I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15.5
A few years ago, I fell in love with this word “abide”. (And no, it had nothing to do with The Big Lebowski.) It’s just such a rich description of our position in Christ. For a frenetic people who are in love with activity, the simple command to abide seems, at least in part, a refreshing call to Sabbath rest. It’s trust that my activity does not determine my identity. Rather, I am formed by my proximity to Messiah. He is our vine, we are His branches.
It also reminds me of the work He has for me. Sometimes abiding sounds quite passive, and I suppose we need the receptive posture that only comes through passivity. But we also know that abiding is hard work sometimes. To plant your feet firmly in the sand and attempt to “abide” during high tide requires significant energy and effort. And so “abiding” also has a very active quality. So too does the life of faith. Often times my “non-abiding” is the product of my own choice. With willful resolve, we choose to sever ourselves from Him, to cut ourselves off from the source of life and wholeness. Or conversely, I continue to willfully choose His grace that allows “abiding” to occur in the first place. Grace is not opposed to effort, Dallas Willard says. Nor is it opposed to choice. His grace doesn’t negate my choice; it only empowers that choice to have ultimate validity. His grace sustains my choice to abide in Him. Because it’s what He has chosen as well.
This is a piece written by my favorite local poet, a sweet lady named Ozella who worships at our church. I wanted to share it with you today:
The flowers I plant upon this earth
Will be a gift to you and will earn their worth
Please take care that they do not die
After I to heaven fly…
Their colors will be pink, yellow, and white
I sure hope that this is alright
Before I leave this earth below
I will watch the beautiful flowers grow.
I will go to where flowers forever bloom
They will be in my mansion’s every room
They will need no water or food you see
Because God will also be there through eternity.
My City of Ruins was written by Bruce Springsteen in November 2000 as a tribute to his native New Jersey, specifically Asbury Park. The song begins by describing the blight and rampant abandon in this once thriving area:
There’s a blood red circle
On the cold dark ground
And the rain is falling down
The church doors blown open
I can hear the organ’s song
But the congregation’s gone
My city of ruins…My city of ruins
Now the sweet bells of mercy
Drift through the evening trees
Young men on the corner
Like scattered leaves
The boarded up windows
The empty streets
While my brother’s down on his knees
My city of ruins…My city of ruins
The song’s chorus reaches anthemic pitch as Springsteen repeatedly cries, “Come on, rise up! Come on, rise up!” My City of Ruins was first played on Dec. 17, 2000 at Asbury Park Convention Hall at a Christmas benefit.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the song took on even greater meaning, especially in New York City. On Sept. 21, 2001, Springsteen performed the song to open the America: A Tribute to Heroes national telethon.
I’ve been listening to this song a lot this week, 10 years after 9/11. I can still remember Springsteen performing this song live and feeling that it so perfectly encapsulated what we all felt in those days: sorrow and hope and firm resolve to pull each other through.
But this week, I’ve also been struck at the similarity between the song and the biblical lament, specifically the book of Lamentations. Lament is an often over-looked portion of our Bibles, but they give voice to a set of emotions we would do well to explore more fully in the context of our faith. Some of the most faithful people in Scripture express lament before God. We need look no further than Jesus and his cry from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Such brazen addresses may seem out of line with “proper” fundamentalist belief, but it’s right there in the text. But we need not understand Jesus as being “disrespectful” to His Heavenly Father for “questioning” God’s presence. Rather, we should see lament as faithful language — an honest expression of fear and doubt that is ultimately an expression of faith because it is directed God-ward. Think of lament as our way of saying, “God, we know you’re big enough to handle even our strong feelings of pain, grief, sorrow, fear, and doubt.” Maybe we don’t have a lament problem after all; maybe we have a faith problem.
Consider Jeremiah’s opening refrain in the book of Lamentations:
1 How deserted lies the city,
once so full of people!
How like a widow is she,
who once was great among the nations!
She who was queen among the provinces
has now become a slave.
2 Bitterly she weeps at night,
tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers
there is no one to comfort her.
All her friends have betrayed her;
they have become her enemies.
