Tag Archives: Faith

Our Moral Compass: You Are What You Believe

Posted on by
Reply

When Emma and I were returning from Jacksonville on Monday after Christmas, we made a wrong turn. The GPS on my phone instructed us to stay to the left on I-95, but we couldn’t get to the left because there was a barrier preventing us from merging. This forced us to take a wrong turn as the GPS rerouted. The new route instructed us to take the next exit and travel down a back street for a couple of miles. Emma looked at me and said with confidence, “I don’t believe this GPS, we should’ve just gone straight.” This was really funny because neither Emma nor I had any idea where we were, and her suspicion was completely irrational because the GSP always get us to where we need to go, even when we misread the map and make a wrong turn. Sure enough, we made it back to I-95 and safely home to Cocoa Beach.

I sometimes think, “I don’t know how I ever traveled without GPS on my phone.” Back in the day, I would print maps from MapQuest, and then later I had a Garmin GPS that hung from my windshield. Do you remember those? You could change the voice giving directions to Austin Powers or Snoop Dogg. Now this technology is on our phones and will even warn us of road hazards up ahead. GPS has become so integrated into our lives and the apps on our phones that we don’t realize how much we rely on it.

Pilots, archaeologists, moving companies, farmers, loggers, civil engineers, surveyors, geologists, mining companies, and even Navy SEALs all use sophisticated navigation equipment, and all this advanced technology is grounded in a simple device called the compass. Do you remember the hand-held compass? There was one in the Red Ryder BB gun I got for Christmas as a kid. They were typically round and had a little needle under a glass cover bouncing around on a pin that could point you north. This is a magnetic compass, which you can build with a needle and a cork in a bowl of water.

Another type is a gyrocompass. This compass does not use the Earth’s magnetism to show direction. Instead, a spinning gyroscope works in conjunction with the Earth’s axis of rotation to point to true north. This type of compass is often used on ships and aircraft. We also have the solar compass that uses the sun as a navigational tool.

And then there is perhaps the  most important compass of all when we are trying to navigate life, the moral compass. It’s a compass that points to our True North and keeps our steps on a good and trustworthy path. As we know, a good compass helps us travel with confidence in the right direction, and if it doesn’t, we need to throw it out and get a new one.

Today we start a new year. Many of us are hopeful, maybe even optimistic, about getting a fresh start, about recalibrating our habits and routines to become better people and experience more joy in life. But if this going to happen, we need a reliable moral compass, and there is no better time to check our navigational tools than at the beginning of a new journey.

As we know, there are four cardinal principal points on a compass (north, east, south, and west), and I think it will be helpful to return to our scripture reading this morning, taken from Ephesians, chapter 1, to see how it can help us understand the four cardinal points of a good moral compass.

Although there are many points on the Ephesian compass, the cardinal points help us understand our place in the world and our relationship with God. More precisely, they help us know who we are and who is directing our steps. The apostle Paul starts by providing the north and south points on our compass by saying that we are (1) chosen by God, and (2) we are children of God. Remember that the Earth’s axis is formed by the north and south poles. The planet rotates on this axis. So, metaphorically speaking, being chosen by God and being a child of God are pivotal points on our moral compass. If we get this wrong, the compass will not faithfully guide us.

First, we are chosen, and not just chosen but chosen “in Christ before the foundation of the world” (v. 4). This means that before you were ever born, God destined you for good things like love, peace, and joy. God also destine you to be part of His great rescue plan for the world. This is part of your God-given purpose and identity, and if you don’t understand and claim this truth, then you will not be able to make good decisions that help you live into this destiny.

You have heard me say that the biggest problem with human beings these days is not that they think to highly of themselves but that they think too lowly of themselves. Indeed, modern psychology has taught us that most people who are full of pride are really overcompensating for insecurity. They worry that they are not good enough or smart enough, and that if people see this they will devalue, abandon, or reject them. So, they pretend that they are better than everyone else or smarter than everyone else to hide the fact that deep down inside they feel inferior. This deep-seated fear masked by projection has a way of breaking a person’s moral compass, and when they unwittingly follow this broken compass is leads them astray into thoughts and behaviors that hurt other people and keep them from experiencing true happiness. So, it is crucial that we get the north cardinal point right from the very beginning, that we know who we are and what destiny God has prepared for us.

As we start a new year and face an unknown future, we must remember that from the foundations of the world we were chosen by God, that it is God’s will that we live a good life and experience good things as we are trying to make the world a better place. And when we doubt our value or place in the world and start getting down on ourselves, we need to return to this constant north point—God has chosen me for good things.

More specially, God has chosen you “to be holy and blameless before him in love” (v. 4). Now don’t freak out at the sound of these words because they don’t mean what we often think they mean. Holy does not mean better than everyone else and blameless do not mean morally perfect. Holy means to be set apart to serve God’s purposes in the world. Before the planets were formed, God chose you to do your part in making the world more like He intends it to be, and to be holy means to accept this call, to allow God to set you apart for your specific role, and to serve this role as faithfully as you can. The role might be as simple as sharing the loving presence of God with your family or sharing the story of what God has done for you with a friend in crisis. Or it might be as challenging as becoming a foreign missionary or accepting a call to run for public office. But the important point here is that God has destined you to be part of his great rescue plan for this world, and to be holy means to be set apart in ways that will empower you to serve your unique role.

The word blameless points to the importance of leading a moral life. More specially, it’s a judicial term that stresses the importance of living a life committed to justice and fairness for all people. So being blameless means acting in ways that make the world more just and fair. But even followers of Jesus sometimes fall short, and the only way we can be restored to blamelessness is by asking God for forgiveness. So, we are blameless not in every action but insofar as we live under the cover of God’s grace in Jesus and seek forgiveness.

When we put all of this together regarding the north cardinal point, we start to get a clear idea of our identity in Christ: we are destined by God to be set apart so we can live moral lives that make the world more loving and justice, and when we mess-up, we are the kind of people that own our mistakes, ask for forgiveness and, with God’s help, get back on track. This identity is our true north as Christians.        

Second, we are not only chosen by God, but we are also children of God, which is a little more personal. As it says in scripture, we are not children by nature, but by adoption, which dovetails nicely with the concept of being chosen. All children are special, but an adopted child is even more special because they are freely chosen. Knowing that we are a child of God is the south point of our moral compass, an axiomatic belief that is require for our compass to work.

Now think about what this means. Do children with loving parents worry about their future? Do they wonder how they will survive? Do they even bother themselves with these types of adult concerns? No! Unless they have been seriously abused, they have confidence that their parents will provide for their needs. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: “ . . . do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ … indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matthew 6:31-32). Our faith that God is real, that he is closer to us than our own breathing, that he is for us and not against us, that he is working in and through all things to accomplish our good, and that we can trust his protection and provision, all of this is crucial as we seek direction in life. Together, these faith claims, claims that we must come back to over and over again, are the south point of our compass and together with our north point form the moral axis on which everything turns.

The east point on our moral compass is the rock-solid conviction that we are redeemed. Although we sell ourselves into various kinds of slavery that rob us of our God-given destiny and put us on the path to destruction, God does not abandon us. Rather, God find us on the auctioning block and buys back our freedom. In Jesus, God pays our debt, sets us free, and brings us home so we can reclaim our destiny and get back to a joyful existence in which we are serving God’s loving purposes in the world. Knowing and believing that we have been redeemed and that God can make us useful again is an essential element in our identity and the east point on our moral compass.

Finally, the west point of our compass is the certainty that in Jesus we are forgiven. Everything ugly, shameful, dark, and destructive has been blotted out. We don’t need to carry it around anymore like a noose around our neck. We can let it go, give it God, and walk in newness of life. Many people are suspicious Sigmund Freud, but he got at least one thing right, that most of our bad behavior is driven by guilt and shame. So, if you do not truly believe that you have been forgiven then your moral compass will be broken, and all that guilt will destroy you behind your back. You’ve got to let it go and claim your identity as someone who has been forgiven.

When we put the east and west cardinal points together, that we are redeemed and forgiven, it helps us to understand the famous verse of scripture in Psalm 103:12: “ . . . as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”   

To review, the four cardinal points of the Ephesian compass are the north-south vectors of being chosen by God and claimed as children of God, and the east-west vectors that we are redeemed by God and forgiven by God. Taken together, all four establish our identity in Christ; all four guide our steps so we can be joyful and useful; all four are axiomatic faith claims from which everything good proceeds.

I want to end this morning by posing a couple of questions.

First, do you have a good compass? Do you possess the rock-solid belief that you have been chosen by God for good things? That you are a child of God and therefore a person of worth? That you don’t have to be or do anything different for God to love you, because God’s love is unconditional and nothing you could ever do would make God stop loving you or stop pursing you? Do you know in your heart of hearts that you are redeemed and forgiven? Do these convictions shape how you think about yourself and make decisions in your everyday life? If all four of these things are not in place, you don’t have a good compass. But the good news is that God can give you one that works great, and the only thing you have to do to receive this gift is to sincerely confession your sins and ask God to give you a fresh start. Before we move on, I want to give everyone here a chance to do that by offering a prayer . . . . .

______________________________

If you prayed this prayer with me and meant it in your heart, then you can claim a new identity in Christ: that you are a chosen child of God that has been forgiven and redeemed.

