Preview of Rule One: DO NO HARM

Bishop Reuben Job in Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, says this about rule 1: "Even a child can understand what it means, and it is applicable to everyone at every stage in life. And when practiced, it works wonders in transforming the world around us."
While this is a simple rule, it is not an EASY rule. It is difficult to do no harm. Why? Because following this rule requires a radical trust in God: we give control over to God. It is difficult because striking back or striking out seems to be in our nature. It is the way of Jesus. If we are going to followers of Christ, we must commit to this simple rule. Try it out for the rest of this week: consciously focus on doing nothing that would harm anyone or anything else. Maybe you can check in on the blog here and give us a story or two.

Here are the Scriptures for this Sunday:
Matthew 5.21-26
Matthew 5.38-48
Ephesians 4.17-32
Romans 12.17-21
Romans 13.8-14

Why not read each Scripture and think about how it relates to "do no harm". You could even leave your thoughts in the comments.

The worship bulletin for Sunday, February 1 is here.

Three Simple Rules Week 1 Discussion

This last Sunday we began our series in The Refuge on Reuben Job's Three Simple Rules, which is an adaptation of Wesley's General Rules (see previous post).

Here is a summary of our study from 1/25/09:

If someone asked you, "What does it mean to live as a Christian?" what would you say?

Read the article "Studying for the Wrong Test".

In our Christianity, can we say that the foundational truths that we live out are those found in Matthew 22.36-40?
Can we say that our Christianity is fulfilling Jesus' prayer in John 17 that all believers would be one--be unified--just as Jesus and the Father were unified?

In many ways, we have gotten into such deep ruts with how we express our faith that we cannot see any other way.
It matters how you live. Jesus expects you to live your regular, daily life in a certain way.
The way of Jesus is not complicated, it is not too difficult, and it is not just for hyper-spiritual people or religious professionals.
The way of Jesus will unite Christians and give life to their souls.
The way of Jesus will truly transform our world.

Paul fleshed these concepts out some in Galatians 5.22-26 and Colossians 3.12-17.

Questions for reflection and discussion (feel free to leave your responses as a comment and feel free to comment on each other's responses):

1-Jesus said that all Scripture could be summarized by "love God with all your heart and soul and mind" and "love your neighbor as yourself". What do you think it means to love God?

2-How can love--which we would normally consider to be an emotion--be commanded?

3-Read Matthew 7.12. How does it compare to Matthew 22.36-40?

4-We face so many problems trying to live as followers of Christ. How can "three simple rules" [do no harm, do good, stay in love with God] address these difficulties?

5-If Jesus were to make a list of the major issues facing Christ-followers today, what do you think he would put on the list?

Sunday, January 25, 2009

It will be good to be back in the saddle again this Sunday! Photos from Snowblast 09 are here. No one got hurt, lost, or left, so I guess it was a successful trip!

What if we had a faith that was sustainable? A faith that united people and did not divide them? A faith that was simple and not confusing and convoluted? A faith that would actually work—that would make the world a better place? A faith that would credit Christianity as the solution and not as part of the problem? A faith that was life-giving and not life-draining? I think the faith of Jesus is intended to be simple, powerful, life-giving, and transformative. Let us seek this faith for our own.

This is from our worship bulletin this Sunday. This Sunday we begin a series called Three Simple Rules that is based on a book by Reuben Job called Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living. I have not found the book to be available locally, but you can get it from Amazon for $2. I would recommend buying it.
Three Simple Rules is an adaptation of John Wesley's General Rules which he formulated to help Methodists live out their call to holy living. There is some introductory material in the worship bulletin.

The worship bulletin for this Sunday is here.

We will have an online discussion available here at my blog. Each Monday, I will post a summary of Sunday’s study and a few questions for discussion and ideas for journaling or prayer or action. You can enter the discussion and ask questions by leaving comments on the post. Each Wednesday, I will post a preview of the next study with ideas for personal study.

Scriptures for Today:

Matthew 22.34-40
Colossians 3.12-14
Galatians 5.22-26

Sunday January 18, 2009

This Sunday, I will in the White Mountains with the Catalina youth for Snowblast 09!! Pastor Raven will be preaching.

MILK

Mindy and Bethany and I went to see MILK last week. It is a really good movie and the depiction of Harvey Milk's fight for civil rights for gay people is inspiring. Sean Penn did a super job.

