God is our Refuge ... We will not Fear

On July 7, 2025, hard rains fell and the creeks rose and the streets were flooded. We usually read about events like this. These are things that happen in other places, not here, where we live. This time, though, it was our turn to get hit. 

Water came in the church, flooded people out of their homes, and caused millions of dollars in property damage. For people, like those in our own congregation, who had to be rescued out of their homes, this is traumatic. As a church, we want to support people however we can. We have called. We have prayed. We have provided meals for some. We have come alongside those who need supplies and encouragement.

Considering what happened theologically, I thought of Jonah. "You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all you waves and billows passed over me" (2:3). Floods, seas, raging torrents, unfathomable depths; water humbles humanity like few things can. We need it to live. We cannot survive without it. Yet, we are so small and insignificant, and powerless, before the might of water. 

Yet our God is bigger than the flood. In worship (July 13), we prayed Psalm 46. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. ... We will not fear, though the waters roar and foam" (v.1, 3). When our people are going through great trials, this is as important as the material aid we give. We help people who are scared and traumatized remember  they are not alone and God is bigger than the storm and He loves us.

A Corinthians Poem

 

A Corinthians Poem

If Christ is proclaimed

            Raised from the dead

The deaths of those we love

            Will not cause despair

Yes, we certainly grieve

            We call, he’s not there

Absence and emptiness

            Weakness, heavy hearts

What, no resurrection?

            Our hope falls apart

Deny resurrection?

            What faith do you hold?

Open Corinthians

            Read what has been told

Jesus Christ is alive

            Some doubt this and dread

But in fact Christ has been

            Raised from the dead

You, me, and all have life

            Jesus is alive 

Surrender - A Lenten Discipline

 

“Surrender of the heart to God includes every possible way of obedience to God, because it means giving up one’s very being to God’s good pleasure.” This is from Jean-Pierre de Caussade, a French Jesuit priest who lived from the late 17^th to the mid 18^th century. This evokes thoughts of what Jesus said. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:35).

            Of course, “those who lose their life for my sake” can mean many things. James, the older of the sons of Zebedee and one of the original 12, was beheaded by Herod because he was Jesus’ disciple (Acts 12:1-12). Christians in China in the late 20^th century experienced imprisonment due to their faith commitment. In these and many other cases, to lose one’s life for Jesus’ sake, was played out in real life, with faithful disciples literally dying or having their lives completely upended.

How do these words of Jesus apply in the lives of 21^st century American Christians? We don’t realistically fear imprisonment or bodily harm just because we have put our faith in Jesus. We are not punished for having claimed the Christian faith. In fact, every president in the history of the United States has claimed Christianity as their religious affiliation. Christians in America are free to express their faith.

De Caussade gets at my understanding of Jesus’ insistence that to follow him, we must give up our lives. In societies like ours, where Christians are not persecuted,  I think it comes down to personal surrender. What area of your life have you kept from Jesus. Does He get all of you, except that portion of the day you devote to online porn or online gambling? Do you partake of those harmful vices and just keep Jesus out of it?

Or maybe your marriage, or your sex life outside of marriage. You claim to be under the lordship of Jesus everywhere, except your bedroom. There, you’ll make your own decisions. The way of Jesus is the way you have committed to walk, but you forget about that when you get to your bedroom door. He is not welcome into your most intimate places.

Or maybe the place you withhold your faith is your money. You attend worship. You read the Bible. You give to some causes and give to the church. You volunteer. However, money is very important to you, and the decisions you make in life indicate that your money rules how you live out your faith. When we die to self, lose our lives for his sake, then Jesus is lord of our money. It’s not the other way around.

You could think of other examples in life where one resists fully submitting to Christ. You could think of examples from your own life. That resistance is a great tension in one’s walk with the Lord. This year, during Lent, release that resistance. Fully surrender your heart, your mind, your life to Christ. As Jesus said in the first century AD, and the French priest reiterated in the 18^th century and many Chinese evangelicals demonstrated through personal sacrifice in their lives in the 20^th century, we lose our lives for Jesus’ sake and the sake of the Gospel. “Surrender of the heart to God includes …  giving up one’s very being to God’s good pleasure.”

Consider doing an audit of your life as a 2025 Lenten discipline. Identify an area you have not surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus. Between now, Ash Wednesday, March 5, and Easter Sunday, April 20, take intentional steps to surrender that area you’ve identified. Discover the sweet freedom of surrendering to Christ and living under his lordship.