Now that you have this new compass, the second question is, will you trust it? Will you trust this moral compass. Trusting the compass means coming back to the four axiomatic faith claims over and over again so you can remember who you are and who directs your steps. This is especially important when the world tells you different, when the world says that your life is meaningless and without purpose, that you can’t trust anyone, that you are irredeemable and unforgiven, that you are beyond repair and will never be free from your guilt. When these things are spoken over you or crop-up in your thinking, trusting you compass means counteracting these lies with the truth of the four cardinal points. Trusting your compass also means that when you are making decisions you ask yourself what would a person do who truly believes that he is chosen, redeemed, and forgiven by God, a person who is destined for good things and has the protection and provision of God? And then letting your faith guide your steps. If God has given you a good compass, then you can always trust it, even when your instincts, fears, or preferences tempt you to another path. So, trust your compass and consult it frequently.

My Best Day of Surfing . . . Even Though There Weren’t Any Waves

Posted on by
1

On the rare occasion when I wake up at 5:30 a.m., drive to the beach, and discover that it’s flat, I get disappointed and head home. But not today.

After a surprisingly fun surf session yesterday, I carefully studied the forecast last night in hopes of scoring again this morning. Low tide was at 2:49 a.m. and first light was at 6:07. This meant that by the time I could see well enough to paddle out, it would be a little past mid-tide. Since the swell was small, it might be too deep to break, and even if it were ridable, I knew it wouldn’t last long. I could wait for a lower tide later in the day, but the wind was supposed to pick-up and turn onshore. It was a crapshoot, but I was hoping to time it just right for about an hour of fun, glassy surf.  

While it was still dark, I pulled into the parking lot of my favorite surf spot. While there were little lines of swell coming in that might possibly be ridable, it didn’t look very good. As I patiently waited in hopes of some bigger set waves, I noticed what was shaping up to be a nice sunrise. I took a picture to send my wife.  

6:10 a.m. at Hightower Beach Park

One set wave came through that looked barely ridable, so I thought, “What the heck,” and decided to paddle out. Maybe I could catch a few as I watched the sun rise. I grabbed my board, did a little warm-up routine on the beach, and slowly walked into the water. As the emerging light reflected off the clouds, I was overtaken by the beauty before me. While all sunrises are beautiful, the colors in the sky this morning were especially electrifying.

Picture taken by Richie Fagan, Cocoa Beach

I was so overwhelmed, that I spontaneously began to pray. “God, this is so beautiful. I am so grateful to be able to see and appreciate this.” I was the only person in the water and it all felt like a gift.  

As I pushed off on my surfboard, skimmed across the water like a skipping rock, and began to paddle, I noticed that the water was bright pink with purple tints. And not just a small patch of water, but what seemed like the entire ocean. It was like swimming in wet, neon, oil paint as the colors swept over my hands. I kept chucking to myself saying, “God, this is so beautiful. I can’t believe how gorgeous this is!” Michelangelo himself could not have captured the beauty of this scene. Only God could create something so magical and totally immerse me in it—body, mind, and spirit.

While it’s impossible to capture the joy, wonder, and awe that I felt sitting in the ocean, this video of my daughter will give you a glimpse.  

My daughter many years ago having the best day of her life!

 This is honestly how I felt, like a kid on a carousel having the best day of her life!

(By the way, this video helps me understand what Jesus meant when he said, ““Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” [Matthew 18:3].)

Just when I thought that things couldn’t get better, I took off on a small wave and noticed that a full moon had been setting behind me. I felt like I was in a National Geographic photograph, situated between two of the most beautiful scenes observable from planet Earth. Then the sea came alive. I noticed boils rising from the rock reef, rough ripples from running bait fish, dolphins popping up all over the place, and a small shark feeding close to my dangling feet. Large pelicans and tiny birds were swooping down to capture breakfast in their smooth, hard beaks. All these things came together to create a beautiful moment, a significant moment, one of the best moments of my life.

In order to give expression to the overwhelming joy I was experiencing, my heart gave rise to a song that I spontaneously began to sing, one that had been sung at my wedding . . . .

Eternal God, unchanging
Mysterious, and unknown
Your boundless love, unfailing
In grace and mercy shown

Bright Seraphim in endless flight
Around Your glorious throne
They raise their voices day and night
In praise to You alone

Hallelujah
Glory be to our great God
Hallelujah
Glory be to our great God  

Fernando ortega, Our Great God

The overwhelming beauty of God’s creation led me into a time of heartfelt worship. For about thirty minutes between first light and sunrise, it felt like God was throwing me a private party. I was immersed in joy and lavished with love. My heart was bursting with gratitude, and I could scarcely take it in.

I believe that this is true worship. The expression of praise and thanksgiving that wells up from the soul when we experience an intimate connection with the mystery of the world, an experience that infuses our life with meaning, purpose, and value. This what God wants for every living creature. This is the meaning of life abundant. This is a glimpse of deep reality, a glimpse I would have missed had I been sleeping, not paying attention, or distracted my own thoughts and agenda.       

The scene that so fully captured my attention quickly began to fade. While it turned out to be a beautiful morning, I have grown accustomed to beautiful mornings and wanted to hang on to the feeling of this magic moment. But alas the sun came up, the colors faded, the tide got deeper, and the waves stopped breaking.

I had paddled around for about an hour and caught only three waves that barely picked me up. Under normal circumstances, I’d say that I got skunked. But nothing can be farther from the truth. While the surf didn’t pan-out, I received an even greater gift. Once again, I was reminded that the beauty and value of God’s creation is not only exponentially bigger than me, but it has nothing to do with whether I find it useful on any given day.

I eventually got out and drove down the road to get breakfast, still buzzing from the whole experience. Driving clumsily with coffee and bagel in hand, I opened the Spotify app and sang along to the song that rose from my soul in the water, “Our Great God.”

The next song in the cue was “Stairway to Heaven,” and the first few notes of the guitar filled my eyes with tears. It’s funny how certain songs can open portals to powerful memories. I traveled back in time to 1990, sitting on the floor with my best friend Odie at the foot of his waterbed. We had just smoked marijuana1 and were eating potato chips in his bedroom. As we watched our reflections in a long mirror leaning against the wall, we made funny faces and laughed hysterically, spitting crumbs everywhere.

Center: Jason O’Deay (Odie) 1992

While I was blessed with many good friends throughout childhood, my relationship with Odie was special. Even though we got into lots of trouble, it’s like God knew I needed this person at this specific time in my life. Some of my favorite memories are of beach trips with Odie, and not just surfing together, but the drive back and forth from Lakeland, the conversation, the laughter, the practical jokes, the music. The sense of being known, understood, and accepted.  

As memory fragments flashed in my mind, I turned up the volume as loud as it would go and let Led Zeppelin transport me back so I could hang out with an old friend and receive more gifts: friendship, belonging, deep connection. These gifts came wrapped in an awareness that Odie had been dead for 26 years, the victim of a violent car crash. So, the tears welling up in my eyes were a mixture of joy and sadness. This happens from time to time, and I always think, “I’d give anything to paddle out with Odie one more time on a day when the waves are firing.”

Odie with my son, Jobe, 1996. The last time I saw him face-to-face.

I still miss him, but the twinge of grief opened the door to another gift. The gift of gratitude for life, for my own 48 years on this incredible planet, and for all the love and joy I’ve received from more people than I can remember. Like a movie playing in fast forward, I saw so many smiling faces and so many grace-filled moments. It’s the like the scope of my entire life was coming together. As I approached the present time, the movie slowed down and I saw the faces of people who continue to give my life meaning, value, and purpose. My wife and kids; my mom, dad, and sister; my extended family; my friends, past and present. Just as the waves swelled under my surfboard in the electric colors of the ocean this morning, my heart swelled to the tune of an old song that brought back memories far and near, so many good thoughts and feelings that it felt like my heart would explode.

There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking . . . .

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now
It’s just a spring clean for the May queen Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run There’s still time to change the road you’re on . . . .

And it makes me wonder . . . .

Led ZEPPELIN, STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

I started today hoping to surf, but from the overwhelming beauty of a seascape to the cresting emotions set in motion by an old rock song, I was given a moment that far surpasses the thrill of riding waves. I was given a moment of connection with ultimate reality. A moment of passionate and spontaneous worship. A moment filled with wonder, awe, mystery, joy, and gratitude. The gift of feeling small in an incomprehensibly large universe, but also the gift of an utterly unique and personal encounter with the ground of being. Memory, friendship, belonging, life, and love.

Today I am grateful to be alive and for all the blessings I have received throughout the course of my life, blessings I do not deserve but that come through the power of unconditional love. I am especially grateful for being given eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to feel the goodness of God, the beauty of creation, and the power of human creativity in the moments that brought about such a magical morning.              

Footnotes:

  1. I’m in no way glorifying drug use here, but this is part of my story, and as is written in the AA Promises, I do not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

A Pastor’s Journey Through Depression: Faith, Medicine, & Friends

Posted on by
Reply

As we celebrate Christmas and the beginning of a new year, we are expected to be happy. Unfortunately, many people are struggling with deep sadness and isolation. In this message, Pastor Mark talks about his long battle with depression, the medical facts behind the illness, how to recognize symptoms, and ways that we can all better support those navigating the darkness. Please share with others who may this message helpful.

Podcast: Search “Pastor Mark Reynolds” in your preferred app

https://youtu.be/YRvFZVRxMzo

If You Want to Love Others, You Must Begin with Prayer

Posted on by
Reply

Message Road Map: September 5, 2021

Last weekend was one of the busiest of my career, and on Sunday I was at church from 8:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. The only time I left was to run across the street to Taco Bell to grab some lunch. When I got to the drive through window to pay, I saw a young man who looked pretty stressed out. I felt a nudge to offer words of encouragement, and, to my surprise, he began to explain that it was just him and the manager running the whole place. He also told me that he used to have a good paying job with benefits until he was laid off due to COVID, and now he trying to work several part-time jobs to  make ends meet.  

