The Texture of Trust

"My son, do not forget my teaching,

but let your heart keep my commandments,

for length of days and years of life

and peace they will add to you.

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;

bind them around your neck;

write them on the tablet of your heart.

So you will find favor and good success

in the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes;

fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

It will be healing to your flesh

and refreshment to your bones." -  (Proverbs 3:1-8, ESV )

It is a significant experience when something you have always affirmed, or claimed to have understood and believed, moves from the realm of intellectual assent - the hypothetical/theoretical - and into the realm of the tactile, the tangible and visceral. Indeed, it is a difficult experience to describe, because it is not that your thinking has changed - in that, it is not that you now disagree with that which you once agreed - but that your experience of this very same thought or sentiment has been entirely transformed, often in the space of a moment. I imagine it would be much that same as witnessing a two dimensional map leap from the realm of muted printwork colors, contour lines and scaled dimensions on the table before you to become a living landscape all about you - mountains and valleys, forests and rivers - suddenly alive with sound and scent and feeling; a landscape to be trod upon and explored, not merely appreciated from a safe and sterile distance.

Growing up as a kid from a church-going family, Proverbs 3:5-6 is one of those short, memorizable passages that has rolled around in my head for just about as long as I can remember. As a bit of phrase it has that bouncing, easy cadence well suited to memory exercises. And, given that these words pop easily to mind some decades later, those exercises apparently accomplished their aim. (A thousand under-appreciated Sunday school teachers rejoice.)  

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart..." It has a ring to it, doesn't it? It has that feeling of truth and solidity that sticks with you. It's a nugget worth encouraging our children to memorize. But in the end to speak about trust - to memorize some well-crafted proverbial sentiments about it, and even to wholeheartedly desire that our proclamations and confessions of trust would be genuine and true - is not the same thing as experiencing trust: the reality of a living, breathing journey of outright, unmitigated dependance. And as with most things of value, experience of this sort only comes with time, and with risk.

In this season of transition, I am faced with the distinct impression that my understanding of "trust" is leaping from the table to the landscape, as it were; taking on new dimensions, colors, scents and sounds. This past Sunday was my last as a member of the pastoral staff at Dover Baptist, as Becca and I step out with our family into this vision and call that God has placed on our lives to pursue planting a new community of disciples in a neighboring city. The path before us, while clear in conviction and ripe with potential in many directions, is at best loosely defined when it comes to tangible details at this point. And suddenly, as we come to the moment of departure, it is the details of life that loom large. 

You suddenly remember how nice a salaried position has been; maybe you weren't living large, but there's just something existentially reassuring about money that reliably appears in your checking account every week. Especially when it's January and your alternative means of feeding your family consists of a carpentry trade specializing in framing and roofing - that is to say, outdoor work - and we're on track for one of the snowiest, coldest winters in recent memory. Let's just say it's difficult to finish out a roofing project when you lose two days out of every working week to weather, and two hours out of every working day to shoveling the aftermath of said weather. And this is not a complaint - it is entirely providential that I have any other means of feeding my family at all - but simply a statement of fact that the details of life seem suddenly more tenuous and complex than they have for a number of years. There's the question of housing  - when/where to move, to rent (more expensive, month to month, less commitment and debt), to buy (more affordable, month to month, infinitely more commitment and debt) - and managing vehicle repairs, etc. etc. etc. And all of this only constitutes the mere undercurrent and simple logistics of the much larger question of what, exactly, it is that I think I'm doing, leaving an established church and a steady job for the sake of pursuing a pastoral position that doesn't exist quite yet. 