A Christian During Ramadan

 

Ramadan begins tomorrow, 2/28/25, at sundown. There are approximately 1.9 billion Muslims in the world. It would be downright rude to blithely ignore the significance of this time for our Islamic neighbors. Yet, I would guess many Americans are completely oblivious. I state that as a matter of course, not pejoratively. I want to believe that many Americans of other faiths or no faiths are not hostile to Muslims, just ignorant of Islam. I know I am.

At the start of February, black history month and my birth month among other things, I shared on Facebook some black authors I was currently reading (Alice Walker, Margaret Busby, H. Cordelia Ray, etc.). I stressed that in the case of these specific authors, I read to self-educate. I also invited anyone perusing my posts to go beyond just February. Read good blacks authors year round. There are plenty to choose from. Especially if one is of a privileged class (male, white, educated, employed, middle class, etc.), read perspectives different than your own. I have tried to a make a practice of this over the last decade. From Martin Luther King Jr. to James Cone to Cornel West to Michelle Alexander, and many, many more, I have learned much. I am trying to shed the blindness and indifference privilege has repeatedly poured over me.

Now, in Ramadan, I continue. At the end of his musings over his upbringing in Cairo, 20th century philosopher Edward Said (Anglo-Palestinian) describes a pianist, a student of his friend I. Tiegerman. Said says of this Egyptian pianist, "[she was] a stunningly fluent and accomplished young married woman, a mother of four, who played with her head completely enclosed in the pious veil of a devout Muslim" (p.275). Said continues, "Neither Tiegerman nor I could understand this amphibious woman, who with a part of her body could dash through Appasionata and with another venerated God by hiding her face. ... She was an untransplantable emanation of Cairo's genius."

Said's Muslim pianist serves as an avatar for my own heart toward my Muslim neighbors. I want to appreciate her musical ability, something not tied to race, gender, or religion. I also want to honor her story, which cannot be told without appreciation of her race, gender, religion, nationality, and social station. Of course, Said's pianist lives in the 1950's in Egypt. I am in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the 2020's. I do, though, have my own experiences with Muslims. There's a school that uses space in our church. Daily, I see teachers and parents, people not affiliated with the church. How can I be a good neighbor to all students and teachers, and especially to those who are Muslim, who might not expect someone like me, an evangelical pastor, to be a good neighbor?

That epithet, evangelical pastor, is so loaded. Is there a political connotation that I embrace or eschew? What assumptions might be made by one who hears me self-categorize as evangelical, and, pastor. For me the moniker is a statement of purpose. 'Evangel' literally means good news that must told. So, I must tell the world that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that in his coming, one can half forgiveness of sins and life in his name. He died for the sins of the world, rose on the third day, and invites all who put their faith him to receive salvation. Believing that makes me Christian, and sharing it makes me evangelical.

Jesus is the principle point of departure for Muslims and Christians. Christians believe he is the second person of the trinity, God in the flesh, and the only way to salvation is through faith in him. Muslims believe he is a prophet, but not the Son of God. To be Muslim, one cannot believe Jesus to be the Son of God. To be Christian, one must believe that is exactly who Jesus is. The difference is irreconcilable. However, it need not be a hostile divide. Christians can treat their Muslim neighbors with respect. Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan clearly conveys that we who follow Jesus are commanded by him to love our Muslim neighbors.

For me, that starts with understanding. During Ramadan, I intend to do a lot of reading about Islam by Muslim authors. And I will pray for how to have respectful, meaningful interactions with Muslims I meet daily. Said, wrote that he never had a conversation with the Egyptian pianist even though he saw her play many times. I don't to look back over Ramadan and say, "Well, I walked past Muslims many times, but we never talked." I pray God will open doors. 

Here's the collection of essays I'll be reading, Progressive Muslims (edited by Omid Safi).

Lay the Foundation

                     This week I read this sentence: “[The man summoned by divine promise’s] understanding consists in the fact that in sympathy with the misery of being he anticipates the redeeming future of being and so lays the foundation of reconciliation, justification, and stability” (J. Moltmann, 1967, p.290). It’s a rather dense sentence in dense section of what is, in some ways, a wonderful book, Theology of Hope. To cut through the thicket of James Leitch’s translation of Moltmann’s theological German, I homed in on the phrase “lays the foundation.”

            What foundation is laid by “the one summoned by divine promise?” Anyone – you, me, your friend, anyone who has entrusted his or her life to Christ, received forgiveness, and been born again is to be counted among those summoned by the divine promise. In other words, this refers to Christians who are determined to follow Jesus. Is there any other way that can be called ‘Christian,’ than total commitment to the way of Jesus?

