Reclaiming the Joy of Faith - Simplicity

Do you ever feel burned out on religion? Does your spirit thirst for God's spirit? The Lenten sermon series Reclaiming Joy speaks to the human need to jump off the fast track and into the full life.

In the book of Second Kings and Second Chronicles, we learn about King Josiah, who led a reformation of Israel. During a renovation of the temple, workers found the "Book of the Law." They presented the book to Josiah, who after reading it, realized how far from God the people had come. He led a season of repentance and led the nation back to obedience of God's laws and the practice of their faith and worship.

Over the Sundays of Lent we'll think like Josiah as we seek to nourish our faith. We'll deal with different spiritual habits that we can renew. Each of these can lead us to deeper joy in life, and especially in our relationship to God. There are many spiritual habits we could study, but we're going to add each of the following, one week at a time:

• Simplicity
• Celebration
• Sabbath Keeping
• Silence
• Solitude
• Humility

Every member of FBC is going to be invited and challenged to take part in a special shared project at the end of Lent. If you make the commitment to listen to the New Testament on CD for 28 minutes a day for 40 days, you'll get a free CD of the New Testament from our friends at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The 40 day period will begin on Easter Sunday and is the challenge that will come out of ourReclaiming Joy series. Please begin praying that 100% of our church family will make this commitment! Watch for more news about this during March.

Hello, my friend, hello. It's good to see you.

I've not been posting much material the past year. There are several reasons.

One of them is that I've taken a new pastorate, and it's been a tough year of transition. My family is trailing behind me, waiting for the oldest sister to finish high school. It has been bearable, but the "back and forth" has exacted a toll on my creativity and desire to be extroverted via this blog. Sometimes you just have to turn inward for a while to conserve and preserve yourself for the most essential tasks of life: family, faith, and work.

Another reason is that I've been focusing more time on preparing better sermons, writing for doctoral research, and writing curriculum for spiritual formation. Those venues have tapped a different voice from within me, but have made a recluse of my blogging brain. I imagine that's also an inward turn. Some would say my preaching was just fine - I would argue that it still has a long, long way to go.

But I suppose the biggest reason is that I've not been blogging is that I had little to say. The cup has been dry, but not for the reason you might think. You see, I'm turning 40 this year and I've been reflecting on what I've written and said in the past. Much of that older material is uttered by a less mature voice than what is at work in me now. I've been reading widely and learning that I have a lot still to learn about the craft of writing and preaching. I'm starting to see how good writing goes beyond elegant ordering of well-chosen words. Good writing must come from within a person who knows themselves well and I am only just now beginning to know myself. And only in glimpses can I even see me!

Further, good writing stems from full living. If a writer has explored his life fully, it's time to go live some more. That's the feeling I got when I read David Sedaris' last book, When You are Engulfed in Flames. I wanted to tell David, "Go live some more before you write another one."

So I'm slowing down on my writing, letting things more substantive and mature emerge. That will inevitably mean less output, but hopefully of higher quality. In the mean time, thanks for continuing to read here. I thank you for the visits to my page and I hope you'll keep checking back.

U2 or the Beatles?

If you don’t know who the Beatles or U2 are, you might be above a certain age that I wouldn’t dare name. That’s OK, you only need to know that they’re both wildly successful rock bands.

The bands had extremely different styles for song writing. With the Beatles the songs were written by one individual and then taught to the band. Usually it was John Lennon or Paul McCartney. With U2, every member of the band collaborated to create the “sound” for the song. Both bands were critically and commercially successful.

Some churches are like the Beatles, some are like U2 in this regard. Some churches are run from the top down – pastor and deacons/elders make the decisions and the church goes forward. Some churches are more collaborative in decisions and direction. Both models work for different reasons in different places.

Paul is addressing a troubled church in his letter to the Corinthians. In the second half of chapter 12 Paul reminds the church of their unity in Christ, despite the differences that exist among them. And whether they’re going to be top-down or collegial, they’re going to have to work together.

The same is true for churches today. We have no choice but to pull in the same direction with all our talents and passions. The work is too important, and the unity of the church is too valuable. The means that we Christians need to belong – really belong – to our churches. How? ·

- By fully investing in our church, not simply attending it. ·
- Acting as co-creators of community, not just consumers. ·
- Embracing our diversity, not disparaging our differences.