I felt bad for him and said, “I’m going to pray for you today, that God bless you and take care of your family,” and upon hearing these words, his facial expression changed, and he said, “I really appreciate that. I need to remember that I am blessed just to have this job and to be alive today.” By acting on the nudge and offering prayer, God was able to bless this guy through me and make his day a little better, even if just for moment.

Sometimes, if we are paying attention, God prompts or nudges us to do something or say something that will bless another person. Someone’s name might pop into your head, prompting you to think, “Maybe I should call him,” or “Maybe I should pray for her.” You might feel led to invite a friend out for coffee or feel a nudge to ask if a stranger if she needs help. Has something like this ever happen to you? Recently, a friend came to my mind who was having a hard time, and I felt a nudge to text him and say, “I prayed for you today. If you need a listening ear, give me a call.” Shortly after clicking the send button, he called me on the phone, and we talked for a long time. At the end of our conversation, he said, “Man, I really needed to talk about this stuff, and I feel better now. Thanks for listening.” I then felt led to pray for this person on the phone, which he deeply appreciated. We often forget that God is always already working in the life of every person around you, trying to move them toward more healing, more freedom, more peace, and more joy. And if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, if we are awake to God’s presence in our everyday lives, then God empowers us to join in what he is already doing in their lives by blessing them. Isn’t that incredible?

But we must be tuned-in to what God is doing, and we must pay attention to God promptings. So, how do we do that? Well, the most important way is through prayer. Prayer is simply an ongoing conversation with God in which we both speak and listen. We can talk to God just like we talk to anyone else, and he wants us to pour out hearts. But we can also listen by meditating on scripture. God speaks to us as we read the Bible, and when we hear God’s still small voice nudging, prompting, convicting, or encouraging, we can ponder it in our hearts and reflect on it with our minds. While there are many different ways to pray, we teach the ancient practice of lectio divina. You can learn about this by picking up my free booklet on the welcome center, “New Life in Christ,” or by going to our website and checking out the page, “Connect Online.” However, you chose to pray, the important thing is that you actually do it, because it’s the lifeblood of our relationship with God.

It’s so important, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray without ceasing” and to “rejoice in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Jesus Christ.” As you may know, I try to go to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit every year for spiritual retreat. The monks who live there take this call to pray without ceasing seriously, and they use the analogy of breathing. They say that speaking to God is like breathing out, and listening to God by meditating on scripture is like breathing in. And like breath, it is a necessity for spiritual life. This can be seen in their practice of “breath prayers.” For example, as they slowly breath in they say in their mind, “Lord” and as they exhale, they silently say, “have mercy.” Then, following the same pattern, “Christ / have mercy, Lord / have mercy.” The idea it to synchronize their breath with this prayer so that it becomes so natural they unconsciously do it even while they’re sleeping—they are learning to pray without ceasing. The main idea is that prayer is to the soul as breathing is to the body. And this is what keeps us awake, alert, paying attention to spiritual things; it’s what gives us eyes to see and ears to hear, as Jesus would say.

In the context of this message, the principle is simple: when you want to love people, when you want to live a life that regularly manifests the blessings of God in ways that help others, Jesus invites us to begin with prayer, which is precisely what HE does. Before Jesus even starts his earthly ministry around 30 years old, it says in Luke 4:1 that “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.” Why did the Holy Spirit lead him into the wilderness? To fast and PRAY.

Furthermore, when he had to make one of the most important decisions of his life regarding who to choose as his followers, it says in Luke 6 that “[Jesus] went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God.” It was only after praying all night that Jesus felt ready to choose the twelve disciples, not only to follow him as their rabbi, but to carry his message of salvation to the whole world after he ascended to heaven (vv. 12-16).

Every time Jesus made important decisions, regarding what to do, who to call, who to engage, who to disengage, how to reach people, and how to bless people, he started with prayer. In fact, Jesus didn’t just pray on occasion, he lived a life saturated in prayer, awake and responsive to the presence of God. And this is what he wants for us too because this is how we discover God’s will and find the wisdom, courage, and strength to carry it out.

Let’s look at all the things God does in prayer to help us bless others. First, God uses prayer to OPEN our hearts us to the leading of His Spirit, allowing us to tune into what He is already doing, and helping us to recognize the promptings to join Him in blessing others. This is our starting point, and why we are not just called to pray, but to BEGIN with prayer.

Second, as we continue in prayer, God will show us WHO to bless. He will bring people to mind and give us a desire to pray for them (reminding us that we need to pray for someone other than ourselves). And as you pray for someone, you start to see them differently—you start to see them as God sees them. And this gives you deeper understanding of their hurts, habits, and hang-ups, and, consequently, a better understanding of their needs. This evokes compassion and empowers us to listen to them without judgement (which is our topic for next week). As we see them from God’s perspective through the eyes of compassion, God cultivates a desire to want to bless them. (As a side note, this is why Jesus tells us to pray from our enemies. We often get tethered to an enemy in anger, resentment, and even hatred, all of which compels us to see him/her in a particularly bad light that makes compassion difficult if not impossible. This creates a kind of slavery that destroys us from the inside out. But if we obey Jesus and pray for our enemies, it can change the way we see them, and when anger gives way to compassion we are finally set free to live again.)

Third, when we pray, God show us HOW to bless the people. After opening us to the leading of the Holy Spirit, showing us who to bless, and helping us to see them through the eyes of compassion, God directs us in prayer regarding what to do. As I mentioned earlier, it could be as easy as sending a text message to say, “I am praying for you,” or inviting someone to lunch. The main point is that God directs us regarding when we should approach them, how we should engage them, and the ways we can bless them.

Finally, prayer connects us to the POWER of God that makes all this possible. We must always remember that blessing someone means being a conduit of GOD’S grace. In other words, I’m not the one blessing people, God is blessing them through me. And without this power, without this divine grace, our efforts will fall flat. Furthermore, the BIGGEST blessing that people experience through us, is not the specific thing we do like sending a message or listening without judgement, but the experience of drawing close to the presence of God. God works through our specific actions to give them the most transformative and life-giving blessing a person can receive—God gives them Himself. It’s important to remember that while we can do something to make someone’s day better, God can heal their heart and save their soul.

Notice how all the work of prayer happens in us for the benefit of others! I’m gonna say that again and I want you to let it sink in: All the work of prayer happens in us, and it’s for the benefit of others. [Which helps us to understand why Jesus said that if you try to save your life by focusing on yourself you lose it, but if you are willing to lose your life in service to others you gain it. Prayer is the tool that leads to this discovery, which is the secret of a happy life . . . but that’s for another message.] God uses prayer to change us so that we can bless others and change the world. Without prayer, none of these things are likely to happen, especially since God sometimes asks us to bless others in ways that make us uncomfortable. Again, it all hinges on our willingness to begin with prayer.

So how do we do it? How do we begin with prayer? Notice I didn’t ask: How should we pray? I have done various sermon series devoted to this topic that you can find on my YouTube channel, and there are many good books and devotionals on the topic too. Furthermore, I’ve already pointed you to the ancient practice of lectio divina. But what I want to focus on this morning is how to BEGIN with prayer. And to help you, I’ve provided a tool in your bulletin. For those watching online, I have posted the handout on our church Facebook page. It’s called, “The Art of Neighboring,” and it’s a great tool to get you thinking about who God may be calling you to bless.

You can start with your own neighborhood. The house in the center represents where you live, and the eight empty boxes represent the people who live around you. Write the names of those people in the empty boxes. If you don’t know their names, then you might want to find out. Go knock on their door and introduce yourself. Say something like, “We are neighbors and I just want to take a minute to introduce myself and let you know that I’m willing to help if you ever need anything.” If this suggestion makes you nervous, you can also Google them. But don’t get hung-up on geographical location. The goal is simply to write the names of 8 people that live close to you in the empty boxes. You can also use this tool in other areas of life, for example, at work with 8 of your closest co-workers, or in your basketball league, or in your civic club. Once you get these names written down, start praying for them every day.

Since this may be a challenge for you, I want to share three things that can help.

First, plan. I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, “If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.” So, plan time every day to pray for the people on your neighbor map by setting a reminder in your phone or putting it on your calendar. Then pray for them by name. You may be thinking, “What if I don’t know them? How can I pray for someone I don’t know? Well, you can start by asking God to bless them.

Second, prepare: As you pray, ask God to prepare you to bless them. Ask God to help you notice them, to see them as he sees them. Ask God to make you sensitive to his promptings.

Third, ask God to show you how to bless them, to show you their needs, and to help you know when and how to offer acts of kindness.

In closing, I want to remind you of two things. The first is something that holocaust survivor, Corrie ten Boom said: “We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in his plan for the answers.” In other words, God intends prayer to mobilize you so you can join him in blessing the world. If your prayer doesn’t lead to action, something is wrong. Second, remember that following Jesus isn’t meant to be comfortable, it’s meant to be life changing. So, when you start praying and God shows you who to bless and how to bless them, you must be willing to step out of your comfort zone. And that is the good news of the gospel today. Amen.  

