Lent: Spring Cleaning for the Soul

Lent has been around since about the year 200: only a little more than 150 years after the time of Christ.  It was originally a time of preparation for those planning to be baptized on Easter.  The preparation included study and spiritual reflection.  It continues to serve the same purpose for Christ’s followers today.  It is a season for reflection: how am I doing in my relationship with God? Am I experiencing and living the new life that he offers me?  If not, what repentance should I be doing?  What are the blocks in my way to Christ (or more properly, his way to me) that need to be cleared away?

Traditionally, many households go through “spring cleaning” each year.  The week to week house cleaning is fine, but once a year it’s time to give the house a “deep cleaning.”  Get rid of the 30 years’ worth of National Geographics moldering away in the attic.  Move the couch and get rid of the dust bunnies.  Wash the curtains and clean the windows so the sunlight can get in.  In the same way, disciples of Jesus Christ (otherwise known as Christians) spend the year reading the Bible, praying, and worshiping.  But once a year it’s time to clear out the junk in our souls, chase down the spiritual dust-bunnies, and allow the full light of God’s love to pour into our lives.  This is what the season of Lent is all about.

But let’s be very clear.  Lent is not a time for us to become better people.  We aren’t able to do it.  If we try, we will fail, and feel miserable.  That miserable feeling will drive us farther from the Lord.  Lent is a time to open our lives to God, to become aware of and to present before him everything in our lives that prevents us from enjoying the fullness of his love.  It is a time to invite the Lord to be at work in our lives in a more powerful way, and to welcome the transforming power of his Spirit.

This Lent, I invite you to do a little spiritual housecleaning.  Find the obstacles in your life that prevent you from receiving the joy, hope, love, and peace that God desires so deeply for you.  I offer you the following checklist of dust bunnies, grease stains, and accumulated trash for you to give to the Lord, so that he can do a new thing in you.  For each item, consider the particulars of your personal spiritual struggles, and find encouragement from Scripture.  I then encourage you to employ the classic spiritual disciplines of study, prayer, fasting, and alms-giving to open the front door of your spiritual house so the Lord can enter with his cleaning crew.

SPIRITUAL HOUSECLEANING FOR LENT

What things in my life are preventing me from enjoying the fullness of God’s love?

1.    A temptation that continues to ensnare me

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

2.    A memory or baggage from the past that hinders me

“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

3.    Concerns or hopes for the future that blind me from seeing God’s way for me

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

4.    Anger about a situation or a person

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31-32)

5.    Hurt or sadness about a situation I am dealing with

“The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.” (Isaiah 25:8)

6.    Worry and anxiety

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?(Matthew 6:27)

7.    A loss or deficiency

“He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

8.    An unwillingness to seek God’s regular presence and guidance in my life

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

9.    A focus for my life that eclipses my devotion to God

“You shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (Exodus 20:3-4)

10. Pride or selfishness that prevents me from noticing the needs and desires of others

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Philippians 2:3-4)

Come, Make Mediocre Music

Come make mediocre music with us at Old Union Church.

Over the past few years, many churches have begun “contemporary” worship, which typically features a praise band providing music at the beginning of the service.  Often, the band members are excellent musicians singing songs that are more complex than the “four verses and a refrain” that you’ll find in traditional hymns.  The quality of their music is exceptional, even if the style isn’t your cup of tea, and at times the production can be quite elaborate.  One of our neighboring congregations even uses a fog machine during the time of singing praise music.  You’d swear you were at a concert.

There’s just one problem.  Worship is not a spectator sport.  When the music leaders are offering professional-quality songs, you’ll want to be quiet and enjoy their music.  And if songs go beyond the what you’re able to sing, you’ll just stand and follow along with the words.  Church then becomes a place where you come to watch other people worship God, rather than praising him yourself.

You don’t have to attend a church with contemporary music to confront this issue.  Even when we sing the old familiar hymns, you may be tempted not to join in.  “I shouldn’t sing,” you may say to yourself.  “I don’t have as good of a voice as Sally or Stan.  I’d be embarrassed if anyone heard me sing.  All I’d do is ruin this hymn for everyone else.”  So you may open your hymnal and read along, or stand and listen while others do the singing.  When my father was growing up, his aunt told him that he didn’t have a good voice and that he shouldn’t sing in church.  No one should ever give this message to anyone seeking to worship God!

At Old Union Church, we are committed to being a place for each of us to share in worship together.  Our goal is to have music that every person in the sanctuary can use to sing their praise to God.  Worship is about participation, not observation.  We’ve just installed projection screens in the sanctuary not to change how we worship God, but to make it easier for everyone to engage more fully in the service.  Our gifted musicians don’t give a concert each week; they lead as we join our voices together in praise.

