"But now, after knowing God (or rather, being known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless world system? Do you want to be slaves to it again?" -Galatians 4:9
"If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it. Anything you to, do it. Want to change the world? There's nothing to it." -Pure Imagination, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
As a youth minister, I spend a lot of time at middle school band concerts and high school football games. It's one of my favorite things about my job: getting to go out and see my kids doing what they love. But in all the years of doing that, I had never been to a dance recital. That was until a few weeks ago, when a number of our students were all in a performance together. I figured to myself, "What a chance to see a bunch all at once?"
Well, I wasn't totally prepared for the experience. If you are a dance parent, you know what I'm talking about: the shiny outfits, the two-minute dances, the back-to-back-to-back performances, the sometimes mistakes. It was an awesome thing to take in.
Now, I want to be clear: my kids were great. It was so awesome watching them do their things. But they were not my favorite dancers that morning.
Nope, that distinction belongs to a girl who couldn't have been older than about 6 or 7 (maybe). She was one of three girls in her particular sequence, and as you can imagine, with kiddos that young, it was mostly a disaster in a thousand directions. The teacher was upfront helping feed the girls their moves to keep them going the right way, and for the most part, the other two girls did their part.
My favorite, though? She had some bigger stuff in mind! The second the music started, it become clear she had a different rhythm in her feet. If you've ever seen Little Miss Sunshine, that's a pretty good picture. She twirled and jumped and bounced and threw her hands in every direction. The other two girls might have performed their choreography more correctly, but this girl had more fun than every other dancer combined.
And what made it better? Every single person in the audience found themselves clapping, laughing, giggling, and otherwise enjoying the disastrous joy on the stage. This girl didn't do a single thing she'd been taught, and yet she stole the show. Her teachers had one thing in mind. She had another!
Sometimes we live life a lot like the other 98% of the performers that day. And there's nothing wrong with that (for the most part). We live by the rules we've been given and try to do the very best job we can within those confines.
But I'm becoming more and more convinced that people who follow Jesus ought to break out of the rat race and get our Little Miss Sunshine on a little more often. We ought to play by a different set of rules with different criteria for success.
The apostle Paul helped set up a church in a city called Galatia. At first, they were all-in about the things he had taught them about Jesus and resurrection and grace. It was exciting. There was real life transformation. But once Paul left to keep setting up other churches in other parts of the Roman world, other people started filling the leadership void. And they tried pulling the people in the church in Galatia back towards the status quo. They were falling back into the old ways and the old expectations the world had for them. They'd lost what had made them stand out.
This happens all the time today. I'm convinced the power of the gospel is found in the ways that it butts up against what everyone expects, even the people who felt the most religious. Jesus was too busy doing things that nobody expected to be worried about "fitting in." But like the Galatians, for all of us, myself most of all, it all gets wrapped up in being "respectable" and "reasonable." We don't want to be too out there, too different.
But Christians ought to stand out. We shouldn't look like everyone else. There ought to be a disconnect somewhere deep in our soul that says we're not at home in the world of competition and conflict. There ought to be a dissonance between the rhythms of busyness and isolation and the dream of connection and shalom. Our lives ought to reflect that disconnect.
And I'm not talking about standing out for eating a little more responsibly or giving up a vice for 40 days. I mean the kind of love that does expect anything in return. I mean the kind of generosity that is extravagant without expecting a kickback favor. I mean forgiveness that doesn't know conditions. I mean fighting for humanity when all around you are fighting for their tribe. I mean tearing down barriers when only bridges will do. I mean seeing the impossible and willing to die so that it might become possible.
The world needs more people willing to dance to a different beat and offer a different way. We need people who are willing to try new ways and sing a new song. We all need a reminder that life can be better!
May we let go of our dire need to fit in. May we let go of the temptation to be reasonable and respectable on account of faith. May we fight the urge to find our spot in the rat race and churn the hamster wheel. May we find a new way, a song placed in the pit of our soul by the one who breathed it into our lungs. May we dance a new dance, offering the world a new way.
forever unfinished...
Monday, August 7, 2017
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
66204...