What the Resurrection Really Means: An Invitation to Discovery

Posted on by
Reply

In 2013, I hired a guy named Casey to be the Worship Leadership for Shepherd’s Community UMC. My wife, Emma, and I became great friends with Casey and his wife, Cindy. Early on, they shared with us that they had lost a baby at birth, a little girl named Selah. Upon hearing this, I felt compassion but didn’t give it much thought until it came up in other conversations. From my perspective, their loss didn’t affect the way our friendship developed or how I saw them as people . . . until they invited me to a gathering called Compassionate Friends.

If you’re not familiar, Compassionate Friends is a support group at First United Methodist Church in Lakeland, FL for parents who have lost children of all ages. My first encounter with them was around Christmas time when I was asked to deliver a message for their holiday gathering. Casey, Cindy, and Emma were also asked to lead worship, so it was an opportunity to serve together. Upon arrival, I felt like a fish out of water. How could I possibly speak to this group of people when I didn’t share their unique loss? I was fearful of having no credibility or unintentionally offending them with presumption.

I am happy to say that all went well that night. However, the greatest blessing for me was the opportunity to gain a better understanding of my friends, Casey and Cindy. Prior to that night, I really didn’t get it. I did not understand the full significance of their losing a child, and how this event deeply shaped them as people. As I stepped into their world and watched them interact with others who were suffering a similar heartbreak, I began to understand an important part of their identity.

Has this ever happened to you? You thought you knew almost everything about someone but were missing something important. something that you could only discover by stepping into their world.

 

Resurrection as Disorienting

Well, this happened to the disciples too in their relationship with Jesus.

According to the gospels, Jesus told the disciples that he was going to die and be raised from the dead by God, but by all accounts, they just didn’t get it. It is not that resurrection was a completely foreign concept (it already had a history in their native religion, Judaism), but when Jesus talked about it they did not understand the significance of what he was saying. It did not seem to affect how they saw Jesus or how they lived their lives . . . until they discovered an empty tomb.

This was a confusing, disorienting, and terrifying discovery. Since we know the whole story as recorded in scripture, we tend to see the resurrection as the solution to all life’s problems, but this was not the case for the early Christians. Their experience of the empty tomb did not function as a solution but created a whole new set of problems that, up to that point, they did not have. At first, they did not understand what was happening—they did not get it.

 

The Original Ending of Mark

It is difficult for us to put ourselves in the shoes of the disciples. We forget that no one in the ancient world had their own copy of the Bible. We forget that there was a time when the early Christians did not have the New Testament because it had not been written yet. Furthermore, we forget how these books came to be, one at a time, and that even after they were written the early Christians had limited access to a few handwritten copies passed around in house-churches. For these reasons (and many more), it’s difficult for modern people to read the gospels from the perspective of their original audience. However, there is much to be learned by this imaginative effort.

For this article, I am most interested in the Gospel of Mark, which was the first gospel to be written. At the time of composition, there was no Matthew, Luke, or John. Furthermore, the oldest manuscripts of Mark end at chapter 16, verse 8. If you have a study Bible that is informed by modern scholarship, the textual notes will alert you to this fact as well as the two different endings that were added later.

For whatever reason, after the Gospel of Mark was written, the early church was not satisfied with its original ending. Thus, a short addition was added in which the women tell the disciples about the empty tomb and the resurrected Jesus appears to them. As time went on, this ending did not satisfy either, because the early church came back and added an even longer ending, which made it sound more like Matthew and Luke.

Remembering that there was a time when the earliest Christians only had one gospel, the Gospel of Mark, let us try to hear the original ending without filling-in the blanks with the additions or other gospels.

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. [THE END.] (Mark 16:1-8).

Do you see why the church may have found this ending inadequate, especially since there were no other gospels to fill out the story? The truth is, we probably do not like this ending either. However, there is much to be learned if we try to imagine that we are hearing this gospel for the first time, that this is the only gospel we have, and that this is the only ending we have. What could this teach us about the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection?

 

Resurrection as Invitation

As mentioned above, the empty tomb by itself does not answer questions, it raises questions. According to the story in Mark, it evokes fear, amazement, and confusion, leaving the women stunned and asking, “What in the world is going on here?” The empty tomb and the claim that Jesus has been raised from the dead created a problem for the earliest witnesses. It apparently raised so many questions and evoked so much fear that they refused to tell anyone about it!

Knowing their initial response, the man in white apparel gives them further instruction: Go and tell the disciples, and then go to Galilee, because the risen Jesus goes ahead of you and “there you will see him, just as he told you.” If they want to see the risen Jesus, they must leave the empty tomb and go to where he is—ahead of them.

Importantly, Galilee is not a town or a city, but a region. It is the region where Jesus spent most of his time serving the poor, marginalized, vulnerable, and rejected. So, the angel seems to be saying: There is only one way for you to begin to understand the empty tomb, one way to begin to understand what resurrection might mean, one way to trade your fear for wisdom—to personally encounter the resurrected Jesus for yourself. And the only way that you can do this is to go where he went, to do what he did, and to serve who he served. If you do this, then you will encounter Jesus and will finally start to get it. By serving the friends of Jesus, you will come to know in the deepest part of your being that, somehow and in some way, Jesus is still alive and at work in this world.

As it was with the disciples, so it is with us.

However, just because the claim, “Jesus is alive,” strikes us as true does not mean that we have it all figured out. What is interesting about deep truth, wherever we find it, is that it creates a weird experience in which we believe that something is true, but we are not exactly sure how it is true. Why? Because the most profound truths of the universe are beyond human understanding, beyond human categories, language, and explanation. In this way, the dawning awareness that something is true serves as an invitation to a process of discovery in which we gradually get glimpses of what this truth might possibly mean.

According to the Gospel of Mark, this is what the divine messenger does for the women who discover the empty tomb, at least in the original ending. He doesn’t answer all their questions or give them miraculous knowledge. Rather, he invites them to a way of life in which they can (1) come to believe that the resurrection is in some sense true, and (2) enter a process of discovery that will help them see how it is true. In my own experience, when we gain this kind of deep insight through personal experience, how something is true can be surprising. It might be true in a way we never expected.

 

Challenge

When Christians say that Jesus was raised from the dead, they are saying that Jesus is still alive and at work in the world today. He is still out ahead of us with his friends, abiding with the poor, outcast, rejected, and vulnerable—with those who suffer. If we want to encounter the risen Christ, if we want to understand him and his resurrection, then we must go where he went, do what he did, and serve the people that he served. We must step into his world and see it as he does. This is the only way that anyone can make sense of the resurrection and truly come to believe it. Just like I could not really understand Casey and Cindy until I stepped into their world and served their friends, I cannot truly come to know Jesus and his resurrection until I imitate his life in ministry to his friends. It is in their eyes that we meet the risen Christ, come to believe that he is still alive today, and get glimpses of what this might possibly mean.

The resurrection is an invitation to a way of life that ends-up being a process of discovery.

 

Prayer

Gracious God, as I learn the stories of Jesus, empower me to go where he went, to do what he did, and to serve the people he served so that I may come to believe and understand his resurrection.

 

(This post is the fourteenth in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with the book Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)

 

Finding Peace in Chaos

Posted on by
Reply

Preparing for Storms

Emma and I moved to Cocoa Beach in July 2016, and in October of that same year Hurricane Matthew hit Florida. Having spent so much time inland, we didn’t know much about mandatory evacuations and were told that once the winds reached a certain speed the bridges would be closed and anyone who stayed would be on their own. Although we were fortunate to have my parents’ house in Lakeland as a refuge, we were not prepared for the evacuation. We didn’t have a hurricane kit and most of the stores were sold-out of staple items. I had no idea how to board-up the windows, and as the evacuation deadline quickly approached all we could do is clear the lawn of potential projectiles, throw our kids and five pets in the cars, and drive into stand still traffic. As weather reports predicted a 6-8’ storm surge, I was scared that we would return to a house underwater, especially since we didn’t have flood insurance. Emma wrote on Facebook:

“I am awake in bed two hours away from our new home in Cocoa Beach, glued to the storm coverage, and I keep wondering what we will find when we go home. I can’t help but think about things I left behind, like the kids’ baby books and that growth chart I’ve been keeping since Isaac was a baby… I should have grabbed those. We should have boarded up the windows. Why didn’t we fill sandbags? Exactly how far above sea level IS our house?”

Since Hurricane Matthew wobbled off its projected path, Cocoa Beach avoided a direct hit. Our home was not flooded and there was minimal damage to the property. Lakeland was not affected much either, so we didn’t need the supplies that we failed to prepare.

This was a big lesson for us. Immediately upon getting home, I purchased flood insurance. The church also installed hurricane windows in the parsonage. As the next hurricane season approached, we got a hurricane survival guide and prepared a kit, which proved helpful when we were evacuated again in 2017 for Hurricane Irma. We returned to Lakeland fearing a direct hit to Cocoa Beach, only to discover that the storm changed directions and we had evacuated into its direct path. The eye of the storm tore through my parent’s neighborhood, causing significant damage. Fortunately, we learned how to better prepare after navigating Matthew and, with the help of family and friends, had all that we needed to weather the storm. Had we not learned how to better prepare after Matthew, we would have been in real trouble with Irma.

How many times have you had to navigate storms? And I’m not just talking about the weather, but about emotional and spiritual storms too. Were you prepared? How did you handle it? Did you learn important lessons from one storm to another?

 

To Be Like Jesus: Finding Peace in Chaos

While the disciples never weathered a hurricane, they did have to navigate some fierce storms, and according to the Bible, Jesus expected them to learn important lessons in the process so they could be better prepared for whatever life threw at them. What is interesting to me is that the disciples often failed to meet this expectation, and this irritated Jesus.

