letter to the Exiles

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."  Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 29:4-9 ESV)

The only place you have to be human is where you are right now.
Eugene Peterson

Jeremiah continues taking me to some deep places.

Not necessarily deep as in somber or sad, but just deep, earthy places.

I see the reflection of my religious self too readily in the faces of men such as Pashhur and the other false prophets (how I would love to just see the faces of others in that profile!). So much of what passes for what should be the radical message of Christianity is an exercise in sanctified escapism. Cordoned off from the world behind cathedral walls we "heal our wounds slightly" while telling ourselves not to get too comfortable here in this world that we are so quickly passing through. Protracted denial. Holy avoidance. Desperate prayers of deliverance from present realities meant to be encountered not escaped. What contrasting fare is found in Jeremiah's letter to the exiles already in Babylon. This is the setting of one of our favorite verses to quote: "I know the plans I have for you - plans to prosper you, and not to harm you; plans to give you a future and a hope." These were plans and a future and a hope that would only mature into reality as they settled in where they were. In exile. Dig deep into Babylonian soil. Get your hands dirty with it. Pray for it. Get used to it. So much of our religion of whatever color or stripe is an effort to escape from where we are, trading in present exiled tediums or terrors for that future and a hope somewhere over the rainbow of our dreams. And in so doing we miss the face of God to be seen and embraced and kissed right here in these exiled places of even our greatest pain, debilitating disappointments and oppressive doldrums.

Peterson's Run With the Horses once again resecures its place on my shelf with its timely and poignant reminder:

Jeremiah's letter is a rebuke and a challenge: "Quit sitting around feeling sorry for yourselves. The aim of the person of faith is not to be as comfortable as possible but to live as deeply and thoroughly as possible - to deal with the reality of life, discover truth, create beauty, act out love. You didn't do it when you were in Jerusalem. Why don't you try doing it here, in Babylon? Don't listen to the lying prophets who make an irresponsible living by selling you false hopes. You are in Babylon for a long time. You better make the best of it. Don't just get along, waiting for some miraculous intervention. Build houses, plant gardens, marry husbands, marry wives, have children, pray for the wholeness of Babylon, and do everything you can to develop that wholeness. The only place you have to be human is where you are right now. The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family your find yourself in, this job you have been given (or not), the weather conditions that prevail at this moment." 

Exile (being where we don't want to be with people we don't want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself? It is always easier to complain about problems than to engage in careers of virtue. George Eliot in her novel Felix Holt has a brilliantly appropriate comment on this quesiton: "Everything's wrong says he. That's a big text. But does he want to make everything right? Not he. He'd lose his text."

Oh may my fingers be ruddy and red with the Babylonian soil of my exile as true hope dawns and beckons me on...and to cease from escapist fantasies.

reworked

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. (Jeremiah 18:1-4 ESV)


The potter’s house fascinates me.

I love how the Lord can turn our eyes into ears, placing before us common objects and occupations that become sacraments – earthy intersections of divine truths undergirding all of life.

I see the potter sitting at his wheel as it spins and spins. The clay literally rises, seemingly taking on a life of its own as his muddy hands shape and press. I watch his hand reach inside the object, this pot, this vessel that will become a unique combination of beauty and utility. It rises, it broadens, it narrows, all according to the movement of his hands. What will it be? What will be its final form? My anticipation rises. Expectation soars. I hold my breath waiting for the culmination of the potter and his spinning wheel.

And then it happens.

It is undone.

The work of beauty collapses upon itself in a heap.

Seeming failure.

A mere unformed lump.

Without form and void.

I look to the potter. Is he crushed? Is he in anguish over his collapsed work? Does he kick over the wheel and pound the clay with an angry fist? Does he throw up his hands in despair or bow his head in shame? No. With a knowing and playful smile he gathers up the clay.

And he reworks it.

He reworks it into another vessel “as it seemed good to the potter to do.”