If you're in the Metro DC area this weekend I hope you'll join me at First Baptist Church Gaithersburg for worship at 10:30. If not, I hope you'll attend the church of your choosing and invest yourself anew. You need your church and your church needs you!

All you need is love where the streets have no name,

Pastor Gary

Through Fire & Water

I remember my baptism, but only in snippets. I remember the bright red hair and glowing face of the woman who was baptized before me. I remember the square-edged voice of the preacher who buried me and pulled me out. I remember that the water was warm and the light was soft. And I remember that family was there, and we went out for ice cream. Those images are priceless and peaceful to me.

Remembering baptism is important because it is a singular time of calm in the sea of life, a rough and tumble tide. John the Baptist warned the people, "I baptize you with water...He [Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." What John shouted in the wilderness of Bible times is still true in the city life of modern times. The life of following Jesus will involve some trial, some hard work, and some suffering. If I had my "druthers," I'd be content to take my salvation and go merrily along my way without hardship. Seems God has other plans, other things to teach us in the shaping of our character into the image of Christ.

The good news is that we do not go it alone. We have the fellowship of the saints, the support of friends, and above all, we have God who does not leave us alone. Isaiah 43.2 promises,

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you."

Join us on Sunday to remember your baptism and to reestablish contact with the God who wants to go with you through the water and fire of life. We gather at 10:30 for worship and 9:15 for Bible study!

Reaching for my asbestos life jacket,

Pastor Gary

Long Story, Short is a weekly column I write to get you thinking about church on Sunday. If you're in the Washington, D.C. Metro area on Sundays, I invite you to join us at First Baptist Church, Gaithersburg. You can catch back issues of this column and other original pieces on my blog at www.tothelees.blogspot.com.

Nice Poem

Not feeling very inspired to blog lately, I've been writing a lot for work and for school. However, this poem spoke to me today:

"On Swimming" by Adam Zagajewski

The rivers of this country are sweet
as a troubadour's song.
the heavy sun wanders westward
on yellow circus wagons.
Little village churches
hold a fabrid of silenc so fin
and old that even a breath
could tear it.
I love to swim in the sea, which keeps
talking to itself
in the monotone of a vagabond
who no longer recalls
exactly how long he's been on the road.
Swimming is like prayer:
palms join and part,
join and part,
almost without end.

Long Story, Short - October 2, 2009

A cow by any other name...

A USA Today report verifies what wise dairy farmers have said for years: a cow will give more milk if she’s called by name. If the farmer knows the cow and interacts with the cow, she is more productive - to tune of about 68 more gallons of milk per year. These are the findings of Catherine Douglas of Newcastle University in England.

Perhaps that statistic can aid us in our reading of Hebrews 2.11, “...Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters...” You’ll want to read the whole of chapter 2 to see if you agree, but I’m thinking that Jesus calls us brothers and sisters in order that we might know our place as children of God.

And perhaps be more productive as disciples of Jesus.

Admittedly, thinking of ourselves as God’s cows is not all that flattering. But how far off from being the sheep in the “Good Shepherd’s” pasture is this image? How far off would it be to think that God wants us to have productive, meaningful lives?

If you’re in the DC metro area this weekend, why not join the herd for worship this Sunday at First Baptist Church, Gaithersburg? Who knows, you might find the experience very mooooooooving. Worship starts at 10:30 and we’ll observe communion, baptism, and a parent-child dedication! You might even want to audition for a Chick-fil-A commercial afterward!

Udderly excited,
Pastor Gary

Dirty Preacher

This is a photo from "Mud Ball 2009." It's an event our church puts on that basically involves a mud pit for volley ball and a long slide down a hill into a pond.

This is one event that lives up to the hype.

Is the Mission a Success?

I found this little gem of a question in a preaching journal I read called Homiletics. What do you think?


The Book of Heroic Failures contains a story about a 1978 strike of British firefighters, when the army filled the gap. One afternoon, the replacement firefighters got a call to rescue a cat caught high in a tree. The soldiers rushed to the scene, put up a ladder, brought down the cat and gave it back to the owner. The woman was so grateful that she invited them in for tea, an invitation they accepted. After a wonderful time, they said goodbye, got in the truck and backed away — over the cat.