4 All her gateways are desolate,
her priests groan,
her young women grieve,
and she is in bitter anguish.
Empty, desolate streets. Grief stricken citizens. A barren land and a heart-broken people. The Boss could well have been describing 6th century BC Jerusalem instead of New Jersey or New York. With one primary difference, of course:
5 The LORD has brought her grief
because of her many sins.
Her children have gone into exile,
captive before the foe.
Judah’s sin has precipitated God’s judgment. But Jeremiah will go on to defend the goodness and faithfulness of God, even amid a city in ruins — God’s own holy city on earth.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. It is enough to simply recognize lament as faith language.
Lord, help us lament, in honesty and humility and reverence. We lament on behalf of our brothers and sisters. We weep for those who have no more tears. We cry out for those whose voices have long given out. As we are one in our pain, may we also be one in our hope, one in our prayers.
We all suffer. It’s part of the human condition. We also journey with those who suffer: friends, family, neighbors, co-workers. As people of faith, we often find ourselves wonder what to say, wondering what to do. As a result, we often offer up platitudes and pep talks to people in their pain, minimizing what they’re feeling in an effort to “fast track” them into recovery. But we’d think twice about these pithy little statements if we realized how harmful they are to people in pain.
Eugene Peterson writes about this in his Study Notes in Conversations:
Nothing does more to demean the person who suffers than to busy oneself in fixing him or her up. And nothing can provide more meaning to suffering than taking the suffering seriously, offering our companionship, and waiting in the dark with that person for the coming of dawn.
I love Peterson’s phrase, “waiting in the dark with that person for the coming of dawn.” If you want to know how to help someone through suffering, take this metaphor to heart.
Instead of speaking, listen.
Instead of smiling, cry.
Instead of praying, sit.
Offer your companionship. Enter into this moment with your friend and journey with them as far as they ask you to. The time will come for speaking, smiling, praying. But our immediate posture should be less active. Choose to be present, nothing more.
Instead of turning on the lights, sit with them in the dark and wait for dawn.
Wait for the One who bids dawn come in the first place.
“…there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” — Prov. 18.24
For years, I’ve lamented the fact that MLB Network has been unavailable on Dish. Thanks to an exclusive contract with DirectTV, this channel — complete with out of market games, nonstop baseball coverage, and tons of exclusive content — was inaccessible to me, except for the rare times I could find it on the treadmill television at the gym.
You have to understand, I’m the core demographic for MLB Network. I absolutely eat, drink, sleep, and breathe baseball. I go to at least 4 or 5 games a year. I have the MLB At Bat app for both iPhone AND iPad. I still contend RBI Baseball is the most perfect video game ever created. Best of all, my wife is just as much a fan as I am: she’s been known to willfully watch ball games on tv even when I’m not there. All this is to say…if any household in America should have MLB Network, it’s us.
So imagine my surprise today when I get a text out of the blue from a friend who tells me he’s just heard Dish and MLB Network have worked out a deal to make the channel available immediately, just in time for the final month of the season.
That means I’m watching the final inning of the Giants / Dbacks game as I type this.
That means things are looking up at the Bybee house.
As the rest of the country turns their attention to NCAA football — with it’s ridiculously important “preseason” rankings and maddening inability to create a playoff system to declare a true champion — as for me and my house, we will be enjoying the rich and subtle nuances of September and October baseball. In HD.
I love questions. I can remember the exasperated look on my mother’s face as she patiently fielded my inquisitiveness as a child. Now, as father to two curious first-graders and a quick-minded four-year old, I’m constantly being asked “How do you spell ________?” or “What does ________ mean?” or, best of all, “Why?”
Somewhere in heaven, my mother smiles. Circle of life.
I still find myself asking questions. Lots of questions. My work as a minister puts me in a unique position to ask people questions about their faith, their fears, their marriages, their dreams. Of course, it also puts me in a position to ask questions of the text, seeking meaning and truth and answers for our community of believers. And then there are my own questions: theology, theodicy, textual criticism, the enormity of the universe and the smallness of humanity. I could go on and on.
