Loving People, Losing Life – The Gospel made Real

March 6, 2012 By Richard Dahlstrom 9 Comments

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.  But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Jesus the Christ

Jeremiah Small was a student who attended the Torchbearer Bible Schools, the family of schools where I am privileged to teach on a regular basis.  Jeremiah was teaching in Iraq until last week, when he was killed by one of his students, before turning the gun on himself.  An e-mail I received from one of his friends remembers Jeremiah this way:  He did much more than spread the gospel, he trained individuals to seek truth.  Seeing truth is something that Jeremiah did unlike anyone else. He committed his whole being to knowing God and wrestled to know his character with exemplary  diligence and faith.  In this news video Jeremiah’s dad speaks of his son’s life, of his passion to live life generously, courageously, fully, even if such commitments meant a shorter life.  He was 33.

I was moved by reading the perspective of a Kurdish student in this article from the Kurdistan Tribune, where he wrote:  In the classroom he taught his students a love of Literature and Humanities and encouraged them to always look for truth and seek knowledge; he spent all of his energy and time teaching, mentoring, and giving. Most importantly, he encouraged his students to pursue education as a way of giving back to their community; he was himself a servant leader and wanted to see more servant leadership in our country.

In the community he was a faithful and friendly expatriate. He cared for Kurdistan’s nature, environment, traditions, and way of life. A camera slung on his shoulder, you could spot him walking down of Mawlawi Street in his Jili Kurdi with his colleagues and students during Nawroz. He was no regular teacher; he was a mentor with immense God-given capabilities.

Our world is obsessed with economics, upward mobility, and security.  Here’s a man who cared for none of these things.  Our world is filled with arrogant pontifications, both political and theological, with acidic language becoming so commonplace that my soul’s nearly numb.  Jeremiah, it appears, didn’t care about any of it.  He  just got on with loving the people around him, challenging, serving, blessing.  On the day I read of his death, 60 minutes had yet another stories about hundreds of boys abused by priests, making me nearly throw up.  Jeremiah met people and helped them become whole.  His death comes right in the midst of this Lenten season when I’ve left behind any writings about politics and divisive issues in order to focus on one single question:  What does it mean to identify fully with Christ? Jeremiah’s life and death shed light on the answer:

Following Christ means emptying oneself. This is what sets the gospel apart from everything else I’ve ever seen.  Real faith is not some path to upward mobility, or downward mobility either for that matter.  Real faith means so fully identifying with Christ that we, like him, empty ourselves of self-seeking, self-promotion, self-preservation.  Philanthropy gives off the top, out of the margins.  Philanthropy’s good, but it’s not the Christian life.   Christ gives everything, lavishly pouring out his very life for a broken humanity, and then invites us to follow His example, noting that only those who are pouring their lives out will really find the life for which they were created.  This is paradox.  This is the core of the gospel.  In an age where the core’s gone missing, where the gospel has become “self improvement” instead of self-emptying, Jeremiah’s example shines.

Following Christ means loving. One of his students wrote: For me personally, Jeremiah Small was both a teacher and a friend. After my parents, he contributed the most to my personality and knowledge. He taught me how to turn my vision into reality and challenged me to be diligent, observing, meek, organized, and detailed.

He was also a great friend outside of the classroom; we went on numerous hikes, trips, and other outings. God knows I would not be who I am today if it was not for him and what he presented to me. I am sure hundreds of his other students feel the same way.

Jeremiah’s life and ministry of loving his students deeply, sacrificially, unconditionally, stands in stark contrast to too much of what passes for Christianity these days.  I’m chastened, humbled, challenged, by his example of delighting in his students and serving them tirelessly, for this, in the end, is the essential ingredient to making God’s good reign visible in world.  I see this love in my daughter and her work as a teacher in Germany.  I see it in friends who are caring for spouses and parents during their last days.  Would to God that all of us would grasp that this simple posture of sacrificial love, of delighting to serve the other in Jesus, is the most powerful force on the planet.

But alas, the pricetags have been switched, and the Christian machinery of the West has created a “faith” that adds activities, books, radio stations, camps, and the endless words of sermons to our lives, without necessarily calling people to empty themselves, follow Christ, take up their cross, and love deeply.  The results are loud – but not pretty.  Thank God for the Jeremiahs of the world who, without fanfare, are getting on with the work of serving and loving in Jesus’ name.   May the death of Jeremiah cause their tribe to increase.