It's safe to say that twinges of doubt and a quiet-but-persistent, low-grade sense of insecurity are just part of my life right now. The puzzled look that comes across most people's faces when you try to explain what it is you're setting out to do doesn't really help. But in the end, risk is risk, and that feeling is just part of the experience. When you think about it, things like skydiving and rock climbing probably wouldn't be as popular as they are if jumping out of a plane produced the same feeling as sitting on your living room couch. There's just something in our bodies that knows and responds when we move from a place of relative safety to a place of risk; some people engage intentional and artificial risks (like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane or scaling a vertical rock face that wasn't standing between you and some important destination) for the sake of simulating that experience. Other times, we are moved to embrace risk because it is the necessary path to something of greater value. In the end, most things of real value entail engaging some semblance of real risk: 'value' and 'cost' are sisters,  and these are costly endeavors.

Which brings us back to trust.

I found myself pondering all of this yesterday, as those words from Proverbs chapter 3 sprung to mind. I realized at some visceral level that through this season I am being drawn into an experience of trust in an entirely new dimension. It's easy to claim faith and trust in the Lord when all the details of life seem to be otherwise accounted for; the paycheck, the house, the security and stability of a more or less predictable day-to-day life. If asked to speak philosophically or spiritually about these things from the security of our living room couch, good Christian people would all acknowledge that, yes, ultimately all this provision and blessing comes to us at the hand of Lord. But immediately, what we are really trusting in and relying upon is our own competency, our work ethic and responsibility, our common sense, our employer. And that is not to say these avenues of blessing are somehow contrary to one another; obviously, they are not. But there is distinct tangible, experiential difference between acknowledging on an intellectual level that all blessing, security and provision comes to us from God, and knowing, in the pit of your stomach, that if God doesn't come through, you are simply lost. 

It's hard to describe what it feels like to move from one understanding of trust to the other; it's like rolling the car window down in the middle of a January storm, and feeling that bracing, invigorating cold invade what was a warm, safe space only moments before. It's like standing in the open doorway of a small aircraft, knowing that at the count of three you are going to be hurtling towards the ground as fast as gravity can take you. When trust in the Lord becomes a living landscape around you, rather than a two dimensional concept of theory and hypothesis, you just know in your bones that you have entered an entirely new genre of life story. It's vibrant and exciting; this is a taste of what Jesus would call "life, to the full". It's also terrifying. But it is in that terror of experiencing genuine, visceral trust in our creator and savior God that life is opened; that we move from the walking slumber that we so often confuse for living to finally see the color, hear the music, smell the scents, taste the essence and feel the texture of this world that we have been given to live within in striking, resonating definition. 

Where this particular journey will end, I can't really say right now. All we have at the moment are the steps being laid directly before our feet, and the invitation to be faithful in those small things. I don't know what lies around the bend, or just how the Lord's provision will come in order to get us there. But I trust Him. I can do nothing else and, in the end, there is no better place in the world to be.

Lord, make straight our paths.

A Journey of Faith: Fixing our eyes on Jesus

(On November 10th, 2013, the Pastors and Elders of Dover Baptist made a public announcement regarding my upcoming (January 2014) departure from my role as assistant pastor there, in order that my family and I might be able to fully commit ourselves to a journey of listening and discernment concerning a new season of ministry that it seems God is calling us into. At this time, our sense is that we are being led into a church planting role somewhere in this general region. But, while we are actively engaged in that conversation presently, and will continue to be over the next several months, as of this moment there remain more question marks than hard details; hence, the need for a committed season of discerning and prayer. What follows is a manuscripted version of the teaching I gave immediately following that announcement.)

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"Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” " - (Matthew 14:22-33, ESV)

Confession time: 

I am really, really, not any good at golf. 

For one reason or another it seems like I generally end up playing golf – more or less by accident – once a year or so. Back when I was younger, for Father’s Day we used to get my dad a gift certificate to a round of golf over at Sunningdale’s in Somersworth. And that, consequently, precipitated the once-a-year Bannon family golf outing where my father, my siblings and I would proceed to take our collection of antique and/or yard sale golf clubs and head out to make a mockery of the game for a few hours. Sunningdale was a low-class-enough establishment that we could get away with this without too much public shame for my dad. But, in any case, by about the third hole my brother and I had generally degenerated into playing golf cart polo as we bombed down the fairways, hanging out the side of the cart while wildly swinging a 5 iron. Great fun for a teenage guy, but I’m not sure you could actually call it “golf”

A couple of years back, my Father-in-law even gifted me his full matched set of clubs, shoes, and one perfectly white leather glove. A black polo shirt and a pair of khakis later, standing in the parking lot, I might be able to give someone the impression that I actually know what I’m doing. That, however, is an impression that will quickly be set straight as soon as I step up to the first tee. 

