This morning at our men’s Bible study we talked about power. (Hey, it is a men’s Bible study. What else are we going to talk about?) At first glance, compared to Rome, Jesus looks pretty powerless. Sure, he turned over a few money changers’ tables in the temple and drove out some animals, but when Jesus came head-to-head with the enemy (i.e. Rome), he got taken out. Instead of death by crucifixion being a badge of courage, people in the first century would have viewed it as a sign of defeat, pure and simple.

Was Jesus powerless? When I posed that question to our men this morning, the room was quiet for quite a long time. We were thinking of “power” in a narrow way, the kind of power Caesar exerted over the Jews and over Jesus. Then we recalled how Jesus had power to heal the blind, the deaf, the crippled and the paralyzed, and to caste out demons. While Rome had the power to kill people, only Jesus had power to raise the dead. He calmed the wind and waves and fed thousands with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. He forgave people. His powers of communication captivated audiences for hours and even days on end. By his merely saying the words, “Follow me,” fishermen abandoned their nets and tax collectors walked away from the most lucrative of professions. All Jesus had to do was invite himself over for lunch, and one tax collector immediately announced that he was going to give half his wealth to the poor and pay back anyone he had cheated four times over. Ultimately it became clear that Rome would never have been able to kill Jesus unless he let them kill him.

What about us? What kind of power do we have, and how do we use it?

When I raised that question this morning, it wasn’t long before we realized that each of us has a lot more power than we thought. We have the power to use our minds and decide what we’re going to feed them. There is all the power we exercise around “words” — the power to decide what we’re going to say (or refrain from saying), the power our words have on others, and our power to discern what God may be saying to us through the words other people speak or write. We have the power to forgive when other people thwart our power. We have the power to respond rather than react. Even if we say nothing, just our presence has the power to affect the atmosphere in a room or the mood of a group. We have power every second of every day to decide what we are going to do with our time, our thoughts, our talents, our weaknesses, our successes, our sins, our possessions and our prisons, i.e. those circumstances that we can’t control or change.

The fact that some of us feel powerless is based on a lie.

Especially since Pentecost.

Because of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives, we not only have authority, we have God’s grace to help us exercise it. The Holy Spirit shows us how to use it in ways that are life affirming, loving and for the common good. God is all around us and within us, providing outer hints and inner nudges, recollection of ancient Scriptures as well as fresh inspiration, that will help us exercise our power responsibly and well. Jesus acknowledged his own reliance on the Holy Spirit to exercise his authority — the same Spirit that is in each of us. Jesus knew the reason he had this authority: it was to serve rather than to be served; it was authority to lay down his life and take it up again.

Each of us has been given an enormous amount of power and authority. God gave Adam and Eve, our ancestors, this authority when he told them to “rule” over the earth. You have God’s Power living in you, Jesus’ own Spirit, to help you. My fellow-servants, let’s use our power well today, in ways that would please our King.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.

There is so much to love. Creation, Jesus, God’s Word, God’s will, and other people. So why aren’t we “smitten?” Why aren’t our spirits constantly buoyed by the glory and wonder of it all?

Because there is also so much to hate. About creation, Jesus, God’s Word, God’s will, and other people. ”Hate” is a strong word, I know. In the Bible “hate” has a wide range of meanings. Sometimes it indicates a strong abhorrence for something or someone, sometimes just an aversion; at other times it simply indicates a preference.

As far a creation is concerned, I’ve had times when I’ve ‘hated’ mesquitoes and black flies; hot, humid days; or having to sit on a stalled chairlift when the temperature is 10 below, not counting the 30 mile per hour winds. I hate what that cyclone did to the people of Myanmar and what that earthquake did to the people in China. I wonder if New Orleans will ever be the same after Katrina.

Hating things about creation makes sense. But hating things about Jesus? Both Jews and Gentiles in the first century hated the very thought of giving their allegiance to someone who had been crucified. I both love and hate the fact that Jesus’ teachings are hardly ever straightforward. I hate it that I can’t heal people a lot of the time, even though it’s my job to represent him, and he said that he would give us whatever we asked if we prayed in his name. I don’t like always having to explain him, or defend him.

