News from September 2010

Zero Degrees of Separation

September 30, 2010

I have been working on a lesson for SunLand (Children’s Program) for this weekend; it’s all about the “Good News.” I wrapped it up and woke up today to this verse in Psalms 130:

If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,

O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness;

therefore you are feared (revered/worshiped/respected/obeyed).

In the beginning we were created to have unbroken communion with God; zero degrees of separation. This idea pleased God and made perfect sense to Him. He gave us freedom to walk lightly and joyfully on the earth, flawless, unburdened, and completely connected to Him. In fact, to remove any suspicion that we were only with Him because we had no other option, He gave us the keys to the relationship: free will. Love out of obligation does not sit well with God; He is and always will be about freedom.

We lost our way in this and thought freedom looked like something else. It didn’t; but by then it was irreversible. You can wish you never did something, but it doesn’t change the fact that you did it. Our rebellion against God would not be an isolated event; it went viral. This “sin” maxed out our credit; the interest (the cost of doing business with sin) alone kept piling on and piling on, suffocating us while we pretended to be happy.

Who can stand under that? This is David’s question in the Psalm. If God actually held everything against us we would be completely ruined, “dead” (as Ephesians 2 says, dead in our transgressions and sins).

But the Good News is that God’s character can be described in one word: love. The Bible says it so simply in 1 John 4:8: “God is love.” He doesn’t just “like” love, he doesn’t just do loving things. He is what love is and love pursues and hopes and finds solutions for the object of one’s affections; we are here because we are that; we are the object of God’s affection and He was meant to be ours.

What would I give to live forgiven? What would I give up to have that relationship back with God? Everything?

This is what is central to the Good News message; that God did not simply create us. That we didn’t simply destroy everything in our path. The Good News is that God sacrificed, God became the sacrifice to give us what we could not attain: forgiveness and a completely (not partially) right standing with Him. David says, in verse 7 that with God there is “full redemption.” Out of love, He gave up Jesus who released us from our sin by His blood (Revelation 1:5) and introduced us to freedom once more.

This is very cool to me: God’s perfect ideas will not be quenched. His idea from the beginning will be the idea in the end. Perfect relationship is what God had in mind, and perfect relationship will win the day.

This has been Good News since the day that Jesus died and rose again. It was good news in 1899 too when Lewis E. Jones wrote the words to this old hymn, which is how I will sign off today:

Would you be free from the burden of sin?

There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;

Would you o’er evil a victory win?

There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

Would you be free from your passion and pride?

There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;

Come for a cleansing to Calvary’s tide;

There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?

There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;

Sin-stains are lost in its life-giving flow;

There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r

In the blood of the Lamb;

There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r

In the precious blood of the Lamb.

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

September 23, 2010

Making a decision can be exhausting; especially when there are a lot of variables or when I am comparing two equally good things. At the end of a decision-making process, sometimes the final decision means less to me than the relief I feel to have made it. All the pros and cons lists, all the prayer, all the advice-seeking, all the research; I just want to land somewhere!

But some decisions are simple. In Acts 2:38–39 Peter says, “Repent and be baptized.”

There isn’t a whole lot to think about here. Am I ready to acknowledge that there is something in me that is off? Do I agree that I have done idiotic and reckless things? Honestly, in my heart-of-hearts could I convince myself that I am not a sinner? Not a hope. I may not admit it to too many people, but in my quiet moments, I know exactly who I am. Exactly.

All right then. Acknowledge this before God in a way that is sincere, and open up your hands to receive the thing only He can give: the forgiveness of sins.

One decision down, one decision to go: baptism.

Now this one puzzles me. Why is this one so hard to make? Whenever I read about baptism in the Bible it does not involve a pros and cons list or any kind of extended self-analysis. Repent and be baptized.

I do not see this practiced in the 21st century. What I see, for the most part, is people well along the way, who have followed Christ already for years, finally and with much consideration, being baptized. For some it is an agonizing decision. Others make circles around the topic and never get around to it.

What is going on here? Do we think baptism is some sort of trip-wire that will set off a chain of events that is going to get in the way of the life we know and love? Is baptism the equivalent of “settling down”?