Take for example the storm that we read about in Mark 4:35-40:

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Jesus’ questions at the end are striking, especially when we consider that the disciples encountered other storms throughout the Gospel of Mark that provoked a similar response in both the disciples and Jesus. Take for example the story of Jesus walking on water in Mark 6. The disciples were once again on a boat when another storm breaks out. As they were fighting the storm, they saw something across the water that looked like a ghost and were terrified. Walking on the water, Jesus identified himself, told them not to be afraid, and calmed the wind. Then Mark says that the disciples lacked understanding because their “hearts were hardened” (vv. 48-52).

After following Jesus day in and day out, listening to his teachings and observing his way of life, after witnessing him calm storms and perform other miracles, the disciples failed to learn important lessons about faithfully navigating difficulty. Repeatedly, Jesus questions their fearful reaction, which culminates in Mark 8 when an exasperated Jesus says, “Do you still not perceive or understand? Do you have eyes and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear? And do you not remember?” (vv.17-18). Jesus is disappointed because they frequently miss the whole point of following him—to be like him, especially in the face of challenge when it really counts. Jesus shows them repeatedly how to prepare for and navigate storms, how to stay close to God and cultivate a calm spirit, a wise mind, a peaceful heart, and a strong faith, all of which are necessary to handle suffering in mature and faithful ways. But instead of growing in spiritual maturity and developing the resources needed to act like Jesus in the face of challenge, they remained immature, demanding that Jesus do everything for them.

Notice their response in the story recorded in Mark 4. First, they are unprepared, caught off guard and consumed with fear. In desperation, when they finally call on Jesus, they essentially accuse him of being absent and uncaring when they needed him the most: “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” They seem to mad at Jesus for not preemptively rescuing them.

We often do the same. We go through life without paying much attention to Jesus. We might pray before meals, go to church on Sunday, and occasionally share a Christian meme on Facebook, but we don’t spend much quality time with Jesus in serious, daily discipleship. Neglecting things like prayer and meditation on scripture, which help us regularly connect with God, we’re left unprepared when storms come. Like the disciples, we are caught off guard, overwhelmed with fear, and demand that Jesus miraculously change realty to match our desire. We even get angry with Jesus or blame God when things don’t go our way and we experience suffering. Without the ongoing spiritual growth that happens through the consistent practice of spiritual discipline, we fail to see how these compulsive reactions to fear are misguided, entitled, and immature.

In contrast, Jesus wants us to grow-up in the faith. Instead of remaining the same from day to day and expecting him to do everything for us, Jesus wants to cultivate in us the same spiritual resources that empower him to faithfully and wisely navigate storms. Through a close relationship with him, Jesus wants to increase our awareness God’s perpetual presence, which serves as a conduit for the virtues we need to deal with difficulty: wisdom, faith, courage, patience, and peace. The good news of the gospel is not that God will miraculously prevent you from facing fear and pain, or that Jesus will do everything for you so that you don’t have to do anything for yourself, but that Jesus can empower you to faithfully navigate storms like him.

So how do we prepare for storms? By imitating the life of Christ day in and day out. Jesus could calm storms because he was deeply connected to the powerful presence of God through a life of perpetual prayer. As one who was constantly connected to the peace of God, he could remain calm in the face of chaos. As one who was constantly connected to the wisdom of God, he could make wise choices when all hell broke loose. The closeness of his relationship with God served as a conduit for everything Jesus needed to handle whatever life threw at him. But he didn’t wait until to storm broke-out to prepare.

As a faithful Jew, Jesus was intentional about growing his faith through the practice of spiritual discipline. Day in and day out he prays, meditates on scripture, teaches, and serves. He was intentional about staying aware of and connected to the presence of God, which shaped his heart and mind in ways that prepared him for stormy seas. Then when the storms came, the chaos didn’t rob him of his peace, but his peace brought calmness to the chaos. In this way, Jesus models a way of life that transforms us into his image. As we daily imitate the pattern that he sets forth, we gradually receive the wisdom, faith, courage, and peace required to handle difficulty like him. Our preparation for the storms of tomorrow happen today. We don’t wait until the bridges are being closed. And when the storms to come, we draw on the hard-won spiritual resources to help us stay true, knowing that even in failure there is grace and there are lessons to be learned that will better prepare us for the next storm.

 

Time Away for Rest and Meditation

In addition to daily spiritual discipline, Jesus gives us another important practice when we find ourselves in the middle of a storm, straining against the oars: physically separating ourselves from the chaos by going to a peaceful place. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus gets worn down by his service to the crowd. He deals with this challenge by frequently going to a quiet and deserted place to rest and pray. In addition to doing this himself, he encourages his disciples to do the same (Mark 6:31b).

We all need time away from the busyness and chaos that swirls around us. This is why God commands us to keep the Sabbath, to set aside at least one day per week for rest and re-creation. We ignore this command at our own peril, especially when navigating storms that result in seasons of suffering. In addition to weekly rest, sometimes we need to literally walk away from the noise and chaos, to physically withdraw to a quiet place for rest, prayer, and meditation.

Most of us easily go to conversational prayer when facing trouble, but when navigating storms mediation is just as important. Since mediation is a lost disciple for many Protestant Christians, I offer several teachings on this topic that can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes. When chaos is swirling around us in and in us, meditation is the best tools for quieting the mind, body, and spirit so we can get meet God at the deepest level of soul, where God gives us access to divine wisdom, courage, strength, and peace. It is no coincidence that Jesus calms the storm in Mark 4 by saying, “Quiet! Be still!” And Jesus says the same thing to us today to calm the storms of our hearts.

Meditation (or contemplation) clears space in our hearts and minds so we can find clarity about our next best steps, but to calm the storm on the inside we sometimes need to, first, calm the storm on the outside. We need to get away from the noise, busyness, conflict, and competing demands of others, finding a quiet and peaceful place for rest and prayer. Do you ever give yourself this gift?

It’s important to note that if we don’t prepare for storms through daily spiritual practice, or if we fail to handle the storms with wisdom and faith, Jesus doesn’t abandon or reject us. The Bible is clear that Jesus abides with us always, and when we fail he offers grace and forgiveness. However, our lack of discipline and preparation will make it more likely for us to make unwise, and even sinful, choices that result in even more difficulty, pain, and confusion.

 

Challenge

So, let us commit now to a life of daily spiritual discipline. Being a Christian is not just about a one-time decision in which we ask Jesus to be our personal lord and savior. It’s a way of life based on the imitating Jesus. It’s about a radical transformation that makes us more loving, compassionate, faithful, and wise. In addition to daily conversational prayer, let us also commit to daily meditation, the practice of stilling our hearts and minds in silence, so we can become increasingly aware of the presence of God in every single moment of life. If you need help with meditation, you might consider attending our Christ centered yoga class or acquiring some other good resources. Like Jesus and disciples, let us commit to taking time away from the noise and chaos for rest and prayer, whenever the need arises. And when we return from our deserted place, let us commit to getting help from other Christians, especially those who are farther down the disciple’s path. Christianity is not a spectator sport or an individual sport, it is a community affair. We need each other. We need good traveling companions and guides. This is the main reason we offer the Quadratos Companioning Group and other groups, studies and classes to support you.

Don’t wait until the storm arrives to start preparing—start now through the practice of daily spiritual discipline. If it’s too late and the storm is already raging in your life, then get help from other more mature Christians and do your best to commit to prayer, meditation, and the study of scripture, which will help you to be faithful and to pay attention to the lessons that God wants to teach you in the process.

 

Prayer

Gracious God, teach me how to stay close to you day by day through the imitation of Christ so that I can be prepared for storms.

 

(This post is the eleventh in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with the book Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)

 

Preparing for Stormy Seas: The Necessity and Gift of Suffering

Posted on by
Reply

Context for the Gospel of Mark: The Burning of Rome

On July 19 in the year 64 C.E., a fire broke out in Rome. It lasted several days, killing many and reducing most of the great city to embers. The emperor at the time, Nero, had previously proposed to demolish and rebuild most of the city in a classical manner, so rumors spread that he started the fire to make it easier to proceed with his plans. As a result, Nero came under attack by his senators. He needed someone to blame, so he scapegoated the Jews. His ploy was believable because most Jews lived on the outskirts of town across a river, and because of their location were untouched by the fire.

Word spread quickly among the Jews and fear spiraled out of control as they anticipated mass suffering at the hand of brutal tyrant. Desperate to avoid Nero’s wrath, some Jews went to the emperor and accused a fringe group of setting the fire, the Messianic Jews who followed Jesus. Nero’s response was horrific. He demanded that the larger Jewish community collaborate with Roman soldiers to identity Christians, and to save their own families they agreed. “A mini-genocide ensued. Roman soldiers knocked on each door of the Jewish quarter demanding to know if anyone in the house was a Christ believer. The answer determined the fate of the householder and everyone else in that house.”[i] If a believer was identified, either by admission or someone else’s testimony, everyone in the house was publicly executed. Most were led into the Circus Maximus, chained to the floor, splattered with blood, and eaten alive by starved dogs. If the soldiers came to a house and no one was identified as a Christian, then those living there were forced to name someone else, who was then seized and executed without trial. Neighbor turned against neighbor as self-preservation became the order of the day. In the end, the Christian community in Rome was destroyed.

It is hard to imagine this horror. The Messianic Jews were betrayed by their own people to mass murder. The Christians who escaped and those who lived in neighboring areas were isolated in a sea of terror, fear, persecution, and death. It must have been hard to believe in the promises of Jesus, especially since their slaughter was the result of their belief.

