TATTOO on the HEART

Compassion Re-Defined…

// January 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // OUT LOUD THOUGHTS

I guess I’ve been pretty surprised to learn that there are so many Christians living around Ocean Beach, and I say that because I’ve never seen a presence in the community.

I was talking to God about it the other day when I was walking to work, and I sensed God say, “Yeah, there are a lot of Christians here, but they have no influence.”

I would have stopped dead in my tracks had I not been walking uphill at the time. Because I knew God
wasn’t talking about influence in a worldly sense, like legislating morality, keeping a new bar from opening up, or electing President Bush. He was referring to a legitimate Presence in the community. And that is a presence of bumper stickers and Jesus fish, but literally His Presence in us that brings radical change.
There are people who call themselves the followers of Christ, but if they don’t do the same things that He did and if the lives that are exposed to them aren’t changing, then what they are doing is something else.

It all comes down to something very simple: LOVE.

Because I think if we had a focus group or survey of the random sampling of Christians in the neighborhoods around me, I don’t really think that people have raised the white flag of surrender as much as they’ve raised their shoulders and said, “I just don’t care.” Because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether or not we truly loved.

Two big commandments: Love God. Love People.

You see if we truly love people it will force us to act on God’s behalf. People who have to make lame excuses for why they don’t get involved with the plight of other people simply just do not care. It’s much easier to say, that’s not my job, it’s not my calling.

You know when I watch Jesus, I just see Him relating to whatever came His way. Love was His mantra, His belief, His reason, His call to action. He came to earth because of Love. There was no other reason to be here.

I think we forget a lot that we’re supposed to love people. The fact that we’re supposed
to love people like we love ourselves, and some other really difficult things like
loving our enemies, seem like impossible tasks. And there’s good reason for feeling like it’s impossible. Do you know why? Because it is. It’s not humanly possible to love people sacrificially and by choice regardless if they hate us.

Love for people, just like everything in the mission, is based on response. We can only love people as much as we have truly experienced the love of God. That’s why you see Scriptures that tell us to forgive as Christ forgave us, love your wife like Christ loved the Church. Our depth of knowledge and experience is what enables us to respond. I think people who have a difficult time forgiving, have never experienced forgiveness. I think people who are selfish, greedy graspers, who aren’t lovingly generous have not experienced the generosity of God. People who are reckless tyrants don’t know and haven’t experienced the patience and unconditional love of God. The mission is fueled by love from God for us. It changes us, and the overflow of that love is redirected toward the world.

We all know that we’re supposed to care. We know we should love people. I think maybe we underestimate love. We don’t realize how it could change the world, or how a fuller expression of it could change us.

Do you think you know God? Do you think you know His love?

For years, I ran past this verse as I read through the book of Matthew. It never jumped out to me because I hadn’t really experienced God’s love for me, nor knew how that could impact me to change the world.

Matthew 9:36
“Seeing the people, [Jesus] felt compassion for them.”

In the book, Organic Church, Neil Cole brought this verse to life:

“…The busier I get, the less I care about others. When Jesus saw the crowds, He saw more than an obstacle getting in the way of His mission. He saw His mission, and He felt compassion for them. For Jesus however, His body reacted to His compassion. It was an immediate and physical response. He felt it. Actually, in the original language this is one word: splancthna. The word for compassion is quite descriptive; it literally means “bowels.” There is good reason for using this descriptive word. When you feel really emotional, where do you feel it? The first time we men picked up the phone to call a special girl and ask her out, we felt it in our splancthna. When the doctor has crushing news from the results of your blood test or biopsy, you feel it first in your splancthna.

So when Jesus saw all the people, His breath was taken away. He was hit in the solar plexus. He was bent over in discomfort.

The Bible reveals why He felt compassion for them. It is because He saw them as distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd. The two words translated “distressed” and “downcast” are also highly descriptive. They are violent words. Distressed can be translated as “harassed,” or even as molested.” The word downcast is a wrestling term that can be translated as “pinned down by force.”

If we really saw people like this, there’s no doubt we’d be motivated. We’re so hesitant. We’re so, frankly, uncaring that we don’t get involved. We’re afraid; we’re too busy; we don’t want to be inconvenienced; or we don’t want to involve ourselves in personal matters.