O God of life;

You call us to pour our lives out as a sacrifice, promising that those who “lose their lives” for your sake will find them.  Thank you that Jeremiah found his life, found his true voice, found deep joy, by emptying his life.  Now, having paid the fullest sacrifice in his service to you, I pray that the example of his life will continue to “preach Christ” for generations to come, and that we who knew him in life, or only just now in death, would follow you fully as a result.  You point us to the cross, and now Jeremiah stands beside you, counted among the millions who’ve gone before to show us the way.  This is our hope and joy.

Amen

 

 

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Simpilicity- a heart’s cry during Advent

December 8, 2011 By Richard Dahlstrom Leave a Comment

My conversations with students this week here in Austria have revealed that one of the great needs of our time is a recovery of simplicity as a central value. Young people, blessed with health, wealth, and education, are sometimes paralyzed by the near infinity of choices available to them.  They stand, not at a crossroad, or even at an intersection, but at the base of an entire mountain range, with the need to choose a next step.  This abundance of choice is a mixed blessing, because there’s lots of evidence showing us that having more choices actually creates a situation where we will either choose badly or not at all.  (See this video, as well, for an excellent unpacking of this subject).

There are places in the world where people have few or no choices at all.  Their path is set out before them and there’s no way to walk anywhere other than what is ordained.  For them, the gospel offers a certain sense of freedom because Christ meets people in that situation and says, you may not be able to choose your situation, but come to me and I will enable you to live differently within the confines of your situation.  I’ll infuse you with my life in such a way that right where you are, you will be able to be a person of hope, peace, joy.  I remember meeting Christians in Rwanda and Uganda who had never traveled farther than five miles from their house.  What Christ gives them is the capacity to be people of hope for those around them in life giving ways, to embody joy, generosity, mercy, right in the midst of the only life they have, rather than wishing things were other than they are.

But for those facing “First World Problems”, they must navigate different waters.  Not only is our future uncharted, it seems that increasingly, the forces of wealth, materialism, and post-modernity have conspired to create a situation where there’s not even a map or destination.  Sexual ethics:  (live together or get married?  Vocational Choices:  (too many to mention)?  Doctrinal nuances: (evangelical, emergent, post-modern, Calvinist, neo-Calvinist, progressive, fundamentalist, liberal)?  Church life: (big church, house church, hip church, small church filled with old faithful saints)?  Diet: (Paleo, Vegetarian, Vegan, Fast Food, Slow Food)?  Politics: (Bash government with the right, or bash companies with the left)?

Wow.  No wonder people are anxious, lonely, depressed, paralyzed, cynical, divided.  Like walking through a carnival, there are barkers shouting us, telling us that this is the path we should choose.  The barkers, called marketers, know that their well being depends on our brand loyalty, so together, they create an image based world to give the illusion that everyone’s happier, holier, healthier, than we are – or most people at least.  Then they sell us products, lifestyle, and religious belief systems that promise deliverance from our insecurities, ushering us into the land promised land where we’ll have plenty; of security, or comfort, or self-esteem, or health, or whatever it is that we feel we need.

Lots of people are dropping out of the carnival, as evidenced by the minimalist movement.  They’re fighting back, resisting a culture that reduces them to nothing more than mere consumers.  I’m with them, but find that the only way out of the carnival for me is relentlessly pursue what the apostle Paul calls the “simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ”.

One Pursuit: At one point in his life Paul says that every pursuit other than knowing Christ is, for him, ultimately as worthless as a pile of dung. I’m at my best, when that’s my perspective too.  Don’t get me wrong.  The wholehearted pursuit of knowing God hasn’t led to some sort of isolationist asceticism.  Far from it, I’m struck with the profound realization that whether it’s skiing, reading the Bible, enjoying art, serving people, practicing hospitality, or enjoying a good conversation, there are endless pursuits that can, and do, help me know Christ better.  My money, recreation, marriage and sexuality are all part of that which can help me know Christ better, if that’s the goal.  At the same time, to the degree that this single pursuit is present as a foundation, there are lots of activities that I find myself doing less often, shedding pursuits and activities that are nothing more than diversions.

My favorite passage from the Bible is Jeremiah 9:23-24, because I heard it explained at a camp shortly after my dad had died.  The teaching came at a period when I was deeply depressed, and in search of some way to crawl of the cave of complexity that my life had become as it seemed that every front (family, friendships, awakening sexuality, vocational choices, spiritual realities) was imploding.  The pastor used this passage, along with the story about Mary and Martha to say that there’s really only one thing that matters, and that one thing is this:  Know Jesus intimately.