I know that a lot of people have difficulty loving the Bible, and if they were really honest, would admit that there are some things they actually hate about it. I understand. There are truths in the Bible that we would die for. But we hate the fact that we never know if what we’re going to read on a particular day is going to strengthen our faith or rattle it. Maybe we realize that our doubts may likely be based on a misinterpretation of the text, but then there’s hating how reading the Bible makes us feel stupid some of the time.

It’s pretty obvious how a person would have a love/hate relationship with the will of God; especially with what theologians call his permissive will. That’s the stuff that he supposedly allows instead of causes. The cyclone, earthquake and hurricane we just talked about are good examples of what’s not to like about God’s will. Even if he didn’t cause these natural catastrophes, he knew about them, even before they happened. Even the insurance companies assume that God is as responsible as anyone when they call these “acts of God.”

Finally, there are the things we hate about other people — those major offenses as well as minor irritants that short-circuit our attempts to love them, even when we know it’s the right thing to do, even when we know that God would be really pleased if we loved them. I also know that I really should like hard-boiled eggs. But if you were to insist that I ate one of those deviled eggs you brought to a church potluck, I would probably throw-up in your plate. (So don’t ask.)

The psalmist wrote: “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?” Jesus may have had this verse in mind when he said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” So, basically, love what you hate. That’s how we can love the Father. That’s how we can love like our Father. I have a hard enough time just learning to accept what I hate, must less love it. Both Jesus and Paul go so far as to tell us to rejoice over what we hate (e.g. Matthew 5:11,12 and I Thessalonians 5:16-18). No wonder biblical scholars call this an “upside down kingdom.”

This is what I was getting at yesterday when I suggested that if we’re to love God’s Word, God’s will and other people, we have to love them unconditionally; because if we start coming up with conditions, love won’t have a chance.

Take the Bible as an example. Near the beginning of his ministry, the prophet Jeremiah exclaimed, “When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight!” Later he started to dread whenever the “word of the Lord” came to him. At that point in Israel’s story, Jeremiah knew that any word from God was likely to contain more bad news than good news, which usually meant more time for him in some cistern or the king’s dungeon. What got him through was knowing that current events were not the end of the story.

How can we come to love what we hate? Let me offer a few suggestions.

First, we learn to love people and things as a whole. I would guess that all of us are still experiencing the effects of modernity. The modern period was the child of the Enlightenment, which gave us the tools to dissect and compartmentalize almost anything, including ourselves. It’s hard not to see everything and everyone in terms of their parts instead of as a whole. A good example of holistic loving is John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son….” The world. The whole world. That kind of perspective, much less that kind of love, is almost incomprehensible to the modern mind. To some extent, it was to the ancient mind as well. The ancient mind could think of a nation as a whole or a race as whole, but not the world as a whole. For first century Jews there were two worlds — Jews and Gentiles. John, the evangelist, tells us that God loved the one world that contained both these worlds. The gospel of the New Testament says that God means to renew and restore the whole world, and even to unite heaven and earth. (”Thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”)

Second, we need to look beyond the things we hate. (At this point I’m using the word “hate” to mean simply “having some aversion to.”) I’m not saying pretend those things aren’t there. Nor am I suggesting you try to make yourself like the things you hate. We’re all sinners. Bad things happen in the world. Again, there is a lot not to like. But by God’s grace and power, we can look beyond what is unlovely to what is lovely. As Paul writes: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (Philippians 4:8).

Finally, look for God. For example, when I read Scripture during my morning devotions, instead of dwelling on those words or ideas or parts in the story that I don’t understand or don’t seem to apply to my life, I notice the verse or part of the story that sparks an inner response. That’s where I plant myself. That’s where I look for God to speak into my life. That’s where I look for God.

When I accept and embrace the whole of what’s happening (without denying there are parts I don’t like), I’m free to look for how the Father is blessing me, what Jesus is trying to teach me, and where the Spirit is leading me. It’s because I have the whole Trinity that I can love whoever and whatever.

The reason I have to learn to love what I hate is because what I hate is always part of what I love. It’s a package deal. When Abba adopted me as his son, he knew it was a package deal. By loving me, he’s loving what he hates, because what he hates in me is part and parcel of what he loves.

I realize this post is kind of deep. Of course, it’s all deep. Then again, a person doesn’t have to figure out how deep the water is, or know what’s living and moving beneath the surface, in order to swim. The key to swimming is knowing how: looking beyond what we hate and dwelling on what we can love; looking for God, always looking for God.