Most scholars date the Gospel of Mark to around 70 C.E., and while its audience is debated, it certainly fits the situation of the early Christians who were recovering from the aftermath of unimaginable cruelty. As such, it gives guidance to Jesus followers regarding how to faithfully navigate fear, resentment, hatred, persecution, and suffering.

 

The Gospel of Mark and the Second Path of the Quadratos.

As the Gospel of Mark addresses the question of how we move through suffering, thereby disclosing the second path of the Quadratos.[ii]  Those who walk the road to transformation sometimes feel like they are in a small boat on a stormy sea. “The winds and water lash at us as we are tossed about in a gray, horizon less [sic.], directionless world.”[iii] We’ve gone too far to return to the beginning, but we’re not sure how to discern the best way forward either. As we stand facing the horizon, Mark reminds us of a hard truth: sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. Suffering is to be expected and is a necessary part of our spiritual growth. But, Mark also reminds us that suffering is only for a season and that there are reliable spiritual practices that can help us along the way. We endure by praying, listening, and acting accordingly.

 

Good News in Suffering

Given all that we know about the context, audience, and theme of the Gospel of Mark, one might think that it would begin with a sobering word of caution, something like, “Buckle-up buttercup because it is about to get really bad!” But it doesn’t. In stark contrast, it reads, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1, emphasis added). I can imagine a Christian living in Rome around 70 C.E. saying, “Good news? What good news?” The Messianic Jews didn’t appear to have much to celebrate. Even though they decided to follow Jesus, their obedience to the call threatened their lives and resulted in the senseless murder of family and friends.

Nevertheless, Mark begins with the proclamation of good news. While all the evidence may seem to suggest that the teachings of Jesus are an exercise in empty wishing, we hear the voice of a cloud of witnesses: God’s promises are true. It may not look like it or feel like it, but God is faithful, and your suffering will not have the last word—that is reserved for redemption. Mark reminds us that we follow one who not only shows us the way forward but also understands our pain, because he has experienced it too. He walks with us and suffers with us, so that we will have everything we need to move through it.

An important truth revealed in Mark is that we cannot bypass suffering.  We must go through it. Suffering is a necessary part of our spiritual transformation because there are lessons that can only be learned as we wrestle with pain. But the good news is that God will see us through, and our faithfulness will be a contribution to God’s great rescue mission of this world. By beginning with the proclamation of good news, Mark is telling us to gather our strength and hope by remembering the promises of God, which help us understand our suffering as part of a larger divine process.

Although we will learn many important lessons and develop many helpful tools in our study of Mark, it is important to remember something from the very beginning. There is not only good news despite our suffering, or in the face of our suffering, or at the end of our suffering. There is also a gift in the suffering insofar as it helps us get in touch with what is most essential about our faith.

Since so many Christians in America experience a life of ease, which can function to distort the gospel message, it is often helpful to ask, for what are we willing to suffer? For what are we willing to be persecuted? For what are we willing to die?

Many of us are born, then born again, and die in comfort. As those living in a country founded on religious freedom, most of us will never face the terror of the early Christians. Indeed, the very idea of martyrdom has become unintelligible for most American Christians.[iv] This is not only the case for individual Christians, but the church has the luxury of dodging these questions too. Even though some influential Christian groups cry persecution as a political strategy, these claims smack with absurdity when considering what our brothers and sisters have endured through the ages, and even now in places like Syria.

It seems to me that we are most lax in our faith and divided in our beliefs when life is good. Individuals and churches that enjoy wealth and influence are tempted to misuse these gifts for selfish gain, squabbling over trivial matters and confusing the essentials of faith with political agendas. This can be clearly seen in our current context in which many people who profess to follow Jesus have all but completely abandoned his teachings and the value system of the Kingdom of God.

But persecution—real persecution—has a way of parsing, sifting, and separating that which is essential and non-essential in the Christian faith. When facing torture and death, you don’t have time to quibble over extraneous or peripheral issues. And while many of us will never face torture and death because of our faith, all of us will eventually suffer as a result of our decision to follow Jesus. Mark helps us to see that this suffering, understood in the right context, can be a gift insofar as it cuts to the core of what we really believe and shows us what we are made of.

Listening to the words of Jesus while enduring a season of suffering reminds us that Christianity is not a social club, a non-profit relief group, or a political action committee. It is not one collection of ancient teachings among others from which we can pick and choose to build our own philosophy of life. Rather, when Jesus says, “Follow me,” he bids us to come and die.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? (Mark 8:34-37)

Jesus is saying, I want you to base your entire life on the truths I am proclaiming and to believe it so deeply that you practice it even when it requires you to lose everything. Given the hostile environment in which these words were recorded, we can say that Jesus was not speaking metaphorically. It is no coincidence that the word for witness in the early church was the same word for martyr, because being a Christian meant staking your life on the gospel of Jesus.

When we face the prospect of acute suffering because of our decision to follow Jesus, these teachings once again dawn on our consciousness, and if we do not quickly dismiss them they create an opportunity to wrestle with the question, “Do I really believe this stuff?” Human beings have an incredible capacity for self-deception. In terms of our faith, we often say that we believe something only for the truth of that claim to be questioned by the prospect of sacrifice. Suffering has a way of cutting through self-deception and getting us in touch with what we really believe in our heart of hearts, what we are willing to sacrifice, suffer, and even die for. Suffering can function as a kind of refining fire, separating the essentials from the non-essentials and giving us a gut check regarding our commitment to the essentials.

This is the way our ego is crucified so that our true self can be resurrected. This is the path to honesty, which is the path to humility, which makes true faithfulness possible. But this path is not easy. It is the most difficult part of our journey toward transformation, and we need the wisdom of the Gospel of Mark to illuminate our way and give us the tools we need to make it through. This will be the focus of our reflection in the weeks to come.

 

Challenge

But for now, it is important to gather our strength by remembering that we live in the power of good news even when experiencing deep suffering, and that the suffering itself can help us get in touch with what is most important, true, and helpful about our faith. In this way, we gain sound footing on the difficult road that lies ahead.

 

Prayer

Gracious God, as dark, rumbling clouds approach the horizon and waves begin to beat against the boat, remind us of your faithfulness and give us the courage to trust your ability to get us to the other side.

 

(This post is the ninth in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with the book Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)

 

[i] This account of the burning of Rome and the scapegoating of Christians is taken from Alexander John Shaia, Heart and Mind (Journey of Quadratos: Santa Fe, 2017) 130-132.

[ii] Ibid., “Crossing Mark’s Stormy Sea.”

[iii] Ibid. 128.

[iv] See Mark Reynolds, “Take Up Your Glock and Follow Me: Whatever Happened to Martyrdom?”

You Don’t Walk Alone: Change, Spiritual Journeys, & Resurrection  

Posted on by
Reply

The Greek Philosopher, Heraclitus, is quoted as saying, “The only thing that is constant is change.” Most of us know this from experience, even though we tend to resist change because it requires us to grieve losses and navigate countless unknowns.

When we decide to make a change, or one is thrust upon us, we typically do one of two things: cling to the past in fear or find the courage to move through it. While it is hard to admit, resisting change keeps us stuck in unproductive ways of living and ultimately proves to be a fruitless enterprise. Things are going to change whether we like it or not, and if we do not develop flexibility and learn to adapt it is at our own peril. In contrast, accepting change and courageously stepping into the future creates the necessary conditions for human beings to learn, grow, and experience a deeper sense of meaning.

Additionally, as Christians, we believe that God is at work in the world, giving us clear ideals and luring us into ways of being that make the realization of these ideals possible. So, when Christians face change, we not only see the potential for emotional growth, but for spiritual growth too. When God calls us in a new direction, it is an opportunity to better serve God’s mission in the world and realize God’s dream for our lives. We are given eyes to see meaning, purpose, and directionality in change as we embark on new spiritual journeys.

 

Challenges of Change

However, we also know that navigating change is no easy task, especially when considering a variety of predictable challenges. We will be tempted to disassociate from the parts of our story that evoke embarrassment or shame, cutting us off from important lessons that can be learned only by reflecting on our failures. We will experience fear of the unknown, tempting us to return to old ways of living that no longer help us become the person God is calling us to be. We will be tempted to misuse God’s good gifts to escape pain and secure worldly success. The value system of the world will try to lure us off the path of discipleship, causing us to forget who we are as children of God. As we face unknowns and experience anxiety, we will be tempted to abandon personal responsibility by blindly submitting to religious authority. Instead of encouraging us to follow our hearts, people we love may betray us.

Taken together, these challenges can feel overwhelming, even for the most seasoned and mature travelers. So how do we faithfully navigate these challenges on our quest for spiritual transformation?

First, we remember that learning to deal with these trials in graceful and faithful ways takes a long time. It includes lots of trial and error, success and failure. We are going to mess-up—often—but the real question is whether we will learn from our mistakes and get a little better each time. Those who have gone before us say that we will never survive the process of maturation unless we are gentle with ourselves. Second, it always helps to have good traveling companions, which is one of the benefits of joining a healthy community of faith. Some people will feel threatened by our transformation and try to pull us backwards. Without a community of people on a similar journey to encourage and support us, it’s difficult to keep moving forward. As the Beatles knew, we get by with a little help from our friends. Third, we must stay close to Jesus.