Out from this single pursuit, I was told, will come a sorting of priorities, a “wisening” of the various areas of  life, and the kind of joy that comes from saying:  “I don’t need a big house.  I don’t even need a house.  I don’t need a fancy ministry, or a title, or the best clothes, or a reputation as “somebody” in this world.  I don’t need much of anything, actually.  If the greatest joy is to be found in intimacy with Jesus, then I’m certain I can find contentment with or without any of the things this world deems necessary. With such a perspective, even a wealth person can achieve peace, freedom, and generosity.

It’s Advent, and indeed, the hectic nature of the season has me longing, ironically, for the very thing Christ came to give us:  Peace.  It’s available to all of us to the extent that Christ becomes the One simple pursuit out from which all our activities flow.

Thank you Christ, for the inviting us to simplicity.  We hunger for you, the more so in the midst of the frenzy that characterizes our days.  Meet us in our turning, and we thank for the peace that comes from fixing our gaze on you, the Light of the world.  Amen…

 

 

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Advent – It’s about the Gap, and paying attention

November 28, 2011 By Richard Dahlstrom 1 Comment

For we who follow Christ, the season of Advent is about looking squarely into the thick of our lives and our world, paying attention, and seeing what’s really there.  Like good artists, we need to pay attention to the details, because its in the details that we see the distance between what’s actually there, and what we know, deep in our hearts, could be there if all was well. In our image saturated world, we don’t pay enough attention.  Our eye catches an image of this or that, but because it feels like we’re in a video game, we move on before the meaning of any particular image has the chance to sink in and actually affect us. It works something like this:

1. you catch a report on the news about dangers that there’ll be corruption in the Egyptian election, but before you can ponder this….

2. a traffic report tells us that things are jammed up heading into downtown, especially down by the waterfront.  Immediately you’re thinking about how the new tunnel project will affect your commute, when….

3. your phone rings, and you see it’s a text from your boss, telling you that the project deadline has been moved up, and can you plan on staying late tonight…

4. while you’re thinking about how to break the news about late work tonight to your spouse, you completely miss the report on the radio about the financial crisis in Europe and the dangers of what will happen if those 17 countries can’t solve their problems.  Instead you’ve move on towards the problems in your marriage because of the ‘late working’ news you need to break, and are thinking about how the trust has eroded, wondering if you should take a class together, or read a book or something, when….

5. you hear the weather report, that there will be fresh snow in the mountains this Friday, that the skiing will be good.  Your mind goes there, leaving the problems of the marriage and work and world behind, and as the next report from Somalia begins to unfold, you change the channel, looking for something, anything, that will shift your gaze away from the gaps in our world, in your world.

That might be too bad, because these gaps are priceless. They reveal the distance between the world that is, and that world for which we’re created.   I only call them gaps, in fact, because we know, deep within ourselves, that we’re made for something more.

We’re made for intimacy, but we often settle for far less – in our marriages, with our children, with our parents.

We’re made for generosity, but we find ourselves, too often, closed fisted and greedy, with our time and money.

We’re made for peace, but anxiety keeps us awake some nights, as we fret over money, vocation, relationships, and so much more.

We’re made to be people of justice, yet we find ourselves, at time, party to the oppression that keeps billions locked in poverty and want.

We see our wars, our addictions, our pain, our shame, our failure – but we only see it if we’re really looking, really paying attention. This seeing creates longings for things to be other than they are. I call it “holy discontent”, and it’s actually a great gift because until I’m walking in darkness I’ll not long for the light.  Until I stare the suffering and pain of this broken world right in the face, paying attention to every detail, I’ll continue to wander aimlessly through some “Disneyland” of my own making, where the rides are the next good concert, or restaurant, or party.  Stay busy enough, and I’ll never need to face the longings of my own heart for simplicity, peace, joy, and  a better world.  I’ll lower the bar, defining the good life as purchasable, either on the ski slopes, or at the mall, knowing all the while that we’ve tortured the word good, sucking the life out of it and making it fit our smaller ambitions.

There’s a better way, and it has to do with leaning into our longings, rather than avoiding them.  In my own life, this advent season has me terribly aware of my own tendencies towards anxiety.  In times past, it seems that I’ve been able to avoid this sad realization for one reason or another, but this advent season, I’ve felt (for personal reasons) as if I’m carrying a gigantic load.  At times it’s affected my sleep, even my appetite!  There are things going on (not in the church that I pastor, or my marriage, but elsewhere in my life) that I simply can’t control, and my tendencies to worry come bubbling to surface.

And so I long for peace…I pray for it; I practice appropriating it in my situation by applying these principles; I ask for prayer.  This is how I find myself leaning into my longings and staring into the gap.  “Come Lord Jesus!  Fill my heart with the gift of your peace.”  I’m longing, praying, waiting, receiving.  This is advent.