Our Father. Our Abba. Most of you already know this, but it bears repeating: the word “Abba” is Aramaic for Father, or better, Dad or Papa. It’s how Jews in first century Palestine, both children and adults, addressed their father. They would have never thought to address God as Abba. In fact they would have considered it sacrilegious if not blasphemous. Actually, this was Jesus’ unique way of addressing his Father. As “the only begotten Son of God,” he was the only one who had the “right” to address God in this way.

At the beginning of his gospel, John says: “Yet to all who received him (Jesus), to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God….” Jesus is the only “begotten” (i.e. natural) child of God. The rest of us who have given our lives to Jesus are “adopted:” “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). The word “sonship” can and probably should be translated “adoption” or “adopted sonship.” This fits with what Paul writes in Ephesians 1:5: “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ.”

With our adoption come all the “rights” of being a natural child, including our being able to address the First Person of the Trinity as “Dad.” Calling the Lord’s Prayer the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that Jesus is showing us how he prays. In other words, this isn’t a generic prayer for spiritual generalists; it’s a prayer for a unique group of people who have been “reborn” as daughters and sons of God.

This is a love prayer. It’s a prayer for people who love Jesus, and through Jesus have come to know God as Abba, as Dad.

So how do we show our Dad, our Papa, that we love him?

May I suggest three ways? Three ways we can show our love for Abba; three ways we can strengthen our love for Abba.

By loving his Word (the Scriptures that tell me I can address God as “Father”).

By loving his will. (”Your Kingdom come, your will be done….”)

By loving others. (”Our Father….”)

It is primarily through the Word of God, especially the Scriptures, that I know about Abba and about Jesus, as well as Abba’s will for my life, including why and how it is that I’m to love other people. That’s why this list starts with the Word of God. It’s because of the Scriptures that I can pray the Lord’s Prayer, and be confident that in some form or shape, this prayer goes all the way back to Jesus himself. (Next time I’ll try to say more about these three ways to love Abba.)

God has been showing me that if I’m to love him with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength, I need to love his Word, his will and other people unconditionally. I mustn’t let my doubts (which will always be there) about God’s word and will, or my doubts about other people, or even my doubts about myself, hold me back from believing and entering fully into these three ways of loving God: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Love lives with abandon. It is full of gratitude, joy and hope. Mistakes will be made — in interpretation, in discernment and in application. But if our desire is to love God, we can be assured that ”Love covers a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8). Unconditionally throwing ourselves into loving God’s Word, God’s will, and other people will free us to read his Word expectantly, trust his will completely, and love others deeply and sincerely.

Jesus has given us a way to offer these three loves to Abba as a prayer. If prayed in and by the Spirit of Jesus, our ”Abba” will be a cry of adoration, surrender and hope. This is a going-for-broke prayer initialing a go-for-broke life. It’s a prayer for people in love with Abba and his Son, for those who have been adopted by the Most High God — by our Father who is in heaven.

This past Sunday I talked about the Lord’s prayer — not the usual one, but the shorter version: “Abba!” The apostle Paul refers to this prayer in both Romans 8 and Galatians 4: “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’” So it is the Spirit of Jesus in us that cries, “Abba!” Sometimes it’s a cry of delight and praise (”I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” [Luke 10:21]); at other times a “groaning” (Romans 8:26) and a call for help (”‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me’…And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” [Luke 22:42,44]).

Maybe learning how to pray the “Abba” prayer can teach us how to pray the “Our Abba” prayer, or what our Catholic sisters and brothers refer to as the “Our Father.” Maybe instead of mindlessly droning the words in “vain repetition,” unconsciously parroting the same monotone pitch of our fellow worshippers, we’re meant to cry  or cry out the prayer with the same delight, groaning and pleading of the one-word version.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name!” Is this meant to be a somber, formal reverential form of address, or a childlike exclamation of praise? (Actually, Jesus’ contemporaries would have considered this an irreverential way to address God.) How do you think Jesus prayed these words? What about ”Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!”? Is this one of those petitions that’s so general as to be generic, or is our saying these words a way to express our anguish over the state of the world and our deep desire for Jesus to finish what he began 2000 years ago? Are we crying for divine intervention or just trying to be theologically correct?

