Where I Began

Recently I have forced myself to slow down, to take time and reflect on my feelings and experiences. I haven't really been that busy, but my mind does not like to slow down. I like instead to occupy myself with meaningless tasks around the house, avoiding the necessary exercise of prayer and reflection. It means I won't have to confront the fact that I'm leaving, that I am facing a huge transition in my life over the next two months. In short, I'm scared, and I would rather hide my head in the sand than look my fear in face.

Why am I afraid to go home? Maybe its anxiety about finding a job, or trying to reintegrate into American society. Maybe I am scared of how I will see my own country after a year abroad. But I think this anxiety is part of a larger, deeper fear. Truth be told, deep down I am afraid that I will forget this place. Its not a rational fear-- there is no way I could forget Northern Ireland even if I tried! The fear is rooted in the feeling that my life has been on hold-- that someone pressed the "pause" button and I flew off to Belfast for the year. I am terrified that going back home will simply unpause my life, and I'll continue on, right where I left off. I am terrified that I have not been changed by this experience. It scares me because I should be different, I should have learned, I should be changed by this experience. Is my heart really so hard? When it comes down to it I am terrified that I cannot change, that I am stuck with a heart numb to the cries of the world, so loud all around me.

But if there's any message that Jesus tries to communicate, its that change is possible. In fact, change is here: "The Kingdom of God is at hand." How easily I forget the times when God has broken my hard heart! So many times just in the past year He has cut me down to size, and thereby shown me what I could not see before. The Lord has shown me glimpses of His Kingdom here in Belfast, and I cannot be the same. Frederick Beuchner describes the experience: "For a moment it was not the world as it is that I saw but the world as it might be, as something deep within the world wants to be and is preparing to be, the way in darkness a seed prepares for growth, the way leaven works in bread." After these God-given, heart-breaking moments of perspective, I know that I can never be the same.

With this conviction, returning home becomes opportunity instead of fear. Its an opportunity to return to where I began, and see it with new eyes. There is something about growing up in a place that blinds us to its true colors sometimes; there are so many things we wouldn't even think to notice. I notice things like that about Northern Ireland, being a foreigner. But part of reverse culture shock is that one begins to see the same sorts of things about one's own culture, one's own country. Given the perspective that I have gained here in Belfast, it seems I will inevitably struggle with, and be inspired by, the experience of returning home. The Lord's Kingdom vision shines through the cracks in every culture and society. As if my entire experience abroad has not been gift enough, I have been given an even more incredible opportunity: to go back to my homeland, and to see it again for the first time.

Perspective

I have seen and done so much since I last posted, where do I begin? Perhaps with an apology to those who have been faithfully checking this website only to find old entries from months ago. I have (obviously) not continued my blogging as I said I would, spending more time 'doing' and less time reflecting on the work getting done. I spent last week in retreat with fellow volunteers at Iona, a Christian community on an island off the west coast of Scotland. Although I was expecting time to meditate, pray and reflect, we spent most of our time meeting new people and working on group art projects to be presented to the community at the end of the week. It was typical of the past month or two, in which I (consciously or unconsciously) avoided serious reflection on my time here in Belfast.

Some would say that's the way it should be-- that we should work now and worry about the rest later, but I'm not convinced. Its easier in many ways to simply work, to stay so busy that you don't have time to think. You don't have to look at yourself as much, to become aware of your feelings and reactions. You don't have to struggle to articulate ambiguous heartaches, or repent of very clear trespasses. You don't have to face the fact that your time is almost done, and deep down you don't want to, because you don't know how to say goodbye.

All I know right now is that I have been blessed beyond belief here in Belfast, in ways that are impossible to repay here and now. My only hope is that somehow the Lord will use my time here in ways that I have yet to see. At times like this it is necessary for me to regain a proper perspective on this life and the task I have been given. In the past I have found the following prayer very helpful, in which Archbishop Romero (of El Salvador) reminds us that we are only part of a much larger purpose, and that the redemption of humankind is a work in progress:


It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God'’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church'’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord'’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

On Jordan's Stormy Banks

This past Sunday morning I preached my second sermon at Whitehouse, the text of which follows:

Philippians 3:17-21

"Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself."

I must first start by saying that some of the ideas which I am about to share are not my own. Many are drawn from the thoughts of your very own Belfast man, Mr. C. S. Lewis, whom I would highly recommend as he can express these themes much more clearly than myself.

There is a story about three devils, and they were debating the best ways to lead humans astray from the light and love of God. The first devil said that they should try to distract humans from any thought about faith or the meaning of life, to keep them so occupied by the small worries of their daily lives that they have no time to stop and think. The second devil pointed out that there will inevitably be people who won’t let these matters go. “For those,” he said, “its best to convince them that Hell does not exist, that they have nothing to fear from us.” But the third devil disagreed. “No,” he said, “we should convince them that Heaven does not exist. Then they would perceive nothing higher than the world they see before them. They would have, in the end, nothing higher to live for.”

So this morning I’d like to talk about Heaven—the reality of it, our longing for it, and how that speaks to our hearts here and now.