You see, I am really, really, not any good at golf.

The problem is my swing. To be honest, I have pretty modest goals when I step up to the tee. I’m not really thinking about the finer points of the game: I’m not concerned about slicing or hooking or accounting for wind speed and direction. All I want to do is hit the ball. I want the golf club to make contact with the golf ball in such a way that that ball leaves the tee in the air and ends up far enough away that I don’t need to be ashamed of myself. And that’s all I really want, in actual fact: I don’t REALLY care about winning, I just want to accrue as little shame as possible over the course of the day. But it never fails; I step up to the tee, I put myself in position, I take some practice swings. And then, with enough force and style to send any self-respecting golf ball into near orbit, I swing at that little white sphere. But with an embarrassing frequency, when the swing has completed that powerful, graceful arc, there the ball sits, undisturbed atop it’s small wooden perch. And sometimes that’s the best possible outcome. Because then, at least, you can try and play it off like you were just taking another practice swing. And because, otherwise, I’ll usually just end up clipping the top of the ball enough to send it dribbling off sideways and into an irrigation ditch.

And do you know what the worst part of all of this is? I know how to fix this problem. I do know, in actual fact, how to hit a golf ball successfully. There is one simple rule that I know, and even repeat to myself as I step up to swing. At the driving range, during practice, when it doesn’t matter, I have no problem. But when it actually matters, I just consistently fail to do it. That rule? Keep your eyes on the ball. 

Keep your EYES on the BALL.

Focus, keep your head down. Don’t turn to look at where you imagine the ball may be going someday. Don’t scan the horizon for where you WISH the ball was. Concentrate on where the ball IS, all the way through that act of contact, and a few seconds more, just for good measure. But I don’t. I understand it in theory, but in practice and in action, I simply forget. I look away, I lose sight, my target gets lost in the force of my ambition… and that makes me a really bad golfer.

The Apostle Peter never had the experience of playing a bad round of golf, as far as I know. But he did very nearly go for an unwanted swim in some pretty stormy waters, and for a very similar reason: he lost track of where his eyes needed to be.

This life, following Jesus, is sure to be full of the unexpected: unexpected challenges, unexpected blessings, and unexpected invitations to follow Jesus into unexpected places. As Peter discovers, increasingly over the course of his life, this journey of faith is not about the comfortable security of the status quo or the safety of predictability; it is about TRUST. It is about following Jesus into the life he lays before us, one step at a time, even if that means taking a step or two out of the boat and onto the waves, trusting that where He is leading us is GOOD – is LIFE – even in the face of sometimes painful or challenging circumstances. And as we put one foot in front of the other, our faith – that is, our trust – is defined by where, and on what, our eyes are fixed. Whether we find ourselves on land, in the boat, or on the waves, our feet will follow our eyes, and as a people of faith Jesus calls us to fix our eyes on HIM.

Long-Distance Faith:

Sometimes we find it hard to keep our eyes on Jesus, because we find ourselves in the midst of some challenging, painful or fearful circumstances, and just we’re not sure – to be honest – exactly where He’s at. It may be that we’re desperate - that we’d LOVE to lay eyes on Jesus - but it seems like he’s hiding out at the moment.

