The Soul Protected -- Thoughts on Psalm 130

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;

2 O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.

5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.

6 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

It’s obvious that we need protection.  This psalm shows us a condition that we often find ourselves in.  Weak, crying out, out of our depth, homesick, waiting. 

How does this psalm of human condition help us to understand how God protects our souls?

In a lot of ways, this psalm argues with my new-testament world view.  I don’t believe we cry from the far depths.  We are not in the depths, we have been saved.  I don’t believe that we have to ask God to hear us, or be with us.  I believe that he just is, already. 

I can absolutely hook into the bit where the poet writes “with you there is forgiveness.”  And thank God, right?  I like that part.  That next line about fear, though -- it’s a line we like to shy away from, but I think it is the first that tells us about God’s protection of our souls. 

The Hebrew word that is translated as “fear” is so tricky.  It’s all over the Old Testament.  Fear of God the beginning of wisdom, the Lord inspiring fear in his people – the problem is we just don’t have an adequate word in English.  We could say that God is awesome – but that’s too much in modern slang to have much meaning.  We try to get rid of the “scared” implication by using watered down words like reverence and respect – but those are just too weak to describe how we should feel in the presence of God.  How can being afraid mean protection? 

I think of the fear of God protecting our souls like this – imagine you go out of your house and there is a giant spider web hanging across your porch.  I think it would make some of us turn around, slam the door, and shudder a bit.  And for some it would represented a real and genuine fear. 

Now imagine that the web is still there, but the house you’re leaving is on fire.  Are you still afraid of the spider? 

God is a bigger thing to “fear” than anything else in our lives.  If his fire is behind us, what can we possibly not walk through? 

This is a hint of God’s upside-down protection. 

The poet writes “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits – more than watchmen for the morning.”  I admit, this line gives me a feeling of homesickness so great that I cannot put it into words.  

 I am tired of this broken world.  I am tired of sickness and tragedy and hurt and grief.  I am more than ready to pack it in and head home.

But this is an illusion, isn’t it?  We don’t really wait.  I may feel homesick, but God is eternal.  Christ is now.  He did not suffer a thousand years ago, and it is over, because he is outside time.  He is suffering right with us, NOW, and our groans and cries to God match his.  His abandonment, his death, is now.  He is “I AM,” not “I was.” 

But he is also not “I will be.”  His resurrection and victory and excessive abundant LIFE is also now.  And his promise is that even as he shares in our suffering and abandonment and god-awful homesickness, we share in his resurrection, we share in his connection and we share in heaven.  Now.

What if we’re stuck in the part where he shares our suffering?  That’s okay.  The good news is not only that our sharing in life and heaven and victory is real regardless of what we feel at the moment but that God does not judge us for lack of faith when we can’t see it.  We might judge ourselves, think we need “more faith,” whatever.  But God doesn’t.

Christ is with us – in suffering and in resurrection.

So what is a soul protected?  I think I know what it’s not.  It’s not an attempt to shield oneself from the world, becoming so insular that we are no use to anyone.  The more we try to build our own walls to protect our soul the more we are vulnerable to hatred, to temptation, to self-centeredness. 

But wait!  Remember the poster on many Sunday School walls?  The dress-up kit sold in every Christian book store?  We have a recipe, a magic formula for protection right there in Ephesians 6!  
Take up these things and you will have nothing to worry about, right?  For a sword-and-sorcery, epic fantasy novel fan like me – oh, this is just gorgeous!  Let’s take a look --   The helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness – the sword of the Spirit – the belt of truth…   

Really, God???   Couldn’t we just have a belt of fiery angels at least?   The helmet of your-power-to-smite??   I have to be protected by spirit, and *faith*? 

It may be a fun image – but I think when we come right down to it it’s a wrong one.  I think Paul’s point was not the strength of these things – maybe his point was to show the upside-down world view of God. 

Does truth protect us from getting hurt? 

When was the last time you stood up and told truth that needed to be told and had no consequences?

Righteousness?  The times I get the most hurt is when I’ve honestly tried my best to do the right thing and it has been misunderstood or I have been taken advantage of.   Faith?  Is it this kind of shield? 