Sobering...but what does it mean?

Follow the link below (I couldn't find any way to embed the animation) to see a US map that depicts chronologically and geographically the spread of Wal Mart across America. I'm not doing a good job describing it. Click on the link. Watch the animation. It starts out slow and then...WHAM! The year counter is in the bottom right hand corner and the store counter is in the top left corner. http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/

Now, for some controversy...

I have read with interest recent posts on pomomusings reviewing the book Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church by Jack Rogers. Here is a link to the first one. Read them all. It won't hurt some of you to read something that stretches you every now and then.

Yes, I caught up on my blog reading today.

Another gem from Mike at _awakening.

Living Inside.

We all find ourselves with this surprising ability to love God and to desire love from God, often with no reason in particular. That doesn't happen every day, truly, but hopefully more often a you learn to trust and rest in life. Moments of unconditional love sort of slip out of you and no one is more surprised than you when it happens! But when it does, you always know you are living inside a Larger Life than your own. You know, henceforth, that your life is not about you but you are about God.

[Richard Rohr - Things Hidden: Scripture As Spirituality]

Read Merton

Read this post by Mike DeVries from _awakening.

The Wisdom of the Desert.

Last week, I recorded a History Channel program on the life of Thomas Merton. It was quite well done and reminded me of how much I love the writings of Merton. With that thought I went back to my library to see if there was any Merton writings I had not read yet. Lo and behold, I had a small collection of teachings of the Desert Fathers which Merton had translated, entitled The Wisdom of the Desert, which I found in a used bookstore quite some time ago. Fresh from my Merton experience, I decided to dive in. While most of the book is a collection of the Desert Fathers' teachings, Merton wrote an introduction with some thoughts on the life and mission of the Desert Fathers which is absolutely worth the price of the book alone.

One of the sections in the introduction deals with the issue of love. Here's just a sample of what Merton wrote:

Love means an interior and spiritual identification with one's brother, so that he is not regarded as an "object" to "which" one "does good."The fact is that good is done to another as to an object is of little or no spiritual value.Love takes one's neighbour as one's other self, and loves him with all the immense humility and discretion and reserve and reverence without which no one can presume to enter into the sanctuary of another's subjectivity. From such love all authoritarian brutality, all exploitation, domineering and condescension must necessarily be absent...

Love demands a complete inner transformation - for without this we cannot possibly come to identify oruselves with our brother. We have to become, in some sense, the person we love. And this involves a kind of death of our own being, our own self. [p. 18]

Classic Merton.

Time with God?

I found this article by Thomas at Everyday Liturgy informative and it really resonated with my experience.

My Personal Revolution of Time
January 8, 2009 - 4:10pm by Thomas

I remember how poorly I did my "quiet time" in high shcool.

I had the quiet part down. I even had the time part down. But it was not time well spent.

I had bought into the common notion that if I was quiet for a certain length of time with a Bible in my hand I was becoming a better Christian.

The picture in my mind of me opening the Bible to a random page and reading for 10 minutes is kind of pathetic when you think of it. How is spirituality dictated by random pages and quantity not quality?

I have been getting quality time now, and it has been due to a personal revolution of how I view time. I do not give God ten minutes like a mother gives her child ten cents to buy a Jolly Rancher. My spirituality is no longer self-centered, in that God has given me a new day and it is his anyway---I can give him none of my time because it was his to begin with---so I need to live within God's time and pray that he establish himself in my life. He is present. I need to make myself present in his presence. I travel to him, he does not get chump change from me.

I pray in the morning, at noon, and at afternoon. I have the times set in my Outlook to go off as a reminder. I have pages of the noon daily office at my desk and write in my journal at around three o'clock for a few minutes. I am not giving God my time. I am letting his time redeem me and the time between prayer, when my work is pleasing to him (even if it is not pleasing to me all the time). My work provides for family and the kingdom. That is enough in his eyes (while not always in mine).

I am sometimes haunted by feelings that I haven't spent vasts amounts of time with God. I am haunted by the voice of my pastor in high school who commented on how "new Christians read the Bible for 15 minutes, then grow to 30 minutes, then grow to one hour when they are really spiritual." I am haunted by the concept of time as an idol, but I must not let that control me. All time is God's, and I dwell within his time. May I always recognize this.