I’m not sure which version of me we’re up to at this point. Is it Mike 2.0, 3.0, 4.0? I don’t know. But no doubt about it: I have been reworked. Multiple times. Yet no matter what the reworking might entail or into what type of vessel I might be shaped this time or next time or the time after that, the clay that is me retains a continuity, a consistency. Thankfully I remain clay! May the wheel never turn to reveal me as cement quickly hardening and set. And the thought now occurs to me: Is it not in our departure from this world that we are finally “fired”? Is it not then and only then that we reach our completed form, the final shape of beauty marked by his hands?

How happy at the time I thought I was with Mike 1.0. How at the time I wished to be “fired” and set right then for the rest of my days. But then with watery hands, he reworked me. Mike 2.0. This version of me pleases me less. I feel marred and spoiled, but still the wheel spins, still his hands shape. Why does he keep going? Why does he make me thus? I despair and cry and languish on the wheel and surrender hope in being other than what and where and how I am. But then down I come. Reworked yet again. The wheel turns again. Behold the reworking which is becoming Mike 3.0.

Onward spins the wheel.

Revolution.

Change.

Reshaping.

Reworked yet again, the latest version of me.

Have I finally learned to be clay in his hands?

Have I learned, as much as clay can learn?

Have I stopped trying to trade spots with the potter?

Have I given up trying to be the potter for others?

Am I willing to be reworked again?

And then yet again?

And onward spins the wheel…

put away the knife

It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot. (Jeremiah 36:22-23 ESV)

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 ESV)

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider.
Sir Francis Bacon


I am running ahead a bit in Jeremiah. He makes it hard not too.

What a compelling picture!

A king sitting by a burning fire pot, literally cutting into pieces and burning these words brought by Blessing (Baruch).

How easy to cut up words from viewpoints off our grid rather than really hearing and seeing what is in them.

Reading the newly released book Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative by Carl Trueman managed to put me square into Jehoiakim’s chair – or at least to wonder just how well, in fact, I fit there far too often still. Trueman’s “confessions” deal with both politics and religion, and so what he "confesses" as to one realm very nicely (and uncomfortably) applies to the other. Here are some excerpts from his chapter entitled “Not-So-Fantastic Mr. Fox” under a section entitled “Let’s Use Our God-Given Critical Faculties.” Put away your knife, step away from the fire, and consider:

When it comes to listening to the news, Christians should be eclectic in their approach and not depend merely on those pundits who simply confirm their view of the world while self-evidently using terminology, logic, and standard rules of evidence and argumentation in sloppy, tendentious, and sometimes frankly dishonest ways, such as Mr. Beck and his “welfare means totalitarianism” claims. There is a sense in which we are dependent for our view of the wider world on those media that give us access to the world, so surely it is incumbent on us to make sure that we expose ourselves to a variety of viewpoints on the great issues of the day….

Either human beings are critical creatures, provided with brains that allow them to think for themselves, or they are mere sponge-like receptors who believe whatever they are told by a third party. Biblically speaking, it would seem like the former is the case. Luke, for example, constructed his history by talking with eyewitnesses, and we can presume he used only those sources that he found reliable while discounting the rest. When the Bereans heard the gospel, they searched the Scriptures to see whether the things they heard were so. Critical faculties were engaged in both instances.

When Christianity was starting to penetrate the Roman Empire in the second century, there were a number of thinkers, called by scholars the Greek Apologists, who took it on themselves to argue the case for Christianity in the public square. One of their most powerful arguments was that Christians, far from subverting public order (and that, of course, was, at the time, a profoundly unChristian public order), actually make the very best citizens in terms of hard work, loyalty, and civil obedience. Later, Calvin made essentially the same point in the prefatory letter to his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Today, our obligation is no different: we are called to be good citizens in this world, and in a democratic society, that involves having as many well-thought-out and informed opinions on the things that really matter as time allows. It is incumbent on us not to surround ourselves with things that confirm our prejudices but seek to listen to a variety of viewpoints. The listening is not an end in itself, as so many postmodern conversationalists would have it; the purpose is to become more informed and to have better-grounded and better-argued opinions. But that can happen only when watching the news becomes more than just having our gut convictions continually confirmed.

This is the essence of true Word havering.

