Dear Worker,

"Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not hold the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit togethery, increaseth with the increase of God."
Colossians 2:18-19

This verse, and it's chapter, reminded me to view work, not in just a biblical way, but in a way that holds specifically to Christ.

Dear Worker,

You are called to work. You were made to work. Yet, work is fallen. Thorns and thistles, frustration and loss mark and mar your efforts and successes. There is beauty in your work, but no perfection. There is joy, but fleeting contentment. You were made, from the ground up, for this world. Yet, this world is not as it should be and neither are you. The sighs, the groans, the draping fears, and helpless tears, I know them. They are universal. Your work answers your questions about who you are and how much you are worth. Continually you answer, "not much," according to your proven inability to make your dreams come true. Yet, it defies what you are meant to see. You cry for perfection, for fearlessly fulfilled dreams, and for permanence most of all. You hang your heart on what you have already done, like your portrait on a wall. Only to find that wall both moving and crumbling. All that you would hang your hat on, base your self-value is still crumbling. Every peice of evidence against the accusations of unworthiness falls to pieces. it seems that the accuasations are the eternal things in our souls. The honest, god-less and hopeless soberly face that they will always be measuring up and that that is life.

Yet, that is not life.
Jesus, alone, is life.

He was perfect and worked perfectly. He came, put on imperfection, and worked in imperfection. He came into our need for self-worth measured by work. he came into our need for permanence. Jesus satisfies us. He gave us promises of eternal life. Through his apostles, he promises perfect, fearless, and joyful working. He came and he proved that the score-cards we kept for our self-worth were never authoritative. The score-card of our worth is kept by God and God alone. To Him, through Christ, we are always worthy of His love and goodness. Our worth is and remains based on the creating of God alone. Dear worker, you are worthy, you are permanent, and your work is good because of what Christ has done for you.


I hope you are encouraged.



Book Review: Father Elijah

Father Elijah

By Michael D O’Brien

1996

I loved this book and would love to remember it. The book is an apocalypse in much the same way the Left Behind series is an apocalypse. Both stories, tell about normal people living in at abnormal times. What makes this both stories so powerful is the obviously outstanding pictures used by John the apostle to communicate the revelation given him.

Father Elijah is a catholic priest who lives as a monk in the monastery of Mt. Carmel. The Catholic Church calls him to a secret mission. An extremely popular man has risen through the ranks of power, is uniting the world, and is very much against the believing church. They want Father Elijah to offer this man the gospel. Father Elijah, a Jew by birth, escaped the atrocities of World War Two, he fought for the survival of Israel as part of the Jewish Haganah, and as a lawyer was rising to fame as a prosecutor of Nazi war criminals. Yet, he aborted his own rise. He walked away from fame, fortune, and power to become a very quiet monk. Father Elijah accepts the challenge and with an unlikely cadre of friends engages his journey.

His friends and allies begin one dimensionally, but most of them take on history and complexity as the story goes on. There is a satifying element of pluck, mystery, and interior consideration in each one. The author allows the character of each one to be in-flux and to be, at times, unwilling participants in Father Elijah's story. At the heart of each character, even the bit-players, lies a decision to or not to trust in God. Humanity of the men and women who pass through Father Elijah's story, add immensely to its depth and definite power to its climax.

Father Elijah is a man of many gifts and talents. He loves archeology and theology. He gained a few skills and street smarts in his time with the Haganah. His skills as a lawyer remain undimmed. Yet, his call to offer another the gospel plays not to his strengths but to his weaknesses. So much is unknown to him and to the Church that calls him. He fights with the weapons available to him, yet he continues to suffer losses and setbacks along with his victories. His enemy mystifies him. His God mystifies him. Even as they face life and death, Father Elijah and his team often find themselves facing fear and doubt. So his response of faith is especially heartening. Father Elijah is often reminded to and often reminds others to go and pray. There in prayer, he and others find peace and meet with a God who directs, inspires, strengthens, and stretches his servants. Prayer is Father Elijah’s main redeeming quality.