Faith as a shield?  Try holding it up --- is it seen as a strength that gives others pause?  Or is it seen by the world as weakness, foolishness.   The spirit?  I thought the spirit was a comforter – a dove.  Doesn’t seem very damaging. 

The world-view that Christ gives us is so often upside-down.  Love your enemies, bless those who curse you.  The workers in the vineyard getting the same wage regardless of when they begin work.  Calling the religious leaders of his time snakes and then partying with real people with real problems like you and me.  Why should protection of the soul look like we expect it to?  Why should we think that protection of the soul will keep us safe from the griefs of this world?

No.  The true protection of the soul is not in finding ways to protect what we have and stay alive. 

In our God’s upside-down worldview, a protected soul is one without protection.  

A soul protected is one without any barriers between itself and God. 

No barriers.  What does that look like?  I think it looks like death.

I’ve tried and tried to wrangle this into something palatable and pretty -- But the only conclusion I can come to logically from here is that death is the one thing that will fully protect our souls.  If heaven is, as I believe, the complete falling away of barriers between us and God then that is the only avenue of complete protection. 

Maybe – maybe -- that’s what Christ meant when he said we had to die…

With two “trulys” for emphasis he tells us, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.”

“Take up your cross and follow me.”   Is this meant to be watered down?  I had a bad rehearsal this week – oh well, I’m taking up my cross… how often do we use this verse for so very much less than what it is?

Theologian Charles Spurgeon wrote “I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this:  That I may die to self, and live wholly to him.”

We are promised that when we clothe ourselves with death we will find real life waiting.   I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live –

But Christ lives within me. 

Without even suspecting it, Neil deGrasse Tyson gave us the very same idea – just taking a little longer to find it through science:   

 “We have a genetic kinship with all life on earth, an atomic kinship to all matter in the cosmos; so when I look at the universe, I feel large, because I remind myself that not only are we living in this universe, the universe is living within us.”

Our souls are protected – and as we continue to die our protection only becomes greater.   Death is a fearsome thing – but like the spider on the porch, doesn’t it dwindle in the presence of God?  deGrasse’s image makes me less homesick – but another vision of death makes me more – Lewis’, in “The Last Battle…” 

“Soon they found themselves all walking together – and a great, bright procession it was – up towards mountains higher than you could see in this world even if they were there to be seen. 

The light ahead was growing stronger.  Lucy saw that a great series of many-colored cliffs led up in front of them like a giant’s staircase.  But then she forgot everything else, because Aslan himself was coming, leaping down from cliff to cliff like a living cataract of power and beauty. 

Then he was there, and he turned to them and said “you do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.” 

Lucy said “We’re afraid of being sent away, Aslan. You have sent us back to our own world so often.”

“No fear of that,” said Aslan. “Have you not guessed?”

Their hearts leapt, and a wild hope rose within them. 

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly.  “All of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead.

The term is over:  the holidays have begun.  The dream is ended:  This is the morning. 

This is a soul protected

Amen

Communicating from the H.E.A.R.T.

It’s easy to see when people aren’t good communicators, isn’t it? 

I see it every day – I see a person presenting things badly, not listening well, hurting people’s feelings with a careless word and not even knowing it, asking questions in a way that makes people feel attacked and defensive, setting off teenagers – sometimes even on purpose!, and generally not communicating how much I love the people I care most about, and it breaks my own heart as I do it.

When I preached on this subject at CLC, I asked if someone more qualified to preach on this topic wanted to come up and take my place -- there were no takers!  Disappointing...

 Well, accepting the irony of preaching on something I’m not very good at, at some levels all I had to do is look seriously at my failures and see what the opposite would be, and look to Jesus as a guide for real communication that is loving yet serious.

Today’s conversation is all about context.  Jesus’ communication with the Pharisees when he calls them a brood of vipers is in the moment – and it is important to say that this passage is to THEM and not necessarily to us.  Jesus is calling out people that are duplicit, trying to convict him, and will eventually have him killed.  I don’t think we usually fall into that category. 

However, what he says about the words we say speaking about our internal condition is extremely valid for all of us.  Not only in minding what comes out of our own mouths but understanding that what comes out of others’ can sometimes come from deep-seated hurt or brokenness that we know nothing about.  The take-away is that words are important.  They can wound, they can heal – and how we use our words with others is something that we can work on as a spiritual discipline in any stage of our lives.