If there was a child across your street that you knew was being molested, you would get involved. Fear, being late for work, being inconvenienced, getting too personally involved would not be a concern of yours. 90 year old grannies would march across the street with a walker and kick the front door down to save the child.

What kind of Jesus followers would we be, what kind of impact, how world changing would it be if became people who felt the expression of love that Jesus has for each person on the planet. Do you think that could make a difference? I do. I know I want to love like that. I have to admit I’m not there yet. But I’m asking God to work that in me. It’s not possible up to me, but by His grace and the power of His Spirit, it can happen.

And it can happen for you as well, when you experience His love, when you get to know Him, when you quit trying to force it and lean in to His grace and rely on His power.

You see, I look at the world – everywhere God’s Kingdom hasn’t been announced – that is, everywhere there’s not freedom, everywhere there is brokenness, people hurting, hungry, taken against their wills, oppressed – you know you don’t have to even look at Africa or some 3rd world country to find that. Those people are your neighbors, they’re my neighbors. I pass them on the street. I buy milk from them.

One of my own friends said that we shouldn’t make people think that our calling is their calling. I have no idea what that meant. All I know is, to be a Jesus follower, you have to care about the same things He cared about. You have to love everybody sacrificially. And it’s in those places where the world-changing kinda stuff breaks out.

It’s when and where we would be people who are unexplainable. People being people who they just couldn’t on their own. Not weird. Naturally Supernatural.

I don’t know. I just have this belief is this burden in my heart for whole communities that could be changed if we saw those communities like Jesus did, if we’d pray about the same things that He’d pray about, if we’d ACT on the things that He would act on.

If we’d make that unseen reality, real.

Then we’d be telling a great story with our lives. The world would change.

My wife amazes me…

// January 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // OUT LOUD THOUGHTS

Jessica was running a quick errand on Saturday and ended up running into a couple outside of Target.  We’d actually met the guy, Duke before.  He had a great job in construction that was cut and now he’s literally on the street trying to care for his wife who has a horrible case of diabetes and expensive medications.  Jessica called me up and asked me what we could do.  And I told her we’re going to do everything we can which we both knew was really falling short of what we wanted to.

Jessica took the wife into a nearby grocery story and purchased the items they needed most.  But then she did something a little more surprising: She joined them on the corner of the street to help them get money from people driving by.

I’m shaking my head right now in amazement even as I type this and my lungs are filling with life even though I haven’t taken a breath.  I guess it’s one thing to throw a dollar at someone, and maybe it’s a little more to go into a grocery store and inconvenience yourself with time and spend money, perhaps it’s more meaningful to actually bring that person into the store with you and allow them to pick their own items and treat them like human beings.  It’s quite another thing to identify with and become one of them and to bear the burden and ask for spare change.

My wife amazes me.  She was a lot like Jesus this weekend.  Not that she isn’t usually, it’s that I love to share that beauty with the world – to take a step back and look with awe and wonder.  The fact that I know she was enduring physical pain as she stood out there makes the situation that much more inspiring to me.

It was more important to her not to just give, or to humanize, but to identify with – to become incarnate.

I’m reminded that nothing was good enough for Jesus either – except to experience, live and breath the struggles of humanity.  Only His total incarnation could save humanity.  Only when He would experience the depths of brokenness and rise up victorious could He empower us to be transformed and be like Him.

I’ve got so much to learn.

Hebrews 10:32-34

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.

Losing ourselves to find ourselves

// January 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // OUT LOUD THOUGHTS

First, he criticized the long-term perspective of Obama’s plan, saying essentially, “He’s buying himself time, but if he doesn’t produce results in the short-run congress will turn on him.” That may indeed be true of congress, but if it’s true of the American people, we’re sunk as a nation. Unless the populace can begin to see past their own pocketbooks to the bigger picture we’ll continue to bankrupt ourselves in every way.

Second, concerning the state of the economy he summarized, “Americans are buying only what they need, and that is no path to prosperity

Ugh. If we’re hoping to get back on the treadmill of insane, unfettered economic growth based on a smothering deluge of consumer crap, we’re sunk. What America needs on the whole is the same thing every American needs as an individual; a moral economy of just, reasonable, and sustainable prosperity…”- Jason Coker

My friend Jason wrote this yesterday in response to the Obama speech. Essentially the conclusion is that – not only if something is done by legislators – if the average American can’t live in a completely different kind of way, then we’re sunk.