Which prompts the question, “Could that rescue mission really be considered a success?”

—Adapted from George Sanchez, “How to succeed God’s way,” Discipleship Journal (Sept./Oct. 1983).

Selling the House Before the Roof is On

Alexis de Tocqueville was researching the American prison system on behalf of the French in the mid 1800's when he wrote of American culture, "An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on; he will plant a garden and rent it just as the trees are coming into bearing … he will take up a profession and leave it, settle in one place and soon go off elsewhere."

Is it simply part of the American experience to wanderlust? Is he highlighting a kind of stupidity that is still inherent to us? Not every American was or is like his generalization, but is there a common trait amongst us that contributed to our current economic plight? Are we selling the house before the roof is on it when our system seeks an ever expanding economy and encourages the frivolous and extravagant use of credit?

I'm jus wondering.

The Senility Prayer

Ran across this today, thought you aged ones might enjoy this. You know who you are!

Dear Lord,
Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones I do, and
The eyesight to tell the difference.
Amen.

Forever Begging for Just One More Day

May you and I live this day so fully as to find needless the prayer uttered at the end of this amazing poem. Thanks, Billy Collins, for continuing to amaze us.


Statues in the Park

I thought of you today
when I stopped before an equestrian statue
in the middle of a public square,

you who had once instructed me
in the code of these noble poses.

A horse rearing up with two legs raised,
you told me, meant the rider had died in battle.

If only one leg was lifted,
the man had elsewhere succumbed to his wounds;

and if four legs were touching the ground,
as they were in this case--
bronze hooves affixed to a stone base--
it meant that the man on the horse,

this one staring intently
over the closed movie theater across the street,
had died of a cause other than war.

In the shadow of the statue,
I wondered about the others
who had simply walked through life
without a horse, a saddle, or a sword--
pedestrians who could no longer
place on foot in front of the other.

I pictured statues of the sickly
recumbent on their cold stone bed,
the suicides toeing the marble edge,

statues of accident victims covering their eyes,
the murdered covering their wounds,
the drowned silently treading the air.

And there was I,
up on a rosy-gray block of granite
near a cluster of shade trees in the local park,
my name and dates pressed into a plaque,

down on my knees, eyes lifted,
praying to the passing clouds,
forever begging for just one more day.

-Billy Collins

I couldn't resist

Props for this joke to the source editors at Homiletics. You guys are some of my favs:

A fellow has a parrot who swears like an old salt. The bird is a pistol. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself. Trouble is, the guy who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and the bird’s foul mouth is driving him nuts.One day, it just gets to be too much. The guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard and yells, “QUIT IT!”

But this just makes the bird mad, and he swears more than ever. Then the guy gets angry and says, “Okay for you” and locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird, who claws and scratches. When the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a sailor blush.

At that point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds, there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly gets very quiet.

At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minutes of silence, he’s so worried that he opens up the freezer door.

The bird meekly climbs onto the man’s outstretched arm and says, “Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I’ll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on.”

The man is astounded and amazed at the transformation that has come over the parrot. Then the parrot says, “By the way, what did the chicken do?”

Rough Verse

Draft of a first verse of a poem I'm working on.  My Maryland friends may recognize the "blue train" as the MARC - speeding by, of course.

I’d love to settle into that restless breeze, 

Tagging along behind that blue train to the land 

Where no one owns a cell phone, nor needs one, 

A place where ringing things have no squeeze on me.

McDiet

It only takes one 10 p.m. McDonald’s commercial to stoke my appetite.  Even with a great dinner just over my shoulder I’m dreaming of a milkshake in my left hand and hot fries in my right.  If I’m strong I’ll settle for some of that cardboard stuff known as “Fat Free Popcorn.” Hey, we all crave the wrong things occasionally.