If so, where are we in the meantime? Living in the loophole of a not-quite-surrendered life? Exploring the contract, just not signing our name? If so, is choosing to not be baptized the same as saying, “I am not actually sorry”?

It’s strange, all this hand-wringing over baptism when it was meant to be simply obvious. Baptism is not the end or the pinnacle of anything. In fact, it is just the opposite. It is taking one’s inside world to the outside and saying, “Look how screwed up I am and how great God is!” As if people don’t know already anyway; now you are just being honest.

Baptism, as some say, is “initiation, not graduation;” Jesus might as well be standing at the water’s edge with a towel saying, “Welcome to grade 1.” What does it mean then when we wait and wait and wait and wait? What if we have already followed Jesus forever before we get to baptism? That would be like writing a novel starting at chapter two; like building a puzzle but keeping a piece in your pocket; like getting married without the pronouncement following the vow: are they or aren’t they husband and wife?

There is another thing that complicates baptism: the public nature of it; the audience; the whole “in front of people” phobia. The Thief loves to throw gas on this one; he loves it when fear immobilizes us, privatizing our lives and creating a culture of hiding. The idea isn’t to pretend one is fearless; the point is to admit fear. The point is to admit everything that is unfortunate about our condition so that we can celebrate what God is making new in us. Being fearful is not who God made us; God actually made us unafraid; sin makes us feel inadequate. Baptism is about pointing to that sin and saying, “That is not who I am. I am being made new in Christ.” So get out there with your knees knocking and think to yourself, “This is one more reason I am a Follower.”

As I look at it, everything one does before we repent is the struggle. Wrestling with our brokenness, our shame, our hopelessness; those are things that keep us up at night. But repent has the same number of letters as relief and baptism is the high five.

Some decisions are simple.

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

September 22, 2010

Pink Floyd wrote a song, “Comfortably Numb,” and most of the lyrics don’t make any sense, but these four lines will work for what I am thinking about this morning:

Hello

Is anybody in there?

Just nod if you can hear me.

Is there anyone home?

You know when you wear boots that are too tight and one of your toes starts feeling numb? I think life is like that. Sometimes we are so squeezed in there, we don’t even feel what we ought to be feeling. Things that ought to move us, don’t; things that ought to make us feel sad, don’t; things that ought to make us feel empathy, don’t. Even joy; joy can slap us in the face and our expression stays the same.

That is a problem.

Reading Acts 2:36–37 this morning where the people, upon realizing their great and grave error, were “cut to the heart.” Cut to heart! Just think about it. This is a kind of realization, an emotional overload that drops you to your knees. It absolutely changed them, and absolutely changed the world. Had they felt less, they would have been less driven, less courageous, less laser-like about the Good News about Jesus; their devastation emptied them and the Holy Spirit filled the void with a fire that could not be quenched.

But the devastation came first.

There is a lot of numbing out going on these days, though. There has to be, for us to treat one another the way we do; for us to be so nonchalant; for us to be so ineffective; for families to crumble so easily, over nothing; for children to lose their way with 20 adults casually observing; for our lack of commitment; for friendships to slip away with hardly a thought; for us to feel OK about our detached, wandering decisions.

Why are we so numb? Is it the constant rub of a problem we can’t fix? Is it that we are so bombarded that insanity is the only other viable option? Is it fear? Avoidance? Are we just mixed up about what is worth feeling something about? Have we lost our pulse?

Sometimes I am tired out by feeling things; I feel weary of feeling and find myself experimenting with “coolly disconnected;” I want that. Sometimes I try to be that, thinking it would be simpler. Maybe it would be; if someone could only pull that emotional wire, I would be less affected. To be honest, I have actually prayed for this but have completely struck out on that prayer.

I want to put “things” someplace so that my head can feel clear; orderly. I want to tighten my circle so that there are less people to be concerned about. If I see something painful and confusing coming my way I would rather that someone put me out and wake me up when it is over.

Ah, comfortably numb.

