Put the Lights on the Tree

We are a little over a week into our Advent conspiracy to give away something everyday of Advent. So far it has been...uneventful. We've been somewhat faithful to our pledge, selecting something each day but waiting to give a lot of it all at once. So we haven't actually given anything away, yet.

The sad thing is that we're starting to realize that 30 or so days are not enough. We can easily see reaching Christmas day and not having felt a bit of discomfort in our giving, not a bit of sacrifice. We simply have too much stuff.

We've begun to dare to dream of if we could do this for an entire year, til next Advent. Perhaps then we might actually begin to feel the pain and release of simplifying.

Regardless, Christmas is so much more fun with a two-year-old. Mary Grace is determined to see every Christmas decoration in the Rockies. Tonight as we listened to Sufjan Stevens' and put lights on our tree, she exclaimed with sheer joy, "Its Christmas!" Despite our seeming inability to make room, her hospitable heart is making up for it when she she says "Happy birthday, Jesus!"

It's Christmas Time Again!

This should be the most wonderful time of the year. I look out my window and see houses adorned with lights, Bing Crosby is singing Joy to the World, and the air is getting crisp even for Colorado. But I find myself more like Charlie Brown wondering what Christmas is really all about, wondering why I'm not happy at the happiest time of the year.

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, a time of celebration for Jesus' birth into our world and a time of expectation of his triumphal return. I've come to relish the duel nature of the season; for so long Christmas was simply about me. Then I discovered that it was about Jesus, that he came to us in our darkest hour and filled our greatest need. But I sometimes wonder if that need is really being met; in the midst of decking the halls, I wonder how we'll pay rent on them.

So much of this season is still focused on us, our greed, over-consumption, feelings of inadequacy, and I wonder if Jesus' birth really accomplished all that much. And yet, I look within my own heart, an I know he is birthed there. The bonds of slavery to self-worship and self-hate have been broken and a promise has taken root.

Its this promise that holds my heart captive. A promise to be fulfilled in God's rebirth, His second coming into this world to give the final gift and perhaps the first gift as well. In this current season we find ourselves in the tension of the two Advents. We are children of the not-yet-but-soon-to-be-fully-realized promise. So we wait.

But we do not wait passively. The realization of that inaugural promise is to be achieved in some wondrous way, through us, the children of promise. We are and are becoming the instruments of the change all of our hearts are waiting for. We pray, we turn the other cheek, we go the extra mile, we love our enemies, we give our last mites, we "birth" Jesus into our neighborhood manger.

This season of Advent, I believe God is calling us to another act of Christ-imitation: Simplicity.

In a season when people pepper-spray each other to get the best deal on presents, could we 'birth' Christ into our mess by refusing to be carried away in the 'getting' season.

Our family has begun to wonder if there is enough room in the 'inn' of our home for this birth. After a few years of marriage we have accumulated simply too much stuff. So we're going to give it away.

Each day this Advent we are giving away one thing, not trash, but meaningful items. We're not sure what this looks like or how hard/easy it will be, but we feel compelled to make room. Each week I'll write about our adventure in giving. Please join us as we seek more through less.

Come Lord Jesus.

Be Still- Sermon from Dr. Gore's Sermon Prep Class March 3, 2009

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength,

An ever present help in trouble.

There fore we will not fear, though the earth gives way

And the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

Though its waters roar and foam

And the mountains quake with their surging

Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

The holy place where the Most High dwells.

God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at the break of day.

Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

He lifts His voice, the earth melts.

The Lord Almighty is with us;

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Selah

Come and see the works of the Lord,

The desolations he has brought on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear,

He burns the shields with fire

“Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

The Lord Almighty is with us;

The God of Jacob is our fortress;

Selah and Amen         

           February 16 was like any Monday, busy.  I woke up late and skipped quiet-time in favor of finishing my homework for Greek class and studying for our daily vocabulary quiz.  I did well on it and then went to Adolescent Literature after that where I had another quiz.  I was in class till eleven and then I was off to take care of some pressing matters.  After scarfing down my lunch, I rushed over to the Moody room to get fitted for graduation. I then squeezed in a visit to the Administration building to take care of some business matters before my one o’clock.  After that class I had a handful of meetings to address and then I began to work on the next day’s assignments before going home.  On my way home, I snuck into the Maddox to check out the art exhibit, but I did not linger long; I had a lot of work to do.  As I left the Maddox, I attempted to cover the fifty yards between the door and my truck as quickly as possible.  Yet, in the midst of my dash, I felt an inner plea of divine grace, a spark of mercy begging me to look up. So, I obliged and I was stunned at what I saw-God’s glory spelled out in the stars.  How often had I passed-by such awesome exhibitions of God’s grandeur?  In this moment I was reminded that God was indeed with us, that He is huge and the He is beautiful. Something deep within me begged me to stop and stare.  However, I agreed to merely slow down my stride; I had more important things to do. 