And you know what I think? I think we are sunk.

Check this out:

Matthew 7:24-27
So everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts upon them [obeying them] will be like a [a]sensible (prudent, practical, wise) man who built his house upon the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a stupid (foolish) man who built his house upon the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell–and great and complete was the fall of it.

Now I’m not a doom and gloom prophet that’s not what this is about. But what Jesus was saying here is that whatever is your god or whatever is your object of trust – whatever you find comfort and security in – and particularly where you lock your heart – if it’s the wrong thing then there is going to total collapse.
And I think for a while now in the United States, that place of comfort, security, and maybe even passion has been things – possessions, comfort, toys. We’ve used those things to validate our success, to define ourselves, and often to justify our existence. And when those things are taken away what are we left with? We’ve lost ourselves, our dreams are crushed, and we move to desperation and depression. In reality that’s who we are in our brokenness with God, but we can insulate and numb ourselves with the stuff. And when the stuff is gone, there is a tremendous identity crisis.

Right now, the average American spends something like $1.25 for every dollar they make. If you told the average American to just save a penny on the dollar and don’t spend over that, can you imagine what a lifestyle shift that would create. Smaller homes, fewer cars, toys, vacations, presents at Christmas. But it’s going to take much more sacrifice than that to get things back in order.

And you know what? No one is going to be willing to do that? You know why? Because when the toys go out the window so does the identity. How will they define themselves now? And so that leads to depression and desperation.

My prediction: people will spend and spend until things collapse.

Some people’s situations are already collapsing. They see the writing on the wall. And rather than deal with the loss, desperation, and identity crisis, they will resort to taking their own lives. I’m sorry, but it will happen.

Last night when Jessica and I went to bed we were talking about these very things. She brought up her conversation with her late grandmother who lived during the depression – the first one, not this one. And she told Jessica how they just took care of people with what they had. Her grandparents were both strong Christians – Catholic Charismatics, in fact. And with all the knocks on the Catholic Church through the years, there’s no doubt that the Catholic Church has reached out to the poor and less fortunate. It’s part of their DNA.

The thing is that it was supposed to be part of the DNA of the universal church that Jesus started. And in the middle of this economic crisis, the Church has yet to respond. Oh, I’ve watched churches do their nice little financial series, but that is such a joke when the bigger issue is an identity crisis. If God hasn’t defined, validated, and secured us then we’re doomed.

The Church has a really difficult time responding though, because the average local church has overextended itself with brilliant weekend services, state-of-the-art facilities, expensive programs and the like and can’t even come up with a couple of extra bucks to help a single family pay a light bill.

And you know what? The programs won’t go away. They’ll keep sucking dollars and we’ll keep selling this soft serve Christianity.

And the average Christian family will go down the tubes as well because we’ve reinforced this whole concept of prosperity by propping it up with the cross. The problem is that the Jesus I know was always calling people to leave stuff, to sacrifice, and to give up your whole life. When’s the last time you heard the word “sacrifice” in church. We’re too scared to do that.

I’m not being negative here at all. I sometimes refer to myself as the pimple on the butt of the Church. You’ve got to squeeze me, sit on your other cheek, or pretend I’m not there, but we’ve got to confront where we’re living.

You see, there used to be this Church who defined themselves in a very different way. And if they didn’t possess the money or means to help someone, they’d actually do without themselves – even selling their own “things” – so that they could meet needs. [Acts 2:43-47]

You see they were truly losing “themselves” for people. Isn’t that an incredible picture? Because that’s what is happening to people across the country unwillingly – they are losing themselves. But this Church that are our ancestors now, they willingly lost themselves for others.

I have some people close to me who’ve recently lost jobs and are losing stuff. They have medical issues, they have risky living situations. And their very churches – their local family – isn’t even responding. I half-think that it’s because they can’t. They can’t because they’re overextended, but they can’t because they’re unwilling to lose themselves to do it. It might mean they have to sell something or downsize their house or miss a meal.

If ministry to the poor isn’t something that you think is a priority to being a Christian, then I guess we’re going to minister to fewer and fewer people because there are about to be some new poor people.

Tell me: forget the government – how are you going to respond to 2.6 million lost jobs this past year? If you are a Christian it’s your job description to respond no matter what it costs you.

