Field Notes On The Jesus Way

Teaching some management courses on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation for the Little Wound School District a few years ago, I was impressed by their spirituality.  Before one of the courses was about to begin, the leader asked one of the elders of the tribe, who happened to be the Athletic Director of the school, to lead in prayer.

They pushed back from the tables and we all stood, the elder Arlo Provost began to pray— in Lakota.  It took my breath away; I had no idea what he was saying but I had never heard anything like it.  He said, “Amen” then sat down and we all sat down too.  I was stunned.  Then they all turned their heads to me.  I opened my notes and began to teach them about managing multiple priorities.  I felt like the foreigner that I was.

It reminded me of a story I read somewhere that I hope is true about one of the “rites of passage” of Lakota boys.  A father would take his son out into the wilderness at age 14 and leave him there by himself over night with scant provision to survive the day and night.  It is said that the boys would spend most of the night sitting up listening to all the wild sounds of the night, the owls hooting, the rustling in the brush, the snorts in the dark, and the wolves howling.  A very restless and frightful night for the young brave.

But in the morning when the dawn broke over the eastern horizon—off about a hundred yards—the boy could see a lone man standing beside a tree.  Then the man started walking towards him and the boy would recognize the walk of this warrior-father.  He had been there all night watching his son.

God’s kind of like that with us.

Sometimes I cry out to God, “God, where are you?  I just don’t see you!”

And in that still small voice God says: “Remember the Sunday School class when the teacher, Mrs. Peggram, made you leave the class because she couldn’t get you to shut up?  That was Me. How about that time when your head hurt so badly that you cried yourself to sleep and your mom came to your room to rub your neck?  That was me.  I was there.  Remember when your dad came to give you a ride home when the meanest kid in school wanted to beat you up? I was there.  I was caring.

“Remember when you were in high school, and you were gangly and awkward, and nobody wanted to be around you, and you felt all alone?  You weren’t.  I was there. Remember when you were in college, and you were so empty because you thought I had gone away?  And you even doubted that I existed?  And you walked around that campus crying out, “If you are here . . . show me”?  I was there.  I was right beside you. Remember when you were working construction and couldn’t pay your bills, and they came and repossessed your truck?  And you cried yourself to sleep that night?  I was there.

“Remember in your forties, when you lost your job, your friends, your sense of purpose and you thought you were going to never see light again?  I was right there.

“Remember when you stopped and ate lunch at that Burger King in Vernal, Utah and told your oldest son why you lost your job and were leaving Colorado?  I was there at the table with you and the next two hundred miles of silence that hung between you and your fourteen year old son. Don’t ask me where I’ve been.  I’ve been close the whole time.”

I want to paraphrase and personalize a famous passage of scripture in the Old Testament for my own edification, if not yours.

When Joe was a child, I loved him,

And out of sin I called My son.

But the more I called him,

The more he ran from Me.

He sacrificed to the gods of this world,

And burned incense to carved images.

“I taught little Joe to walk,

Taking him by his spindly arms;

But he did not know that I healed his wounds.

I drew him with gentle cords,

With bands of love,

I stooped and held him.

God is always near, redeeming, guiding, forming, mending, and protecting us.

Today, my oldest son celebrates the seventh anniversary of his marriage to my daughter-in-love, Ashley. And none of that, including the four subsequent grandchildren, could have happened had God not taken an active and sovereign role in the life I was trying to live.  I don’t understand how God uses past mistakes to make beautiful art, like a wonderful marriage of seven years for my son and four red-headed angels, but He does.

As we live our lives, fretting about what goes bump in the night, keep your eyes on the eastern sky.  One day, maybe not too distant from now, we will see our Warrior-King returning to wipe away every tear from our eyes, heal our wounds, and set things to rights in this sorry dark world.  We are not nearly as alone as we think we are.

In a word, it’s called hope.

“Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus,” I say.

The Old Testament tells about a time when David danced before the Lord. (2 Samuel 6:14) David was so passionate that he could find no other way to express his passion, and he danced before the Lord with all his might. His wife was not real happy about him doing that. But God loved it!

When was the last time that you danced before God?

There are some people, in some churches, who take pride in knowing a lot about God. They may fill their minds up with a lot of information, but when it comes to worship, no one has ever been so moved that they actually—moved.

I grew up knowing a lot about that kind of church. I grew up Southern Baptist, who are very vocal but not a very demonstrative people.  We didn’t move much. (Easy to confuse that with dancing.) If you raised your hand in a service an usher would come and escort you to the bathroom.  He just assumed that was your question.

A few years ago during the congregational singing, while I was sitting on the front chair getting ready to preach, I looked back at my wife and gave her a wink and a smile with my eyes.  It was one of those moments where many years of commitment, shared experiences and love compressed into a look of deep love. It wasn’t a lingering look—just long enough for both of us to know how the other felt about us.