But I’ve found one question that stands out from the pack. I’d even go so far as to say it’s the most self-reflective question we can ask ourselves, which makes it the best question of all-time.
What is God doing in my life?
“What is God doing?” is a good enough question on it’s own. And there are a lot of variations on this question, detours and branches that veer into areas of specificity that are helpful for our consideration. What is God doing in the world? What is God doing in Africa? What is God doing in America? What is God doing about poverty? What is God doing for the downtrodden? What is God doing to eradicate evil? What is God doing for the forgotten? What is God doing to make much of the name of Jesus?
But we all return to the most personal question of all: What is God doing in my life?
To some of you, I know that sounds a bit like narcissism. And maybe that’s fair. But we also have to allow ourselves permission to ask the self-reflective questions that are warranted by the spiritual life. This is part of counting the cost, of loving the Lord with all of one’s mind. I think it’s the only way we receive “eyes to see, ears to hear.”
It’s the kind of question we need to be asking ourselves and those around us.
What is God up to?
What is He doing in my life?
May you find hidden joy as He reveals to you the answer to the most important question you could ask today.
“When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we’re being led not to see God in our stories but to see our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.”
From Israel L. Gaither, retired National Commander of The Salvation Army, in his chapter entitled “Leading and Serving in His Strength” from the fantastic book Nonprofit Leadership In A For-Profit World:
Some of the most effective Christian leaders are not only those who stand behind pulpits on Sunday morning. On any day there are godly leaders of great value sitting behind desks in corporate America, managing households, and supervising laborers in the workforce. Leaders are standing among us who do not yet know that they are about the receive the call — a call to witness in whatever place they find themselves. I pray it often: “Lord, call more of us. Place more of us in the lives and circumstances of those who are waiting for a word and an action that give evidence that their world has not been abandoned by you.”
I love this quote and I love this prayer. Lord, call more leaders to take up arms in Your name, that the waiting and the broken might hear a word and see some action that brings You glory, honor, and praise.
You cannot lead others to some place you have not been.
Most of the reading I’ve done this year has been focused on leadership: principles, goals, fundamental practices, etc. Tonight while I was mowing the yard, I started reflecting on all this reading and I tried to sum up my own beliefs and thoughts on leadership. That’s when this phrase sort of developed in my mind’s eye: You cannot lead others to some place you have not been.
Generally speaking, I believe this to be true. I think it’s nearly impossible to lead any organization or group to excel when you’ve never achieved anything yourself. In nearly every setting I can think of, this principle is something of a leadership maxim. Successful CEOs have demonstrated success in lesser management roles where their decision-making ability and interpersonal skills are honed. As a result, spheres of influence increase, leading to greater opportunities to lead and develop.
But like I said, this principle can be applied in nearly every setting I can think of. One of the few exceptions is ministry. Now, obviously, there is a certain sense of competency and legitimacy along the Way of Christ that people expect out of their spiritual leaders. And in a general sense, I think it’s still near impossible to lead people into a deep and abiding relationship with Jesus when you’re not a fully committed disciple yourself. That’s not in question. But at the same time, the life in Christ ultimately points beyond, to something transcendent and illusive. It’s a matter of faith and hope. It’s a journey we share together and, as fellow sojourners, we understand that none of us have “arrived” yet.
So where does that lead spiritual leadership? Back to our phrase, I made one slight modification as I continued to mow: You cannot lead others to some place you have not been OR that you are not actively pursuing. It’s not that any of us are “spiritual experts”. There’s no greater myth than that of the shaman, the holy man, the spiritual guru. No, none of us have arrived yet. (That’s my beef with most books you read about heaven. They’re written by guys who make it sound like they’ve been there and come back to enlighten all of us like some sort of cosmic tour guides.) But we can lead others as we pursue the Kingdom of God. As Paul says, we urge people to imitate us only to the extent that we imitate Christ. We understand our fallibility, but we call others — and ourselves — to embrace the life of a Christ follower, a life of ever-growing love, joy, kindness, and faithfulness.
already & not yet 