 

Staying Close to Jesus: The Gift of Resurrection

When considering the possibility of staying close to Jesus, it helps to reflect on the story of the resurrection in the Gospel of Matthew, because it reminds us that we do not walk alone. The resurrected Jesus is always present through the power of his Spirit doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Even when we feel completely isolated it is not because God is absent but because, for whatever reason, we have been rendered blind, deaf, or numb to the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus calls us to a life of discipleship, which is a life of radical transformation. He also shows us the way to be transformed by his life and teaching. But there is more to the story because this same Jesus was raised from the dead by God, is eternally present through his Spirit, and gives us the power to faithfully walk the path of transformation and experience real change. Remember his last words in the Matthew: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Jesus does not leave us orphaned. We never walk alone.

This is certainly good news because no one can faithfully navigate change without God’s help. People who have recovered from addiction provide great testimony to this truth. While we need good friends to encourage and support us, there are things we need on our journey that only God can provide.

Indeed, as we stay close to Jesus and wrestle with change, he gives us many important gifts. As we face the pain and shame in the dark parts of our story, Jesus gives us the gift of redemption. As we face our fears of the unknown, Jesus give us courage. As we resist the temptation to misuse God’s good gifts to escape pain or secure worldly success, Jesus gives us faith. As we resist the value system of the world and embrace the value system of the Kingdom of God, Jesus gives us wisdom. As we question religious authority and learn to author our own lives, Jesus gives us honesty and authenticity. As we heal from the brokenness of betrayal, Jesus gives us compassion and restoration.

Redemption, courage, faith, wisdom, honesty, compassion, and restoration, these are awesome gifts that not only help us begin our journey toward transformation but also prepare us for what lies ahead.

 

Challenge

In conclusion, there are a few things that will help us faithfully navigate change. First, and most importantly, stay close to Jesus by committing to a daily practice of reflection, meditation, and prayer. These spiritual disciplines do not save us or inoculate us from suffering, but they do create space for us to reconnect with God and become more aware of God’s perpetual presence. Second, secure a trusted spiritual director or soul friend who can serve as a good travel guide and connect with a group of friends that will support and encourage your spiritual evolution. Third, take stock of all the gifts that God has already created in you as a result of diligent struggle with trial and temptation, and allow these gifts to generate the courage, hope, and strength required for the next leg of your journey.

 

Prayer

Gracious God give me wisdom to know where you are leading and what needs to change in my life. As I do my best to stay close to Jesus and faithfully navigate the challenges of change, create in me the spiritual gifts needed to keep moving forward. Amen.

 

(This post is the eighth in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with the book Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)

 

Faith and Courage: Overcoming Fear of the New

Posted on by
Reply

When was the last time you experienced a big change?

For me it was a few years ago. After living alone for ten years, I was remarried in August 2015. My wife, Emma, had an estate sale, packed-up her belongings, and moved into my home with her two small children, Evie and Isaac, who I loved as my own. This was a big change for everyone involved, including my two older sons, Jobe and Jackson, who returned home for visits.

Six months later, just as we finished unpacking the last boxes, I received a call from my District Superintendent who said, “Mark, you’re moving to Cocoa Beach to become the new Pastor at First United Methodist Church.” Before we could even establish a new normal as a blended family, we had to relocate and start all over again with new jobs, new friends, and new schools for the kids.

These two major changes evoked a host of feelings, including fear.

 

The Gift of a Paradigm Shift

There are many stories in the Bible that help us deal with fear, but one of my favorites is the story of Jesus’ birth in Matthew 2:1-23.

As a recap, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem in search of the newborn king of the Jews. When Herod got word of this, he freaked out because he was already the king of the Jews. The prospect of a new king was a direct threat to his seat of power, so he decided to eliminate the threat by killing the baby. After calling all the religious leaders together and learning that the child was to be born in Bethlehem, Herod lied to the wise men, saying, “Go and find where he is, then come back and tell me, so I too can go and pay him homage.” The wise men found the baby Jesus and honored him by giving gifts to the family: frankincense, myrrh, and gold. These specific gifts are important to understand an important lesson in the story.

Remember that something horrible happened to the Jews in the year AD 70, their temple was destroyed. The one thing that gave meaning and value to the whole world–the center of religious, cultural, political, and financial life–was demolished. This led to a massive loss of meaning as they struggled with the question, “How can we make sense of the world anymore?” Some Jews thought that the destruction of the temple signaled the end of the world. Others thought that God would rebuild the temple if the Jewish people would perfectly keep the sacred covenant made with their ancestors.

In contrast, the author of Matthew had a different view, which he symbolically communicated by his account of the gifts brought by the wise men. According to Alexander John Shaia, frankincense and myrrh were essential components in the most important temple rituals and were as costly as the gold of the Temple’s vessels (Heart and Mind 82). Myrrh was an aromatic resin added to the oil used for royal and priestly anointings, and frankincense was burn during the highest sacrificial offerings. By having the magi give these gifts to Jesus, the author of Matthew symbolically transfers the components of the old physical Temple to Jesus, the Messiah and emissary of a new inner temple. The author is essentially saying, “Don’t focus on the physical rebuilding of the Temple but on how God is building a new temple inside of you!”

This was a paradigm shift that required a new spiritual journey to make sense of it all.

 

A Call to Radical Transformation

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is portrayed as calling us to new life, and a call to new life is a call to radical transformation—a paradigm shift in our thinking and believing, a spiritual revolution. The most obvious example is found in John 3 were Jesus is recorded as saying, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (v. 3). The call to new birth is a call to new life. The implication, of course, is that we must leave our old life behind. We are called out of the familiar and comfortable and invited into a space that is foreign and challenging, which typically evokes fear.

As human beings, most of us are afraid of the unknown. However, we also experience times when old ways of thinking, believing, and doing no longer work. This creates a tension between the impulse to move in a new direction and the impulse to remain in familiar territory. Eventually this tension forces a decision. We can either turn backward and to try to recover a lost past, or we can face our fears and move into a new future.

Jesus calls us to move forward by calling us to new life. He also helps us see that we can muster the faith and courage to navigate change if we understand that this is precisely how God intends to transform us, and also that God will guide and redeem every step we take, even those that lead us into dangerous territory.

 

 Abiding in Dangerous Places

If the story of Jesus’ birth is any indication of what God may expect of us, we must prepare to abide in dangerous places.

Shortly after Jesus was born, God called Joseph to take his family to Egypt, the place where his ancestors were enslaved and abused. This must have been a terrifying prospect, but it was necessary to protect the newborn King from Herrod’s murderous plot. Like the holy family, God sometimes calls us to scary places to protect the new birth happening within.

This means different things for different people.

Sometimes we are literally called to relocate to a risky place. Think, for example, of men and women who feel drawn to dangerous mission fields in places like Central America, Africa, or the Middle East. Listening to their stories, it’s clear that God radically transforms people who make personal sacrifices to help others. Sharing life with people in dangerous places can give us a radically new perspective and exponentially grow our faith.

For others, the call is more symbolic. Some people are called to scary emotional places. If we struggle with old wounds that keep us stuck in dysfunction, our transformation may require us to abide in scary emotional places to work through memories of loss, neglect, abuse, or moral failure. Some are even called to scary spiritual places, to a time of great questioning, doubt, and even loss of faith. Tradition teaches that most people experience a crisis of faith before a genuine spiritual transformation.

 

 Sometimes We Can’t Go Home

In my own experience, the journey to transformation is long and challenging. As we see the light at the end of the tunnel, our hope is often to go home, even if in a different way. This is the journey of the hero, which we see, for example, in Greek Epic Poems such as Homer’s Odyssey. However, we sometimes discover that we cannot go home because home will not nurture the new birth emerging within. Home no longer fits who we are.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Mary and Joseph are from the region of Judea and probably lived in or around Bethlehem. This is very different from the story told in Luke where they lived in Nazareth and traveled to Bethlehem late in Mary’s pregnancy because of a Roman census. However, a careful reading of Matthew suggests that the Holy family already lived in Bethlehem and experienced a home birth. This is an important detail because after living as refugees in Egypt, they were hoping to return home after the death of Herod. However, this hope would remain unrealized because Archelaus, son of Herod, assumed control of Judea and presented an ongoing threat to the baby Jesus. Thus, God warned them in a dream not to go home, but to build a new life in Nazareth, which was considered a dumpy little town in the region of Galilee.

Sometimes we too make a hard journey only to discover we cannot go home. Again, this means different things for different people. Sometimes we get the feeling that we, literally, cannot go home. Think of how many young people go off to college, experience transformation, and decide to move to a new city after graduation. As we grow and change, we sometimes need a new start in a new place, so we can build a new life that fits who we’ve become.

For others this is more symbolic. Some people cannot go home emotionally. When thinking about the true meaning of home, we usually focus on our most important relationships, and as we experience transformation we often discover that we cannot return to these old relationships in the same way. Some relationships need to end, and others need to be redefined by clear boundaries. As we renegotiate old relationships and nurture new friendships that support our new birth, it often becomes clear that we cannot go home emotionally.

Likewise, many can’t go home spiritually. Sometimes we must walk away from (or drastically reinterpret) what we were taught in the religion of our youth. The old ways of thinking, believing, and acting just don’t make sense anymore; they don’t fit who we are and what we have come to see as beautiful, valuable, and true. Sometimes these old beliefs even prove to be hurtful, exclusionary, and death-dealing, requiring us to actively resist them. This often requires us to find a new church, a new denomination, even a new religion. Sometimes we cannot return home spiritually.

 

Faith and Courage

Every aspect of this journey requires enormous faith and courage, gifts that God is ready to give to those who have open hearts and minds.