"I'm a saint's heart in a sinner's skin. I feel them in their wrestling. I know the Spirit and the Devil's touch. I just never know which one's gonna win." -"Saint's Heart in a Sinner's Skin," Sean McConnell
"Be strong and courageous and do the work. Don't be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my god, is with you. God will not fail you nor forsake you until all of the work for the temple of the Lord is complete." -1 Chronicles 28:20
A few months ago I was in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. I've written about how powerful the experience was. I've never been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., but I can't imagine it being any more life-changing or perception-altering than walking through the halls of Yad Vashem.
The final room of the museum was a circular room with a walkway through the middle of it. The room had a simple name: the Hall of Names. Along the walls of the room, 20 feet below the walkway and 20 feet above on all sides, were folders filled with files. These files were filled with the names of Holocaust victims, people whose lives and deaths had been reduced to mere numbers and statistics.
The premise of the room was fairly straight-forward. No one is merely a statistic. No one is simply a "what." We are all a "who."
All of this inspired me to do a little researching when I got home a few days later. I went to the official Auschwitz prisoner database and I searched a simple, one-word entry: "Martin."
In seconds, I was face-to-face with files on hundreds of prisoners who shared my name. In one camp.
I'm not sure why, but one entry caught my eye. His name was Martin Braun, although he was also listed in certain prisoner block listings as Martin Israel. He was born in 1895 in Remetea, Romania. He died in Auschwitz.
In Auschwitz, he wasn't Martin, of course. There, in prison, with tens of thousands of other prisoners and victims, he was simply 66204. He was merely a number, one of an immeasurable list of those whose dignity and humanity was stripped and abandoned.
In the days since I searched through that database, I've started writing 66204 on my wrist. It reminds me that at any time, I could the least of these. It reminds me that we are never a what. It reminds me that we are God's cherished creation.
But I was also starkly struck by the possibility that while I could've been a victim, I likewise could've been one of those on the other side of camp. It didn't take long to discover that Hitler's private secretary was also a man named Martin. Imagine that, hundreds of victims at one camp that share my name, and likely hundreds of perpetrators of unimaginable evil as well.
We all hold the capacity within us to do unspeakable violence. We all also hold the capacity to do immeasurable good, to remind people of their belovedness and irreplaceableness. It is a humbling realization to look through history to see the ways that people have been both victims and evildoers.
Just above the 66204 on my wrist, I write two words in Hebrew: hazak we'emas. Translated in English, these words a fairly straight-forward: "be strong and courageous." They are found numerous times in scripture. I've been writing them much longer than I've been writing Mr. Braun's prison number.
But taken together, they've on an entirely different meaning. They've become something of a mission statement to my life: be strong and courageous for those who have no name.
You see, I've started to think that when we aren't actively practicing love and reconciliation and justice and shalom, the kinds of things Jesus invites us to, we're tempted to drift towards their opposite. When we aren't living life seeking to see our neighbors as sister and brother, it is tempting to see them as enemies or worse.
And this doesn't just mean our friends or the people who are nice to us. It means everyone. A few years ago, I tried a little experiment. I sat outside the Fort Worth Central Library for a couple of hours on a cold January day. I didn't choose the location by accident. It's a spot where lots of individuals without homes spend their time. So, for a few hours, I wanted to see what that felt like.
It was horrible. People weren't mean. They didn't snicker or say hurtful things. They just avoided me. They passed on the other side of the sidewalk. Only 5% even looked my way. More often than not, passers by did everything in their power to avoid contact. For just a moment, I wasn't a person. I was a nuisance. I was an eyesore. I was a "thing" to be avoided.
There are plenty of people in my orbit that I treat that way. It hurts me to acknowledge that. There are people I'd rather just avoid or skip by. People who pain me and I just want to beat. People who annoy me and I see only as a hinderance. People whose presence I'd rather just skip. People like 66204, Mr. Martin Braun.
But that's not the scandal of grace. The audacity of God is that we are all family, made in the same image, breathing the same air, and loved with the same reckless abandon. And I've found without any reservation that when I dive into that story, when I move towards seeing God's reflection in my neighbors, my experience of life is a thousand times richer. All of our experiences of life are a thousand times richer. When we see our neighbors by name, with smiles and gifts, we are making the world into kind of world God intended.
So may we fight the urge to see each other as adversaries and enemies. May we fight the urge to think ourselves better than our brothers and our sisters. May we recognize in ourselves the capacity for pain and grace, and may we always choose grace. And above all, may we always be strong and courageous for those who have no name.
forever unfinished...