It also needs to be said that everything I’m about to talk about is in a context of relationship – We’re not God, we do not have the ability to form deep relationships with every person we interact with.  That would be kind of creepy, wouldn’t it?  Friendliness, politeness, and compassion with the Starbucks cashier is important – but not transparency.  Full availability for an acquaintance we just met might be noble and something some people have a ministry for – but if it over commits us or fractures our committed family relationships then it is not a noble thing, it is a mistake. 

SO, all disclaimers finished now, let’s communicate about communicating from the HEART!

I love memory games, and this topic almost begged for one, so let’s use the letters in the word HEART to frame some thoughts –

H – be Honest
E – be Early
A – be Available
R – take a Risk
T – be Transcendant

So what do these mean to us as we try to bring Christ into our communication?

First, be honest – this is easy and straightforward, right?  Probably not.  Maybe, instead, it’s an idea filled with potholes and traps.

Honesty can be painful but important – maybe bringing up something difficult for the good of the other person or the relationship… “mom, I think you’re addicted to prescription pain-killers…”  “I’m your friend, you need to work on your marriage…” or “You need to stop partying and get your grades up.”

These are difficult things to be honest about – but come from the right heart-set.  At other times “honesty” is a smokescreen for intentional cruelty.  Unkindness is just that, not ennobled just because it may be true. 

But most importantly, from the standpoint of attempting Christ-centered communication, is honesty with self.  We need to ask, “am I honestly dealing with the person I am communicating with, or am I dealing with a problem of my own that I am projecting on them?” 

About 15 years ago (and we arrived here about 12 ago, so don’t even wonder…) Lim received a 3 page letter from a bell choir member who had turned up a few minutes late and was convinced from the not-unfriendly glance Lim gave her mid-song as she came in the door that he despised her, wanted her to quit bells, and a host of other feelings that she was projecting on to him using nothing but assumptions and psychic powers that she didn’t have.  Three pages! 

It seems an out-there case, admittedly – and I have to note that when Lim replied with little more than “I didn’t care that you were late,” all was well again – but how often do we make assumptions about how others are feeling about us or about a situation and address that assumption rather than honestly assessing the situation?

Honesty means willing to say hard truths and willing to admit hard truths about ourselves. 

Idea number 2  -- be EARLY. 

When communication needs to happen in any relationship, do it sooner rather than later.  Easy to say that this is important, and for me, incredibly difficult to execute.  My best failures at communicating have generally been instances where I felt something was wrong and I let it lie, hoping it would get better on its own – whether this has been from misplaced “nice-ness,” which plagues many Christians, or simply from an embarrassing lack of courage, letting things fester is never a good thing. 

Why?  Bad situations don’t tend to get better on their own, really, do they?  And when we feel taken advantage of or mistreated somehow it is important to speak up while you can do so calmly instead of in a festered, infected explosion. 

There is another side of this also, when things that need to be said are positive – “I love you,” “You are important to me,” “I forgive you.” 

Don’t force others to be psychic – say it.  Say it now.  We all have been around long enough to know that opportunities can tragically pass. 

Idea number 3 – be AVAILABLE. 

Don’t these all seem to be no-brainers that are difficult to execute?  The absolute fact that our relationships are more important than anything else in the world is somehow difficult to remember when I’m talking to my daughter and 4, no, wait, 5 text messages pop up on my phone. 

Take time to be present for people you are in relationship with.  Not on your phone.  Not watching TV.  Not making the other person feel that they are less of a priority.

Don’t mentally multitask or interrupt, even if you think you’ve figured out what they are saying.

Do you remember how riveting a person is when you first fall in love, or when you first are getting to know a new friend that you really really like?  How do you listen to that person?  It’s not difficult in those situations to be actively loving and listening.

It’s hard to listen as actively and as attentively when you are with someone you are used to – and much more difficult if it is someone you are in conflict with. 

But doesn’t it feel wonderful to be with someone who is interested in what you have to say?  What a gift we can give to people we love, even when they are being hard to love, to truly listen to them, value what they are thinking and feeling, and thereby show how much we value them.