He that hath ears…put away the knife and truly hear some different perspectives. You just might learn something. And while you're at it, you just might enjoy picking up Trueman's book.

Bon appetit.

weeping prophet

Oh that my head were waters,
  and my eyes a fountain of tears,
    that I might weep day and night
         for the slain of the daughter of my people!
                                                        (Jeremiah 9:1 ESV)


The weeping prophet.

That’s a traditional moniker for Jeremiah. There’s plenty of tears to go around. Or actually, not. Later in chapter 9 Jeremiah calls for the professional mourners to come and vigorously ply their trade:

Thus says the LORD of hosts:
“Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
send for the skillful women to come;
let them make haste and raise a wailing over us,
that our eyes may run down with tears
and our eyelids flow with water. (Jeremiah 9:17-18 ESV)

Seeing all the tears and feeling the deep-seated anguish of Jeremiah, I’m caused to wonder. How qualified am I as religious and cultural critic if my eyes are not likewise filled with tears? We rail at homosexuals at gay pride parades and hold up our condemning signs. But where is the weeping? We castigate the holders of aforesaid signs as backwards legalistic buffoons. But where is the weeping? Catholics bitterly lampast Protestants, and Protestants gladly return in kind. Where is the weeping? Right tears down left as destroyers of our nation and heritage, and the left paints the right with an extremist palate of fascist hues. Where is the weeping?

What would talk radio sound like with less ranting and more weeping?

What would our blogs and publications read like soaked with the tears of hearts shedding not condescending lament but authentic sorrow over the chasms between us?

Sitting before Jeremiah, I am reminded that in his generation when people thought of Jesus they associated two prophets: fiery Elijah and weeping Jeremiah (cf. Matthew 16:14). Jesus wept. And not just at the tomb of his friend whom he loved, but over the city that would become the tomb of his enemies who plotted his death. No lone tears were these, but a wellspring of grief poured out among a joyous throng oblivious to the harsher realities unfolding.

It was actually in watching Bruce Marciano’s performance as Jesus in those Matthew videos of a decade ago or more when I finally really heard Matthew 23. I had always only heard (and therein justified my own) venemous railing at the religious error of his contemporaries. “Blind guides! Hypocrites! Brood of vipers!” The words are stinging, to be sure. But they stung Jesus’ eyes with tears more deeply than they did the ego of his religious brothers. According to Marciano, he did Matthew 23 in one take, and he was totally surprised (as were his fellow actors) at how the scene unfolded. He became incapacitated with grief and sobbed out the final lines, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often I would have gathered you under my wings like a hen her chicks, but you would not…” Marciano literally finished the scene on his knees weeping, his head bowed, his trembling hand reaching out to his “disciples” who stood there stunned. They weren’t acting! This wasn't in the script. And it was the actor playing Peter that after a few moments of stunned silence on the set improvised and reached out his hand and helped Marciano to his feet and then supported him as they exited the scene. Totally unplanned. Hearing Marciano describe the scene and then watching it again, I realized I was looking at His reflection.

Jesus wept.

Paul’s words also come to mind. “Brothers I speak the truth in Christ – I’m not lying! My conscience also confirms it in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh…” Paul wept too. Perhaps in his intensity he too infrequently stopped to weep – hence the vigorous affirmation that, yes, he really was gutted over this.

Perhaps we need to stop to weep as well before we open our mouths or pound our fists or our keyboard. Am I even qualified to speak the truth into someone’s life let alone blog over our churches, our culture, our current political scene if I have not and indeed cannot first weep?

What inquisitor ever wept as the heretic burned?

What tribunal with tears ever placed death’s shroud over the accused and condemned?

And even if I should I feel angry nails pounded into my hands and feet, as it were, by a culture that doesn’t see, will it be from me the anguished cry, “Father forgive them,” or defiantly will I shout back my own verbal retribution?

Jeremiah wept.

Jesus wept.

Do I weep?

Can I pray that "my head were waters"?

how long before I see well?