I suggest that we start with the shorter Lord’s prayer. If we can learn how to say and pray “Abba!,” then the other Lord’s prayer will probably come alive for us. Delighting, groaning, pleading — maybe we really do have to become like children to enter the Kingdom of God.

Maybe in order to pray the “adult” Lord’s prayer, we need to learn how to pray the child’s version first.

Does Jesus “loom large” in your daily life? The words “loom large” came to me this morning, seemingly out of nowhere. According to Webster’s, the word “loom” means “to appear in an impressively great or exaggerated form.” Is it possible to ‘exaggerate’ the importance of Jesus? I don’t think so. Certainly, we can emphasize the Son to the neglect of the Father and the Spirit. But the solution isn’t to emphasize Jesus less; it’s to emphasize the Father and Spirit more. In other words, the more we emphasize the whole Trinity in our lives, the more likely it is that we’ll give each Person their due.

But back to my original question: Does Jesus loom large in your daily life? A good comeback might be: ‘How large are we talking about?’ Well, let’s hear from the Master himself: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Sounds “impressively great” to me, especially when you include what he says next: “No one comes to the Father except by me.” This particular verse is often quoted to affirm Jesus’ theological importance. Sometimes it’s used to affirm Jesus’ practical importance for getting into heaven. But what about our everyday lives? (I’m assuming that when Jesus talks about being the “life,” he’s including daily life.)

One way to reflect on this question is to ask ourselves how large other things loom for us — things like finances, projects, health, hobbies, spouses, children, vacations, work, the L.A. Lakers (undefeated in the playoffs so far, but you probably already knew that). Let’s shrink the question down to this particular day: How large has Jesus loomed for you so far today ? No guilt trip intended. I don’t get any sense from the gospel accounts that the disciples left everything to follow Jesus because they felt guilty. Rather, they felt in their heart of hearts that Jesus loomed so large that they had to follow him, even if it meant risking and sacrificing everything. Even then, they realized at many points in their discipleship that they had underestimated him, like the time he calmed the wind and the waves and “they were terrified and asked each other, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!’”

Tim Keller says that “sin is not simply doing bad things, it is putting good things in the place of God.” According to Keller, this human habit not only affects our relationship with God but other relationships as well. He points to the writings of Jonathan Edwards, who “lays out how sin destroys the social fabric.”

He [Edwards] argues that human society is deeply fragmented when anything but God is our highest love. If our highest goal in life is the good of our family, then, says Edwards, we will tend to care less for other families. If our highest goal is the good of our nation, tribe, or race, then we will tend to be racist or nationalistic. If our ultimate goal in life is our own individual happiness, then we will put our own economic and power interests ahead of others. Edwards concludes that only if God is our summum bonum, our ultimate good and life center, will we find our heart drawn out not only to people of all families, races, and classes, but to the whole world in general.

So what happens if Jesus looms larger than all of these? Paradoxically, we have more love for others, not less. Whenever we narrow our love to our own family, race, class or nation, our love remains primarily self-interested. Our love for others is still rooted in self-love. The way of Jesus, the way that is Jesus, is love of a different order. The Bibles gives a picture instead of a definition: the cross.

John the Baptist understood what it was going to take for Jesus to loom large. When people brought to his attention the fact that Jesus (actually, his disciples) was baptizing and ’everyone was going to him,’ John responded, “He must increase; I must decrease.” Ah, there’s the rub.

What are practical ways Jesus can “loom large” for us today?

• Whatever you’re doing, do it in a way that would please and glorify your King: “Whatever your task, work at it with all your heart, as done for the Lord and not for your masters” (Colossians 3:23).
• Look at others through Jesus’ eyes, not through the lens of how their actions are affecting you.
• Have selfless love be your ‘dominant value.’
• Consult him — often.
• Leave it all out on the field.

“For me to live is Christ.”  (St. Paul)

Maybe you heard or read this story in last week’s news. For me it’s an earthly glimpse into Trinitarian love and what it means to live out of our true glory:

With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury. She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count - an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky. The umpire said there was no rule against it. So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky’s legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg.

“The only thing I remember is that Mallory asked me which leg was the one that hurt,” Tucholsky said. “I told her it was my right leg and she said, ‘OK, we’re going to drop you down gently and you need to touch it with your left leg,’ and I said ‘OK, thank you very much.”‘ “She said, ‘You deserve it, you hit it over the fence,’ and we all kind of just laughed.”