Our first thoughts of Heaven probably bring with them some cultural baggage, the result of a strange mix of Hollywood movies and the relentless Hallmark adverts that bombard us around any and every holiday, no matter how insignificant. The very word “Heaven” might bring up images of big fluffy clouds, perhaps of angels sitting on those clouds—and by angels we often mean adorable wee babes with feathered wings—, and maybe they are strumming harps and eating Philadelphia soft cheese, and there are a large ornate gate with pearls on it, an old man standing next to it with a book, and there’s a general, vague sense of contentment about the place, and perhaps even some elevator music in the background.

To me (and maybe this is just me) it all seems rather strange, abstract, and (frankly) incredibly boring. I mean, who wants to sit around—for all eternity!—with winged babies and elevator music? Fortunately for us, these images come mostly from our culture and our imaginations. The reality, I believe, is far different.

Heaven, by definition, is beyond our understanding or experience, but all descriptions of it must be within our understanding. Thus the Bible contains dozens of descriptions and metaphors that attempt to communicate the concept and the experience of Heaven, in language we can understand. Each metaphor, in a way, modifies and corrects the others, since none are perfect. The Bible compares Heaven to the majesty of nature, to breath-taking musical symphonies, to the shining beauty of jewelry, to name a few. But these fall far short. Mount Everest, or Handel’s Messiah, or the crown jewels of England—none of these can even begin to compare to the majesty and glory of Heaven. And this is the place where, Paul tells us, our citizenship lies. Our true country, our homeland, is this place of majesty and glory. We are citizens of Heaven, and our true loyalty must lead us into the service of the King of kings, Jesus Christ Himself.

The implications of this are fundamental to our understanding of the Christian experience in this world. If that is where our true citizenship lies, then to some extent, at some level, we are travelers on this earth—pilgrims, if you will. We are foreigners living in a country that is not our own. That theme, as you might imagine, resonates well with me.

I was born and raised in the Southeastern part of the United States. I am standing here now, speaking to you as an American in Northern Ireland—a foreigner. Now, this in no way implies that I have not enjoyed being in this place. Far from it—in my ten months here, I have encountered a warmth and hospitality unmatched in any other foreign country I’ve visited—and I’ve spent time in quite a few places, those in Asia, South and Central America, and many other parts of Europe. Here in Belfast, I have made friends who inspire me with courage and integrity, friends for whom my heart breaks to watch them deal with pain and tragedy, friends who have loved me as if I was part of their own family. I have been invited into so many homes to share food and fellowship! I’ve been taken to rugby matches and motorcycle races, on tours through every part of this province. I even woke up on Christmas morning to a stocking with my name on it! Indeed, the Lord has clearly been faithful in calling me to Belfast.

But as wonderful as this place is, there are times when I feel, when I cannot avoid, a certain tugging on my heart, for home. I have a home in Belfast, certainly, but I have a deeper home, if you will, back in Florida. The house where I was born and raised, the streets where we would play as kids, the beaches we would drive to as teenagers. If you have lived in a foreign country, you may sympathize with this experience. Sometimes I feel it when I’m alone in my room, sometimes when I’m surrounded by people. My heart will simply begin to ache, and my thoughts wander back to lazy afternoons, sharing sweet tea and bbq with good friends, enjoying the hot, humid weather of North Carolina. As I wrote in my journal some months ago, this is actually a testament to the strength of the community I have found here in Belfast, which has been so welcoming, so honest, so loving, that it reminds me of my community back home. You all remind me of my friends back home, the people who have shared the laughter, the joys, the struggles, and the sorrows, the people who have shared life with me, and I with them.

There is no avoiding this feeling, this heartache. No pop-psychology that will cure it, no pat on the back that will make it go away. But honestly, I don’t think I would want to get rid of those moments where my heart longs for home, because those moments remind me that I have blessed beyond belief, both here in Belfast and back in America. Actually, it would be more worrisome if I did not miss home at all—if the family and friends who have supported me all my life left no imprint on my heart. That would be cause for concern.

I submit to you this morning that all of us, deep down, have the same some sort of longing for our true homeland…for Heaven. Perhaps we don’t think of it like that, but the desire is present somewhere in our hearts, however weak, however vague. Have you ever had the certain conviction that there must be more to life that what you see before you? Have you ever longed for something higher and greater and had no concrete idea of what you were actually longing for?

Mr. Lewis writes, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” This is perhaps a painful secret, perhaps a liberating realization. Maybe we despair when we feel this longing for our own-far off country, we feel it exposes the emptiness that lingers in this world and overwhelms our hearts sometimes. As Lewis wrote, we may “take revenge on this desire by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence … [because it is a] secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell [the secret] because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.”

Our Bible reading this morning exposes, and promises, the very thing that we most long for. It describes a central part of the experience of Heaven, perhaps the most personal and most terrifying of the promises of God. When we stand before the God and Creator of the Universe, “[Jesus Christ] will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory.” Or take the words of Isaiah: “You shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give…you shall be called My Delight Is in Her…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” Our most compelling desire, though it may be buried deep in our soul, is for our hearts to be made whole, to be purged of all our Sinfulness, our dirt, our petty ambitions and hang-ups, and to be presented noble and pure to the Lord as an acceptable offering. We were created to please God, and to share in His glory. Only in realizing this experience can our longing be fulfilled.