            This brought to my mind Dallas Willard’s thought in Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines. One of the primary motivations Willard saw for living a spiritually disciplined life was that doing so prepared one for life in Heaven. Willard hinted at the possibility that all might go to Heaven, but it would only feel like Heaven for those who spent this life getting ready. Others wouldn’t know how to exist in the divine kingdom. They hadn’t had any experience walking in the way of Christ.

            So, how does one “lay the foundation” (Moltmann), or “get ready” (Willard)? How do we store up treasures in Heaven (Jesus – Matthew 6:19-21). What does foundation-laying/readying/storing up look like in one’s life? I wrote last month that this year, my spiritual teacher will be Simeon (Luke 2), the old man who hung out at the temple waiting for God to show him the “consolation of Israel.” Is foundation-laying/readying/storing up simply the wait? Is the disciple life a life of waiting God?

            In a sense, yes, but how do we spend our time waiting? My belief is our waiting is expectant. (1) We live each day expecting God to do God-sized things in our lives that day. (2) We live toward a specific end; toward the eternal kingdom of God, that was launched in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and will be fully consummated in his return. We live toward that return. We live today by the values and currency of that time.

            What is the defining value? Love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. What is the only valid currency in the kingdom of God? Service. “The greatest among you must be … one who serves. … I [Jesus]am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:26, 27). So, my ambition is to wait on the Lord. My work, done while waiting, involves foundation-laying/readying/storing up. I do this work by honing in myself a heart of love for God and neighbor. I sharpen the effectiveness of my love and broaden the extent of my love by serving and helping others. No matter how badly I do this work, God gives me more opportunities. No matter how well I do, I can always improve.

My Belly

 

I just saw an article titled "Why Being Fat is Great."

I won't read it.

Spare tire. Expanding tube. Stretched belt.

Reese's Cup. Flavored chips. Breaded chicken, with sauce. 

I don't hate myself. If I did, I wouldn't regret that second Reese's Cup.

If I did, I wouldn't long to run, or at least jog. 

If I did, I wouldn't sit down to write.

If I did, I wouldn't imagine something different.

I don't hate myself.

My belly is my body. So are my arthritic knees. 

So are my literate eyes.

So are my ears, trained to listen like a therapist,

or like a pastor;

or like a friend.

I won't check on the article, "Why Being Fat is Great."

I don't hate myself. 

And, I'd rather stop thinking about my belly and read something else.

Simeon: A Biblical Role Model for 2025

 

            During Advent 2024 (a few weeks ago), I followed the devotional distributed to subscribers of Christianity Today magazine. It’s called A Time for Wonder. The entry that spoke most profoundly to me is written by Lily Journey. Her focus is on Simeon who we meet in Luke 2:25-35. “Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah” (v.25-26).

            What was Simeon’s job? Luke doesn’t say. How old was he? Luke offers no clue. From what family and tribe did he hail? We don’t know. His social class? Luke doesn’t tell us.

            All we know of Simeon is that he was waiting for God to deliver on the promise; he, Simeon, would see the Messiah with his own eyes. How long did Simeon wait? What was his day-to-day life like while he waited? It’s impossible to fill in those blanks, but I believe that whatever Simeon’s life was, it included a responsive, committed prayer life. Verse 27 says he was guided by the Holy Spirit to the temple on the day Mary and Joseph brought baby Jesus to be dedicated. A lot parents brought their babies. How could he know which was the correct family? The Spirit directed Simeon to Mary and Joseph.

            I pause in his story here because Simeon is going to be before me as a character and a muse throughout 2025. I want to become someone who prays like Simeon, believing God will act. Then, I want to live my faith conscientiously and compassionately as I wait for God to act. I want to be such profound spiritual attentiveness that when the Spirit guides, I am ready to follow.

            Simeon exuded determined, expectant waiting. He modeled faith in the way I want to live. In 2025, I will strive to fill the role he occupied, that of expectant, faithful waiting on God.

            I encourage you, in 2025, to select someone from the Bible who models faith in the way you would like to live it. People will say they want to “grow closer to God in the new year.” That’s too vague. How do you know you’ve accomplished this goal? I propose that you zero in on a specific person from scripture, identify the qualities that individual has that you’d like, and then try to develop those qualities in your life.

            I will read and reread the 11 verses in Luke 2 that tell Simeon’s story and write about my own spiritual journey as I try to embody the values and strengths of Simeon in my own life. Find someone in the Bible to be your role model as you follow Jesus in 2025.