Something from Jon Acuff

I am not sure if you have heard of Jon Acuff, Author of Stuff Christians Like, but I have been reading his blog for a bit now. Today's post was great and you, my sisters, came to mind to share it.

Sometimes, hope hurts.

It shouldn’t. The phrase, “hope hurts” should be an oxymoron like “Lil Wayne gospel album.” But I promise you, it’s not.

Sometimes when you’re so deep in a season of hurt, you get used to the bad. You start to think you deserve it. You start to expect it and get comfortable with it and get numb to it. And like a creature that lives so far down on the bottom of the sea, you adapt to it. You cobble together little survival mechanisms that help you get through. You get by.

But hope is tenacious …

Even in the darkest of my days, when I’d journal about suicide and despair, a fragment of hope still bounced about softly in the dryer of my head. (When you’re married with kids and have lots of laundry to do, 42% of your metaphors and analogies become housework flavored.)

There was a problem though, there was a painful obstacle between me and hope. You see, I was so far down the path of hopelessness, I was so lost and selfish and bent on destruction that I found myself in a terrible lose-lose situation. For example: If people were kind to me, I felt scared because I believed the lie that if they really knew me they wouldn’t be kind to me and would be horrified at who I really am. If people were mean to me, I felt hurt because they had been mean to me. Any way I turned simply resulted in more fear and more hurt.

And that is one of sin’s goals. Not simply to remove the good from your life, but to have it actually serve as a weapon of mass destruction.

Have you ever felt that way?

Have you ever felt completely unworthy when someone offers you love?

Have you ever been ashamed of the lies you’re living when someone offers you truth?

Have you ever felt undeserving of something good, because deep down, you believed that person wouldn’t really love you if they knew who you were?

It’s very possible that I’m the only one, and that’s OK. But I do need to tell you about the 9 words in the Bible that changed the way hope felt for me. And they’re 9 words you probably missed last weekend during Easter just like I did for so many years. Which is why I remixed this post.

I’ve written about this before, but I’m a big fan of “edge verses.” I’m a big fan of looking on the periphery of a scene in the Bible and seeing all the deep truth that often gets hidden amidst a major scene. And in Luke 22 that certainly happens.

Jesus is on the threshold of getting crucified. He has the last supper with his disciples. He is sharing his thoughts on the father and the concept of serving and ruling. There is a sense of great importance heavy in the air. In the middle of that, he has a short conversation with Simon about how he is going to betray him.

It’s going to happen. Jesus knows this, but he wishes it wasn’t. He says to Simon in Luke 22:31-32:

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.”

And then, in 9 words, he explains a big part of the reason I thought a mess-up like me ever had a chance at being a Christian.

Jesus tells Simon:

“And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

That’s it, those are 9 really simple words, but they demand a second look.

Do you see what Jesus is saying in that first half of the sentence, “And when you have turned back?” He’s saying:

And when you fail.

And when you sin.

And when you blow it and sell me out like a common thief.

And when you literally and physically turn your back on me.

And when you ruin it all.

When you turn back.

That concept is part of why our God is so different than everything we expect. We can turn back. There’s a return. There’s a comeback. There’s a loss and a brokenness and a state of falling, but you can turn back. That door is open. When I read the phrase “And when you have turned back,” I read a loud, wild picture of what grace really looks like.

Then you get to the part that is so easy to miss, the comma. Thank God for the comma, because that’s not how I would have written that sentence.

Mine would have looked more like:

“And when you have turned back, repent for three years before you try to get within a mile of my holiness.”

“And when you have turned back, don’t think for a second you’re qualified to tell other people about me.”

“And when you have turned back, here’s a long list of works you’ll need to do in order to clean yourself of the mistakes you’ve made and the consequences you’ve earned.”

But Christ doesn’t do that! He throws in a comma. He continues the sentence and simply says, “strengthen your brothers.”

Six years ago I ruined my life, but you know what?

God gave me the gift of the comma.

And that’s why I write Stuff Christians Like.

I have turned back. Not once, not twice, but a million times. And now it’s time to strengthen my brothers.

I don’t know what Easter was like for you last weekend, but I hope you didn’t miss the comma because God wants to give it to you. He wants to give you grace. He wants you to know that when you have turned back, you can still strengthen your brothers.

It’s time to accept the comma of grace.

Maundy Thursday

I am sharing this week as we move closer to Easter. Here I share an excerpt from Henri Nouwen. And, tonight, as I eat 'supper' with my family, I will pray to be shown how I can bend over "to the ground and touch the places in each other that most need washing". Love you all!

Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings by Henri Nouwen

“Just before entering on the road of his passion he washed the feet of his disciples and offered them his body and blood as food and drink. These two acts belong together. They are both an expression of God’s determination to show us the fullness of his love. . . . What is astonishing is that upon both occasions Jesus commands us to do the same. . . . He calls us to a total self-giving. He does not want us to keep anything for ourselves. Rather he wants our love to be as full, as radical, and as complete as his own. He wants us to bend ourselves to the ground and touch the places in each other that most need washing. He wants us to say to each other, ‘Eat and drink of me.’ By this complete mutual nurturing, he wants us to become one body and one spirit, united by the love of God. . . .”