I turned around and sang the rest of song and then the worship leader had us do the meet and greet.  I sat down and looked over my sermon notes when I felt a tap on my shoulder.  I looked around to see a middle-aged woman sitting down on the edge of the chair behind me.  She said something I have never forgotten, “Pastor, I noticed the way you were looking at Lynette and I just want to tell you that I would give anything if my husband ever looked at me like you just looked at your wife.”  Then she got up, gave my wife a hug, and went and stood beside her husband.

It amuses me that we will look at each other with deep looks of love and longing and we will applaud and high five each other while watching a football game and hour after mind-numbing hour watching American Idol yet be as still as a statue when we worship the living God.  I wonder if God ever is tempted to say to us, “I would give anything for you to look at me the way you look at a football team or your wife or your new-born baby.”

Tens of thousands of people crowded St. Peter’s square on Wednesday to witness the introduction of Pope Francis before millions of people on a worldwide stage.  They were enamored and deeply moved by the presentation.  I have to admit when he asked for the people to pray for him and then bowed at the waist to receive the blessing from the people a tear came to my eye at such a display of humility.

We are moved when mere men show that kind of selflessness.  What about when the God-man voluntarily allowed Himself to be brutalized on a cross for my sin and yours?  Does that act not deserve our longing look and tear-stained face?

This Saturday evening would you consider preparing your heart for worship?  All it takes is a few quiet moments alone with your God asking him to cleanse you and fill you with His Spirit.  Humbly bow and receive that blessing and then Sunday morning go to Church and do the Baptist Two-Step before the Lord.

We want to help restore ministers and their families to spiritual wholeness and marital hope.

When my sin of unfaithfulness was discovered back in 1999, my family had no affordable place to live that made sense to us.  My brother’s church in Sumner, WA brought us to the Pacific Northwest and enfolded us into their lives.  They gave me a job razing a house next door to the parsonage for $10 an hour. They paid for Nette and me to go to counseling for over a year.

As much as the leadership of the church tried to help us (and they did more than I can ever repay), there was a threshold they couldn’t cross due to lack of experience.  I remember going to the bookstore looking for hours for specific help on how a pastor and his wife come back from this kind of thing.  What I found was either shallow or condemnatory. The counseling we could afford was fine as far as it went; retreat centers were too expensive.  What we ached for was a brother and sister who had been down the same path and not only survived, but who were now thriving.  I knew of no one like this.

Nette and I were praying one time and felt that if the Lord would have us, we would love to be that couple, to spend our days ministering to ministers who are broken, frayed and in need of a safe place to be spiritually restored. We see an all too prevalent need and feel called to fill it.  We offer over a decade of restored marriage and hearts longing to help.  We feel strongly that we have the bandwidth and calling to minister in this way.

The ministry of restoration has been around a long time.  Without restoration, Moses would have been a shepherd the rest of his life.  Without restoration, Elijah would still be pouting under a broom tree, David would never have written some of his best Psalms, and Jonah would have been fish poop on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Without restoration, Peter would have finished his days fishing and John Mark would have never written one of our Gospels.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  2 Cor. 1:3-4

I shudder to think what would have happened to the Chambers family had there not been a safe place to land back in 1999.  Today, I have a healthy marriage of 31 years, a son going into the ministry and another one who just returned from a mission trip in Mexico.  Life is great—-praise be to God.  We want to pay it forward.

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace.

 Joe and Nette

He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he left all, rose up, and followed Him.  Luke 5:27-28

Simple call.  Simple obedience.  This meant that he was apprenticing himself to Jesus.  All of his decisions are filtered through the grid of the relationship with Jesus. Levi is now attached to Jesus.

When we are called to follow Christ we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person.~~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship

Following Jesus means having an exclusive attachment to Him.  That is the defining relationship for the Christian.  Following Jesus is now the functioning control center of your entire life.  Every other relationship is now transformed because of your relationship with Jesus.

When I married my wife three decades ago, I made a decision to have an exclusive attachment to her and that attachment informed all future decisions.  She influenced my career choices, how I spend our money, what I did for recreation down to what I wear in public!

It works no less with Jesus.

Notice Levi left his past behind.  He thought about his vocation differently.  He thought about relationships differently.  Everything changed when he apprenticed with Jesus.  Jesus refuses to be a fashionable accessory to a life that you are still in charge of.  If you are a follower of Jesus it means that you are not in charge of your life anymore.

See, Jesus will be of supreme importance OR he will be of no importance, but he will not be of some importance to you.

How is Jesus saying to you, “Follow Me”?  I suggest we carve out some time with Him to let him shape our minds and souls.  Further, I think it would be helpful to select a specific aspect of His teaching and press it into the depths of our hearts until it becomes an integral part of our lifestyle.  That might be his teachings on conflict management found in Matthew 5 and 18.  Or his teaching on forgiveness found in Luke 7.  Or his teaching on worship found in John 4.  How about giving found in Luke 19?