I know those original disciples of Jesus felt like that from time to time, and certainly here in the latter part of Matthew 14. I mean, imagine their situation. They had just witnessed Jesus feed 10-15,000 (or more) people from what had started out as a bag lunch; and these disciples are caught up in that work, spending hours handing out this food that Jesus keeps producing. He brings the miracle, and they’re caught up in the work of ministry. And as soon as that work is done – no debrief, no explanation, no after-work pint to unwind – Matthew says that Jesus immediately shuffled the disciples into this boat and pushes them out to sea while he stays behind to dismiss the gathered crowd. And there they are: the disciples in the boat, with Jesus off on shore somewhere – Matthew says that once the crowd was dismissed, Jesus hiked up to the top of that mountain to pray – and a storm rolls down on them across the water. And, there, out to sea and on their own, the disciples start to struggle against the wind and waves.

 I can imagine Jesus’ perspective.

My brother and I have been working on a construction project for the past few weeks; building a new home on the side of a small mountain in Gilford, NH. From where we are working, you can see about a hundred miles: looking down over Lake Winnipesaukee, and off to mountain ranges throughout Maine and New Hampshire. And from this vantage point, we are able to watch weather develop and move, miles away from us; storm clouds gathering and moving across the lake, seemingly below our feet.

In much the same way, Jesus is praying and watching; ever-mindful and full of concern for his disciples, who are never out of his sight. But the perspective of those disciples is so different: all they can see is the storm. All they can feel is their own exhaustion and ever-approaching despair. The timeline Matthew gives us suggests that they fought against that storm all night – something in the area of 9 hours – before Jesus strolls up. By the time he gets there, it’s nearly dawn, and they’re so exhausted and afraid by then that they’re convinced that this person they’re seeing must be a ghost.

You see, Jesus felt so far away. He had worked some amazing miracles less than 24 hours earlier, but the memory of his presence and power was growing thin by the fourth watch of the night. As far as they were concerned, he was on shore, they were in the boat, and that was that. No one was coming to their rescue. After all, who could save them from a force of nature itself, anyway? But as it turns out, Jesus was not actually as far away as they perceived. And the fact that he didn’t have a boat wasn’t actually an issue. And it turns out that Jesus is, in fact, not just the Lord of the never-ending bag lunch, but Lord and King over the wind and the waves and all creation, too. 

No matter what you’re going through – no matter what you will go through – Jesus invites us to trust that he is near to us. That his eye is on us and he keeps us ever before the throne of heaven in prayer, and he is Lord over our every circumstance, even when it all seems like chaos and fear from where we sit at the moment. No boat? No problem; Jesus comes walking out to them on the water. Our circumstances cannot keep Jesus from us.

The Apostle Paul reflects on this very truth in Romans 8:

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39, ESV)

Faith Beyond the Gunwales:

Then again, sometimes it isn’t that the distance is so great, but it’s that a step into very practical uncertainty  - a step of very demanding trust – stands between us and Jesus. Sometimes we can see Jesus just fine, even if he happens to be standing in an unexpected place, but we struggle to believe that we can do what he’s asking us to do. If a life of faith is defined by eyes fixed on Jesus, the challenge is that sometimes we’re just more comfortable staring at our own feet, and the good, strong, wooden boat beneath them, instead.

“If it’s you, Lord, tell me to come out to you on the water.” 

Peter understands a couple of things here. As a Jewish disciple of a Jewish Rabbi, he understands that his calling and vocation is to DO what his rabbi DOES. So, very simply, if his rabbi is walking on water in the middle of a storm, HE should be doing the same thing, crazy as that may seem. Secondly, he takes this command as a clear identifier that this is really Jesus, after all. Because everywhere Jesus goes, and to everyone he meets, the invitation is pretty much the same: “Follow me.” Even if that invitation flies in the face of physics for a moment, Peter knows that if this is really Jesus, the invitation would stand, just the same. And it does. To his immense credit, Peter throws his legs over the gunwale, and walks out to Jesus.

And it’s to his credit, because faith beyond the gunwale is hard. I mean, just a moment ago, those disciples would have been wishing to be anywhere in the world but in that boat. But now, watching Jesus standing out amidst the chaos of the storm with no boat to speak of, I’m betting that little vessel suddenly seemed like a pretty good deal. I mean it’s strong and solid and well built, with that solid wooden gunwale faithfully standing between the disciples and that raging, uncertain sea. I’m betting, considering the alternatives, those disciples suddenly had a deep and newfound appreciation for that little boat. But real faith, genuine trust, goes beyond the gunwales; Jesus isn’t just Lord in our little boat. He’s Lord over the sea, and the wind, and everything else, too.