First, God gives us internal resources. In Matthew 2, we see that the magi followed a star, which is an enduring metaphor for a spirit that guides us. The English word “disaster” literally means “dis-star,” and to be separated from your star is to be separated from a deep, inner wisdom (Shaia, Heart and Mind, 82). Likewise, angels in the Bible are messengers that God uses to communicate important things to human beings. Understood symbolically, they can also represent a deep inner wisdom.

From a Christian perspective, we often speak of the Spirit of Christ living in us. Since Christ resides in the deepest part of who we are—what is often called the soul—Christians are encouraged to go deep inside themselves to meet Christ there, so that we can hear the wisdom he whispers. Most often this happens in stillness, solitude, and silence as we pray and meditate on scripture.

In addition, God sends us external resources. Just as God sent the magi to the holy family, God sends us wise people who bring good gifts to support our journey toward transformation. Often these people are the ones we least expect, people who are foreign, strange, different, weird, even disagreeable. They could even people be people of a different religion or no religion at all. (Remember, the magi were Zoroastrian astrologers from Persia.) The messengers God sends can come in the form of close friends or passing acquaintances, and their voices can come to us in personal conversations or through their writings, songs, art, or films. Furthermore, the gifts that God gives to us through them take different forms. Some will be small, like a piece of the past resolved, and others will large, like the call to new life.

Whether these gifts come from within or without, we can trust that they will be powerful and precious. They will give us the faith and courage we need to start the journey, to travel through dangerous places, and to build a new home to support a new life. However, to receive them we must keep expectant watch, and when divine messages come we must be attentive so that their wisdom can unfold as we travel.

 

Challenge

Have you heard the invitation to new life? Have you mustered enough faith and courage to take the first step? Have you been willing to go to those scary places that require more personal and spiritual work? Have you met the challenge of building a new home? Where are you in all of this? Have you been able to find the faith and courage you need to walk the road of transformation?

 

Prayer

God, give me the wisdom, faith, courage, and support I need to continuing walking the path to radical transformation.

 

(This post is the third in a series of thirty-seven on the Quadratos. See chapter four in Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)

Radical Transformation: Introducing the Quadratos

Posted on by
Reply

I used to be significantly overweight.

There were several reasons for this, but one contributing factor was the habit of eating six fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies every night after dinner. Before I knew it, the scale was reading 226. This might not seem too bad since I’m 6’1”, but due to a small bone frame, my ideal weight is around 170.

For my body type, I was obese. This not only affected me physically but also emotionally. So one day I got fed-up and made a decision to change. I was going to lose weight and transform my health.

I started educating myself about proper nutrition and exercise, which helped me understand the specific actions I needed to take. When reading the experts, I believed what they were saying and, based on their suggestions, I created a change plan. I trusted that this plan would work if I acted on it daily. So I went to the gym almost every morning and did all the exercises the best I could, even the ones I hated like lunges (which are from the devil). I also ate healthy, properly portioned meals.

Through consistent, daily, disciplined action, I gradually transformed my body, going from 226 to as low as 156 . . . at which point my mother told me to eat a sandwich. Nevertheless, I was in the best shape of my life.

While I have never returned to 226, my weight has fluctuated over the years. The reason is simple: I stop working my plan. Sometimes I recognize that I’m gaining weight, which creates a desire to get fit. But my awareness and desire is not enough to transform me. Sometimes I even make a decision to get healthy again. “On Monday, I’m going to start eating right and exercising.” But the decision by itself is not enough to transform me. Sometimes I even return to the fitness and nutrition literature and create a new plan. But my knowledge and planning are not enough to transform me. I can even believe in my heart of hearts that the plan will work if I follow it. But my belief in the plan is not enough to transform me. Sometimes I even take a step in the right direction by buying healthy food, rejoining the gym, and working my new plan for a couple of days or weeks. But these initial steps are not enough to transform me.

Transformation only happens when I put all these things together in a consistent way over a long period time, which is the whole point of a fitness plan.

 

Christianity and Transformation

Similarly, the whole point of Christianity is radical transformation. While Christians take comfort in knowing that we rest in the eternal care of a loving God upon death, being a Jesus follower is not primarily about dying and going to heaven. Rather, it’s about a radical transformation that happens over time as we daily follow Jesus, a transformation that makes us more loving, just, kind, compassionate, peaceful, and joyful. In this way, we enjoy life to its fullest and become a blessing to others.

Jesus says in John 10:10: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  Likewise, in Ephesians 4 we are called to renounce our former way of life, our old self, and to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. This is an invitation to a new way of life, which leads to a new self.  

Being a Christian is about being a disciple; being a disciple is about being a follower; and being a follower is about learning and practicing the teachings of Jesus in our daily lives until we draw our last breath. This is the path to radical transformation—what the tradition calls sanctification—and there are no magic pills or shortcuts.

This means that being a Christian cannot be reduced to an awareness, for example an awareness of our need for God. It’s not simply about confessing sin in a moment of heighted guilt, or even believing that Jesus can save us. Nor it is about giving intellectual assent to a set of biblical or theological propositions, like when a church gives you a checklist of religious claims and says, “If you can tick-off all the boxes with a clear conscience then you can join our tribe.”  Christianity is not about becoming a member of a church. You can do all these things and still not be a true follower of Jesus. You can do all of this and still not experience radical transformation.

Why? Because Christianity is a way of life under the Lordship of Jesus the Christ. The earliest Christians were called “Followers of the Way,” referring to the way of life Jesus revealed in his life, death, and resurrection. Being a Christian is about deciding every day to completely surrender our will and lives over to the care and guidance of Christ. This decision is manifest in action as we learn more about Jesus through diligent study and prayer and practice these teaching in our daily interactions. This is a long, challenging, and even messy process, with many ups and downs, successes and failures. Sometimes it feels like two steps forward and one step back, and sometimes it feels like one step forward and two steps back. But if we dedicate our lives to learning and practicing the teachings of Jesus and keep moving forward then we are promised radical transformation. To hope for anything less is to embrace a partial or false gospel.

 

The Quadratos as a Guide to Transformation

Fortunately, we are not without guidance on this journey toward transformation. We have scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to help us. Regarding scripture, we are gifted with the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which contain the core teachings of Jesus.

While there are different ways of reading these Gospels, one that is particularly helpful is called the Quadratos (Alexander John Shaia, Heart and Mind, 2017). This interpretive tool helps us see the Gospels as a fourfold path to transformation, disclosing four major movements in the life of faith.

The first path begins with the Gospel of Matthew, where we are reminded that human beings desire permanence and resist change. Nevertheless, the world is in constant flux, and at various points we all experience significant change and loss, which evokes fear, betrayal, grief, and confusion. If we don’t handle these experiences wisely, they can throw us off-course on our journey. Facing life during significant change requires new spiritual resources, which the Gospel of Matthew helps us cultivate.

The Second path of the journey continues with the Gospel of Mark. In the first path, we are called to confront our fears and insecurities in the face of deep change, but as we continue to the second path these fears and insecurities fight back. The Gospel of Mark speaks to people who are undergoing intense emotional and spiritual suffering, people who are feeling isolated and abandoned. This season of life is like crossing a stormy sea or walking through an arid desert, but Christians have the Gospel of Mark to help them move through suffering on the journey to transformation. This is by far the most painful and difficult path of our journey.

As we faithfully follow Jesus, he leads us through change and suffering with the promise of great joy, which is the fruit of the third path revealed in the Gospel of John. As we remain faithful through the difficulties and missteps of the first two paths, God gives us times in which we experience the joy of intimate communion with the mystery of the world. These are sometimes described as unitive experiences, where we feel the oneness of all creation in the deep embrace of the divine. While this ecstatic experience is difficult to describe, people universally speak of a profound sense that everything—the totality of reality—is a pure gift of grace, which generates a deep sense of gratitude. This season of life is like resting in beautiful garden, and the Gospel of John helps us to recognize and receive these moments of joy in ways that are generative and productive for our journey.

But experience teaches us that we cannot stay in the garden. After receiving the joy of intimate communion with God, we are called to walk the road of loving service and to share our gifts with others. We are called to the fourth path revealed in the Gospel of Luke. Through patient trial and error, we learn to author our own life in service to others, especially those around us who are most vulnerable and needy. Filled with new energy, excitement, and perspective on the third path, we step out of the garden of John into the gifts and challenges of daily life. As we remain in the courage of our journey, we find more joy and transformation than we ever thought possible. On Luke’s fourth path, we are shown how to cultivate patience, faith, and equanimity. Our hearts and minds are reshaped by humility, compassion, and love.

It’s important to note that we do not simply walk these four paths once, but cycle through them repeatedly throughout life. This repetition is not a vicious circle but a spiral that moves us forward in productive ways. As we experience each part of the fold-fold journey, we learn important lessons, develop new spiritual and emotional resources, and acquire helpful tools, all of which, when integrated, help us mature. As a season of life returns (e.g., a time of seismic change or intense suffering) we experience it in a new way because we have seen it before and have learned important lessons. With each cycle of the four paths, we become wiser, stronger, and more courageous, all of which provides evidence for our ongoing transformation.

 

Challenge

As you pray and meditate this week, spend some time reflecting on personal experiences of significant change. What was the change? What feelings did it generate in you, both good and bad? How did you handle it? How did you get through it? What lessons did you learn? What did all of that teach you about facing change in the future?

 

Prayer

Gracious God, give us ears to hear your call to radical transformation and help us discern the first step of a new journey.

 

(This post is the first in a series of thirty-seven on the Quadratos. See chapter three in Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)