 

In a world of Little Debbie cakes, fast food on every corner, and grocery stores gaudy with too many choices, we are a culture addicted to food that is bad for us.  We are some serious snackers in the spiritual sense, too, having too often settled for a fast-food religion rather than the life sustaining gourmet feast that is really ours.  Jesus challenges us in John 6.26 with a word to the throngs following him around after the feeding of the 5,000, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” 

 

The message of the munchies is that we’ve settled – once again – for something less than God’s best for us.  We’ve chosen ritual over relationship, sappy over substantial, and flashy over the real nourishment of Christianity.  Many a modern minister has used the worship table to dish up stones for bread, but Christians have endorsed it, gobbling down the byte-sized pabulum that passes for preaching like Scooby-Doo and Shaggy tearing into a foot long hero.  Long story short, we need to look for a little more substance in our relationship to God.

 

That’s what we’ll be discussing this Sunday as we look at John 6.24-35.  The sermon is called McDiet and I hope you’ll come hungry. 

 

(p)Reaching for a crispy fry,

Pastor Gary

 

Long Story, Short is an email I send to get you thinking about church on Sunday.  You can read similar things at my blog, Life to the Lees.  This week’s sermon is part 2 of 5 in the series Hunger.  Upcoming titles and texts are: 

 

July 19 – Tastes Great               John 6.35; 41-51

July 26 – Stuffed                        John 6.60-69

August 2 – True Bread              John 6.51-58

 

John 6:24-35

²⁴So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ ²⁶Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. ²⁷Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’ ²⁸Then they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ ²⁹Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ ³⁰So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” ’ ³²Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³For the bread of God is that which^* comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ³⁴They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’

35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Kobe and Phil and Leadership

Watching the ESPN docu-drama tonight, I heard Kobe Bryant give a great insight on leadership of winning teams.  He said, roughly, that Phil Jackson, Lakers' coach, doesn't draw up plays for the team.  "He draws up sequences, he gives us options to follow based on what we see happening on the floor at the moment."

Makes me think of Paul's instruction for pastors to equip the saints.  

When God Moves Slowly

A friend of mine asked recently if God was ever going to answer a particular prayer. I answered with a quote from Tom Petty that "the wai-ai-aiting is the hardest part" and said something about God moving slowly to create change in our lives. That sounded pithy at the time.

Hours of mindless tasks later, I recalled something I'd read from Frederick Buechner in The Sacred Journey. He writes about the obfuscation of God's speech into our lives, saying, "God speaks to us in such a way, presumably, not because he chooses to be obscure but because, unlike a dictionary word whose meaning is fixed, the meaning of an incarnate word is the meaning it has for the one it is spoken to, the meaning that becomes clear and effective in our lives only when we ferret it out for ourselves."

It took me a while to find the quote, but I finally dug it out. Maybe the search was a kind of metaphor for my own spiritual waiting and searching - part hazy memory, part dim epiphany, part grubbing about in my library. As I consider all my own "waits" and all the "waits" of others, I think the waiting is part of the process of finding meaning in God's speech, the speech that becomes effective "only when we ferret it out for ourselves."

But couldn't God do things in an easier way? Just a little quicker, playing things out nice and clean, like a thirty minute sit-com?

But really, who am I to judge God's speed and efficiency? God's economy holds little similarity with my system of skewed values and prejudices, anyway, and besides that, there is that other little nagging thing that just may be an absolute truth: God's ways are not my ways.

I do hold hope for the future, though. One day there will be a kingdom where things like mustard seeds, yeast, pearls, workers in vineyards, the meek, the poor, those who grieve, all these things, they will come to a place of prominence and the human economy will emulate God's economy. I'm ready for that day.

But since I don't see it on the horizon, I'll simply wait, just like I told my friend to do. And I'll hope for continued dim epiphanies and ghostly memories all grubbed out in the room I call my study while God moves slowly all around me.

Quick line

Who was the man behind the mask?
None of us ever dared to ask.
Poetry was Everette's shield and sword.

Line from Everette as sung by Slaid Cleaves

Holy WOW!

When did you last say, “WOW!” and really mean it? Was it a sunset, an amazing vista, or a summer shower? Was it an unexpected phone call from an old friend, a smile from a stranger, or the breath of an infant on your neck? Whatever it was or whenever it happened, each and every large and small “wow” in life is a gift from God.

You might even call such moments a “Holy Wow!”