My question this morning is simple: do we really believe the promise of this passage? Do we really believe that, because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, the Lord does not simply pity us, but takes joy and delight in us, “as an artist delights in his work or a Father in his child”? Do we really believe that even our deepest, darkest, most embarrassing Sin, the one we work the hardest to hide, that Sin has been wiped cleaned, and forgiven. Compared to the staggering promises of God, the highest joys of this earth are a mere shadow and a distant echo, of the light and the sound of Heaven itself. As Mr. Lewis wrote, “our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

The more we trust these promises of redemption and future glory, the more patient we will be with ourselves, for we will see that Christ has already started to work within us, transforming our weak and fearful hearts through trials large and small, conforming our hearts to His.

The more we believe these truths, the more patient we will be with other people, for we will see that God has been infinitely patient with us.

The more we believe these truths, the more we will choose to admit our guilt to ourselves and to other people, because we will be secure in the knowledge that God knows the darkness of our souls and has forgiven us already. We will see that Christianity is not about hiding our true selves, but about being freed from guilt.

The more we believe these truths, the more encouraged we will be to keep the commands of God, not simply out of obligation, but out of a desire to please our Creator and our Redeemer.

Friends, believe the Good News, that in Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Take joy, that the Lord takes joy in you, and is preparing you, even now, for future glory.

Let us pray.

Still Alive!!!

Friends, a quick word just so you know: I am still alive and well, and loving every moment of this challenging experience in Belfast. Sorry its been so long since I've posted. Time constraints (or more accurately, poor time management!) over the past two months have forced me to choose between blogging and personal journaling. You can tell by the absence of blogs which option won.

However, after looking over my journal entries, I realized they're not much different than my blogs. Thus, over the next few weeks, I will be posting adapted journal entries from the past two months, to compensate for my undisciplined blogging habits. I hope you are all well in your respective locations! Thank you so much, friends, for your prayers and support- I couldn't do this without you!

Jesus is my Gatorade

I have always loved Gatorade. Its hard to find here, but its a treasure when you stumble across it on a rare trip to the giant grocery store five miles away. I don't drink Coke or coffee, just tea and Gatorade. Its not that I'm a health nut-- its that the drinks that I like happen to be healthier than others. (As they say here, "Guinness is good for you.") I like Gatorade and tea because they quench my thirst. On a hot, muggy summer afternoon in the south, Coke just doesn't do it. You need Gatorade. You need sweet tea. They don't create more thirst like syrupy carbonated drinks or coffee (even if its iced). Gatorade satisfies.

The Bible has been really refreshing recently- I'm not sure why, because its not always that way- but it has been fresh and liberating every time I open it. Being in a foreign culture means that I live with a constant sense of vulnerability, or maybe its confusion, or awkwardness, I don't know what exactly. Its not overwhelming--its a subtle feeling, underlying almost every minute of everyday. As I go through layers of cultural integration, one after the other, each deeper than the last, my life comes under the microscope. It means that a little more of the dirt in my heart is exposed everyday, and I have to stare into the face of it. Its not fun, nor is it easy. Sometimes I don't even realize how taxing it can be, until I collapse into my bed at the end of a long day.

I want to escape this examination, this microscope. Its not fun. Its not easy. I just want something that will promise to give me security, something that can handle my dirt safely. Or I want a way to forget it. So many things make one promise or the other. Girls, money, drugs--its not hard to find the escape hatch. Especially not in this neighborhood. But those aren't escapes. At the beginning they might be distractions. At the end they are slavery, and eventually self-destruction. The path from start to finish may be exciting, or it may be depressing, or both. But its not fulfilling. That much I know.

But then there are the things that promise the other--they don't claim to distract, but promise instead that they can handle all my dirt safely, that I will be secure and loved once I am in. Success and image and control and achievement and power and approval and religion. These are the things that really attract me. They are more acceptable in our society. They are not so obviously dangerous as drugs. And they make a greater claim, a higher promise. "The dangers of apparent self-sufficiency explain why Our Lord regards the vices of the feckless and dissipated so much more leniently than the vices that lead to worldly success," wrote C.S. Lewis. When all I want is something that will quench my thirst for approval and acceptance and security, the temptation of achievement and success is so very tempting.

Perhaps that's why the Bible has been so fresh these past weeks. In the midst of my temptation, my exposed heart, it tells me the story that I long to hear. It speaks directly and tells me absolutely that Jesus has taken my dirt. He has loved me as I am, not as I should be. He has taken my dirt on Himself. I want to be whole, to be blameless before God, to be the man that He has envisioned me to be. I desperately thirst for it. But with muggy temptation all around me, the coffee and Coke of my striving leaves me parched. I need something that satisfies. I need Gatorade. Jesus is my Gatorade.