We have music in worship in order to lift up our voices to the only Audience who matters, our Lord and Savior.  He thinks that your off-key, half-a-beat-behind singing is more beautiful than any angel chorus.  After all, Jesus didn’t lay down his life for the sake of any angels.  He did it for you and me.  God is the one who gave you that tin ear and trembling voice, and he wants you to use it, and everything else that makes you who you are, to express your love and devotion to him.

If you want to hear concert-quality music, sung only by trained musicians, worship somewhere else.  But if you want to be one of the saints who offers your all to the One who gives you life and makes it worth living, join us at Old Union Church.

Being "Spiritual"

There’s something cool about being “spiritual.”  A growing number of people in the US refer to themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”  Typically, they mean by this that they don’t want to be part of any organized or institutional religion, but that they have a sense that there’s more out there that we usually recognize.
 
The fact is, we are all spiritual, whether we realize it or not.  It’s part of what makes us human, like having 23 pairs of chromosomes.  The human being is more than flesh and blood, muscle and bone.  We are an inseparable blend of the physical and the spiritual.  We share a physical nature with the animals, and we share a spiritual nature with the angels.  But only in human beings do the two natures come together in such a wonderful way.  To call yourself “spiritual” is about as remarkable as saying that you have red blood or that it hurts when you step on a nail.  It is valuable to be aware of this, but that awareness does not make you more spiritual than anyone else.
 
We have a special admiration for “spiritual” people, whose prayers seem to be so special, who spend time every day studying the Scriptures, or who have some sort of a glow about them that leads you to believe that they’re in touch with God more than the rest of us.  That’s not what it means to be spiritual, either.  Being “spiritual” has nothing to do with how eloquently you can pray, or how much you can feel the presence of God around you.
 
To be spiritual – or to put it more accurately, to live out your spiritual nature – is to allow your awareness of the spiritual dimension of life and your familiarity with the things of the Holy Spirit to shape your life.  Being spiritual isn’t about thinking spiritual thoughts.  It’s about living spiritually: having your words and deeds flow from the workings of the Holy Spirit within your spirit.  Or as Paul wrote to the Romans, it is about “living in accordance with the Holy Spirit,” and having our “minds set on what the Spirit desires” (Romans 8:5).
 
Being spiritual means acting in a way, and treating others in a way, that reflects the change in your life that comes from the Spirit of Jesus Christ within you.  As Galatians 5:22-23 puts it, it is a life that bears the spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
 
If you want to be spiritual, it’s important to recognize the spiritual dimension of who you are.  The disciplines of prayer, Scripture reading, and church attendance will help you become more attuned to how the Holy Spirit is at work.  But you don’t become “spiritual” until all of this changes how you live.  After all, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

Time for a Spiritual Check-up

Pope Francis has been shaking things up in the Vatican, and even we Protestants have been taking note.  In his Christmas sermon last December he listed 15 sins or “diseases” of the Curia (the Vatican leadership), and he noted that they are dangers for every Christian and for every Christian community.  This Advent, as you prepare to welcome the Prince of Peace born in humility, take a moment to consider which of these diseases you or our congregation needs healing.

1. The disease of feeling “immortal” or “essential:” Do you believe that everyone depends on you, and the world will stop without you?

2. The disease of excessive activity: Do you neglect Sabbath rest and experience stress and anxiety because you are trying to be productive?

3. The diseases of mental and spiritual “petrification:” Have you lost the peace and joy that Christ brings because you are stuck in time-worn routine and thought?

4. The disease of over-planning: Are you open to the freedom of the Holy Spirit to disrupt and transform you well-made plans?

5. The disease of bad coordination: Does your desire to do things your own way limit how well you work with others to advance Christ’s kingdom?

6. The disease of “spiritual Alzheimer's:” Do you remember your encounters with the Lord that changed your life?  How do those experiences continue to shape you?

7. The disease of rivalry and vainglory: Is your goal to receive recognition and respect for yourself, instead of bringing glory and honor to God?

8. The disease of existential schizophrenia: Are you at risk of living in a way that has nothing to do with your rich and deep relationship with Christ?

9. The disease of gossip and chatter: Do you create conflict by speaking cowardly behind someone’s back, or foolishly without knowing the full situation?

10. The disease of deifying the leaders: Do you think those in leadership over you are able to provide everything you need or want?

11: The disease of indifference to others: Do other people matter to you only because of how they can help or hinder you?

12. The disease of the funeral face: Does the grace of Christ fill you with joy, enthusiasm, humor, and celebration?

13. The disease of hoarding: Do you seek security in material possessions in order to fill a void in your life, or because you believe they will keep you secure?

