Experience in Grace and Race

Someone posted this on facebook and I find it really powerful.

It's incredible to see people standing up against prejudice, but this project reverses typical expectations....

I definitely want to use it sometime for black history month or some sort of #peoplebeingawesome series....

The Great Banquet

...wrote an entire sermon about the importance of the servant in Jesus' parable. 

I was fascinated by that 'in between status' of one who is part of the household and yet also goes out to bring others in (c.f.the servant in Luke 14:15-24 and "those who hear" in Revelation 22:17). I wanted to push that image of hospitality/evangelism. In fact, I was all ready to preach it, but I just couldn't sleep. ...and something hit me.

Something said 'don't push--be open' and I realized that--for myself--I had been pushing so much (working so much) that I, myself, hadn't even bothered to sit at the banquet. I had refused God's hospitality in order to check off my own excuses. 

So the sermon became a question--or a series of questions (Where are you in this text?
How is it with your soul in that place? -and- Is that where you need to be right now?)

And the manuscript--my eloquently articulated textual manuscript--became this:

I'm proud of the product (I actually brought this--only this--into the pulpit with me) but the process itself was revelatory. I recorded some notes/thoughts, but I'll have to upload them another time. Revelations have been uploaded (as of 9/8/14)




 

Not a Should

"Is there any digging in you need to do at this point -- an intention you would like to reclaim or a practice you want to renew, not as a "should" that weighs you down but as a passage deeper into your path?" (asked the leader of the Lenten retreat

not a should.
not a should. 

Jesus Christ, you FREE us for joyful obedience....
But I confess that I am not always joyful (or obedient, for that matter).

Sometimes I'm grumpy.
In fact, lately I've been often grumpy.

And the list of 'shoulds'.... they nag at me
(leering out from behind the list of 'need-to-dos' and the 'forgot-to-dos')

I shudder at 'shoulds.'


...but breathing?
I forget.

and service?
                obedience?
                                  discipline?
                                                  

 ... these are not 'shoulds'
They are opportunities. space. room.
Filled by grace. (with grace)
In God, life is breath. 

Is.
Not should.
God IS. 

(I forget that sometimes too) 

Christian response to unChristian witness

World Vision recently took a neutral stance on homosexuality--deciding they would not discriminate against Christians in legal same-sex marriages in terms of employment, (neutral and legal being the operative words there) but many people have threatened to drop their sponsorships.

("More alarming than the frustrating homophobia is the fact that people are willing to make starving children the victims of a socioreligious debate." ~Kristen Howerton, Huffington)

...what's beautiful, though, is that I just overheard a phone call where the person basically said, "I heard people are dropping children. I'd like to sponsor another one. It makes me angry that Christians would turn their back on kids"

I'm proud of the man who made that phone call.