And this is significant for us to come to grips with, because we, too, love the relative solidity our little boats: the structures and predictable patterns of our lives. Our jobs and our homes and a steady family life without too many surprises; we may not always have all these things, but we strive for them – for a feeling of security and safety and predictability -  and when we feel them in our hands, we cling to them.

And don’t get me wrong: it’s good to be thankful for a job and warm house and a healthy family. When God blesses us with those things, it is right to deeply appreciate them and give God praise for his abundant generosity. But it is an easy mistake to slide into believing that this comfort, this safety, this predictability is, in fact, the entirety of life as God intends it for us. It’s easy to fall into the practical belief that God is God here, within these confines and structures and blessings, while forgetting that he’s God out there, too. And, in actual fact, if we are going to be genuine followers of Jesus, at some point it’s going to involve surrendering to Him the safety of the gunwale that separates us from the unpredictable and the unknown so that we can not just appreciate Jesus from a safe distance, but actually follow him into His Kingdom purposes, which are simply bigger and deeper and richer than the confines of our little, comfortable lives.

And this is where Becca and I find ourselves… For us at this time, following Jesus means getting out of the boat. And it’s not because there’s something wrong with the boat we’re in, here. And it’s not because there’s a bigger, sleeker, more attractive boat across the way. In actual fact, where we end up, and how this journey of trust fleshes itself out over the course of the next 6-12 months is really an open question. And that’s probably the hardest thing to try and explain: If you don’t know exactly WHERE you’re going, then WHY are you going? But I guess the simplest answer is just that Jesus is Jesus, and He’s made it clear that he is calling us to step into something new, and He’s made it equally clear that there’s no way we’re going to know what that looks like until we are willing to express our trust in Him by stepping over the edge of this boat. It’s as if he’s standing out there, in the midst of what looks to us like a lot of risk and uncertainty, but He’s not willing to shout the details to us over the noise of the wind in the waves while we stand with our feet behind the gunwale, straining to hear him. Instead, He just says, “Come over here. That way, we can talk without having to yell…” And that’s what January is really about; stepping aside so that we can commit ourselves to hearing what it is that Jesus is trying to say, and what it is exactly that He is leading us into. This is a journey of faith, and we’re fixing our eyes on Him.

It's in the Eyes:

Of course, that’s not to say things get easy once you’ve left the boat behind; Peter struggles with the details of this journey of faith, and so do we. We may have the best intentions, but our circumstances and fears, sometimes they’re just really loud and distracting. It’s an easy thing to forget to discipline our eyes. And when our circumstances and struggles loom larger in view than Jesus does, we struggle. We sink. We lose our way. But the good news is that Jesus is ever there, near to us as we call out to him and full of grace even as we struggle.

I don’t think Jesus chastises Peter here, any more than you or I would chastise our children the first time they tried to ride a bike. I think these are spoken as words of loving comfort; “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

In the end, Jesus picks up Peter and walks him back to the boat, the storm settles, and His disciples worship Him as the sovereign, creator God that he is. Which is the whole point, really; of this passage and of our lives. Do we understand who it is that we’re dealing with, and do we understand that in such a way that we are willing to hold everything we are and everything we have with open hands before him as an expression of trust and worship? Do we hold our security and safety and comfort as secondary concerns when compared to just following Jesus where he invites us to go?

The author of Hebrews reflects on this:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV)

I will probably never be an excellent golfer; I just can’t seem to keep my eye on the ball. But I do hope to be an excellent disciple of my savior and Lord, Jesus Christ; rooted in trust and with eyes fixed on Him, come what may. And my hope and prayer is that the same would be true for all of you, as individuals and as an expression of the Body of Christ, wherever that journey of faith may lead you.