To lean into your longings, you’re going to need to pay attention to them. That will be more painful than continuing to try and live in Disneyland – I’m just warning you.  In the end, though, God will meet you right in the midst of your longings.  Don’t numb them with drugs and entertainment.  Don’t kill them with over-activity, and tinny Christian ‘right answers’.  Lean into them – and cry out for the coming of Messiah in your situation, in our global situation.  This, not shopping, is my advent of choice.

 

 

 

 

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Gratitude: The ‘on ramp’ to a better story & better world

November 23, 2011 By Richard Dahlstrom Leave a Comment

The upward spiral of gratitude. Find the on ramp!

God knows there are plenty of problems and challenges, both around us in our own homes.  It’s easy focus there, fighting our battles, or looking on in despair, anger, or cynicism as others, who are supposed to be fighting battles for us, don’t.  The super committee isn’t so super after all.  A nuclear Iran and a sluggish economy threaten;  An Arab spring appears to be settling in for a long Arab winter of discontent; A Euro whose future is uncertain creates anxiety.  And all the while, back in our homes, there are personal tragedies, or diseases, or addictions, or betrayals, or we just don’t like our job anymore, or we’re bored.  Yes, there are plenty of problems.

None of this is news.  But how we react to it all is newsworthy, because in spite of it all, God invites us to practice gratitude on a daily, moment by moment basis.  In fact, God explains that the root cause of so much that pains and grieves us stems from our failure to practice gratitude.  In other words, our ingratitude over the simplest gifts that are breaking into our lives has the affect of creating a downward spiral.  Ingratitude leads to loss of trust in our relationship with God.  This leads to a loss of intimacy.  And, as with any relationship where intimacy is lacking, we find ourselves looking to fill the void that’s left.  We will, in other words, worship something. The story of Genesis 3 follows this pattern.  It’s only when Eve begins to doubt the goodness of God that her appetites rise up and take control of her choices.  This danger is articulated in I John as well, where we discover that it’s our appetites that are only too willing to take the reigns and fill our lives with that which leads to emptiness.  The emptiness begs to be filled, and so there we go, off on a downward spiral towards bad choices, as we move farther from God’s far better story.

Suddenly our appetites are running the show.  “Buy that!”  “Eat those”  “Sleep with her” “Indulge that fantasy!” They’re shouting and to the extent that we’re discontent, we’re listening.  Then, off we go, in search of filling the void.  In making our appetites king, we’ve become disobedient to God, and the fruit of disobedience is that we find ourselves falling short of the life for which we were created – a life of blessing, peace, joy, generosity, justice.

This downward spiral, according to many places in the Bible, begins with our whining, our inability to be people of gratitude.  The good news is that the opposite is also true:  The on-ramp to God’s better story starts with this simple perspective:  Develop Gratitude!  Pay attention to God’s daily gifts and give thanks. HERE’S WHY.

1. When we way pay attention to God’s gifts, and give thanks, gratitude leads to intimacy with God. God becomes trustworthy, and we come to view God as good – even though we don’t understand, or even like, everything about the way God runs the universe.  We can point to the gift of life, water, the brilliance of creation, and myriads of momentary gifts, ‘snapshots of grace’ I call them – as we hug our children, navigate fresh powder, enjoy a good night’s sleep, and so much more.

2. Intimacy leads to contentment.  What, after all, do we really need, in order to be content.  God is bold enough to say, “not much”.  God is right, but only if our relationship with God is strong enough that we sense and enjoy fulness because of God.

3. Contentment leads to Obedience.   Somehow it’s true that when our relationship with God is working well (and of course, that ebbs and flows like any relationship) it’s easier to step into the life God has for us.  Our contentment opens up space of heart, time, and wallet – and we’re able to be the presence of Jesus in specific ways that we usually don’t enter when our life is full of our own agenda.

4. Obedience leads to Life – When we’re walking more fully in God’s story, we come to the simple discovery that this is the life for which we’re created.  We’re using our gifts, serving others, practicing hospitality, enjoying creation, loving people, whatever it is in the moment.  And we thing to ourselves:   “This is the abundance of which Jesus spoke.  This is fulness of joy.  This is when the joy that comes on the far side of cross.  This is resurrection life.”

5. Life leads to Gratitude... and as the former announcer for the Seattle Mariners said famously during their shining moments of glory:  “I don’t believe it!  It just continues.  My O My!”

Just Continues indeed… may you find more than an extra slice of dark meat this Thanksgiving, more than a special deal on “Black Friday”.  May you find instead, the gift we all need the most, and fan it into flame – namely the capacity to see the gifts all around us every day, and give thanks to God.

 

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