"Be strong and courageous and do the work. Don't be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my god, is with you. God will not fail you nor forsake you until all of the work for the temple of the Lord is complete." -1 Chronicles 28:20
A few months ago I was in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. I've written about how powerful the experience was. I've never been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., but I can't imagine it being any more life-changing or perception-altering than walking through the halls of Yad Vashem.
The final room of the museum was a circular room with a walkway through the middle of it. The room had a simple name: the Hall of Names. Along the walls of the room, 20 feet below the walkway and 20 feet above on all sides, were folders filled with files. These files were filled with the names of Holocaust victims, people whose lives and deaths had been reduced to mere numbers and statistics.
The premise of the room was fairly straight-forward. No one is merely a statistic. No one is simply a "what." We are all a "who."
All of this inspired me to do a little researching when I got home a few days later. I went to the official Auschwitz prisoner database and I searched a simple, one-word entry: "Martin."
In seconds, I was face-to-face with files on hundreds of prisoners who shared my name. In one camp.
I'm not sure why, but one entry caught my eye. His name was Martin Braun, although he was also listed in certain prisoner block listings as Martin Israel. He was born in 1895 in Remetea, Romania. He died in Auschwitz.
In Auschwitz, he wasn't Martin, of course. There, in prison, with tens of thousands of other prisoners and victims, he was simply 66204. He was merely a number, one of an immeasurable list of those whose dignity and humanity was stripped and abandoned.
In the days since I searched through that database, I've started writing 66204 on my wrist. It reminds me that at any time, I could the least of these. It reminds me that we are never a what. It reminds me that we are God's cherished creation.
But I was also starkly struck by the possibility that while I could've been a victim, I likewise could've been one of those on the other side of camp. It didn't take long to discover that Hitler's private secretary was also a man named Martin. Imagine that, hundreds of victims at one camp that share my name, and likely hundreds of perpetrators of unimaginable evil as well.
We all hold the capacity within us to do unspeakable violence. We all also hold the capacity to do immeasurable good, to remind people of their belovedness and irreplaceableness. It is a humbling realization to look through history to see the ways that people have been both victims and evildoers.
Just above the 66204 on my wrist, I write two words in Hebrew: hazak we'emas. Translated in English, these words a fairly straight-forward: "be strong and courageous." They are found numerous times in scripture. I've been writing them much longer than I've been writing Mr. Braun's prison number.
But taken together, they've on an entirely different meaning. They've become something of a mission statement to my life: be strong and courageous for those who have no name.
You see, I've started to think that when we aren't actively practicing love and reconciliation and justice and shalom, the kinds of things Jesus invites us to, we're tempted to drift towards their opposite. When we aren't living life seeking to see our neighbors as sister and brother, it is tempting to see them as enemies or worse.
And this doesn't just mean our friends or the people who are nice to us. It means everyone. A few years ago, I tried a little experiment. I sat outside the Fort Worth Central Library for a couple of hours on a cold January day. I didn't choose the location by accident. It's a spot where lots of individuals without homes spend their time. So, for a few hours, I wanted to see what that felt like.
It was horrible. People weren't mean. They didn't snicker or say hurtful things. They just avoided me. They passed on the other side of the sidewalk. Only 5% even looked my way. More often than not, passers by did everything in their power to avoid contact. For just a moment, I wasn't a person. I was a nuisance. I was an eyesore. I was a "thing" to be avoided.
There are plenty of people in my orbit that I treat that way. It hurts me to acknowledge that. There are people I'd rather just avoid or skip by. People who pain me and I just want to beat. People who annoy me and I see only as a hinderance. People whose presence I'd rather just skip. People like 66204, Mr. Martin Braun.
But that's not the scandal of grace. The audacity of God is that we are all family, made in the same image, breathing the same air, and loved with the same reckless abandon. And I've found without any reservation that when I dive into that story, when I move towards seeing God's reflection in my neighbors, my experience of life is a thousand times richer. All of our experiences of life are a thousand times richer. When we see our neighbors by name, with smiles and gifts, we are making the world into kind of world God intended.
So may we fight the urge to see each other as adversaries and enemies. May we fight the urge to think ourselves better than our brothers and our sisters. May we recognize in ourselves the capacity for pain and grace, and may we always choose grace. And above all, may we always be strong and courageous for those who have no name.
forever unfinished...
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