And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond branch.” Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.” The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.” Then the LORD said to me, “Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land.” (Jeremiah 1:11-14 ESV)


"The two visions, the blossoming almond branch and the pot of boiling water, were Jeremiah’s Harvard and Yale. The single-image visions burned themselves deep into the retina of his faith. By means of these visions he kept his balance and sanity and passion in the theater of God’s glory and through the holocaust of human sin."
Peterson, Run with the Horses

“What do you see, Jeremiah?”

Reading this opening chapter of Jeremiah through the years, I generally found myself shrugging my shoulders at the sight before Jeremiah. An almond branch. A boilling pot. So what? And so I would move on. Actually, that was my initial response to a whole lot of what I was reading – and often still is. The fact is, I think the greatest personal challenge I face is the challenge to really see. I feel I have a ways to go before hearing the Lord’s response to Jeremiah: “You have seen well.”

But as Peterson points out quite effectively, this twin vision was what transformed insecure prophet into an immovable rock in his generation. In fact “insecure” really isn’t strong enough – no more than our tepid translation that would put the words, “Ah, Lord” in Jeremiah’s mouth. “Ah” would really need to be something along the lines of “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” (slow motion, deep gutteral pain and disbelief – set before your eyes the greatest tragedy you have ever witnessed and then hear the painful exclamation that would escape your lips; that’s “Ah”).

Jeremiah was terrified.

And into his gloom and terror, yes, God spoke the assurance that he was with him, that he was putting his words in his mouth, that he had set him as a prophet to the nations. But he didn’t just tell him, he showed him. He gave him these two life-defining and sustaining visions. Budding hope and expectation in God’s faithfulness, and defined and limited calamity over which God is sovereign, both forever connected in Jeremiah’s consciousness every time he saw the early blossoming of the almond trees in Israel – blossoms forming while everything else around was still grey and dead – and every time he saw a pot of boiling water.

“I am watching over my word to perform it.”

Blossoming hope and expectation before the prospect of unavoidable, scalding pain – pain that would be poured out.

It takes me back to Habakkuk’s concluding song: “Though the fig tree does not blossom…yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” Jeremiah faced the crisis not just of a generation, but of the ages, one that simply could not and would not be avoided. No deep stashes of food would sustain anyone; no futures of gold and silver would tide them over through it. All would be swept away – including, it would seem, Jeremiah. But even in Egyptian exile he would see the almond branch blossom after the boiling pot had been fully poured out. Hope would remain.

Looking at that almond branch today, vividly brought home the question: how well do I see?

How easily do I teeter when exposed to whispered or headlined terrors and threats?

Why do I so naturally default to the negative, the cynical, the pessimistic, the suspicious?

How long will I allow fears to pull me inward, to isolate and divide and insulate within myself and between myself and others as I play cloak and dagger games in my own mind like some pathetic, second rate MacBeth?

How long will I cave in to the madness of society, of swirling politics and religion and human posturing and pontificating?

How long before I see well?

Why is it so hard to see the almond branch blooming?

named

The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month. (Jeremiah 1:1-3 ESV)


Oh the bittersweetness of Jeremiah.

Each time through the Bible it’s like another family reunion. It’s like I see faces across the room and then when they are before me, there’s that sudden lightning bolt of recognition, followed by the warm embrace, shared memories, laughter and tears.

There’s a sweeping grandeur to Isaiah that is unparalleled in the rest of the book. But if Isaiah soars to sublime heights, wafting on wings of servant songs and majestic dirges of doom, Jeremiah swoons and sweeps low in rich and earthy hues.

If Isaiah inspires me, Jeremiah feeds me.

Accompanying me on this journey as something of a guide and companion is Eugene Peterson in his book Running with the Horses. What a blessed excuse indeed to take this journey again, Peterson in hand! And so, to start, an excerpt early on as he observes the litany of personal names with which Jeremiah begins…

At our birth we are named, not numbered. The name is that part of speech by which we are recognized as a person. We are not classified as a species of animal. We are not labeled as a compound of chemicals. We are not assessed for our economic potential and given a cash value. We are named. What we are named is not as significant as that we are named.