Awesome video!

One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.

WOW! WOW! WOW! The best thing I've read all week. Literally.

This is from the Emergent Village website, and it is hands down the best thing I have read all week.




Studying for the Wrong Test

By Don Heatley:

The Kingdom of God is like a student studying for an exam. Night after night, he studied Chapter Twelve of his history book. “Surely, I am prepared for my test,” he thought. The very next day he went to school and sat his desk. Behold! The test was on Chapter Thirteen. He had studied for the wrong test. He who has ears, let him hear!

Recently, I was having a conversation with a sincere fellow Jesus follower who demanded to know my beliefs. The questions they asked made it clear that this too was a test. The very first thing they wanted to know was my stand on homosexuality, my opinions about abortion, and my beliefs about the Bible.

I don’t think I passed.

Yet I wonder if, like the student in the parable, this person was studying for the wrong test. When we pass out the number two pencils and evaluate the orthodoxy of others, why are the criteria always issues that Jesus himself never addressed? Would it not be more appropriate to ask one another the questions Jesus asked, “Have you fed the hungry? Have you given water to the thirsty? Have you clothed the naked? Have you visited the imprisoned?”

In retrospect, I cannot recall ever being asked those questions by anyone who was attempting to size up my Christianity. I have never had someone ask me, as litmus tests, questions such as, “Does your church have a prison ministry?” or “What are you doing for the homeless?” No one ever asks how I feel about materialism, poverty, war, or if I turn the other cheek. No one ever asks if I have done justice, shown mercy, or acted humbly. No one asks if I have comforted the mourning, been a peacemaker, loved my enemies, or crossed to the other side of the road to care for an outcast. No one asks if I have loved everyone as Christ loves everyone.

That is a good thing, since I would probably fail those tests too. I can take some comfort in the fact that for the most part, no one is cast out of our churches for giving the wrong answers to these kinds of questions—the kinds of questions Jesus asked. Conversely, I routinely read about individuals being expelled from churches and whole congregations leaving denominations over issues that neither Jesus nor our creeds ever mention. I never hear about a congregation severing ties with their denomination because they felt the denomination did not put enough emphasis on loving our neighbors. Perhaps they should.

It is bad enough that we pass out exams to one another. What is even worse is that many of us are studying for the wrong test.

Sunday January 11, 2009 The Baptism of the Lord

Whoa...It's been a long time since I wrote anything here. But, during the holidays we all step back a little, don't we?
This Sunday, January 11, is the second Sunday in Epiphany and is the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord. As we talked about before, the season of Epiphany (from January 6 to Ash Wednesday) is a season that is concerned with presenting Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Events in the life of Christ that are commemorated during this season are events like the visit of the Magi (Ephiphany proper--January 6), the baptism of Jesus, the wedding at Cana (the first miracle), and the Transfiguration.
This Sunday is the Baptism of the Lord. We will examine four aspects of this subject: the implications of Jesus' baptism, the baptism of Jesus and our baptism, the significance and meaning of our baptism, and a brief service of reaffirmation of baptism.

The Scripture for this Sunday is Mark 1.4-11.

Here are some links on the subject:
Methodists: Means of Grace by Rev. Gregory S. Neal
A United Methodist Understanding of Baptism by Mark C. Trotter
By Water and the Spirit The official United Methodist document on baptism

This week's worship bulletin is here.

An Irish Christmas Prayer

Thanks to Alan Creech for this!

Incarnation by Denise Day Spencer

He stands,
poised on the brink of two worlds:
One, land of eternal day,
the other, earth of mire and clay.

Behind Him,
legions of heavenly host,
bright faces covered, praising,
all chanting, voices raising.

Before Him,
chaos yawning, swift and deep,
known, yet unknown. Fear unfurling,
death and darkness churning, swirling.

He turns.
One last look at golden glory.
The Three part; He is now One.
The Father’s voice says, “Go well, my Son.”

He leaps
into the abyss.

His next memory will be a Mother’s kiss.

~ Denise Day Spencer, January 1999

Thanks to internet monk for this.

Happy Christmas They Say in the UK

This is a beautiful graphic. The quote is from John 1. Thanks to Mark Berry for this!
Click on the image to see it full size!

Different Reasons

Great Christmas post from Fernando Gros:

What If There Is More Than One Reason For The Season?