But I serve a God that gave me five senses, and a heart that both sinks and soars, and a mind that craves and creates, and tears. Tears are for something. I feel; I feel sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise. And if I don’t, something is very, very wrong.

All these emotions are motivators; they are things that compel me to act: right a wrong, celebrate, hug someone, move away from something, walk towards something, let something go. Laugh.

Jesus doesn’t want to take these things away from me; He wants me to be alive. He wants me to feel, even when the feelings are overwhelming, He promises I will not be overwhelmed. He will use what goes deep in me, to do something powerful for Him.

When those followers were cut to the heart, was it merely because they were filled with regret, or did they suddenly feel…feel the deluge of God’s love and forgiveness for their awful deed: Grace. I realize Grace is a concept, a fact, but it is also a feeling (maybe more so). And when is the last time I let myself feel that?

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

September 15, 2010

Words matter. The words we use to describe our walk with Jesus and our relationship with His “Bride,” the “Church” matter.

If we say, “I am going to church on Sunday,” is this the way it should be said? That is the way it has been said for eons, but does it really describe what we are doing? And if we say it that way, aren’t we saying that one day we are moving from our home to a building for a specific activity called “church”? We have now glued the church on a spot, and the church was never meant to be stuck. We are also saying that when we get there, that’s church; what happened before we got there, was not.

What about when we say, “I attend” this or that church. What does that say about us? It means to go to something, to be present, and to observe what is occurring there. Attend says nothing about relationship, only about the choice to show up in one place versus another. Now the church seems like an option in the Leisure Guide where you might attend one course this season and another the next. “Attend” has no buy-in, it is simply your name on a list.

Words can mislead; I don’t just mean “mislead” in the sense that they can be unclear, I mean they can literally lead us down the wrong path; as innocent as “Hurry up, we are going to be late for church,” sounds, it is one more example of how “the church” became a thing we show up at, versus a people who who are as connected as the parts of our physical body. Whoever said, “What church do you go to?” probably had good intentions, but those six little words changed the Church.

I am reading Acts right now and it frustrates me. I should be inspired by it, but some days it just bugs me. When chapter 2 verse 44 says, “All the believers were together and had everything in common…” it makes me jealous. When will we mean something like that to each other? When will we stop “going to church” and “attending” on a Sunday and start wanting to be the church with a sincerity of heart and a desire…

Yeah, a desire. A desire to walk together over the long haul, to fix what needs fixing together, to struggle through it and not quit, to come back to the table again and again and again, longing for Jesus to work in us and through us, to fix us and to fix the world.

I have a feeling, a bad gut feeling, that this won’t happen until things get really bad; until we really need each other. Is that what it will take?

Gathering is one of the things “the church” did together. They also devoted themselves to learning and equipping and motivating one another, carrying one another’s burdens and sharing with each other, remembering Christ in the Lord’s Supper and worshiping and encouraging one another, working out conflicts and reconciling, sorting through beliefs and issues; there was a lot going on as they gathered. There was a desire to be together, a need to be together because who knows what the week would bring as the church was out and about in the world, representing Jesus as literally as they could. There was no casual approach to any of it.

Can we be what Acts 2 is describing? Courses and Programming are not going to accomplish this. Structures are not going to accomplish this. It is each individual Christ-follower wanting it and choosing to move from casual observer with no obligations, to sitting at the table and working it out with the group of people we are attaching ourselves to.

Attaching ourselves to; now that has a different ring to it.

I think a lot about this because it is easy for me to pretend to be attached. I am, after all, a “pastor’s wife” (Labels. Don’t get me started). Some could say, “It’s your job.” If this is my job, I quit. I am not kidding. If I am a part of this because I need something to do, I can think of, conservatively, a thousand things to do that don’t involve such close and sometimes painful contact and personal investment.

But it is not a job: “Jesus, this better not be a job!”

I don’t know what all this will mean someday; this attachment. I hope I get it more often than I don’t as I and as we try to be a light on the hill. I can only speak for myself, as all of us only can, about who and what I attached myself to and what was really alive and well in my heart. I wonder how well I will have merged with God’s plan and God’s people? Was I fully the “part” of the Body Christ gifted me to be? And if change is in the air at some point, will it really be God asking me to “detach” in some way and engage somewhere else, or will it be because it would be simpler; less complicated?