Jeremiah’s impressive stature as a human being – Ewald calls him the “most human prophet” – and the developing vitality of that humanness for sixty years have their source in his naming, along with the centered seriousness with which he took his name and the names of others. “To be called by his true name is part of any listener’s process of becoming his true self. We have to receive a name by others; this is part of the process of being fully born.” Jeremiah was named and immersed in names. He was never reduced to a role or absorbed into a sociological trend or catapulted into a historical crisis. His identity and significance developed from the event of naming and his response to naming. The world of Jeremiah does not open with a description of the scenery or a sketch of the culture but with eight personal names.

Anytime we move from personal names to abstract labels or graphs or statistics, we are less in touch with reality and diminished in our capacity to deal with what is best and at the center of life. Yet we are encouraged on every side to do just that. In many areas of life the accurate transmission of our social-security number is more important than the integrity with which we live. In many sectors of the economy the title that we hold is more important than our ability to do certain work. In many situations the public image that people have of us is more important than the personal relations that we develop with them. Every time that we go along with this movement from the personal to the impersonal, from the immediate to the remote, from the concrete to the abstract, we are diminished, we are less. Resistance is required if we will retain our humanity.

The call of Jeremiah is a call to just such resistance.

How easily do we reduce Jeremiah’s own words to statistics – so many chapters and verses and words and letters; word dissected and then graphed on Pritchard’s scale. But it is his voice, his heart that must be heard and felt and sensed. Pathos and pulse and passion.

Do we dare diminish him?

Do we dare diminish others, joining with the sweep of our culture’s impersonal hand leaving behind mere stats and files and summaries like so much ash in a jar?

Do we dare allow ourselves to be so diminished?

homecoming

It has been two decades or more.

Just pulling into the parking lot had memories overpowering me in waves.

I remembered the first morning I ever came here. A Sunday morning phone call at a friend’s house after being up a bit too late watching movies. I didn’t have much room for God or church at that young age of 15 after watching my mom slowly and literally eaten away by colon/liver cancer nearly two years before. I was making a feeble effort to at least look rebellious, growing my hair long (anyway as long as I could stand it which ended up being about shoulder length). But when my friend stumbled back into the room saying it was just Russ asking if he wanted to come with them to church, I suddenly sprang up. “I want to go!” I really don’t know why I did – or at least I didn’t at the time. The fact is, when all is said and done, we don’t choose God’s grace; He chooses us. And up I jumped, throwing on my tennis shoes as fast as I could, and getting out the door just in time to intercept Russ and his family in their station wagon driving by. “Can I come with you? I mean I’m not really dressed properly.” And I don’t remember their exact words, but “come as you are, you’ll be loved” is what was communicated – and what I ultimately experienced.

It was a smaller church than I was used to (the Panorama Presbyterian Church seemed to have hundreds of well dressed parishoners every Sunday packed into a huge sanctuary). But did they ever sing! Everyone was singing. And when the Bible was opened it was as if I was hearing it for the first time. And while there was still about a year or so of being drawn in and wooed by the Spirit, the fact is right then I was hooked. Right there in that same sanctuary that I visited today some 35 years later.

Ron and Judy – they were just a young couple starting out then – today they were just about the only faces I recognized of the 25 or so people gathered there. Ron taught me how to put together my first sermons. I think I taught Ron and Judy both a good deal about patience! Home life for me was rough. With my mom gone we were finally moved in with my dad and the woman he’d been seeing – a woman to whom my brother and I were a serious intrusion. Alcohol gave her growing bitterness open and constant expression. So I found myself hanging out a lot at Ron and Judy’s place. I’m sure they gave me many subtle and not so subtle hints that it was time to go, but like a lost and hungry stray, I just wouldn’t leave.

And they just kept loving.

And not just them, but the whole church. I increasingly found myself on the doorsteps of many of them, just showing up and asking if I could hang out with them – particularly during the summer months. I don’t think the retired folks among them knew what to do with a young kid like this showing up at their door, just wanting to “hang out.” And their doors – and arms – swung open wide. They became family to me.