“We started laughing when we touched second base,” Holtman said. “I said, ‘I wonder what this must look like to other people.”‘

“We didn’t know that she was a senior or that this was her first home run,” Wallace said Wednesday. “That makes the story more touching than it was. We just wanted to help her.” Holtman said she and Wallace weren’t thinking about the playoff spot, and didn’t consider the gesture something others wouldn’t do.
As for Tucholsky, the 5-foot-2 right fielder was focused on her pain.

“I really didn’t say too much. I was trying to breathe,” she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. “I didn’t realize what was going on until I had time to sit down and let the pain relax a little bit,” she said. “Then I realized the extent of what I actually did.” “I hope I would do the same for her in the same situation,” Tucholsky added.

As the trio reached home plate, Tucholsky said, the entire Western Oregon team was in tears.
Central Washington coach Gary Frederick, a 14-year coaching veteran, called the act of sportsmanship “unbelievable.”

For Western Oregon coach Pam Knox, the gesture resolved the dilemma Tucholsky’s injury presented.
“She was going to kill me if we sub and take (the home run) away. But at the same time I was concerned for her. I didn’t know what to do,” Knox said. Tucholsky’s injury is a possible torn ligament that will sideline her for the rest of the season, and she plans to graduate in the spring with a degree in business. Her home run sent Western Oregon to a 4-2 victory, ending Central Washington’s chances of winning the conference and advancing to the playoffs.

“In the end, it is not about winning and losing so much,” Holtman said. “It was about this girl. She hit it over the fence and was in pain, and she deserved a home run.”

So how do we recover our original glory? (See yesterday’s post.) By seeking to glorify rather than to be glorified. In other words, our greatest glory is to give glory. We are most ourselves when we delight in others and give ourselves away.

Like God.

Last night I read a little further into Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. I was delighted that the last regular chapter of the book was devoted to the Trinity, the focus of our adult retreat this last weekend. Those who were at the retreat, and hopefully others as well, will appreciate this quote from his chapter entitled “The Dance of God:”

“What does the term “glorify” mean? To glorify something or someone is to praise, enjoy, and delight in them. When something is useful you are attracted to it for what it can bring you or do for you. But if it is beautiful, then you enjoy it simply for what it is. Just being in its presence is its own reward. To glorify someone is also to serve or defer to him or her. Instead of sacrificing their interests to make yourself happy, you sacrifice your interests to make them happy. Why? Your ultimate joy is to see them in joy.

“What does it mean, then, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit glorify one another? If we think of it graphically, we could say that self-centeredness is to be stationary, static. In self-centeredness we demand that others orbit around us. We will do things and give affection to others, as long as it helps us meet our personal goals and fulfills us.

“The inner life of the triune God, however, is utterly different. The life of the Trinity is characterized not by self-centeredness but by mutually self-giving love. When we delight and serve someone else, we enter into a dynamic orbit around him or her, we center on the interests and desires of the other. That creates a dance, particularly if there are three persons, each of whom moves around the other two. So it is, the Bible tells us. Each of the divine persons centers upon the others. None demands that the others revolve around him. Each voluntarily circles the other two, pouring love, delight, and adoration into them. Each person of the Trinity loves, adores, defers to, and rejoices in the others. That creates a dynamic, pulsating dance of joy and love. The early leaders of the Greek church had a word for this — perichoresis. Notice our word “choreography” within it. It means literally to “dance or flow around.”

Jesus, please teach me to dance.

We’re all damaged goods. As the apostle Paul puts it, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Instinctively, we know we’re made to be glorious creatures. Instinctively, we also know that we fall short of that glory.

Religion is our attempt to re-attain that glory. Religion is our attempt. It is what we do to save ourselves. It is “salvation through moral effort.”

One of the central teachings of the New Testament is that any attempt to save ourselves is doomed to fail. Religion has failed us. A number of books have been written lately that attempt to show that the greatest threat to world peace is religion. Much of the world’s violence, they say, is caused by religion. Of course, they’re right. Atheism is one of those religions. Atheism has its own definite beliefs about “God” and what it’s going to take as a human race to “save ourselves.” The atheist states of the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia killed tens if not hundreds of millions of people in the twentieth century. Yes, religion in all its forms has failed us, religion as the universal attempt to save ourselves, as our attempt to regain our former glory.

