Here are a couple haikus I wrote on our way to get Ian two years ago.
red thread pulls the heart
across the ocean to you
soon we will arrive
descend to Zengzhou
city of our An Zhou Zhou
we are so close now
An Zhou Zhou is Ian’s Chinese name.
Everybody’s Church
Children make great teachers. They reveal the profoundity of a simple observation or conclusion. What they say is usually not new to us but when delivered with such innocence and certainity it strikes us as an entirely new insight.
First let me give you the backstory. Since our earliest days with our oldest son, Jadon, we have referred to our church as “Momma’s Church.” The reasons is simple: she’s the senior pastor of the church and spends much of waking hours there. So now both boys call the church (First Presbyterian, Mexico, Missouri) “Momma’s Church.”
Now, this is the conversation that unfolded this morning. I and the boys (running late as usual) traveled down the street perpendicular to the church. As the church came into sight Ian excitedly made noises and moved around in his car seat. I asked what he saw ahead and both boys in unison cheerfully shouted, “Momma’s Church.” As my wife and I often do, I reminded them that it was our church too: Daddy’s church, Jadon’s church and Ian’s church.” Jadon responded, “It’s my church, Ian’s church…IT’S EVERYBODY’S CHURCH!”
A deep and simple truth that somehow we as Christians tend to forget. The church is everybody’s church because it is nobody’s church. It is not the preacher’s church, the church of the family with generations of members, the church of the biggest financial supporters, the church of the community’s most prominent members, the church of a particular ethnicity, sexual orientation, theological persuasion, political ideology, etc. And why? Because the church belong’s to Jesus. By his graceful invitation we are welcomed into it. We mislead ourselves and misrepresent the church when we associate it with anyone or anything other than Jesus.
Earlier this week a group of ministers in my denomination (Presbyterian ChurchUSA) issued a a letter to the entire church (http://www.pres-outlook.com/component/content/article/44-breaking-news/10946-pastors-call-for-denomination-to-be-radically-transformed.html). One of the central points of the letter was a call to form a “fellowship” of like-minded churches to gather together similar congregations within a denomination divided over various matters. What saddened me upon reading this letter was the omission that the church isn’t ours to define and organize. As I’ve stated, the church belongs to Jesus. As evident from the earliest times in Christianity (see Paul’s letters to the Corinthians) the church was not composed of people who looked the same, agreed on everything and always got along. Quite the contrary, the church was such a diverse bunch they had to be reminded that their oneness resided in Jesus alone. Not only that, but also they actually needed one another precisely because they were different from one another. Only together as the eyes, ears, toes, bellies, hips, and hands of Jesus could they accomplish God’s work. They shared the same mind of Christ but completed their tasks in thier own unique ways.
So the church of Jesus is everybody’s church. For that, let us all be exceedingly thankful.
The Breath of God
So I’m washing dishes; it doesn’t get more ordinary than that. I don’t mind it and it is made better by Florence and the Machine. Fortunately, the sink is in front of a window and though you can’t see much for the neighboring houses the sunlight and the tree branches are welcoming. We recently began feeding birds on that side of the house; it offers protection from the wind and predators. Along with the actual birdfeeders we also feed from the flowerbox mounted below the kitchen window.
As you probably imagined, the kitchen window offers an birdeye’s view (I had to) of the birds feeding. For the past several days there has been a lot of “Come here!” between my wife and I for the other to see which birds are feeding.
It’s cold today; not cool but COLD. It took most of the morning to creep into positive temperatures and now at midday it is only 16 degrees. As I washed the dishes the birds coming to the windowbox kept catching my attention. I’d stop mid-scrub to watch them. At one such pause I saw something I had never seen before…a bird’s breathe. As it nibbled away on a seed I could see its warm exhaled breathe as it met the cold air. Not a scientific discovery, mind you, but something I hadn’t see or even thought about before. That minute puff of air acted as a powerful reminder of the life in that bird..the God-given life.
I recalled Genesis 2:7, “then the LORD God formed man (Adam: earthling) from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” Notice that it doesn’t say that God breathed into his nostrils and he became a living being. Rather, God breathed “the breath of life.” The breath of life: a substance all its own; an enlivening, invigorating, sustaining substance. The substance that makes everything possible–brain functioning, heart beating, jaws chewing, stomach digesting, lips and tongue speaking, hearts and minds dreaming, hands holding and bodies embracing.
It is the breath of life that God reveals to Ezekiel in a dream that will enliven the dead bones of Israel renewing and restoring them as God’s people (Ezekiel 37).
How could it not be the breath of life that forms Jesus in Mary’s womb (Luke 1:35)?
And Jesus himself will speak, breathe the words of abundant life (John 10:10).
The breath of life is all around us if we will only notice it…in the songbird at the window, the children playing in the snow, the pet that greets us at the door, the friend’s voice on the phone, the neighbors who lost their home, the hungry at the soup kitchen, the voices in Cairo’s Liberation Square calling for freedom.
Take a deep breath. Feel the nurturing, sustaining power of the breath of God. Remember it enables all you do. Make your words and actions worthy of it. Take a deep look–in your home, your community, the world. See how the breath of life is birthing new life, new possibilities, new beginnings.