Glenn and Delores Steele. Marvin Steele. Al Steele (lots of Steeles in that church of my youth!). Darrell and Iris Cahhal – Russ’ parents (taught them many lessons in patience too!). Russ’ brother Rex (oh some interesting times we had growing up together in those years). More youth – Connie and Mike Ruppel (had a crush on Connie for a while). Newt and Juanita Owens – a retired couple; Newt wouldn’t have considered himself an educated man, but he had more quiet wisdom and kindness than anyone I had met – a kindness shown in taking this young “orphan” fishing on more than one occasion. Eldon Wilson (“EO”). Police officer in the LAPD. Always pleading for the support of orphans in India. Dated his daughter Eldonna once (we all just called her Donna) – she concluded after one time out I was far too nerdy. Harmon and Reva Thompson. Harmon. Half the time he led the songs, always sitting on the front row, perched and listening. Sitting in that spot he totally threw me off when he said a loud “amen” after my first sentence in my first sermon. It was like hitting a home run on the first pitch, only I didn’t know how to run the bases. But run I did, finishing what I was sure would be a 45 minute sermon, minimum, in less than ten. Harmon gave me my first concordance – a big hardcover Strong’s Concordance. “Use it to explore the riches of the Word,” he wrote. He showed me how, and I did.

I was only there for six years, but they were the years in which in foundational ways my soul was formed and His DNA imparted into my very soul: a love for Jesus, a never ending hunger for the Word, the depeening embrace of family, and grace to abundantly cover the follies and foibles of a young man who often didn’t have much sense.

Stepping into that building this morning, I knew that I wouldn’t see most of their faces. Many of them are long dead. Just about all of the rest have moved and I’ll have to wait for heaven – or Facebook – to catch up with them.

But as I stood singing the hymns of my youth, my heart overflowed with gratitude as the faces and names flooded into my heart and soul. What an indescribable gift is fellowship and family! Shared meals and fights and struggles and victories. I didn’t meet a personal Savior in those days. I met a familial one. Seeing His face in that family, even as I sat there looking back all those years, laid the foundation of Jesus that everyone and everything since can only build upon.

What a gift today to embrace this now aging pastoral couple (notice I didn’t say “old”) – Ron and Judy Collins. Ron will probably never write a book or be written up in church leadership journals; he’ll never have human spotlights flooding around him accompanied by insistent voices asking how he did it. But for four decades they have quietly and humbly labored in the same church and community, faithfully teaching, tirelessly loving – even taking in this tattered orphan.

What a gift today to embrace them – and through them the rest of my family there in years past – and to simply say, “Thank you.”

in memoriam of Derfre

I didn’t even know that was his name.


“Derfre” was a name derived from Alexander Freeman by a friend in school when he was twelve years old. Perhaps I had heard it before, and even the explanation. It had a ring of familiarity to it, but if so I had forgotten.

The things you can learn about someone at their funeral. I’ve always been struck by the insights into another’s heart, the wider perspective you gain about someone no longer here, just by listening to people share about them. Out of those shared perspectives, sometimes by people unknown to others in the room who knew (or thought they knew) that person so well, there emerges a portrait that is both familiar but yet foreign at the same time. And what a mixture of joy and enhanced sorrow that can bring.

That’s how it was for me yesterday at my nephew’s funeral. Listening to four young friends get up in turn and share about Alex – Derfre to several of them – I was struck by the portrait, even as I was by the physcial portrait of Alex beside them as they shared. The physical picture on display at the service was an unposed, unpolished picture taken spontaneously by friends that captured him in a way that I had never seen him on those handful of occasions I saw him in life.

I last saw Alex when we made our Make-a-Wish trip to LA to meet Johnny Depp last February. My brother and sister-in-law came with him to meet us for dinner at the Hard Rock Café near Universal Studios. It was a lovely reunion, as we caught up with each other, shared pictures of our recent encounter with Mr. Depp and enjoyed a fine meal on the house. But Alex sat quietly for the most part. Withdrawn into his own thoughts, and no doubt wishing he were elsewhere – it’s a look I frequently have seen on the faces of my own teens when we bring them along to a dinner with family or friends. They’re teens, after all. I remember my brother and sister-in-law being somewhat miffed at his distance and lack of engagement at the table – to which we smiled and simply remarked, “Hello, Teen!” And as I hugged Alex and we parted that evening, I not only had no idea that was the last time I would see him, but also little inkling into the heart of the young man who was Derfre.