God is painted as a present, powerful, and unknowable character in this story. He does not answer every prayer immediately. He does not help or deliver from death everyone who believes in him. He calls his people precisely into the things that they would want to avoid. He uses his people for his own ends with no warning or preamble. The characters simply act as the characters they are, full of intellect and instinct. Through and with them, God accomplishes his work. This portrayal of God, if sometimes dark and distant, is utterly believable.

The book is long and exciting. It is well paced, full of humorous one-liners, in short a gem in the genre of Christian fiction. Though I cannot agree on the degree of veneration given to the Virgin Mary and other theological points and habits intrinsic to the Roman Catholic faith, I can agree with a dependence on a God who is not at all tame, but very, patient, and very, very good.

Merry Christmas!

Today, this world remembers that Jesus was born today. He gave the greatest gift of his life. The first thing he did was become what we needed, a man-child. I am glad he trusted his Father so much. It has changed our lives whether we like it or not. 

Merry Christmas!

The Lord of the Rings is an amazing trilogy. It was written by JRR Tolkien who, according to Tom Shippey, as a Christian, wrote an essentially pagan myth. This myth is powerful in its ability to portray the various facets of human nature as it interacts with a believable spiritual reality. To the extent that it is true in its portrayal, I think that trilogy glorifies God. I think the work of that author does so amazingly well and on levels that are still beyond me.

Recently, I have been meditating on words quoted from the movie and used in a men's conference. They are the words of Elrond to Aragorn (son of Arathorn) on the eve of the battle before the walls of Minas Tirith. He says, "Put aside the ranger. Become who you were born to be." The men's conference called us as men to do the same. We were called to put aside our lonely, self-focused ways and become men of community and men who are focused on bringing good to our world.

I have been ruminating on the ways I have and have failed to put aside those ways. "How can I become king?" How can I become the great man I was, obviously, meant to be? Then I read, NT Wright's article in the Sept/Oct 2012 edition of Relevant magazine. Wright wrote about the five mistakes we as Christians often make when considering what to do with the recorded life and works of Christ before his passion and death. As I finished reading the article Wright's line struck me, "In fact, the four Gospels are trying to say this is how God became king."

"this is how God became king."

If the story of Aragorn within the Lord of Rings trilogy is a good portrayal of both human nature and spiritual realities, then in that story, I am not Aragorn (son of Arathorn). Instead, I am either Gimli or Legolas. Jesus, for me, is Aragorn. He put aside his own independence. He took on the responsibility of this "Middle Earth." He won the victory. He became king. I am a friend and fellow traveler, who, in a sense, shares in his suffering and will one day, in a very real sense, fully share in his victory and glory.

Festival of the Nations

It has been awhile since I last posted. In that time, I have moved, shifted schools, and job sites. St. Louis is a beautiful with so many things that glorify God. The Boys and Girls Club of Greater St. Louis (BGC) is a non-religious organization that provides kids with a safe place to play, learn, and build positive relationships with adults and their peers. This organization has been in St. Louis since 1967 and has positively affected the lives of thousands of children and their families. Family is a fundamental institution to any society or cultures. BGC is an organization that helps families resist modern pressures that fragment family relationships and stunt positive mental and psychological growth in teens. I believe that this organization glorifies God.

My favorite annual event in St. Louis has come and gone. The Festival of the Nations! For two days, cultural organizations come together to share their food, their dances, and their art with each other. One day you can carry a Filipino drink, corn beef and cabbage from the Highlands, and Ethiopian injerah all to one lunch table and devour it. On that same day you can hear an Indian dobro, see traditional German dancing, and watch Brazilian capoeira dancers “fight” each other. It makes for an absolutely awesome two days. My personal favorite was hearing Portuguese bossa nova. The music is deeply moving.

The Festival of the Nations is my favorite reminder of Revelation 7:9. One day, we will stand before the throne and the Lamb, just as we are. If God looks forward to us and our culture, why shouldn’t we seek the same now?

Community?

This has been one of the main things that being a Trinity Fellow has taught me.
Just what is community? and What is not community?

I was the only African American Trinity Fellow. This creates real space for the full gravity of questions of being in community.