Obama talks about who Americans have always been and how they used to respond. I don’t think the average contemporary American can even respond to that.

I’d like to have the dream about who the Church could be again. It’s in our DNA. And if we have any Holy Spirit in us at all, we have to be defined by something else other than things. We shouldn’t have an identity crisis. And we should be moved and broken over the same things that He is moved and broken over. And I know that God’s heart is with the people who are hurting and losing everything right now, and He wants to be able to answer their prayers, hear their cries in desperation and show up and save the day. Meanwhile, we’re too busy trying to save our stuff and missing the beat of His heart.

I’m not sitting around and waiting on some Christian leader to give me permission to act. The collapse is on its way. And we need to be able to respond.

And you know what ? This is a beautiful, exciting time. Because when all the stuff is stripped away and the layers come off and we are laid bare, then the condition of souls are going to be looking for the true Remedy. And we can bring it because we’ve known Him all along. [look back at that Scripture in Acts]

But we’ve got to be able to feed and to clothe and probably give up a lot of our stuff to do it.

Are you ready? I’m chomping at the bit.

Got a light?…

// January 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // OUT LOUD THOUGHTS

I don’t smoke. 
I wish I did.

I see all these people who share in this special community.  Some of them have found themselves on the outside looking in.  They used to be welcome inside public establishments – even airplanes – but now even outdoors they’re regulated and pushed aside to places where they can light up.

It’s a unique camaraderie that I’ve observed through coffee shop glass where the place of the disenfranchised hunch over to shield their Bics from the wind and exposing their bodies to the elements for a momentary break from life and a gasp of nicotinated relief.

I don’t smoke.
But I wish I did.

Then I could join in and share the conversation of this community.  I’ve tried to hang out with them before.  But I couldn’t stand their smoke or the smell.  The smoke singed the membrane in my nasal cavity and I was too noticeable when I flinched everytime smoke was exhaled.

I really wanted to get close.  To hear their stories.  To engage in their conversation.  Just to get a closer listen to the words I’ve never heard.  It’s not that I’m not allowed, it’s that I just won’t go there.  I can’t go there.  Because I’ll get their smoke on me.  As soon as I get in that zone, they’ll notice.  I’ll come off insincere, and they whole situation will be awkward.  I’ll be just like the rest who kick them out of their stores, off their planes, away from their doors…

Every now and then I get somehow mistaken for someone who  does smoke.  People look into my eyes and ask, “Do you have a light?”  I politely tell them, “No.”  Embarrassed they shuffle away and seem to cower.

I don’t smoke.
But I wish I did.

I find it fascinating that of all things miraculous that could’ve been chosen – restoring sight, making a limb grow, bringing someone back to life – that Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine.  It bugs some people.  It’s bugged some people so badly that they’ve written and pre-supposed about this miracle trying to make an excuse for why Jesus would do such a thing for His first public display of supernatural power. My opinion is that some people have just thought too much about it and certainly read more into it.   Many Christians feel the need to even make excuses for Jesus or to go at length to prove that Jesus was pumping out some really fine Welch’s grape juice.

What if Jesus’ first miracle was just what it was: the people ran out of wine early in the wedding feast – which would have been an embarrassment – and Jesus got into the wine business for a day. 

I think we’re uncomfortable with that.

I think we’re uncomfortable with the fact that Jesus was too comfortable in this situation. 

But I think this miracle precedes everything else miraculous that Jesus would do to point us to something incredibly beautiful about Jesus – that He was so at home being both God and Man  – both Spirit and Flesh.  Jesus never shied away from His humanity.  People were blown away and even rejected the fact that He could be Messiah because He was so human.  He built houses and furniture.  He blistered just like everybody else.  He sweat.  He had body odor.

I wonder how repulsed and how offended Christians would be today if they saw their Leader – their namesake hanging out in the area reserved for smokers or watching the NFL playoffs at Gallagher’s Bar.
Somehow, that One who knew no sin would be there – fitting in mind you.

I spent my whole professional ministry career working for user-friendly megachurches who specialized in being seeker sensitive, non-church, and practical. And even in those environments where we referred to ourselves as “outwardly focused,” we spent the vast majority of our time looking out the window at the people smoking cigarettes – not even close enough to get the whiff of smoke – but assuming what their thoughts, cares, and conversations might be.

And so we concocted this version of Jesus and this message that would be tailored to them without ever having to get smoke on our clothes. 

