Monthly Archives: June 2010

Sometimes you talk for an audience.

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Nancy and I talk quite a bit. We walk and talk. We text. We tweet. We email.

Sometimes, when we are out for supper, we probably look like the couples who never talk. We eat. We listen. We look sideways at the people who are talking loudly at adjacent tables. We feel no need to perform.

Sometimes, however, we do talk in front of other people so they can hear us talk, so they know how we interact. There have been times when we’ve been with our kids that we have made sure that we have talked and laughed and even kissed. It hasn’t been made up, it’s not pretend. It’s the public version of a deep private relationship, with an awareness that there is an audience and an awareness that the audience shapes the conversation and, perhaps more importantly, is shaped by the conversation.

Jesus is standing outside the tomb where Lazarus’ body is. He looked up and said,

“Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Jesus was, for the people listening, establishing that there was a relationship. He acknowledges that they talk all the time. He wants everyone to be sure that what is going to follow, the emergence of Lazarus, is clearly rooted in the conversational relationship he has with his father. It can’t be his own power. It can’t be a coincidence. It needs to be that Jesus made a seemingly heretical claim, and instead of being struck by lightening, Lazarus is struck by life.

Maybe like Jesus,  just as I  “public talk” with Nancy, I need to “public talk” with God.

Maybe life would strike twice.

A simple offer.

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Chris wrote about simple packaging of ideas yesterday. He was encouraging people who are selling to be clear, taking the time to phrases offers in ways that the customer can understand.

Let simple be the mantra. Make your contracts brief, small, simple. Make your projects short, finite, and clear. Make your deliverables obvious, simple, and measurable.

At the same time I was thinking about that essay, I was reading a conversation between Jesus and Martha. Her brother has just died. When she meets Jesus at the edge of town, she is pretty direct: “If you had been here,” she said, “my brother would not have died.”

It wasn’t like Jesus didn’t know her brother was sick. She had sent a message days before. There had been time. We know (though she didn’t) that Jesus had deliberately waited until her brother had died.

“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus said.

She took it as a familiar theological affirmation: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

But Jesus wasn’t going to let her be that vague. Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;  and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

It was as simple a statement of what Jesus could do as could be imagined. To a grieving yet hopeful  sister, it was the message that she wanted to hear.

Then Jesus called a dead Lazarus out of a grave.

A message perfectly suited to an audience, stated with startling simplicity and confidence, backed by incredible customer service.

Jesus’ followers have often taken Martha’s position. “Of course there will be life after everything,” then we’ve complicated what’s delivered.

Maybe Jesus is still simply right.

Lazarus is going to die.

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“This sickness will not end in death.”

That’s what Jesus said when he heard that his friend Lazarus was sick. It’s a pretty odd statement, given that the only thing that he had been told was, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” There is no word in the story about how sick Lazarus was. There is no sense, for sure, that he was on his way to death.

However, by the time Jesus showed up, traveling a couple days distance, Lazarus had been entombed for four days.

There are many stories in this story. We see that Martha (of Mary and Martha fame) isn’t nearly as unspiritual as many people try to make her. We hear Thomas (of doubting Thomas fame) being willing to walk into death. We see Jesus weeping. We hear Jesus calling Lazarus out of the grave.

This story is a crossroads of characters. I’ve known this story as far back as I can remember. But I don’t remember ever seeing what Jesus said.

“This sickness will not end in death.”

Why would Jesus say that? I mean, a couple days later, still not on the road, Jesus says, “Lazarus is dead.” Why can’t he get his story straight?

It’s possible, of course, that his story was straight, that the sickness didn’t end in death; the sickness just had to make a stop at death on the way to healing.

This can be a scary story for people who ask Jesus for help. Who could ever trust someone who would let good friends watch a brother die, only to have him brought back to life? To our eyes, that looks like random infliction of pain.

On the other hand, Jesus knew that death wasn’t fatal. At least not for Lazarus. Not the first time he died.

Making change

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(I’m following up on yesterday’s post about planning how to grow.)

If you want to have less self-centered pride in five years than you do now, here’s one thing to say:

If I am sitting in a meeting, and I feel a need to speak up, then I will count to five and say, “Am I trying to impress people or am I trying to move the conversation along?”

Self-centered pride is one of the attitudes that can devastate us. We read …

An angry man stirs up dissension,
and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.
A man’s pride brings him low,
but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.

… and we say, “I should be more humble. It’s a characteristic of Jesus.” And then a few days later we say it again. And then a few days later we say it again. And then we say, “God, help me be more humble.” And sometimes He does. But we still don’t learn. We simply humiliate ourselves.

But what if we looked at the places where we often demonstrated our self-centered pride and we evaluated our behavior and we planned to make changes? Is it possible that we could learn behaviors that kept us from always putting ourselves in front?

Yes.

In the example above, notice the bold if…then. When we clearly identify a time and situation, and we clearly identify the action we will take in that situation, we are far more likely to take that action than if we say, “I should talk less.” (See, for example, Implementation Intentions for research supporting this.)

This 300 words seems a lot more like psychology research than a devotional. I understand. I also understand that following Jesus involves specific, intentional steps of obedience which are sometimes rooted both in the Bible and our brains.

Five years

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“What do you want to be true of you as a leader in five years?  What do you want your wife to say about you as a church leader? What do you want your kids to say about you as a church leader?”

That’s what I asked five guys the other night. They are studying church administration. I’m the eprof. I wanted a simple case study for talking about change. I picked them.

“What specific skills do you need to develop to make that happen? What attitudes? What habits? What barriers do you need to remove?”

They did well in brainstorming though spoke in vague terms.

I picked on a barrier that one person had identified.

“Give me a specific, concrete, practical set of actions that can help me decrease ___.”

That was a struggle.

We all love people with wonderful reputations. We think, “I want to be known like that.” But when it comes to practical steps that will take us closer to that reputation, we struggle. Can you learn to love, to surrender, to be humble, to be like Jesus? I mean, we talk about it, but what actual steps do we take?

Paul set as his goal

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…

He outlines some steps in the following paragraphs:

1. I haven’t arrived. (He was honest in evaluating his current status).

2. I’m pressing on. (He was committed to not staying at his current status)

3. I’m doing this one thing. (He was focused on his direction)

4. I’m forgetting what is already behind me. (He was not trapped by past successes and failures.)

We’ll talk tomorrow about what that looks like. For today, consider your answer: “in five years, I …