14. The disease of closed circles: How willing are you to welcome others?  Is your clique more important than belonging to the body of Christ?

15. The disease of worldly profit and exhibitionism: Will you do whatever it takes to become more powerful and superior, particularly at the expense of others?

Don't Let the Terrorists Win

Don’t let the terrorists win. 

As the name suggests, their goal is to create terror, also known as fear, worry, anxiety.  Fear short-circuits our higher levels of thought and reduces us to a “fight or flight” mentality.  It  typically leads us to act against our own best interests and to make decisions that hurt us in the long run.  The threat that we fear looms larger in our minds than it actually is.  That’s why groups choose terror as a tactic: it makes them appear more dangerous than they really are.

As a nation, we value freedom and independence.  We honor our veterans and war dead and our civil rights leaders who have fought to gain and defend these freedoms.  The most cherished part of our Constitution is the Bill of Rights.  We are the “land of the free, and the home of the brave.”  When we allow terrorist-based fear to limit our rights or to constrict our freedoms, we are allowing the terrorists to win.  When we refuse to share and extend freedom to others, out of fear that something bad might happen to us, we work against our own values.  The enemy doesn’t need to take away our freedoms; we do it to ourselves.  The enemy doesn’t need to limit our influence in the world; we do it to ourselves.

Those of us who are Christian, together with those who consider the US to be a Christian nation, have a clear calling from our Lord to extend compassion and mercy to those in need.  “I was a stranger and you took me in” (Matthew 25:35), for example.  And this compassion and mercy is not limited to people like ourselves.  “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Romans 12:20), for example.  Fear leads us to distrust people different from ourselves, and to build walls and throw rocks at our enemies.  In contrast, Jesus calls us to love, and “perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18).  This love is the antidote to fear, and it is our greatest weapon against terrorism.

We allow the terrorists to win when we turn our backs to our American values of freedom and justice for all, and our Christian calling to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44).

Now, for some specific thoughts about life after the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris.  Because one of the attackers appears to have been a Syrian refugee, some argue that we should close our doors to the refugees to protect ourselves from a similar tragedy.  Nearly four million Syrians have fled the warfare and violence in their homeland; almost a million of them have made the difficult trip to Europe in search of safety.  One person out of a million has perpetrated a horrible crime; do we turn against all one million because of him?  By that logic, cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore should be thrown out of the US, because far more than one person in a million in each of these cities is engaged in violent, brutal, murderous crime.  Remember: the goal of terrorists is to make themselves appear more dangerous and powerful than they really are.  We let them win when our fear of the one outweighs our compassion for the one million.

Remember also why these millions of people are leaving Syria.  It is not because they suddenly no longer love their homeland.  It is not because they want better jobs; many of them had been quite comfortable.  It is because warfare and terror have destroyed all that is dear to them.  It is because they have seen neighbors and loved ones be subjected to brutality and die horrible deaths.  It is because life is simply no longer possible in the burned-out wreckage of the cities and towns.  They board over-crowed, leaky boats and trek across hundreds of miles with no food or shelter because these terrible risks are better than what they would face if they did not leave.  They are the very real victims of an enemy we fear, that we want to destroy.  Remember: terror and fear keep us from thinking straight.  They lead us to confuse monsters with their victims.

Overall, nations’ own best interests will be served by integrating these refugees into their societies.  These are the survivors, the highly motivated, the people who will stop at nothing to reach their goal.  Once out of a crisis, they will be the innovators, the hard workers, the contributors to society in more ways than we can imagine.

Finally, many politicians are calling for a cessation, or at least a pause, in refugee settlement in the US until a stronger vetting process is in place, to ensure that we do not allow terrorists to slip in.  First, the current vetting process takes more than a year and involves the UN Refugee Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Defense, and multiple intelligence agencies.  It includes in-person interviews, gathering detailed biographical and biometric data and conducting multiple background checks that include combing through multiple federal agencies' databases.  Once someone is granted refugee status, they continue to be monitored during their first year of residency.  The vetting process is already very thorough.  Second, the politicians who are calling for stronger vetting of refugees tend also to be the same politicians who oppose background checks and screenings for gun purchases.  Given the fact that many more Americans have been killed by gun violence than by terror attacks, these positions seem at odds with each other.

But this, and many other perceived and real inconsistencies, should not be surprising.  When the terrorists are winning and fear controls us, we don’t think clearly and often make poor decisions and act against our own best interests.

Don’t let the terrorists win.

