A lesson learned

Have you ever heard the phrase, “don’t speak out of turn”?  I think the first time I heard this was in kindergarten.  According to my trusty Random House Dictionary, College Edition, this phrase carries several meanings.

First, and the one most applied to my kindergarten classmates, it can mean that you’ve said something at the wrong time — like you’ve interrupted someone else while they were talking, or maybe it was someone else’s turn to speak.

It can also mean that you have said something that you had no right to say, or you don’t have the authority to speak on.  So if you make a decision at work that isn’t yours to make, it could be said that you have “spoken out of turn.”

Another way to interpret this phrase is to say that you have spoken unwisely.  Who wants to be accused of that?  How do we protect ourselves from unwise conversation, especially when dealing with the important issues of life and faith?  Well, like I said Thursday in chapel, there is a reason and a way we do this.

Remember, in his letter to Colossians, Paul is talking to a young church, a group that has quite possibly only been gathering together for five years.  They need a lot of instruction, and Paul gives them some sound advice in two verses, that I believe can help us as well as we move forward this semester.

The reason we have this conversation is because we don’t want to be deceived.  If we’re going to believe something, give our entire life away to it, we want it to be truthful.  We want it to be able to stand the test of time, and withstand the challenges that speak against it.  We need to be able to discern what we can know, and trust God with what we can’t.  I believe as we walk through this semester, God will be faithful by providing clarity for us.

The reason I’m confident of that is because of the way we’re told to go about it.  Listen again to the words that Paul uses to describe this conversation:  compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, love and unity.  These are the “clothes” we want to wear, and the way we desire to speak and act with each other.

My prayer for us as we begin is that we won’t forget the lesson from kindergarten, not to speak out of turn, and that as we seek wisdom, we look and sound like Jesus.  May our minds and our hearts be shaped by the wisdom and heart of God.

Text for the week:  Colossians 2:8, 3:12-14

The rest of the story

One of my favorite radio personalities was a man named Paul Harvey.  He was from Chicago, and he had a 15-minute daily segment that was syndicated all over the country.  He was a master story teller, and a part of his monologue always included back story to someone who would have been a well-known historical figure. It was always intriguing because he told obscure, but significant parts of their story.  It helped the rest of their life story make sense, and he always ended by saying, “And now you know the rest of the story.” 

                                                                                                             

If you ever heard him, his voice and the unique way he would weave his monologue were unforgettable.  His use of the phrase, “the rest of the story,” has stuck with me over the last 24 hours.  I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday, and we were reflecting on Luke’s narrative.  While we were talking, it dawned on me that I left out a couple of the characters that were included in Luke — one in particular, whose name was Simeon.  I don’t think this story is complete without him.

                                       

Simeon, like Zechariah, was a priest, serving in the temple.   He, like Zechariah, was an aging man, but a man who had received a promise.  Luke tells us that God had made him a promise that would not die without seeing the fulfillment of the prophecy concerning the Messiah.  He worked in the temple, and happened to be there when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus in for his dedication.  Luke says that Simeon felt compelled to enter the temple while Mary and Joseph were there. Coincidence? Doubt it. Chance meeting? More like the fulfillment of a promise made. As the narrative says, the reason he went in at that exact moment was because he was “compelled by the spirit.”   

That’s just the way God is, and I think completes the way Luke tells the Christmas story.  First, we are assured that God hears us.  Second, Luke wants us to know that he finds favor with us.  He then, by including the shepherds, makes sure that we all know, regardless of who we are, that Jesus came for everyone.  And now, through this little “chance” meeting with Simeon and these young parents, a promise made was now kept. 

Luke wants us to know in the midst of everything else he is saying, that our God is one who can be trusted.  Again we are reminded that in the story, God never forgets the person.  In the middle of this story of the arrival of the Messiah, we get this amazing news.  He came to an old man, a young teenager, a group of stinking shepherds, and now a priest. So we can be assured that he hears us, likes us, included us, and can be trusted.  They mattered, and so do we.  Like Paul Harvey would say, “And now we know the rest of the story.”