Jesus

If you've ever had doubts about your faith, trust issues with God, worries about Who and how God really cares and works, then you may relate to this particular excerpt. I wanted to post it as we are in the midst of Holy Week and are focused on Jesus.

This particular excerpt comes from Rachel Evans, author of Evolving In Monkey Town.

"The most startling thing I noticed as I grew more acquainted with the Gospels was that Jesus had a very different view of faith than the one to which I was accustomed. I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime in my late teens or early twenties, it was as if Jesus packed his bags and moved from my heart into my head. He became an idea, a sort of theological mechanism by which salvation was attained. I described him in terms of atonement, logos, the object of my faith, and absolute truth. He was something I agreed to, not someone I followed…

But Jesus rarely framed discipleship in terms of intellectual assent to a set of propositional statements. He didn’t walk new converts down the Romans Road or ask Peter to draft a doctrinal statement before giving him the keys to the kingdom. His method of evangelism varied from person to person and generally involved a dramatic change of lifestyle rather than a simple change of mind. To Jesus, “by faith alone” did not mean “by belief alone.” To Jesus, faith was invariably linked to obedience…

...Needless to say, that was a strange summer. It wasn’t the summer that brought an end to my doubt, but it was the summer I encountered a different Jesus, a Jesus who requires more from me than intellectual assent and emotional allegiance; a Jesus who associated with sinners and infuriated the religious; a Jesus who broke the rules and refused to cast the first stone; a Jesus who gravitated toward sick people and crazy people, homeless people and hopeless people; a Jesus who preferred story to exposition and metaphor to syllogism; a Jesus who answered questions with more questions, and demands for proof with demands for faith…a Jesus who healed each person differently and saved each person differently; a Jesus who had no list of beliefs to check off, no doctrinal statements to sign, no surefire way to tell who was “in” and who was “out”; a Jesus who loved after being betrayed, healed after being hurt, and forgave while being nailed to a tree; a Jesus who asked his disciples to do the same…

It occurred to me that if my faith managed to survive all of these doubts then this radical rabbi, this God in sandals, would require more from me than ever before. This radical Jesus wanted to live not only in my heart and in my head but also in my hands, as I fed the hungry, reached out to my enemies, healed the sick, and comforted the lonely. Being a Christian, it seemed, isn’t about agreeing to a certain way; it is about embodying a certain way. It is about living as an incarnation of Jesus, as Jesus lived as an incarnation of God. It is about being Jesus…in tennis shoes"

A Palm Sunday Meditation: Take Up My Cross?

by Rev. James Martin, S.J.

Palm Sunday raises at least two important spiritual questions for Christians: What does it mean to be like Jesus? And what does it mean to take up our crosses, just like he did?

First, you don't need to go looking for your cross. Life gives them to you. Whether it's an illness or a tough family relationship or trouble in school or problems on the job. The real cross is the one that you don't want.

Because it's hardly a cross if you want it.

Just like it was for Jesus.

Second, we are asked by Jesus to accept our crosses.

Now, what does that mean? Well, first it means accepting that suffering is a reality in your life, and being honest about it. Perhaps more importantly, it means not passing along the bitterness that you feel. That doesn't mean that when you're with friends or family members or counselors, you can't talk about it or complain about it or even cry about it. That's both healthy and natural.

But it does mean that if you're angry about your boss or about school or about your family, you don't pass along that anger or bitterness or meanness to others. If you have a lousy boss, does that mean that you should be mean to your family? If you have a difficult family situation, does that mean that you should be angry with your coworkers? If you are having problems at school, does that mean that you should be cruel to your family?

Your cross is your cross. It shouldn't become someone else's.

Third, wait for the resurrection. Because in every cross there will be some invitation to new life, to a new way of relating to God, and often in a way that may not be immediately apparent.

In other words, where is the new life that God is holding out for you? And how will it come? Is it in forgiving someone in your family? Moving away from an unhealthy work environment? Letting go of something that prevented you from being more loving? Trusting in yourself a little more?

Surrendering yourself to the future that God has in store for you?

God's gift of resurrection is usually a complete surprise, just like it was for the Apostles. And just as the Apostles discovered on Easter Sunday, the resurrection does not come when you expect it. It sometimes takes a long time to come at all.

And when it does come, it's often not what you would expect it to look like.

Most of all, it's often hard to describe, because it's personal -- it's your resurrection.

When I was a Jesuit novice, I worked in a hospital for seriously ill people, and every Friday we had a little discussion group. One young woman, who had been in a wheelchair for many years told me something that completely surprised me. She said that she used to think of her chair as a cross -- which would have been my reaction -- but lately, she said, she thought of it as her resurrection.

She said, "My wheelchair helps me get around. Without it, I wouldn't be able to do anything. It brings me life."

Despite our crosses, or maybe because of them, these resurrections in our lives do come. You have Jesus's word on that.

James Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, culture editor of America and author of 'The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and My Life with the Saints.'

Grace

We briefly talked about Grace at our last meeting and I got the privilege of reading from Manning's book. Then, I can across the lyrics of this song we used to play on our page. I turned it back on. Here is the complete song by U2:

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace
It's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace makes beauty out of ugly thing

-U2