Tag: honor

The Remedy for Evil

I’m a bit more than half way through teaching a small group of adult learners about Evil, God’s Justice, Love, Mercy, Reconciliation, and Kingdom of God living with great guidance of a slew of videos from Tom Wright.

When we decry Evil we mustn’t stop there for we are the remedy for it.

God’s Kingdom is made manifest through us. We exact justice by helping those who are suffering rather than through the power games a godless world endorses and implements.

It is not about self-interest, but self-sacrifice.

Our fuel is the knowing that we are indeed image bearers and creations of God made from the outpouring and overflowing of his great love. We are God’s Beloved and we offer that gift to the world, that they too, each one is Beloved as well. We especially find the ones that are overlooked or oppressed or unhealed.

We do more than associate with these outcasts, the ones that others find embarrassing or scandalous, we suffer with them and enter their pain.

Sometimes simple seeing and hearing someone fully and taking them into our loving kindness will well convey that they are God’s Beloved because we’ve treated them with such honor. An honor that is due them because they are God’s children.

I made up this slide and it may be a good poster too, so I offer it up to you. (click the image) Pin it if you’d like.

And now a question for you.

What particular group of misfits holds a soft spot in your heart? Send me a voicemail or leave a message.

love&justice

Vulnerable = Lovable

It’s always an honor to hear someone really share their pain. Not wallow, mind you. Not over-exposing their fiery emotions and gory  details. Something real and raw from a tender and seldom seen place.

The heartfelt wounds that still hurt from some kind of past or unnoticed pain. The cries of the heart. The reaching out to be heard, and then the comfort realized.

It always strikes me that at the very time when someone is most revealed and open they are at the same time supremely vulnerable and yet exquisitely lovable.

Truly human. It’s not just an honor because it is so rare …(it happens usually through time and trust and other options are unfavorable)…it’s an honor because there is within that moment a genuine glimpse of glory.

“The glory of God revealed is the human most fully alive.” -Irenaeus of Lyons

We have a rebirth–a fully alive moment–in those sort of times: Vulnerability through the struggles and between destinations. There the messy becomes beautiful. Redeemed.

Even though it feels really risky, the chance to be truly seen and heard in our vulnerability engenders compassion because what is common between us transcends the boundaries that keep us isolated.

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Snippets from the Dr Miroslav Volf seminar

The air was electric… a cross between a speech and rock concert…a nerdy electricity.

My school (where I now work) is small. Small but strangely mighty. Blessed.

And thankfully it is committed to excellence and honest inquiry. This quality is more rare than you might imagine, in liberal and conservative institutions alike.

Yesterday, Dr. Miroslav Volf was the featured speaker at the annual Ritter-Moyer Lecture. Go ahead, click on his name if you haven’t of him.

I’m still reflecting on his message and a richer response in warranted.

But, I can say this….His message seemed radical…but only because Christians have too often loved so poorly.

They were convicting words, for me, for those who claim to forward the Gospel, and also sadly–for most of humanity. The Gospel it turns out is highly subversive and radical because it turns the all too common bad bits of human nature upside down and refutes them. Love and Grace are downright scandalous. We get Grace wrong. Almost all the time.

But the lecture was far from depressing. It was heavily laced with hope. His topic revolved around honor.

I hope to revisit the themes, but for now here’s an anemic glimpse of the approx 3 hour lecture (yes, there was a 20 min break involved in the middle).

QUOTES:

“We have a religious duty to honor everyone.” (including those who persecute us)

“Misplaced fear is one of the primary reasons we fail to honor. We should replace the fear of each other with the fear of God.”

“The [American] founding is not a pretty story. It’s an ambiguous story. It’s drenched in injustice but also suffused with ideals and institutions that can be affirmed (by Christians). It’s also the story of our own hearts. We have no excuse and we have to own our own divided history.”

‎” [Grace means] I am not the sum of my deeds.”

“Everyone who loves or wants to be loved distinguishes between person and deed. Forgiveness is “unsticking” the deed from the person.”

‎”Fear undermines honor.”

‎”Forgiveness presupposes that sin & sinner are distinctive from each other”

“How do we know that we are speaking the truth in love? We are gentle.”

“We bear false witness (to the Gospel) when our words don’t match our deeds.”

“Peace is not agreement. It is sacrificial love…The means is the end.”

‎”1 Peter: command: “Have tolerance with others when (you are) persecuted.”

“But, more than tolerance, we must honor (and respect) them.”

“Gentleness is a servant of respect.”

(You can find more quotes from Volf on Twitter by searching #Volf, or on the Evangelical Seminary Facebook page)

Spontaneous Praise

This morning on FACEBOOK, I issued a challenge to my friends who happened to be on their computers at the time. The challenge was simple: Sing Praise.

Quickly, a friend replied by posting a Psalm of her own. Inspired, I rejoined with more praise, and then so did another.

After you read what happened, maybe you can type in a few words of praise.

Jodi Shockey Plum 

I sing praises to Your name oh Lord, praises to Your name oh Lord. For Your name is great and greatly to be praised. i sing praises to Your name oh Lord…
about an hour ago · 

(me) Praise you God, the Highest One. You glory extends from the heavens to the depths of the earth. The stars shout for joy, the tree sway to your music, the birds sing your refrains, the creatures acknowledge you.


Sharon Herbster

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. . .Praise Him ye creatures here below. . .Praise Him above ye heavenly host. . .Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

(Once my granddaughter was talking to me on the phone from NC and sang me her “Jesus song”. She asked if I knew any Jesus’ songs and I enthusiastically said “YES!”. “Sing one for me, Mimi” she asked. So, I did. When I finished she said, “Sing me another one!” This repeated and went on for close to a half hour. . .)

Afraid of God

normal_FrightenedLady001 I was speaking with “Gwen” not that long ago, and she was telling me about an emotional subject. The words, “Oh my God” escaped her lips. She stopped. She looked around, and then with a look I would have to describe as panicked, she said, “I’m so sorry. I know God doesn’t like if I do that.”

I didn’t want to make anything of it, so I encouraged her to continue her story, but later I starting thinking about what happened. She was feeling afraid. It was fear she felt toward God when she apologized. 

 

Because God made us as relational beings, I wonder if we need to do better than being afraid of God. I know as a parent, I want to love my children and have them love me, not fear me. I want them them to respond to me and with me, not just respond out of fear of something happening to them. I enjoy my place as parent, rather than their peer. I do want honor and respect, and I try to offer that to them. But, if they operate in a way where they look over their shoulder every time they do something, I think I sense I have failed in some major way in relating to them, and parenting them. I will not have established a relationship of trust, and healthy love and caring.

I wonder if Gwen will feel close enough to God to feel unafraid one day. I wonder if she will feel he loves her dearly, and knows all about her, and still loves her just exactly the same. The fear comes from her own expectations, and probably what she has been told about God, but not God’s nature, and what God desires for her. He wants closeness, intimacy, and free reciprocal communication. He doesn’t want a cowering servant, always afraid to do or say the wrong thing that may displease him. Pagan gods were temperamental, but in contrast, Yahweh was and is not. I think the God image in her mind might look close to the dad she had, or some authority figure. But, the Lover of her soul, cares for her so deeply it would blow her mind.

Have you been afraid of God? Do you know someone who is? What has been the effect?