Text for the week:  Luke 2:22-35

                                                       

Being grateful

Thanksgiving carries a lot or meaning for me.  In my home growing up, it was the day we busted out the Christmas decorations.  It was the first day Christmas music could be played in our house, and we put up the tree and hung the lights.  My dad would get out his Dickens Village, his trains, and our house was transformed every year from 8:00 a.m. – noon Thanksgiving Day.  My dad thought the best way to celebrate Thanksgiving was by beginning our preparation for Christmas. 

It also meant the agony of watching another Lions loss on national TV.  We would quickly follow that by eating away our pain with the traditional turkey and fixings feast — affectionately called “therapeutic eating.”  The afternoon would wrap up with a nap.  Not much has changed over the years for me.  As a matter of fact, nothing has, including the Lions and the nap.

Along the way, though, new traditions have come; shopping at 3:00 a.m. for Black Friday sales, the Ohio State/Michigan game, and transitioning from alternating holidays with our kids and my parents to my kids and their children alternating with us.  

For us around here, it means a break.  This break reminds us to reflect on what we are thankful for.  We have a lot to be thankful for, but today my thoughts have gone to a place in the world currently ravaged by missiles.  It is a place where no one celebrates Thanksgiving, and very few celebrate Christmas.  They aren’t getting a “break” this week.  As a matter of fact, they might be thrown headlong into war.  It is a confusing time for them, and a challenging time for us to think about.  What is it that makes us thankful during times such as these?

I want to say our thankfulness is shaped by the first verse in Chapter 11 of Hebrews, and the four-letter word contained therein; that word is “hope.”  “Hope” is a word we will hear a lot between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It will come at us as we walk through Advent, anticipating the coming of the Christ, “hoping” for a better day.  We long for things that can’t be seen, as Scripture says, with conviction.  We’ve never known a world without war, disaster, hunger, pain, and death, but we long for the day when all that will end.  We know that what is happening in parts of our world isn’t the last word, because we have hope.

Hope.  For us who live in the West, hope is easier to think about than it is for others who sit in refugee camps and bomb shelters.  Though this may be the current reality for many, we long for things that have yet to be seen.  So this week as we reflect on all we have to be thankful for, hang the decorations, put up the lights, watch another meaningless Lions game, shop while listening to Michael Buble, let’s also remember those for whom no music is playing, no decorations are going up, no game is being watched (there is mercy somewhere), and no turkey is being eaten. Let us remember those for whom hope seems a long way off.

Text for the week:  Hebrews 11:1

Another way

Not sure you realized it or not, but this week Skye brought us full circle.  Some of you weren’t here during fall 2012, but we spent that semester talking about the story of this amazing father found in Luke 15.  We talked about the two ways expressed in the lives of the two brothers and the fact that we all knew there had to be another way.

Skye brought us back to this story this week, and broke it down for us like this: we either see our lives as lived for God, a life of Christian activism – older brother; or life from God, where we live for what he will give to us – younger brother.  Both leave us feeling empty and longing for something else. We all know deep down inside there is something wrong with the way both brothers in this story are living, but at times it’s difficult to determine what that looks like. 

Thankfully, there is another way. 

This week, Skye put it like this: life with God.  In his thank you tweet to our campus, his stated prayer for us was that God would bless us with Himself.  That leaves us with a decision to make by answering the question, Is that enough? 

I would say, without a change of heart, the only answer to that question is no.  We will never be satisfied with our lives if we continue to see God as an object to be controlled by what we ask for.  Many in our society have limited God to a cosmic Santa Claus, crediting him for good, or blaming him for the bad that comes their way.  When things go wrong, we wonder where he is.  That is what Skye was talking about Wednesday when he said that our lives are not about what we do, but how we see.  I often ask the question, What are you hearing? This week I want to ask, What are you seeing?

How we see shapes what we do.  So we don’t respond to the need in the eastern part of the U.S., then expecting God to look at us as differently or better.  We have to fight off the urge to play the comparison game over the next couple of weeks, and just respond because there is need. We must realize they are like us, undeserving of the hand that has been dealt them, experiencing great need, and so we respond for these reasons — period.  We don’t do this to earn anything from God that we haven’t already received.  We don’t participate in service or ministry as a form of penance. 