            Later that evening, I continued the busyness of the morning.  Yet in the midst of my work load, I encountered something marvelously ironic and hauntingly challenging, a verse from Psalm 46, “Be still and know that I am God.”  Be still. These simple words hit me like a ton of bricks.  I had read this verse of Hebrew Poetry hundreds of times and it had produced similar effects in me as a witty bumper sticker or a Hallmark greeting card might.  And yet, as I read them again for the first time, that same spark of mercy that pleaded for me to enjoy the view of the Milky Way, lit fire within my heart and I knew that these words were just for me, just as they had been for countless other saints and sinners before me.  In the thick of the insanity of life nothing could quench my thirsty soul more than these words.  I needed them like I have ever needed anything.  “Be still and know that I am God.”

Be still.

            This is perhaps the loveliest yet most difficult of all God’s commands.  In it, I hear my Father yearn for me to enjoy Him in the silence, to be a part of the mystery of Easter, to have a relationship the maker of heaven and earth.  Despite these benefits, I find myself like so many within my culture, afraid of the silence.  I’m not sure why exactly but I am; maybe my culture has conditioned me this way.  We find ways to fill our lives with noise and crowds; we buy ipods so that in between things on our to-do list, we don’t have to suffer the condemnation of silence.  We fill every gap in our lives with meaningless chatter: television, cell phones, facebook, texting, twitter, music, and the like.  We constantly bombard our minds with noise.  Our culture has lost the art of silence and consequently has lost the art of the presence of God.  T.S. Elliot notes, “Where shall the world be found, where will the word resound?  Not here, there is not enough silence.”[1]  Maybe this conditioning is why I am afraid of the silence or maybe I am simply afraid that I might actually hear God.  So instead of preparing an inner sanctuary, I fill my schedule with thing after event after meeting after thing.

  I am always telling myself the lie, “I simply don’t have the time to be still.”  Right now, I need to focus on these other commandments: don’t judge, don’t be proud, don’t lust, feed the hungry, be holy, be perfect.  Yet the Merciful Spark will not let me go; in the background of all of this I hear a small still voice saying, “Be still…” and the voice fades into the darkness and my to-do list lengthens until it rivals Santa’s naughty or nice list in length.  There is just too much to do.  I don’t have enough time.  Yet right smack dab in the middle of “Sermon Preparation time” as I have it engraved in the stone that is my schedule, God with a THUNDEROUS WHISPER says-“be still.”  And I am humbly reminded like Elijah that He is not in the fire, He is not in the raging wing, He is not in the earthquake, He is not in the tempest of finals week, He is not in the deadlines, He is not in the burdens of a world that looks on my body of work and demands, “More! Give me more!”  No, He is in the mundane, just underneath the surface, waiting for me cease striving and listen.  Yes, He is in the deep silence of the soul crying out for our thirsty hearts to come to the water’s edge and drink.

Be still.

            This verse is found in the midst of something strange to us, Hebrew poetry.  This poetry is not concerned with rhyme but with structure.  It is full of parallels and chiasms, full of acrostics and musical instructions, full of Selahs.  Hebrew scholars have encountered much difficulty translating this term which litters the Psalms. There is no consensus as to what is meant by this ancient Hebrew term, yet some have believed Selah suggests a pause or break in the poetry; a time to stop and reflect on the glory of Yahweh revealed in the verses.  If you apply that approach, it can offer much color and depth to your reading of the Psalms. We encounter words such as “Who is he, this King of glory?  The Lord Almighty-he is the King of glory. Selah” And as we chew on this audacious statement, awe and wonder begin to immerse us.  He is the King of glory indeed.  However, due to the questions surrounding Selah, some translations and many readers simply skip over or remove this word.  A word which in essence says, “Be still and know that I am God.”  Maybe our culture hasn’t the patience to reflect anymore.  We want our scripture, our God, like we want our food: fast, instant, microwaved.  Just as Hebrew has become foreign to our culture so has reflection and consequently so has awe and wonder.  Yet in a foreign tongue which we can miraculously understand, the Merciful Spark pleads for reflection, pleads the ‘Selah’, and pleads for the ‘be still.’

Be still.

            As a youngster, I would avoid my chores like the plague, even though they were not so difficult. I would rather do anything other than unload the dishwasher.   I can hear my mother say, “Michael, will you unload the dishwasher?”

            “I will Mom.” And I would change the channel.

            “Michael, did you unload the dishwasher yet?”

            “I said ‘I would’ didn’t I, Mom?” And I read another comic book.

            “Michael Alan Gallup, unload the dishwasher right now!”