I'll never forget jogging by two African American guys, one of whom said "What's good family?!" He said this because I was jogging through the neighborhood for Trinity Pres.'s VidaJoven jog. This run was designed to get people out and together to raise money for Nicaraguan children who need financial help attending YoungLife camp this summer. Trinity Presbyterian is currently, mostly Caucasian American. So I, and a long line Caucasian Americans had, passed these two men as they walked along the street. I passed them by again, (I had to meet up with a sixth grader) they regarded me and did not smile.

Were these two men my community, automatically because of their race? Were we automatically brothers in the same struggle? or not? Did I betray my community?

I don't think we were. I didn't know them, they didn't know me. Our struggles might have been similar in a few instances. Along with community comes with responsibility. I mean that we are both able to respond and can be held accountable to respond to those we are in community with. This is possible because of a relationship built and maintained overtime. How can you have community without relationship? As a Christian, how can you have community based that based on everything but THE relationship? Deitrich Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together, "What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ." The community of the body of faith is not built on our taste, culture, or shared history. Part of what determines my relationships is part of what Christ has done in placing me here. I believe that God has placed people in my physical presence for a very embodied community. You can see examples of this at the end of Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, and 1 Peter, the apostles admonition for Christian to greet one another with a "holy kiss."

Now, I know social kisses are intrinsic to Greek culture but the point is that you can't greet and kiss those who are not there, no matter who similar the two of you are. Physical presence as a necessity for relational community is found in many other places throughout the Bible. It is found in process of discipleship that Jesus used. It is found in the help Aaron and Hur holding Moses' hands. It is found in the community of David and his vagabond warriors that ran for from King Saul.

In short, I believe that God has made no mistake in placing me where I am. He has made no mistake in placing certain people, like Fellows, around me. This does not mean that I should exclude every other relationship in life. God gave those too and he must be honored in them. It means that must honor his decisions. In doing so, I must choose make my life with those in the Fellows world and to allow them to do the same with me. This has not been easy nor has it been perfectly done, but I must continue to honor God's decision and trust that His work is good.

An Addendum:

Part of me wants to delete this post. There's so much to explain around it. Yes, there is no denying that through our rich forms of communication it is possible to build relationship without a physical presence. Still relationship depends on the person being knowing and being known, not just a set of assumptions.

A Song of Accents: A Psalm

I walk up the stairs every day to get to work. I go taking my sacrifice of livelihood and prestige. I go, applying the sacrifices of others. Their finances, their time, such valuable stock, I help make it count.

I work for Charlottesville Abundant Life Ministries. We serve a poor community in Charlottesville, VA. We serve the entire family. Fathers, mothers, men, ladies; their sons and our daughters: our students. In serving, we build. We build homes, community, good diets, good learners, their skill sets, and the family.

“Unless the LORD builds the house,
the builders labor in vain.” ^v1

We watch as we build. We watch kids because they need the attention. We watch our brother and sisters so we can take each opportunity to BE brothers and sisters. As we watch, we guard. We stamp out bad behavior. We watch to encourage good behavior. We guard against despair with arms for others to grieve in. We guard against hopelessness with home visits, open car doors, service projects, newsletters, and celebrating report cards. We guard the good we see.

“Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the guards stand watch in vain.” ^v1

We build and guard and find ourselves children, with children. In seeking to give fellowship and resources to the poor, we ourselves become poor. We become the ones without family and friends. We become ones with needs so far beyond our means we can do nothing but beg. And the first ear we reach is God’s. As children, we beg for things we can’t live without; we depend on him. As wait for our need to be met (and surpassed), God’s children depend on us. They knock on our doors, wait for our cars, open their arms, smile at our faces, and wait for us.

In the moments of returning a grim face for a grimace at the sound of our shaking, begging cups, in the moment returning a cranky glare to winsome giggles, we remember. We are a blessing that God has blessed.

“Children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”

Each morning, we all walk seven, small flights of stairs to get to work. We carry our sacrifices to and meet the sacrifices of others at the top. Like people and priest so long ago, we travel, with hope, to worship.