The four friends who described Alex revealed a friend passionate about life, and who loved to discuss the deeper things – philosophy and politics, the merits and demerits of capitilism versus socialism, issues of racial equality in modern society. They described a young man who didn’t run with one pack, but freely mingled among them. A friend who could sit with you in the park for hours with no more agenda than to talk and share and take in the world about them. An enthusiast for music and for freestyle “white” rapping. Would loved to have heard some of that. An unending fascination with the stars and constellations and planets overhead. An intense passion for Burger King fries – and a willingness to explore all the deep reasons why Burger King fries are superior to MacDonald’s fries. A lover of orange chicken and chow mein at Panda Express. And he loved to drive fast.

Alex’s parents even seem surprised at the emerging portrait – that the young man so often quiet at home was so vibrant in these other circles of sometimes rough-edged friends. Joy and enhanced sorrow.

And so, as I walk on, thankful for the protrait yet sorrowful for my lack of direct experience of it from the vantage point of these friends – but nevertheless profoundly grateful for the glimpse – what’s my own takeaway? What lessons from my encounter with Derfre?

Perhaps most essentially it’s a reinforcement of the crack in my own enclosed façade – the crack that has been widening over the past few years, especially. A crack through which to really see others, to listen with more than ears but with eyes. To see more clearly those that I see most often – my own wife and teens still at home, as well as grown children and spouses and the budding reality of their own children. What conscious effort it takes to really see one another. How easily we can pass by what is seemingly familiar “turf” and only invest casual glances reflecting now approval, now disappointment or disdain, or, perhaps worst of all – only a blank stare.

It is the ministry and blessing of presence. Often of little value in the marketplace, but precious to God, and the key calling of all saints, and particularly of those who would lead them. Henri Nouwen sums up the lesson nicely (just happened to run into the quote while reading this morning):

More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems.

My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up in meetings, conferences, study groups and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress.

But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own and to let them know with words, handshakes and hugs that you do not simply like them – but truly love them.

in wrath remember mercy

The LORD is a jealous and avenging God;
   the LORD is avenging and wrathful;
the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries
   and keeps wrath for his enemies.
The LORD is slow to anger and great in power,
   and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
   and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
   he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither;
   the bloom of Lebanon withers.
The mountains quake before him;
   the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
   the world and all who dwell in it.

Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
The LORD is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he knows those who take refuge in him.
But with an overflowing flood
he will make a complete end of the adversaries,
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.

(Nahum 1:2-8 ESV)


I sat in the Boise airport last night, reading first Nahum then Habakkuk.

I got tingles.

My sandals are off my feet.

I can hardly bring myself to gaze at the burning bush aflame before me in these prophet words.

Holy.

Let’s just say I had no problem getting on the plane after reading them. No problem with this trip to LA for my nephew’s funeral.

I gladly take refuge in you.

What rhythms!

Alternating rhythms of wrath and mercy. And yet I feel no incongruity. No need or even desire to harmonize these two. They both belong. Even in the great epistle of gospel and grace that we know as Romans, wrath and mercy meet in the same dance.

Two arrogant, windbag regimes spread like a cancer across the ancient world, bringing oppression and pain and death in their power plays. And both now scramble, “the chariots race madly through the streets and rush to and fro through the squares” as the mighty fall before the Mighty.

“Behold his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.”

Arrogance, oppression, violence, flagrant disregard for human beings made in the image of God that mean no more than fodder for empire. Dehumanizing. Self-aggrandizing. All signs that clearly mark the wrath bound road.

“But the righteous man will live by his faith.” Simple trust and deepening worth, justice and mercy. The only signs of religion along this path of refuge, of wholeness, of salvation in all its rich hues is in the “religion” of Micah: “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” The righteous man will live by his faith.