There are so many doors available to open. So many doors so easy to shut to get some peace and quiet. “God, help me to stand firm, to not be easily moved out of community. To be fully present in these relationships that you have attached me to, and give me the confidence to know that none of it is in vain.”

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

September 6, 2010

Today it was a tight squeeze around the lunch table; half the people I knew well, half I knew hardly at all. Mike always asks: “What’s your story?”

I love hearing about people’s journeys as we sit around the table. I love how one person has the floor, sharing something about their “long and winding road” and everyone else listens in. A connection is formed as this person moves from being a stranger to being known; and not just on a “I know your name” basis, but “I know your story” which is completely different.

There are moments when I feel like I am both a participant and an observer. Part of me is sitting in the circle and part of me feels a tap on my shoulder and a whisper that asks, “Do you see it?”

I do. I saw it today as we moved towards one another, as we heard honest words, vulnerable and sometimes painful words; as credit was given to God for being a life-saver. Would any of us find each other, naturally? Children, adults, young adults, seniors, parents, singles; what do we have in common except this thirst to know Christ and to walk a narrow road in a big wide world? He threads us together, as diverse as we are, into a Body; and the invitation is always open. I saw that again today.

It is easy to lose sight of this, but around the table, in my heart today I heard that whisper again, “Do you see it?” Did I see how Jesus fishes people out of self-destruction; mending us and setting us upright?

You’re right Lord, She is lovely, this Bride, this idea of yours. It is lovely when strangers aren’t strangers because of what You have done. It is lovely when we can admit broken things, without shame because You redeem it all. All. You make it lovely; You put on our heads “a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” (Isiaah 61:3)

– Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.org)

September 1, 2010

Ever wonder who you would be today if…

Or where you would be today if…

This can be a fantasy or this can be a nightmare!

One choice this way or that way and life changes for the better or for the worst.

I was thinking about that this morning as I read Psalm 124 and where I would be if Jesus hadn’t led me the way He has this past decade (not to mention my whole life). I am not saying I have been easy to lead or that I have always followed His leadership (I have not). Have I followed more than I have strayed? Perhaps another blog for that thought.

Anyway, Psalm 124 is a beautiful thing to personalize, so I decided to do that today.

Psalm 124 (if I had written it):

If the LORD had not been on my side—

let me say that again so no one misses it—

if the LORD JESUS had not been on my side

and by my side

inside my head and my heart all these years

where would I be?

Who would I be now?

When I felt misunderstood or misrepresented?

What would have become of me

if I was just stuck with that;

if the Lord had not said, “Onward!”

Where would I have put anger

and disappointment and hurt,

sin and confusion and weariness?

It would have swallowed me alive!

Everything piled up on everything else

would have broken the dam;

it would have broken me.

Without Jesus, I would have been undone,

engulfed by a flood I could not manage;

swept off my feet

that once stood firm.

The raging waters

swirling outside,

swirling inside,

would have won the day.

If it were not for Jesus

I would be far away from the rapids;

I am afraid of whitewater, naturally.

Praise be to Jesus,

I have not been torn apart.

Look:

I am not ruined and

still of some use.

I feel as if I have given bitterness the slip

(and depression

and disillusionment)

like a bird out of the fowler’s snare;

the snare has been broken,

and I have escaped.

I take no credit for this.

I am not strong

I am not resolute

I am not certain;

But I am confident in one thing:

help comes in the name of the LORD

the Maker of heaven and earth

and for this I

wipe my hand across my brow

and say, “Whew!”

Wouldn’t have made it

without you, LORD.

—Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

Where's The Love?

Date Posted: Feb 03 2012 by Erin MacIntosh
Stubbornness.

Date Posted: Feb 01 2012 by Kyle Dyck
Obedience.

Date Posted: Jan 31 2012 by Brittany Judas
Limbs.

Date Posted: Jan 25 2012 by Kyle Dyck