Where in your life is Jesus saying, “Follow Me”?

The Jesus attachment means we go on mission with Jesus. Levi never got over this encounter with this Rabbi Jesus on that hot Palestinian day.  He demonstrates it by throwing Jesus a party and introduces his friends to Jesus.

We also know he went on to a best-selling writing career.  His named was changed to Matthew and he wrote the first Gospel of the New Testament that bears his name.  He was so moved by his attachment to Jesus he literally wrote the book on Jesus.  He desperately wanted people to know that through a relationship with Jesus they could be accepted and loved into the Kingdom of God. According to Church tradition Levi/Matthew lived out his apprenticeship in such a way that it cost him his life.

And when we “get grace” it will have the same effect on our lives.  I should never “get over” the grace Jesus offers ragamuffin me.

I wonder who in my world is sitting at a tax booth waiting to have an encounter with Jesus and Jesus is just waiting for me to be his hand, eyes and voice to tell them they are welcome in the Kingdom?

Anne LaMott is an author and self-described hippy who lives in San Francisco.  When you read her work she can be profane, funny and profound often in the same sentence. Throughout her adult life she became addicted to drugs and alcohol.  She made many mistakes in relationships and ended up raising a son without a father.  To the great shock of all of her family and friends she converted to Christianity.

In her book Traveling Mercies she describes her encounter with grace and conversion to Christ:

“I do not understand the mystery of grace only that it meets us where we are, but that it does not leave us where it found us.”

Jesus is ready to meet you where you are but He will never be satisfied to leave you where He found you.

What are you going to do when He calls?

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.  1 Timothy 1:15

Paul is saying, “God is in the business of saving people who are a hot mess—and I am at the front of that line.  So, if you are a mess-of-a-person, like me—then you are Jesus’ kind of person.”

But, you say, Paul was a Pharisee and a good guy. Really?

It is the way of things for people to tell their pastors their dark secretes.  I learned a long time ago to never say, “ You’ve got to be kidding!” when someone reveals a deep dark sin.  But can you imagine someone coming to the Apostle Paul and saying, “This all sounds good but God could never love someone like me after what I’ve done?  You, Paul, I get that God would love you.  You are a church planter and Scripture writer; you are a good person, but not me.  Not after what I have done.”

Paul could have said, “Are you kidding!  Have you killed church people? Because I have…Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. “

What has helped me a great deal has been to take a long hard look at my sinful life in the mirror of God’s word and let it drive me to brink of despair and then in that darkness tune my ears to the whisper from the gentle Savior and hear him say, “Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.”

And what is amazing is that when I see the national debt size of forgiveness I have received, it makes me want to be a forgiver as well.  When I am astonished at how much I have been forgiven I desperately want to pay it forward to the hard-to-love-people in my life.

I took a writing course a few years ago down in the Wallingford area.  The first night we were there the instructor served us refreshments as we got to know one another—a meal of sorts.  He was at the head of the oblong table and I was at the foot.  There were probably 15 people in the class.

He asked us to go around the table and tell our name, where we live, what we do for a living and what we want to write about.  There was a computer programmer that wanted to write about espionage.  There was a scientist that wanted to write a non-fiction book on the environment.  There was a real estate agent that wanted to write about food and wine.  And, sitting next to me, was a lady who said she was an office manager in downtown Seattle and wanted to write about sex.  The group broke out in a chorus of oohs and aahs. Then she went into some detail about the kind of erotica she planned to write about.

My turn.

“My name is Joe Chambers from Mukilteo and I want to write about my experiences in the wilderness.”  I turned my head to the next person indicating I was finished and for us to move along in the round robin.

The group almost in unison asked me what I did for a day job.

“I’m a pastor.”  The place erupted in laughter.

The office manager lady who is going to write about sex apologized profusely to me and leaned over to me and said, “I really am sorry, Father.  I am not much of religious person please forgive my crassness.”

Want to know what I said?

“Well, my child, — I’m not a very religious person either and neither is my Church or Jesus. In fact our motto is: no perfect people allowed.”

She said, “I think I could go to a Church like that.”

When Johnny Cash died a few years ago director Tony Kaye got a bunch of celebrity singer/song writers and actors to lip sync a Johnny Cash song called God’s going to Cut You Down.  It is in that edgy, grainy black and white style.  You see people like Sheryl Crow, Johnny Depp, Keith Richards, Kris Kristofferson, Chris Rock and Denis Hopper lip sync along with the foot stomp and gravelly voice of Johnny.

Right in the middle the video, Bono, of U2 stands up with a paint brush and scrawls as graffiti on a wall the words, (click on the link to see the video)

“Sinners Make the Best Saints”

May the love of Jesus disturb, transform, and re-shape you—even you who are a mess—because in Jesus’ eyes—sinners make the best saints.