No one ever suspected that living in our 4 walls for 50 hours a week was effectively stripping the gift of humanity right off the bones.  Sadly, the average pastor doesn’t even realize that their “relevant” and “real” conversation is neither.  And a smoker doesn’t even need to see your Rembrandt smile to figure out that it’s not even authentic either.

I just think Jesus was so amazing because here is the essence of true Perfection and He fit right in.  The teachings He spoke were built into the framework of the everyday common life.  He was believable.  He was real and authentic.  And most importantly, He loved and desired a relationship with them and that made Him relevant to everyone.
There was a time that we as followers of Jesus were known as the “Church” – literally “sent ones.”  We weren’t gatherers of people to a building, but we were people who lived among – naturally supernatural people – spiritually transformed people who were sharing a human experience.

When I was a small child growing up in church we used to sing this song called, “This little light of mine.”  The point of the song was that we weren’t supposed to hide our light and we weren’t supposed to let Satan blow it out.  What the song never taught us was where to bring the light.  Because a light in an already lit room doesn’t really do much – it’s pretty much drowned out.

But a light in a dark place – the brilliance of a single light in the darkest of night captures everyone’s attention.  Its luminance draws. It’s noticeable.  It brings hope.

You want the truth?  I’m proud of the fact that people ask me for a light when I walk down the street and when I pass by those places that are meant for the disenfranchised.  I think there’s something in my eyes that people notice.  They don’t see my Rembrandt smile anymore.  They see my humanity.  And I still don’t smoke even though I may smell like it.  I carry a lighter in my pocket for those moments when I’m invited to share their human experience.  I sit on the steps of their life and engage their conversation because I truly am one of them.  The difference between myself and them is that – for the moment – I have a Light.

Sunday picnic…

// January 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // EVERYDAY LIFE

The family and I decided we’d do an outing to the beach. It was a pleasant day sunny and in the 60′s. We decided we’d make a picnic on the beach with tea, a few PBJ’s, and Doritos. Ocean Beach has this really neat stretch of beach where you can bring your dog aptly called, “Dog Beach.” It’s one of the most varied assortment of dogs you’ve ever seen in your life: big dogs, small dogs, slobbery dogs, mutts, pure breeds, special needs dogs – they’re all there. We don’t actually have a dog right now, but it’s cool to let the kids pet and play with any kind of dog they want and to be okay with the fact that they want zero responsibility with one and to be even more happy with the fact that their lack of responsibility doesn’t mean that I have to go pick up poop.

As soon as we pulled in the parking lot, I went to jump out but Jessica quickly directed us to the area on the opposite side of a lifeguard tower – the non-dog beach side. “You don’t want to try to have a picnic with a 100 dogs around,” she advised.

I thought that was a good plan, so we settled in a spot roughly 25 feet from dog beach that’s separated by a little hill. Moments later we had some uninvited guests – seagulls. But these weren’t the typical seagulls that just walk around and beg – these were hovering, diving, and circling us at a very uncomfortable altitude. I thought I’d defend my family, so I hopped up and grabbed handfuls of sand and chunked it at them. Hey, I would’ve grabbed something bigger like a jagged rock, but we’re in California. You can get incarcerated for life for something like that.

Jessica yelled, “Stop throwing sand, they’re going to think that you’re throwing food at them!” I don’t know how true that was, but the seagulls remained persistent. We all tried scarfing down our PBJ’s. That is, all of us except Jadyn – she was taking her time and kinda standing around. All of a sudden, one of the seagulls made this crazy swoop down to steal the sandwich from Jadyn, unfortunately, it totally missed the sandwich and snatched Jadyn’s thumb. Jadyn’s feet instantly left the ground and her body was being carried away by a seagull!…Not really, but that would have been an amazing story. Actually Jadyn’s thumb did get bitten, but stayed attached. She was pretty freaked out and instantly wanted to get that sandwich out of her hand. So I took it from her and heaved it about 10 yards away.

With the birds distracted, Jessica gave me the bag of food and I made a mad dash back to the parking lot. It didn’t fool the birds though – they all chased after me until I got to the van and slammed the door shut.

Looking back, I wonder what our chances would’ve been on Dog Beach. I noticed there were no seagulls over there.

Jadyn in much happier times several minutes after seagull incident.