The Devil's Poker Match

After God finished creating the world, the devil challenged him to a poker match.  He proposed that they gamble for control of each of the seven days of the week.  Even though everyone knows that the devil cheats at poker, the Lord agreed to the challenge.  When they sat down at the poker table, the devil easily won the first hand.  One day of the week now belonged to him.  The angels gathered in the room began to get nervous.  The second hand, the third hand…before they knew it, the devil won six hands of poker, and only one day of the week remained up for grabs.  When it came to lay down their card for the last hand, God showed a royal flush and won the seventh and final day.  The angels, of course, were beside themselves with worry.  “Lord, why did you let the devil do this to you?  Your one day is nowhere near enough to counter the devil’s influence over the other six days of the week!”  God simply smiled at his angelic servants and replied, “Oh, one day a week is plenty for me.  If my people spend that one day enjoying my presence, they will want to be follow me the other six days as well.  Nothing the devil offers can compete with that.”

The Sabbath – the one day of the week that belongs to God – provides us with the opportunity to enjoy God.  Some of us remember the days of generations past when the Sabbath meant going to church in the morning, and then sitting inside wearing uncomfortable clothes the rest of the day, not allowed to play or do anything fun.  Hardly the way for youngsters to enjoy God!  The Lord designed the Sabbath as a day for us to enjoy the presence of God together as a congregation in the morning, and then to enjoy him individually or as families for the rest of the day.  When you plan your Sabbath activities, consider what you can do that will draw you closer to the Lord.  Ideally, you should celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday so that you can share it with your brothers and sisters in Christ in worship.  But if, like me, you have to work on Sundays, select another day of the week to enjoy God.

In Deuteronomy’s version of the Ten Commandments, the command to keep the Sabbath refers to the Israelites’ time of bondage in Egypt: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day” (Deuteronomy 5:13).  The Sabbath is a day of freedom that releases us from the bondage of our daily lives.  Perhaps for you, the other six days of the week are a rat race full of pressure, or a dreary routine of chores that never seem to end.  Maybe they are days of loneliness, frustration, and conflict.  Remember that these are the days that the devil won in the poker match, and this is the best that he has to offer.  Just as the Lord parted the Red Sea to release the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, he sends us one day every week to free us from our bondage to the worries and struggles of the other six days.  It’s up to us, then to decide to bring the devilish cares of the week into our Sabbath, or to carry the Lord’s blessing and presence with us through the rest of the week. 

It's Good to Be a Hypocrite

Halloween is approaching, and that means it will soon be time for us to put on our masks.  At Halloween, we pretend to be someone that we aren’t: anyone from an astronauts or nurse to a vampire or witch.  It’s all in fun, of course.  When the trick-or-treaters show up at the door, we all know that Jason isn’t really a cowboy.  At the office or school party, everyone understands that Irene hasn’t actually become a werewolf.

As we think about Halloween masks, let’s also consider a different kind of mask that we wear the other 364 days of the year.  We have masks that we wear to pretend that we’re someone or something that we aren’t, and we hope the people around us will believe that the mask is the real us.  We have a name for people who try to convince others they’re something that they’re not: hypocrites.

Church-goers are often accused of being hypocrites.  In particular, we face the charge that we’re pretending to be better than other people.  Far too often, it’s true.  Christians have earned a reputation for being hypocrites when we point out the faults of others, while failing to notice our own shortcomings.  In another sense, however, going to church and professing to be a Christian can be the most honest statement you ever make about yourself.  As the late Christian songwriter Rich Mullins put it, “I never knew why going to church made you a hypocrite, because nobody goes to church because they're perfect. If you've got it all together, you don't need to go. You can go jogging with all the other perfect people on Sunday morning.  Every time you go to church, you're confessing again that you don't have it all together. And that you need their support. You need their direction. You need some accountability, you need some help.”

Believe it or not, however, we should all aspire to be hypocrites.  We can do something valuable when we pretend to be someone different.  When we slip on the mask – and know what we are doing when we do so – over time, we start to become more like the person we are pretending to be.  As the common phrase puts it, “Fake it ‘til you make it.”

For example, are you struggling to love your spouse?  Ask yourself, “If I did love him/her, what would I do?”  Once you answer the question, start doing those things.  In other words, put on the mask of being a loving husband or wife.  Over time, the mask will reshape you into exactly that

The most important hypocrite of all is the person who tries to be like Jesus.  Paul wanted the Christians in Rome to be hypocrites when he told them to “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (13:14): he wanted them to put on a Jesus-mask.  (He goes into a bit more detail in Colossians 3:12-14, as he describes the virtues that make up the Jesus-costume.)  If you want to become more like Jesus, put on his mask.  Ask yourself, “What would a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit do?”  Then do it.  Over time, that mask will become more and more of a reality, as you grow in the holiness that Christ embodies and wants for us all.