Imagine Christmas as being like a giant bookstore, with a range of books; some serious, some populist, some trashy, some noble. Every book is a “Christmas” book though, of course, not every book is equal. People are browsing and choosing, talking and comparing. It’s an active and buzzing place - most people are not sure why they are there, but they are trying to make sense of it and trying to have a little fun. Do we really want to be hanging out in the comics section, chugging a slurpy and passing judgment on the people who “don’t get it?”

Thanks to Bob Carlton for this.

The key word here is "judgment".

Advent with Ted the Loser

I saw this on the internet monk site (a blog I follow) and I thought it was right on target both with the essence of Christianity and the Gospel, and with our failed perspectives in American Christianity. Yeah, and it was right on target with me and my experiences, too.

Here is the intro: "This post is inspired by a FoxNews piece updating the situation of disgraced megachurch pastor Ted Haggard. Haggard was a major leader in evangelicalism until he was brought down by evidence of sexual sin and drug use."

Read the post. Please.

Cornerstone CD Ready for Download

You can get a hard copy of the Cornerstone CD at The Refuge, or you can download it from:
Digstation
CDBaby
CDUniverse
iTunes

These Advent Days by Brett McCracken

It’s a cold December night, less than a week from Christmas. The third Friday of Advent, to be exact. In two days, I’m going home. Home to Kansas for the holidays.

This is a season that swings from joy to sadness rather quickly and unexpectedly, but I’m on the joy side of it these days. I’ve been seeing depressing movies like they’re going out of style, reading depressing books, and watching the news (more depressing than usual it seems). But in spite of my best efforts to wallow in midwinter moodiness, I’ve been overwhelmed with happiness and cheer. Overwhelmed to the point of tears (of joy).

Joy to the world. The Lord is come. Let every heart prepare him room.

It’s a joy, I think, of recognizing the smallness of oneself, while at the same time noticing the ways in which God seems to pay attention to you. That’s when the joy weighs heaviest, when we see that it has absolutely nothing to do with what we’ve done, but everything to do with who we are. That is: who God is making us and shaping us to be.

This realization typically happens around this time of year for me, when I survey the year, write my little Christmas update letter (yeah, I still do that), and think about what I’ve done, who I’ve met, where I’ve gone, etc. As I was driving into L.A. last night for a Christmas party with some church friends, I had one of those “wow, I have been so blessed,” moments when all the faces of the people I’d shared my year with came parading into my head, not in a random montage of unrelated images, but in a sort of kaleidoscope of linkage and interconnectedness. It was one of those moments when I could vaguely, powerfully glimpse a little of the divine orchestration that is at work behind all of this mad, beautiful mess.

Because I do believe that this is the case. I’m convinced that this all makes sense—my part in it, your part in it, the fires and snow and cherry pies. It makes sense on a level of sense-making that is only graspable in the way that the universe is graspable through telescopes. We can see parts of it, and in that we can infer the greatness of the whole and feel the surrogate wonder.

So it was in my car, driving on the 10 through downtown L.A., listening to my “80s heroin shoegazer” Christmas mix. I was overwhelmed by the realization that so much was so clearly happening for a reason. My job, my house, my friends, my car, the things I hear and say, write and read, fear and love… It all fits into the stories and people and places that precede it. It is all very messy and imperfect and frequently painful, but it ultimately isn’t about me or my comfort.

As a Christian, I believe that I am part of God’s church—that is, his extension of himself (via the Holy Spirit) on earth, a mission-minded body of humans that are the hands and feet of a much larger force, working in and for the world. I also believe that this happens largely in spite of ourselves, and that left to our own devices we would probably just constantly be f-ing things up.

God sent Jesus to earth to start something new. And start something new he did. But the new world that began with baby Jesus in a manger is now a world that a wider body of mortals is asked to participate in, to develop more fully and to expand, looking towards the time when all will be redeemed, made right, and reconciled. It will be God who brings this about. Only he can make things as they should be. But he asks his people—the church—to live in such a way that aspires to and expects this glory.

And in that, we sometimes see glimpses of things we can barely understand. We taste the powers of the age to come (Hebrews 6:5). I think we all can experience this. I think it’s what I’ve been experiencing these Advent days.

This is a really good Advent post. It can be found at http://stillsearching.wordpress.com/