All of us take one path or the other. We walk by faith or by sight. We follow the ways of this dog-eat-dog world, using and being used, abusing and being abused, treating as mere objects, as personal stepping stones those whom he has made precious, who reflect his glory. Or we walk as He walked, we go about doing good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil; lives of simple faith and hope and love, “good measure, pressed down, shaken together.”

I think we can be eager in our immaturity to speak of hell and damnation and judgment – until we look in this mirror and perhaps are given pause to ponder (in your mercy, O Lord!) – does our very religion make objects of people he loves and longs for? Theological chess pieces moved about – or worse, tipped over, ripped apart, discarded, resigned to the flames of our own skewed visions? On which path is my religion found? Where would Habakkuk see me?

And the final gift in the reading for me? A new prayer from Habakkuk: “In wrath, remember mercy.”

Pray it.

Speak it.

Live it.

on pastoring...the real shepherd

He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
(Isaiah 40:12 ESV)

The rest of the story of Amanda's lamb...

Finally the day came to select the lamb. Amanda’s dad took her to the breeder, where she promptly fell in love with the first lamb that gave a “baa!” as she approached. But her dad and the breeder selected five other lambs, each approximately equal in quality and allowed Amanda to choose from this limited number. She described her selection of her lamb, telling me she chose the one the “looked at me with love in her eyes.”


When the lamb was brought home, Amanda’s dad docked its tail and put the ointment in its eyes. Her dad was in the barn twice a day to milk their goats. On weekends while Amanda played in the yard with her sisters, her dad mended broken fences and did the various other chores that were too large for a young girl to do. Amanda’s job was to help clean the barn, feed and water the lamb, and halter train it. Amanda learned that tending a lamb was a lot more work than she had bargained for. And yes, the lamb would bleat for her every morning and afternoon. One day Amanda rolled her eyes and told me, “She does that ALL the time!”

Over the winter months the sheep grew quite large. By spring the ewe’s head reached Amanda’s chest, and she weighed more than Amanda did. It was time to shear the ewe for the first time. Amanda’s dad decided he would do the job because his daughter was too small. He took the shears and entered the pen. The sheep took one look at him and thought to itself, “I know that man, and I know he is not going to touch me with that tool in his hand.” And the chase was on. Around and around the pen Amanda’s dad chased the ewe, trying to get it cornered so he could shear it. Now Amanda’s dad is over 6 foot tall and had handled goats for years, so he had the strength necessary for the job, but he could not corner the sheep. Amanda’s dad felt that if his reach were a little longer he’d be able to accomplish his goal, so he took 2X4’s to extend his reach. The sheep was too fast even for a longer reach. He tried grabbing the sheep as it ran past him but had trouble getting his fingers into the wool. Once he finally got his fingers into the wool, only to be dragged across the pen until the sheep knocked him to the ground. After 40 minutes or more, Amanda’s dad decided he needed some help, and he knew who need to be there helping him. He went inside and called Amanda.

Amanda could tell her dad was pretty heated, so she quietly followed him out to the pen. Her dad entered the pen ahead of her, leaving the gate open behind him. The sheep was immediately on guard. As Amanda pushed her way through the gate, the sheep saw its opportunity and began to run as fast as it could toward the open gate. Amanda’s dad leapt for the sheep and yelled for Amanda to get out of the way. Amanda froze in fear as the sheep barreled towards her. Just inches away from Amanda, the sheep skidded to a stop, then put its face in Amanda’s chest and trembled. Amanda reached down, stroked the sheep’s ears and talked to it, calling it by name. As long as Amanda talked to the sheep, her dad could shear it; when Amanda’s attention wandered off, the sheep began to kick and jump away from the shears.

The sheep knew who its shepherd truly was, whom it could run to in troubled times, whom it could trust. It wasn’t the man who did so much to and for it, but the little girl who did things with it, the one who cared for it and loved it. When Amanda’s dad came into the house, he smelled of sweat; when Amanda came into the house, she smelled of sheep. Maybe that’s the truest test of a shepherd.