Jesus and the New Testament writers agree in their assessment that religion, whether theistic or atheistic religion, is a dead end. Religious effort is just one more expression of our fatal flaw, which is to try to play God. It is doomed to fail and needs to fail if we are to embrace God’s radical alternative. The New Testament radical alternative to religion is the word “gospel.” The bad news is that we can’t save ourselves. The “good news” is that we don’t have to.

“Religion is “salvation through moral effort.” The “gospel” is “salvation through grace.”

A religious life is one that tends to continually vacillate between feeling guilty and feeling superior. Some of us tend to get stuck on one or the other, but most of us manage to swing to the other pole at least once in a while. We may not even see ourselves as religious people, or even spiritual people. Maybe our sense of being “not enough” is not being as successful as we want to be in our job, sport or family life. When we do manage to make it up another rung on the ladder, it’s hard not to “look down” on everyone below us for their lack of talent or lack of effort. Of course, feeling superior just sets us up for feeling inferior when we invariably look up at the people perched on the upper rungs.

Some of us have given up on both religion and ladders. Our attempts to save ourselves basically involve saving ourselves from depression and despair. So we eat, drink and try to be merry as best we can, medicating ourselves, stimulating ourselves, doing whatever it takes to pull ourselves back from the “black hole” that threatens to swallow us up. But it’s not working. No attempt to save ourselves ever works, not for long.

The apostle Paul uses the three words – justification, sanctification and glorification — to describe three aspects or stages of salvation. These three words actually address our deep human yearnings for self-validation, transformation and experiencing ourselves as “glorious” creatures. The problem is, religious thinking and living can kick in at any time. For example, even though we call ourselves believers, some of us are still trying to justify or validate our existence by being “good Christians.” Or we accept the validation Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished for us, but now we attempt to sanctify or transform ourselves mostly through our own efforts. We don’t deny that grace is important, but we see grace as a kind of lubricant, something to grease the skids so that we don’t have to try quite so hard. This understanding of grace underlies the (non-biblical, by the way) aphorism: “God helps those who help themselves.” Finally, our struggle with self-esteem prompts us to exploit virtually every little success or accomplishment to extract some recognition or glory from others.

The message of the New Testament is that this whole system – this whole religious way of coming to life — is bankrupt. Any attempt to save ourselves — i.e. justify ourselves, sanctify or transform ourselves, and glorify ourselves — is doomed to fail. 

So how to live by grace.

It isn’t by being passive. Paul himself writes: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:16). Instead of working on our salvation, Paul tells us to work out what God is working in. The “fear and trembling” he talks about is the biblical kind of fear that is actually “awe” before the fact the God is this close and this directly involved in our lives.

I’m looking forward to saying more about this, especially about what I’m learning at a personal level. I’ll end with this quote from Tim Keller that addresses beautifully our struggle to validate or justify our existence:

When my own personal grasp of the gospel was very weak, my self-view swung wildly between two poles. When I was performing up to my standards — in academic work, professional achievement, or relationships — I felt confident but not humble. I was likely to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. When I was not living up to standards, I felt humble but not confident, a failure. I discovered, however, that the gospel contained the resources to build a unique identity. In Christ I could know I was accepted by grace not only despite my flaws, but because I was willing to admit them. The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. I don’t need to notice myself — how I’m doing, how I’m being regarded — so often.

This is very “good news” indeed.

In his book, The Reason for God, Tim Keller tells the following story:

Andrew Delbanco is a humanities professor at Columbia University. Some years ago he was doing research on Alcoholics Anonymous and was attending AA meetings around the country. One Saturday morning in a New York City church basement he was listening to a “crisply dressed young man” who was talking about his problems. In his narrative he was absolutely faultless. All his mistakes were due to the injustice and betrayals of others. He spoke of how he was going to avenge himself on all who had wronged him. “His every gesture gave the impression of grievously wounded pride,” Delbanco wrote. It was clear that the young man was trapped in his need to justify himself, and that things could only get worse and worse in his life until he recognized this. While he was speaking, a black man in his forties, in dreadlocks and dark shades, leaned over to Delbanco and said, “I used to feel that way too, before I achieved low self-esteem.”