Idea number 4 – take a RISK.

To truly communicate with people we are in relationship with, we need to be willing to take some heavy risks.  First is the risk of being transparent – revealing things to others is a dangerous business.  And I would quote Christ, though the context is different – “be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves…”

Revealing things about ourselves is important.  But we need to understand that those revelations can change a relationship.  Secrets burden and ultimately destroy us unless we can trust someone enough to bare our soul.  We risk ridicule, rejection, and even gossip and public problems when we are transparent and vulnerable in our relationships.  But it is worth the risk. 

What about the other side of the conversation, if something difficult needs to be said to another person?  We risk anger, recriminations, and defensiveness.  They may say things about us that are difficult to hear, they may be wrong things said to lash out – but they may be right.  We need to be willing to hear the hard things if we are willing to say them. 

When we communicate honestly we risk failure.  Perhaps if you ask someone to treat you differently they will refuse.  Perhaps the relationship will be forever changed or even dissolved.  These things happen in human relationships.  We are broken.

Which is why we desperately need to maintain an awareness of the last idea –

Be TRANSCENDANT.

There is always something bigger going on when we communicate in love.  God is relationship.  God cared so much about communicating with us that he took on human-ness to do it.  Jesus is the WORD of GOD!  The ultimate communication! 

When we communicate with another person, we are communicating not only with someone that Jesus loves desperately but also with Christ himself as he in-dwells other human beings.  How would our communication change if we maintained an awareness of this?

Would we be more willing to transcend the communication of the moment?  Would we be more willing to move on?  To forgive?  To let go of any hard things that were said and continue to love even those that are hard to love?  More willing even to fail and understand that sometimes relationships cannot be saved or salvaged regardless of our efforts, and that God is still God?

Communication always has Christ at the center, because Christ IS the center of everything.  But how we acknowledge this can change how we behave, and that in turn can help us grow in faith and maturity as believers in community and relationship and as good trees bringing forth good fruit.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks – may all of our hearts be abundant with love and grace as we speak, today and always.

Amen

Getting Dragged... thoughts on John 7

I can relate. There are so many times I can look back on where Jesus has dragged me through a period of growth that I just didn’t want to go through. That is the price of following a living God.


To me, that’s part of what John 7 is about. Jesus emphasizes that his blood and flesh that he wants us to consume are living bread and living water.





My three kids are way past kindergarten these days, but one of the most important science baselines in the homeschool kindergarten year was "living versus nonliving."


The most important concept to take away from this unit were that living things differ from non-living in three essential ways. First, living things change. Second, living things can move and grow. Third, living things make more of the same – they reproduce.






Following Christ, consuming his living bread and water, means these same things for us. Christ brings change in us – both dramatic and subtle. He causes us to move and grow – even if we feel dragged sometimes – and when we follow him with our whole heart and mind and soul and strength others cannot help but meet him through us – we reproduce by making other disciples.






The desire to change seems built into human beings – we want to learn, to improve ourselves and our circumstances. But the change brought by Christ is something entirely different.


Psalm 80 cries out our desire for this different level of change. “3Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.”


Dietrich Hildebrand, in his book Transformation in Christ, wrote: “All true Christian life must begin with a deep yearning to become a new man in Christ, and an inner readiness to “put off the old man” – a readiness to become something fundamentally different.”


The call to change in the New Testament is about that yearning -- Christ tells Nicodemus that he must be “born again” – Christ is more than a Redeemer who removes our bonds and cleanses us from sin – he is the dispenser of a new divine life which will wholly transform us and turn us into new people.


Paul echoes this in Eph 4:22-24 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.






Living bread, living water, causes an immediate change. But what about moving and growing? Spiritual growth is increasing conformity to the character of God as revealed in Christ. Bill Johnson, in his book “Face to Face with God,” says this: “To behold him and remain unchanged is impossible. The question for every believer is whether we’ll be satisfied with a partial transformation or whether we’ll be so captivated by who he is that we will allow him to remove everything in us that would inhibit us from becoming a mature manifestation of Christ.” (Col 3.1) We have been raised with Christ, so we set our hearts on things above.






God's desire is for our growth as a people of God. Ephesian 4 tells us the purpose of spiritual gifts. 12to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.