Motorcycle Theology: Part II

Having come off the road from 1000+ miles and three days on a motorcycle exploring the woods of the great north with my brother, nine or so hours later I was loading up the truck for the 8 hour, 480-ish mile trek to southeastern Maryland. Becca and the girls had headed down to spend a week or so with the in-laws the day before I had hit the road, and the plan was that I would join them once I had had my fill of reenacting "Easy Rider".

Undertaking a road trip in the wee hours of the morning has it's pros and cons. On the upside, there's simply no better way to beat the traffic. And, given that the road between southern New Hampshire and southern Maryland takes you past every major urban center on the northern half of the East Coast, this is a primary concern. The right timing - or the wrong timing - can mean a difference of literally hours of travel, and there's just nothing like breezing from one end of Manhattan to the other on I-95 in under 15 minutes. If you can't imagine what that feels like, it's because you've never done it at 4am on a holiday weekend. On the downside is the fact that you are defying every good and healthy physical instinct that your body possesses, and only doing so by way of significant chemical assistance. When your breakfast is taken at 1am and consists of two economy-sized packages of peanut M&M's and 32 ounces of Red Bull, you just know that there is going to be price to be paid later, probably in terms of years subtracted from the end of your life. But, when your idea of hell is being stuck in the midst of a sea of humanity on the Jersey Turnpike in the vicinity of Newark for a predictably tortuous and indeterminate period, you just do what you have to do. I rolled into Sharptown at nine o'clock on Monday morning in a state of jittery, suspended alertness; feeling a bit queasy but undeniably efficient. A couple hours to sleep off the residual Guarine, and I was ready to settle into a few days of family-centric quietude.

But these times spent on the eastern shore have always been 'working vacations' over the years; a good excuse to settle in and take a significant bite out of the reading list that I had compiled over the year between visits. This year, with the ruminations of the previous weekend still fresh in my mind, I set out to undertake "Center Church" by Tim Keller; a 380 page textbook of a work. All told, it's basically like reading a PhD thesis in practical, missional ecclesiology. If 'theological vision' and shaping the practice of church life is something that happens to be pertinent to you, I would recommend it highly. I would also recommend giving yourself more than three days in which to read it, but there you have it; the gauntlet had been thrown, and the opportunity of time had presented itself.

Keller's strength, to me, has always been his absolute devotion to the Gospel; the Good News of what Jesus Christ has accomplished on our behalf: in history, through His life, death on the cross, and resurrection. He is obsessed with it. It permeates and anchors every sermon he preaches and every book that he has written. Within a highly educated, western Christianity wherein the temptation is always to regard the Gospel of grace as 'elementary' - as a threshold concept to be understood, accepted, and moved beyond on the way to 'meatier' questions of doctrine and other ecclesiological intricacies - Keller  simply refuses to cede this ground. In our desire for principles upon which to build a moral life or craft a system of theology, he would argue that we attempt to move beyond a Truth so deep, so multi-faceted and beautiful that it can never be genuinely comprehended in it's fullness, this side of eternity. When it comes to Christian spirituality, properly understood, the Gospel of grace is not merely the doorway that we step through into life, it is the entirety of the house that we are stepping into, and that which we are being invited to live entirely within.

And all of this, to come back around to it, brings me to my struggle with the church as we so often experience Her. Institutionalization, as well as the movement from the proclamation of the Gospel to mere, structural and social moralism, is a lot like gravity, you see. We struggle with grace, and we struggle with the reality of a savior God soaked in holy graciousness to the very depths of his being. And so, as Keller brings to light, we pay lip service and intellectual assent to the Gospel of Grace, and to salvation by faith (that is, trust) in the sufficiency of Christ's redemptive and substitutionary work for our sake, but we in the end we find those things difficult to organizationally quantify. And so, the Body of Christ - the Church - as an "organized organism" nearly always stumbles toward the gravitational default of institutionalized moralism, rather than joyous, miraculous, whole-body Gospel proclamation and celebration. Our creeds bear witness to a Gospel of fantastical, unmerited favor, but our church life speaks - implicitly or explicitly - of behavior and bootstraps; of keeping ourselves in line and of stirring up the moralistic will to spur ourselves on to accomplish our own studied work of sanctification. Christ has come that we might have life itself, and that to the fullest, and we in turn have offered the world Religion. This certainly isn't a new critique - in the throes of the 'millennial' generation, perhaps it has now even crossed the line to mere cliche' -  but it is, unfortunately, an accurate one.

