings.
• Jairus’ daughter, the twelfth to be healed, is twelve years old.
• The woman with the issue of blood, the twelfth to be recorded in need of healing, has had her condition for twelve years.
• Directly following the twelfth healing, Luke records: “Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power . . . to cure diseases.” This is the first time that the twelve disciples are sent out.
• Two more instances of twelve occur in the story of the feeding of the 5000.
• At the end of that story Luke records that “twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them [the twelve disciples].”

One more thing: there are exactly twelve occurances in Luke of the word twelve.

Hmmm.

Why the sudden rush of twelves? To see why, I think we have to see how things come to a pivotal point or crux here at this point in Luke’s gospel. Up to this point, it’s been all about Jesus and his growing ministry. But now Jesus turns toward Jerusalem and announces that he’s going to take up his cross and die and rise again. That means that the clock starts ticking for when the twelve disciples will carry on the ministry of Jesus after his resurrection. It also points to the time when the twelve will take up their crosses too.

Life, blessing and multiplication come out of death. God’s calling on Jesus defined the shape of his cross – the way that he would sacrificially give his life for us all. We too have a calling on our lives and that calling will form the shape of our cross.

It’s strange that, here it is the beginning of November, and the autumn colors are still not at their peak. The lingering fall makes me want to savor its wonders.

So I was happy to discover Luci Shaw, a poet and non-fiction writer with a strong incarnational voice. This poem is from The Green Earth, Poems of Creation.

Harvesting

Yesterday, after first frost, with maples
blazing beyond fringes of stubble hay,
my husband and my sons
pulled up dead summer’s stalks of corn,
laying them flat among the weeds
for plowing in again, when next spring’s born.

I’m glad I picked the green tomatoes
two nights ago
and spread them, newspapered,
to ripen on the basement floor,
good company for the corn relish, row
and golden row in jars behind the pantry door.

Yes, I’m very glad
something’s left — something not dead
after all the hilling and hoeing,
seeding and sprouting, greening and growing,
after the blowing
tassels high as a woman’s hands above her head.

Let me leave fruit
(but not in someone’s basement)
when I grow browned
and old and pulled up by the root
and laid down flat
and plowed into the ground.