            “I WILL!” And yet, I often never did and in the miraculous event that I did, I missed the joy of serving one who had given her life for me.  I missed the joy of obedience.  God calls to us, “Be still” and we reply with, “I will.”  And yet we often never do.  When we do find time to be silent it is often spent thinking over what we didn’t get accomplished that day or what we have to do next and we miss out on the joy of listening to the One who gave His life for us.  We miss the joy obedience.  God wants us to do more than to simply follow an order, to do more the merely sit still; He desires that we quiet our entire beings and let Him fill us up.  However, we often see this as a colossal waste of time; our list of duties is just too overwhelming to add another time consuming task such as being still.  Clothes need washing, bills need paying, papers need writing, calls need to making, books need reading, dinner needs cooking and if there is time, perhaps we might read a scripture or two so we don’t feel so bad about ourselves when we lay down at night.  Carl Jung said that “Hurry is not of the devil; it is the devil.[2]”  I read these words and a shocking revelation comes over me, I have become a friend of the devil. My disobedience has produced a lifeless life, one that is rapidly being choked out by busyness, yet in the midst of that stranglehold of darkness, light breaks in and the Spark of Mercy demands for me to be still.

And I am shown that this is not just another part of my schedule but it is something that penetrates deeply into the cracks of my life.  I stop filling in the moments with noise and distraction and I begin filling them with God. 

Be still.

            I cannot express my gratitude that for that Monday night.  God reached into the hurry of my life and reminded me He is in fact still there.  I was reminded that the Word of God is indeed alive.  I was reminded that apart from Him I can do no good thing.  I was reminded the blessedness of silence and reflection.  I was reminded of the joy of obedience.  I was graciously reminded just how desperately I needed to be still.  There is a laundry list of reasons why we should be still: guidance, motivation, comfort, correction, creativity, insight, hope, joy, peace, and the like. However none of these reasons fully addresses why I should be still. Perhaps the easy answer to the question is that God says so.  Yet, easy answers to deep questions are an affront to the merciful spark that calls us to stillness, to ponder the deep mysteries of God.  I find that each time I seek stillness there was something unique and wonderful waiting for me.  Sometimes I need to crawl into Abba’s lap and just know that He is there.  Sometimes I need to hear the echo of Calvary as Jesus proclaims that I am the one He loves.  Other times, I need to wrestle with the heart-wrenching question of why and hear silence instead of an answer.  And sometimes I just need to know that I am still His, despite myself.  But I do not know what your reason is.  I only know, no I only believe, that it is right.  That deep within us all, there is that merciful spark begging us to stop and listen, to stop striving and to be still.  I pray each of you discover the divine silence of God.  I pray that in the midst of the world falling apart all around us, that we would find the cosmic importance of this simple command.  I pray that a spark of mercy would awaken you to the living words of the Almighty, “Be still and know that I am God.”

---

[1] As quoted in Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline. (San Francisco: Harper, 1978), 96.

[2] Ibid., 15.

Lent Day One: Vivid Virtue

Lent Day 1:  Michala and I spent some time thinking and praying about what this season would look like.  We both felt that instead of simply giving up some item that we would try to live differently, and hopefully sacrificially.  We would not only try to cease destructive patterns in our lives but also replace them with beautiful and holy practices.  


For so many of us, holiness may seem rather bland.  We may sum up holiness as "If it feels too good, tastes too good, or you do it too long, stop!"  This is an oppressive definition but one that many of us hold to.  However, this past summer, I was struck by something I read in a devotional (A Faith and Culture Devotional).  G.K. Chesterton wrote an essay called "Piece of Chalk," in which he describes a cherished childhood pastime of playing with chalk.  He details his preferences in brown paper and in color of chalk.  He loved most his collection of white chalk.  He writes, "One of the wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals is this, that white is a color. It is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing; as fierce as red, as definite as black."


I found this intriguing, for I like so many of us had never thought of white as a color, just a 'mere absence of color.'  Chesterton compares this misinterpretation to our understanding of virtue.  He writes, "The chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color.  Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell."


This realization hit home with me.  For long I would deal with my negative problems of pride and selfishness, instead of pursuing the positive virtues of humility and love.  While the distinction may seem small, it is huge in practice.  If we seek to rid ourselves of unhelpful, even evil practices we must replace them with helpful and virtuous ones.  Jesus put it this way: "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."  


In other words, we must not merely seek to abstain from evil but to adhere to the fruit of the Spirit: to love, to joy, to peace, to patience, to kindness, to goodness, to faithfulness, to gentleness and to self-control.


With this notion of holiness in mind, we sought to both fast and feast each week of Lent, to abstain from evil and to do good.  This week's theme is "live simply, so others may simply live."  We are trying to give up superfluous spending so that we may increase our sacrificial giving. 


I believe this direction holds much promise and we feel much more excited about Lent due to this refined understanding of holiness.  We believe that sacrificial living is just that: both sacrificial and also truly alive.


May God bless you this Lent season as you seek to be as alive as He!


PS: For funky-fun song about simple living click here to listen Keller Williams' "Keep It Simple," a favorite of mine.