living between the big three

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Jon Swanson

The church calendar feels unbalanced somehow, at least about the big three holidays.

The really big holiday, acknowledged inside and outside of the church, is Christmas. We are excited about Christmas. Everyone loves a baby. We are ready for angels and mangers and cuteness.

And then, the holiday that we know is more important than Christmas, a sense which is reinforced by the fact that it gets less attention, is Easter. The death and resurrection of Jesus, while less glamorous, is, of course, more important, more world-transforming.

But those two holidays are too close together. They should be evenly spaced, somehow, well centered on the equini. Instead, from a church planning calendar perspective, just when you are done with Christmas, you have to start Easter planning.

You know what I mean?

But I mentioned a third holiday. What’s as big as Christmas and Easter? Memorial Day? Fourth of July?

No.

Pentecost Sunday. That’s the third one. And it comes this Sunday.

Many of us skip that holiday, ignoring it, missing it, never thinking about it.

But it’s the holiday that celebrates the unleashing of the church, the empowering of the disciples. They were told to wait. And they did. And then, they couldn’t be stopped.

They were given the Holy Spirit.

I know. This is one of those subjects that makes Christ followers of all backgrounds a little troubled. We agree about Christmas and Easter, but what do we do with such a clear demonstration of unclear power?

Maybe we just get out of the way.

Maybe we just wait.

Maybe, this Sunday we say, “God in three persons, I don’t understand the three persons part, but I want to know your power, in a loving, transforming way. May I?”

Maybe the answer won’t be tongues of flame. But maybe…

now

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Jon Swanson

It is possible to read too much positive thinking material. It is possible, I think, to be too optimistic, to be too ‘everything will work out great’, to be too ‘seize the moment.’

So I won’t be.

On the other hand, when the servant got the five talents, he immediately put his money to work and generated five more.

Immediately. That word hit me last week, and now I’m hitting you.

Sorry, a little context might help.

In Matthew 25, Jesus told a story about three servants who were given outrageous amounts of money by their master as he prepared to leave on a trip. By outrageous, I mean that the one who got the least would have had to work for 16 years to earn that much, and the one who got the most? A century.

Two of the servants doubled their money. One of the servants buried his. The first servant, the one who doubled his 100 years money, started right away. He was given the money and started to use it.

Here’s where I start to sound all positive, but hear me out.

Every moment of your life up to the moment you are reading this? Over. The next ten minutes? A gift, a resource, a collection of breaths given by God and available to double in their value.

Maybe double by writing an email to encourage someone.

Maybe double by putting down the keyboard and looking someone in the eyes and telling them that they are worth looking in the eyes.

Maybe double by talking with God about what to do next, asking for wisdom as we are invited to do.

Maybe double by listening to God.

Maybe double by not finishing reading this.

Maybe double by saying no one more time.

I don’t know. God does. Ask Him.

ninety five percent of the time

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Jon Swanson

I heard the numbers long ago. I don’t remember them exactly. I don’t remember the speaker either.

He was a business ethicist, talking to business people about ethics. (Profound. I know). He said, approximately, “ninety five percent of the time, doing the ethical thing makes good business sense. So it’s not what you do ninety five percent of the time that makes you ethical. It’s what you do the other five percent of the time.”

I told some friends that the other day. They are facing a difficult accusation and they are having a hard time staying cool. I reminded them that what they do in this difficult situation is the test of the progress they have been making.

We talked a bit about “the Christian thing to do.” They may have been surprised by how much I reacted against that idea, the idea of what “good Christians” do, the concept of “the Christian thing.” What those phrases mean, ninety five percent of the time, is the nice thing to do, the pleasant thing, the martyr thing.

I’m pretty sure, however, that Jesus didn’t call anyone to be good Christians. He called us to follow him. He called us to be part of the kingdom. He called us to live in the final five percent, where we challenge our selves, our culture, our churches, our motives, our comfort, our status.

It’s going to happen today, you know. You are going to think about the ninety five percent of good living you are doing, the ninety five percent of nice person you are being.And you and I are going to want to coast.

Until we remember the final five percent.

It may be really hard.

But the goal line is at the end of the five percent. Not the ninety five.

taking sides

Posted on May 27, 2009 by Jon Swanson

I don’t like sides. I don’t like having to decide which team to be on. I don’t like being forced to be with one group or the other.

That’s why I want to avoid Matthew 13: 11-17.

Because I am working our way through Matthew, writing 300 words a day about following Jesus, I consider whether to discuss each section. Part of the decisionmaking process is a simple question: “Is this something I don’t want to write about?”

If the answer is, “I don’t want to,” it means that I have to address it. I can’t hide from it.

That is the case with this passage. Jesus is saying that some people will understand and some won’t. Further, he is saying that some people will be given understanding and some won’t.

This is difficult. It feels not fair.

Theologians have debated the amount God gets to decide and the amount we get to decide. For centuries. And there are sides. And it is hard to take sides. And non-theologians look at the words and try to understand how fair it is that God gets to decide who will understand and who won’t. And it is hard to take sides.

But what if we don’t have to take sides? What if Jesus is describing what we all know to be true?

That no matter how hard you try to explain math to someone who has decided that they can’t understand, they won’t get it.

That no matter how much you explain the safety rigging for the trapeze to someone who doesn’t trust it, they won’t go up.

That no matter how much food you offer to someone with their mouth clamped shut, they won’t be nourished.

And they fail the test and don’t see the heights.

And the food eventually will be taken away.

what happened in our backyard

Posted on May 26, 2009 by Jon Swanson

We spent the day working on our yard. We are getting ready for summer, ready for graduation.

I spent part of the morning in two of our perennial beds, turning the soil with a shovel. Nancy went through those beds after I did, breaking up clumps of dirt, pulling out the weeds, planting some new hosta and other plants.

We dug up another small bed, one where little grows. As I turned that soil, I discovered clay down about 4 inches. We thought we had worked on that in the past, but apparently we hadn’t worked the topsoil in far enough down. Apparently, the plants that we have planted in that space haven’t been able to grow roots that will sustain good growth.

Nancy dug up the grass that had been growing in the ivy under the birdfeeders. She is very close to putting weedkiller on that whole part of the bed and just starting over. Nothing good can grow there now with all the weeds growing from the birdfeeders.

We decided to add more river rock to a couple paths that we have running through part of the yard. To get the ground ready for me to work, Nancy laid some hosta on one of the paths. There is no way we could leave it there, however. The plants just wouldn’t be able to get rooted at all.

It was a good time working. We are pretty confident that the result of the time we spent today will be strong, healthy plants in those parts of the yard.

If Jesus were to walk into our yard, he would look at our work and say, “That’s exactly what I was talking about. Plants need good soil to grow well.” And then he’d say, “But you have to scatter the seed anyway.”