What a razor-thin line we walk between the abundant corporate life of Christ himself, and the mechanical deadness of clock-punching religiosity!  We speak of a Gospel of Grace and Faith - we use the right words, for that is what it is - but in truth these are words that we simply do not genuinely understand in their true depth and breadth. As such, we are prone to gross - even if subtle - and destructive misapplication. We do not understand the genuine power of the truths to which we give such easy intellectual assent: they are dynamite, but we handle them as if they were as innocuous as birthday candles.

And so, where the Church ought to be comprised of a vibrant community of people standing in perpetual amazement that the God of the universe has seen fit to personally bleed to death for the sake of bringing us back to the life He built us for - and that, while we were still and in many way remain trapped in blindness, idiocy, and in hardened resistance against Him - instead we find communities all too often bereft of amazement. Instead of allowing our hearts to be captivated, transformed, and carried along by the spectacular grace of our Savior God into His life and purposes, we have instead 'captured' grace - conceptually and intellectually - and institutionalized it. We have stamped it as a word on our programs and on our letterhead, as all the while our hearts have grown more and more immune to wonder.

Oh, that my own heart would know the true wonder of Grace in my day-to-day! Oh, that we followers of Jesus would feel the very breath stolen from our lungs as we ponder the Gospel of our salvation, even more so than as at the view of the most spectacular vistas and landscapes on earth! If only we might daily know the feeling of tears of joy coming to our eyes in simply pondering the beauty and love of Christ! The love He has displayed for us deserves no less from us; in actual fact, it deserves a great deal more. But until our hearts have been thus captivated by the wonder of the Gospel, we will never know the greater things. How can we imagine that we might ever give our whole lives to the purposes of God's coming Kingdom when He even now cannot claim lordship over our hearts?

I am a man, a New Englander, and by all accounts particularly reserved in personality and countenance, but how I long for wonder! And even though I know that institutionalization is like gravity, and I know the cultural ease of one-dimensional moralism when compared to the messy dynamism of the living grace of God, I cannot escape the conviction that Church must be more than our cultural gravity would determine her to be. All told, if we followers of Jesus would commit to pondering the depths and beauty of the Gospel of Christ - not merely moving beyond it in haste, but allowing the very limits of our hearts and minds to be stretched beyond bursting in the wonder of it - and our gatherings for worship came as an outflow and corporate expression of the life and joy found in that pondering, then I have no doubt that our times together would be inexpressibly compelling to the watching world. THAT would be a gathering worth attending, and a living community such as that would constitute a mission worth investing in.

This isn't radical and this isn't new. Scripture calls this breathtaking community of wonder, worship and witness simply, the Church, and thousands of years later she remains a revolutionary idea. I long to see her in the fullness of her beauty; I long to have my own life wrapped up in hers. I long to envision and embody the great, boundless love of Christ until that day when He comes again in Glory to claim his Bride; in all her faults and failings made beautiful by the light of His love. For that is what His love has done in me, and I will never cease to be amazed by that great truth.

Motorcycle Theology

So a couple of weekends ago I spent three days traveling the perimeter of the state of Maine, inasmuch as there are actually roads on which to do so, this side of the Canadian border. My brother and I do this every year - not Maine, necessarily - but take off together on motorcycles for a couple of days; just to ride, sleep in the woods, get exposed to some beauty and weather, and more or less pretend to be rootless for a little while. Time spent on a motorcycle, particularly whole days at a time, provides a lot of opportunity for thought. And, as this has been a summer that has provided a great deal to think about in my own life and ministry, this ride was particularly 'full'. In fact, I had to confess to Michael that our Sunday morning on the road in the heart of the Maine woods had even brought with it a moment of genuine pastoral/existential crisis, which was interesting.

