Just a Simpleton

Contrite and quietly I go into the night. My footprint on the world much smaller than my large head thinks. Humbleness is a constant work of which culture offers no positive reinforcement.

My children are toy worn, the house bombarded with race tracks, baby doll houses, and other innumerable toys. My son is on a crack high from the over stimulation caused my way too many cool toys at one time. My daughter is still content to steal her brothers toys when he isn't watching and sometimes play with her own.

Andrea and I are tired but happy that no one has shown up to repossess any of our cars or house after our Christmas present buying stint. We worry that we are corrupting our children with greed and the vain pursuit of mammon, more and more stuff to fill their lives. I hope we can better balance life.

Me... Christmas is the hardest time of year for me. Not because of the magnificent celebration of Jesus' birth and renewal of the birth within each of us- that will preach and breath within me everyday of the year. It is tough because of the stuff, the exchange, the expectations, pressures, and pomp of it all. Couldn't it be simpler and more holy? More about love and less about things. It is tough too because of the short days, dreary weather, business and bustle of ministry this time of year. It is doldrums-ville for student ministry. Half-way through the school year.

Am I actually making a difference? Not locally but globally? Am I so insignificant in the expanse of this world. I desire so much to impact the world for good. I dream of such things almost every night. My heart burns for such things often. Yet the darkness is always close by. Stifling the hope, dulling the desire, and dampening the promise. Am I alone in this struggle? Do all dreamers face such demons? Does everyone face such demons?

I wonder tonight if I am making a difference in the lives of the people at my church. I love God so much and I want so much to make a difference in the lives of people and spread that love and hope; yet I always mess things up so completely. My only hope is transcending grace. If that doesn't happen, I am doomed.

I think maybe a black preacher lives in me. The voice stirs in my heart and in my head. The alliterations and illuminations that articulate and project truths beyond comfort. The projections of the voice and rise and the fall of the delivery of hope. I hope some day that voice will come alive in me.

Lastly, I will yet hope, yet love, yet strive to give, serve, and live for the one who loves me past myself. Tomorrow is a new day.

Grace

What about this concept have we as a human race not grasped? How can so much knowledge exist and yet so much ignorance pervade our decisions? For me, grace is not some bookend-able theological concept created by some dead German guy it is Divine character at some of its best. To even add icing on the cake, it is something we have full latitude to employ within our own lives. I am convinced that grace, in its purest form, is counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, and love well-beyond any comfort we might hope to assume in this lifetime. Let me address these three systematically before continuing.
Grace is always counter-cultural. I recently wrote an exegesis of Revelation 6:9-11. It began as follows:
"I have been vaccinated by the culture I live in. I am not sure when it happened but it did nonetheless. The vaccine was for the truth, the unvarnished, plain, honest truth. How did it happen to me and so many others? The text I will be exegeting within this paper will be Revelation 6:9-11. I believe it offers for us, as it did for the Christians of John’s day, an anti-vaccine for what the culture we live in has sold as the truth. I have been duped into believing that what I see and hear, whether consciously or subconsciously, is the way things really are. I believe Revelation 6:9-11 is a promise of hope and a picture of God’s ultimate conquering of all evil."
What we are fed is rarely, if ever, truth. I reside in a state that has just banned "co-habitating" ( a nice word created by some malicious politicians for banning gay and lesbian couples) can no longer have the choice of adoption. As a pastor of a denomination that professes to be open to all peoples and yet we draw lines in the sand, how do I reconcile grace- the unvarnished, in your face grace? I am ashamed of the scandalous oppression our state has dealt the homosexual community in all areas and especially this one of late.
As a professing Christian male, a survivor of years of child abuse, a happily married heterosexual Caucasian, how can I reconcile this to a God who is undeniably concerned with the marginalized, oppressed, and voiceless in our world? Ugh!
Grace is always counter-cultural. As far as my experience with adults and teens who have discovered their homosexual orientation, I am convinced that God is desperately and wholly in love with all people. "Grace upon grace" as Mr. Wesley said so long ago. Don't let the loud droning of the cultural norm deafen the heartbeat of God's grace for humankind. There are so many lies, smoke and mirror lies, and we have to remain faithful by refusing to buy in.

Grace is counter-intuitive. Not because that is how we were formed in the womb but because our minds have been shaped from our earliest years to weigh truth, perceive facts, and process information by all the people and culture we grow up in. The God I know turns it all upside down. Just read the Bible and see all of the screw-ups throughout the biblical witness and how, I am convinced solely through divine intervention, changed the course of history time and time again. Lemonade from lemons. I have a friend that says jokingly "That boy ain't right"- ok so the cats out of the bag I live in Arkansas-big deal grace still abound in the sticks my friends. I urge you that when you hear a statement from any authority figure ask yourself "What are they not saying?" and there with the answers to this question you will most likely find the real truth and I propose even grace abundant.

Grace is love well-beyond comfort. Chester Cheetah says "It ain't easy being cheesy" and I propose that "It ain't easy" loving folk. Offering grace to grace-abusers is tough. Offering grace, to the oppressors and the oppressed, the power-filled in society along with the powerless, the upper-class politician and the underpaid farmer, the ethical green environmentalist and the meat- eating, trash dumping rednecks, IS TOUGH but not impossible. Just get ready to get uncomfortable. Just because you are moved toward advocacy doesn't mean you must be moved to judgment of the other side. I am convinced that biblical unveiled grace requires discomfort and unfortunately most folk are too lazy or too comfortable or too unwilling to open their minds and their eyes and their hearts and give it a real go. To be blessed doesn't mean you have more. To be blessed is to be a blessing. Grace is the Christmas you get nothing and give everything. Try that some Christmas. But here I am- another ranting God-lover. Grace is like a burning coal shut up inside me that has no other place than to come out into the lives those around me. My prayer is that God grants me the opportunity to see the opportunities before me.
There is still hope. The sun will rise tomorrow and another day will dawn. The Son will be shining even in the thickest of clouds. Even though you may be "walking in the shaddow of death" remember that it takes a Son to cast a shaddow. The truth is out there and grace quick on its heels.