Isaiah experienced a “holy wow” during a vision where he saw the angels before God’s throne singing “Holy, holy, holy.” He recognized the holiness of the moment. He saw the distance between his humanity and God’s perfection. He heard God’s question of “Whom shall I send?” and responded in the moment with the heart of a true volunteer, “Here am I; send me!”

Which leads me to believe that a “Holy Wow!” moment calls for a response from me. At minimum it’s a word of thanks. Ideally it becomes a question of “What should I do now?”

What do you do with the “Holy Wow!” moments of your life? How do you respond? What do you do in reaction to God’s presence in your life? Those are the questions I’m pondering in advance of this Sunday’s sermon on Isaiah 6.1-8. It’s called Beyond Wow. If you’d like to share some of your “Holy Wow!” moments, I’d love to read about them...jot me a line back at glong@fbcgaithersburg.org.

Holy cow!
Pastor Gary

Long Story, Short is a Friday email I write to get you thinking about church on Sunday. You can read more of my writing at Life to the Lees. You’re invited to worship at First Baptist Church of Gaithersburg this Sunday at 10:30 am.

Isaiah 6:1-8
A Vision of God in the Temple
6In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3And one called to another and said:‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;the whole earth is full of his glory.’ 4The pivots* on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. 5And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7The seraph* touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ 8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’

Unknown user or password incorrect.

My assistant at my old church emailed me earlier this week and asked if I was ready for her to remove my email account from the system.  I told her yes and promptly forgot about it.  Thursday night I logged in - or tried to - only to find that I no longer had the old email account.

The blue web page had only one line of text on it:  Unknown user or password incorrect.

Suddenly I'm an unknown user on that old email account, and it caused the strangest rush of grief.  I'm really gone.  I can't go back.  Another piece of my identity as pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church is gone.  

I love where I am.  It's a great fit and I'm really thriving at FBC Gaithersburg and happy to be back in the metro DC area.  But I gave nearly seven years of my life to serve the people of WMBC and it's something more than eerie to read Unknown user or password incorrect after logging in to a webmail account almost every day for nearly 2400 days.

Leaving WMBC has been one of the hardest things I've ever done because our family has become enmeshed with the many families there.  Like one of those tentacled brain tumors that cannot be extracted without damaging the brain itself, I'm wondering if full extraction is ever possible?  Will the pain go away?  Can I ever leave another church again?  

"It's too painful," my wife says.  "I don't have many more of these moves in me."   She's not talking about packing and unpacking either - she's talking about leaving the people we love.

And that's substantially more substantial than changing addresses, email or snail mail.  I can't imagine a day when the people of WMBC say Unknown user or password incorrect to me, and I know I can't say it to them, or the many friends we've shared life with in Houston.  But my old email account reminded me bluntly and coldly that I am no longer the pastor of WMBC.

And my training as minister reminds me that we grieve much because we have loved much. 

The Strangest Moment Arrived

Someone very close to me told me about a long over-due conversation that happened for her this past week. She commented to me that during the conversation she realized she'd reached a certain point in her life where - and this is my paraphrase - the need to please had been overtaken by her need to be herself. It struck me as a beautiful mark of maturity and self-confidence - something I'd already seen, but now she saw for herself.

I'm left contemplating: Why does it take so long to see the good stuff in ourselves? That we are confident, remarkable creatures imbued with God's very nature? That changes come about in our lives that indelibly mark us, often for the better, but only to be realized later?

Do you ever have moments when you realize "you ain't so bad?" They are gifts, and we should receive them as gentle reminders from our heavenly Father that we are “enough.”

Kate Light has a great poem called There Comes the Strangest Moment that describes this moment of truth.

There comes the strangest moment in your life,
when everything you thought before breaks free —
what you relied upon, as ground-rule and as rite
looks upside down from how it used to be.

Skin’s gone pale, your brain is shedding cells;
you question every tenet you set down;
obedient thoughts have turned to infidels
and every verb desires to be a noun.

I want—my want. I love—my love. I’ll stay
with you. I thought transitions were the best,
but I want what’s here to never go away.
I’ll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast . . .

Your heart’s in retrograde. You simply have no choice.
Things people told you turn out to be true.
You have to hold that body, hear that voice.
You’d have sworn no one knew you more than you.

How many people thought you’d never change?
But here you have. It’s beautiful. It’s strange.

– Kate Light