It went something like this: I was riding along and realized that for perhaps (though I'm not totally sure, but perhaps) for the very first time in my life I was in the act of missing church for a second consecutive week for purely recreational purposes. The weekend before had been spent camping with friends, the weekend in question I was in the middle of a ride; ignoring the fact that this, in fact, simply constituted an honest use of vacation time, in my heart at that moment I was a minister gone AWOL. For two Sundays in a row, for no other reason than to fully enjoy the glory of northern New England in late August, I was not setting foot in a church. And the problem? It was awesome.

We woke up Sunday morning in the heart of Maine, rode our motorcycles to the nearest small town to see what local flavor we could discover. We took in a leisurely breakfast at a previously unknown 'greasy spoon' called the "Bears Den". I ordered a blueberry pancake the size of a pie plate, ate in no particular hurry, laughed with my brother about the adventures of the weekend thus far, and enjoyed his company. After loosely planning a route that would take us west to the NH border and south through the Great North Woods and the White Mountains, we set out.

And there I sat, basking in the warmth of the late-summer sun, taking in the vast and breathtaking beauty of God's creation as fresh air was pressed into my face at 60mph. It was then, rounding a corner to take in yet another mountain vista, that I realized that it was Sunday and that for a second week in a row, I would not be present for church service. Suffice it to say, I was not disappointed to be where I was at that moment; I sang God's praises from the seat of my motorcycle and thanked Jesus that in the depth of His love He had created such a world as this for us to bear His image within. It was a private worship service in the cathedral of creation and I realized that, given the simple choice between this and the Sunday church gatherings that I have known all my life, this would win out every time. Hence my crisis, as a vocational minister.

It was as if it suddenly became clear to me what it was that we were "competing" against with our weekly worship gatherings. I thought of what, from an outsider, nuts-and-bolts perspective, a Sunday morning spent in church consisted of: Bad coffee, some canned greetings with a group of people you interact with for 5-10 minutes a week and probably wouldn't naturally spend much time with otherwise, a singalong, listening to a mediocre public speaker do a mediocre job addressing the deepest and most significant questions of the human experience, and an appeal for money, just so we can keep all the fun going.

And so, the million-dollar question: if a person could be fishing, or traveling, or sleeping in - or literally ANYTHING else even mildly enjoyable - why would that person opt, instead, to spend a Sunday morning in church: mine, ours, or otherwise?

Of course, I DO believe in the importance and beauty of the local church; I am, after all still a pastor. But this realization, and this question, have pressed home for me in a new way the conviction that so often the forms and functions of what passes for 'church' in our experience are simply a shadow and a farce of what Jesus intends for us to be. As awesome and life-giving and beautiful as a Sunday morning spent among the mountains may be, in the end should not the communally incarnate vision and presence of the very Spirit of God be even more compelling? Whatever it is that "church" is supposed to be, if the Gospel is true - and TANGIBLY true - as the transforming power of God's own grace in the lives of His people, should not the gatherings of these people for worship and mutual exhortation - echoes of the ongoing praise of the courts of heaven itself in all eternity - exhibit something of a beauty and Truth that simply could not be found elsewhere on earth? Should not seekers and skeptics come away from a gathering of the people of Christ with the inescapable impression that they have just witnessed something HOLY?

In the end, the trap of thinking of a worship gathering as a sort of "experience" that must out-compete other experiential options for the sake of drawing attendees is obvious: we must be talking about more than mere emotionalism, and about more than crafting a higher quality spiritual-consumer experience. But, that being said, our Sunday morning clock-punching that passes for worship, or church life, is simply insufficient. God wants to do more in, through, and with His body; of that, I am sure.

(to be continued...)