Without this new heart that we’ve talked about all semester, what we do is just activism or point tallying.  My prayer for us is that the things that we do come from a heart that is shaped by the One who made us, so we act without expecting anything in return. 

Text for the week:  Luke 15:11-32

Coming home

I love going home.  There is just something about it.  Mom’s cooking, naps, riding the golf cart, chasing deer, Texas sheet cake, and have I said naps?  Home is full of memories, mostly good ones.  Home is the one place most responsible for who I am.  It was always safe for me, a place where I felt loved and accepted. 

Over this next week, a lot of people will be coming to our campus.  They’ll be coming back to a place where they have eaten, laughed, made friends and taken many naps.   Not to sound too mushy or like I drank the Kool-Aid, but this is a special place for a lot of folks.  In a sense, they’ll be coming home. 

I listened to Stephanie’s message at the sophomore class chapel about the “freshmen mating season,” and the pressure to find the “right” person.  Standing joke aside, this is a place where many have met that “right person.”  But it is so much more than that.

It is a place where many received an education that has led them into their vocation.  They have graduated, or gone on to grad school, preparing them to be teachers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, physical therapists, counselors, pastors and much more.  It is the place where they not only received an education, but their vocation was shaped by a faith that was deepened through the experiences they had here as well.  They will tell stories about a chapel service, revival, friendship, or a small group — all have played a role in making them into the person God was calling them to be.  For some, this is where they got their feet down spiritually.  For others, this is the place where they owned their faith.  For others, it was a place where they realized that not all life’s questions could be answered, and they are okay with that.  Here is where friendships were made that have lasted a lifetime.  All this at our Alma Mater, Olivet.

So for hundreds this next week, coming back to our campus is like coming home.  You will see them at the basketball game, football game, the Gaither Concert, in the planetarium, eating, laughing, in the Quad, telling stories reminiscing about their days as a student, wondering where the time has gone.  Just like some of you.

So this week, remember: They’re not just invading our space, they’re coming home.

Tomorrow begins today

I’m sitting in my office, on a blustery Friday morning, watching the freshmen pile into College Church for one of the convocations for Freshman Connections.  They are literally coming from all over our campus, headed to the same place.  This scene happens around here all the time — students scattering all over our campus, going to class, eating, napping, playing, practicing and yes, even studying.  The campus buzzes with life.

As I’m watching 700 people moving to the same place, my mind has wandered to the events of this week.  I’ve found myself wondering, How many of us will leave this place, scattering all over the world in short-term missions trips?  We’ve been asking and wondering about the ways that God might be asking us to give our lives away.  Some have made light of the fact that when using that phrase, calling ourselves to short-term missions isn’t really equal to “giving your life away,” is it?  That’s a great question.

I listened to Wayne share in a class yesterday about discerning the will of God.  How do we know what God is asking us to do?  For a man who has spent 40+ years of his life ministering and raising support for the children of Calcutta, has anyone besides me wondered how he got there?  Well, he answered that question very directly yesterday, and what he said might surprise some of you.  He looked at the students in that class, and he said, “You get to where God wants you to be, by doing what you’re supposed to do today, as best as you can do it.”  Don’t worry about tomorrow, just look at where you are currently, and live for God today, right where you are.

That answer reminded another question asked of Tony Campolo, a speaker we had last fall, who, like Wayne, is a great storyteller.  At one point during a Q & A, a student stood up and said he felt like he was wasting his time and money here.  He just wanted to go now, doing the things Tony and Wayne talked with us about.  Tony looked at him and begged him not to.  He told him he is privileged to be at a university like ours, and that he should get everything out of the opportunity as he can.  Study, ask questions, drive your professor nuts.  He then reassured us all by saying that what you are doing today is never wasted; it is always preparing you for what’s next.

So, how do you give your life away?  We can say it doesn’t happen by going somewhere on spring break or over the summer.  But if I’m hearing them right, and understand the words of Jesus, the One who shapes how we walk, we give our life away one day at a time.  It’s about today, not tomorrow.  It’s about doing it here, not over there.  So, what are we waiting for?

Text for the week:  Matthew 6:25-35