I know that low self-esteem isn’t a joking matter for many of us, but maybe it should start to be. God seems to keep allowing things to happen in my life to help me “achieve low self-esteem.” Last night, at a special classis meeting, when I introduced myself I couldn’t remember the name of our church. (Actually, I could remember the name, but I kept thinking to myself, “That can’t be it. That can’t be it.”) Six years ago, when I sent my profile to Bellevue Reformed Church (there, I got it right; when I got home last night I wrote it out 50 times before I went to bed), one member of the search committee (justifiably) wanted to set aside my profile because I had misspelled my own name. Talk about a close call.

Delbanco writes about the young man in the story, “It was clear that the young man was trapped in his need to justify himself….” Another thing that happened last night was that another pastor came up to me before the meeting began and said she heard I’d been roughed up a bit by someone at the last homosexuality dialogue I attended. Before I could ask her how she found out, she told me that the same thing happened to her this last week. She also implied that the same person did the roughing up. Now, I have to admit that the experience had been more than a little humiliating. Of course, discovering another “victim” was just what the doctor ordered. I then proceeded to say things that were less than complimentary about the “accuser,” just to make sure I had achieved the redemption I so clearly deserved. (I did this only a few minutes after I had oh so heroically walked up to the person who had shamed me and greeted her warmly.)

No one likes to be embarrassed. I also know that there is an unhealthy kind of low self-esteem that can be debilitating. But I’m guessing that I’m not the only one that often feels the need to justify myself — as in justifying a particular mistake or sin or, more generally, doing and accomplishing things to justify my existence. I wonder what it would mean to really live into the basic New Testament doctrine of “justification by grace through faith.” What if I believed (by faith) in the core of my being that because of the cross and because I have already been adopted into the Family of the Trinity, I no longer have to justify my behavior or my existence? What if I could accept my little blunders and even the ”sins” I commit, as well as the unfair things that are said about me, as opportunities to achieve low self esteem instead of trying desperately to escape it all of the time? What if being “esteemed” was not only bumped down the list of my goals in life, but removed altogether?

Kind of gives new meaning to the word “freedom,” doesn’t it?

I am loved X Three. You would think that would be enough.

“LOVED X 3″ was the theme of the retreat, and looking back on it, I see that we were. It felt messy to me as I was going through it: so many of us, and all so different; so many hopes and so many wounds. But of course! That’s the point, isn’t it. (Papa laughs and says, “you think?”)Seeing the Father differently through Jesus’ parable of those two sons who were totally oblivious to the generousity and beauty of their father’s powerful love (and who were therefore unnecessarily miserable!); finding our hearts aching to be like the other Son, to love Abba like His Son Jesus does, and then noticing His own Spirit so gently swirling among us during that final big circle of prayer…. many of us returned home with a stronger desire than ever to live in God’s love.

“Practicing the presence of God” seems to take on new dimensions when the God who is present, is present X 3. Father is here. Jesus is here. Holy Spirit is here. Papa, Jesus, Sarayu (as in The Shack ). Somehow it seems less like effort, and more like a party. At least when living in God’s presence is what I want.

Here’s another discovery: if hidden away beneath my pleasant exterior a little bit of self-pity is brewing or perhaps an intention to indulge myself without looking to see the expression on Jesus’ face, then it isn’t a party at all to have The Three-in-One so attentive. I would just as soon believe myself to be alone. And yes, I tried that for several hours and it’s awful. The howling selfishness rushes in; things lose color; the responsibilities ahead (intriguing opportunities earlier, but now burdensome obligations) will be impossible to fulfill; nothing is right.

How sorry I am to have pushed Them away! But how glad I am to know so vividly now the difference between living with Them and living with ‘just me’.

How good The Three are: no taking offense, no silent treatment, no leaving me to lie tossing and turning in the bed I’d made for myself. None of that. Not that it was a party right away when I returned. But They were there. As soon as I came back, I was held and helped.

It’s quiet here this morning. Quietly The Three-in-One receives me moment by moment. Those responsibilities are opportunities again, because I’ll be working with Them in whatever childish way is possible for me. The Triune One has gently, skillfully softened my heart again and poured love into it for everyone who has come to mind this morning. It’s quiet inside; I’m glad to be alive.

God is good.