This growth is in our best interest – the things that will make us the most satisfied, the happiest, most joyful people come from this growth: Galatians 5: “22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control.” Imagine a life given over to these attributes!


Growth in Christ is not just a suggestion to believers –(2 Peter 3:18) we are actually commanded, “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” And Paul admonishes the church at Philippi and us with it to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Not growing is actually resisting God: “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1:6)


So how is this brought about? Yes we have confidence that He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it – but we have the joy and privilege of being actively involved in this transformation. How do we become involved?


Mainly, through active and intentional exposure to the person of Christ. Paul says in 2 Cor 3, “12Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. 13We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. …17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we, who with unveiled faces all reflecta the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”


We can be bold to seek Christ, seek fellowship and friendship with him. We are free to see his glory, reflect his glory, and be transformed simply by being in his presence! We’re here doing exactly that this morning, but we don’t have to stop here. We can meet him any time, in moments of personal worship and gratitude. We can live in awareness of his presence, and if we set our minds to it, we are given constant reminders: in nature, where “1The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” (psalm 19) And in other believers: “you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” I have stories of believers being Christ to me that could fill many many sermons – I’m sure many of you do, also.


Part of intentionally coming into the presence of Christ is also through study. How we do this is very personal. I consume books, reading the Bible and books about God gets me all excited and I do so fairly quickly – but that’s part of who I am. If that doesn’t come easily to you, are you still able to use study to enter into the presence of Christ? Of course. It doesn’t matter if God speaks to you through an entire book or through a single verse, it is the intentionality of setting our minds on Christ that matters. Find the way or ways that speak to your mind and ultimately into your heart.


The third and possibly most obvious way to encounter Christ is through prayer. Paul encourages us to “pray without ceasing” – a constant dialogue. Those of us who grew in our faith in denominational churches are very familiar with formal prayer – but informal, personal conversation with time left for listening is a way to invite Christ into your moment-to-moment life.


Where are your growth areas? How is Jesus working in you to transform them? I know people for whom this transformation is combining with a sweet, yielding disposition to day by day mold them gracefully into the image of Christ. It’s beautiful to see.


My youngest daughter has this kind of spirit – she always has. You know the toddler love for the word “no?” My son loved it so much that he had one “no” that meant “no” and another “no” that actually meant “yes!” Erin, on the other hand, I always called my “yes” girl – because even at that age she would respond with an enthusiastic “yes!”


As she is growing into faith she has an uncanny ability to say “yes” to God – especially in prayers that seem over-bold. It is not unusual on a Sunday morning to see her at an unexpected place in the sanctuary, praying for healing over someone who hasn’t asked for it nor told her what their problems are. But she says “yes” to God.


I relate more to my son's multiple "no"s when God talks to me about my personal growth places… remember those grooves in the sand? I have nice long ones. Probably not very even since I do some kicking along the way, too. But he who started the work in me is very patient to finish it, and after every piece of painful pruning I find myself more dependent on him and less interested in the world or my own self-dependence, and hopefully looking just a little more like him.


We are all on a journey. And the beautiful thing about this growth in Christ is that though we are more and more optimistic with a love that “…believes all things and hopes all things” (1 Cor 13:7), we are also very real about what we face in this life.






Jesus on Earth was very real. When he had presented this hard teaching about following a living savior, many left him, but others had a living faith that would satisfy the third kindergarten definition: they would make others.


“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”


I love Peter’s response. It resounds with our hearts. First, he says, in effect, "Lord, we have been thinking about it. We have investigated the alternatives. You're not easy to live with. You embarrass us. You frighten us. We don't understand you at times. We see and hear you do things that simply blow our minds. You offend people whom we think are important. We have looked at some alternatives, but I want to tell you this, Lord: we have never found anyone who can do what you can do. 'To whom shall we go?' You have two things that hold us, two things we cannot deny. There are your words. What you say to us has met our deepest need, has delivered us from our sins and freed us from our fears. Your words, Lord, are the most remarkable words we have ever heard. They explain us and they explain life to us. They satisfy us. Nobody speaks like you do, nobody understands life like you do.


That holds us, and makes us hold on. Even when we're being dragged.