I need those hugs. I need to know that I am not alone in this world trying to figure out life. This also got me thinking about how many of the people around us go without those hugs. Without knowing that the God of the universe loves them, and there are people ready to gather around them trying hard to model this perfect love.

Who do you know that needs a “hug”?

Now I just started our Financial Peace course at the church. I am so very excited because we have 10 families going through and most of them are from the community.  In the first lesson is called Super Savers and in this lesson Dave talks about discipline when it comes to managing our money. He speaks about not liking discipline, but he goes on to say that he likes the results.

So here I am trying to figure out what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and trying to be faithful to whatever that is. The whole idea of being a disciple I am noticing takes discipline. Everything from studying the scriptures, praying, and then the idea that I have been wrestling with of taking the teachings of God seriously and applying them to my life… it all takes discipline. Sometimes it is hard. However I have noticed. This becoming a pastor thing and preaching is a pretty challenging. I have had to have more discipline in reading the scriptures and prayer than before. For one thing I have 50-60 accountability partners that will be sitting in the pew waiting to here the sermon on Sunday. (This may also give a hint on how we aren’t supposed to be disciples alone – we need the accountability) Sometimes this discipline is hard. I have to make the choices to spend the time to do the work. Sure there are moments of joy watching the scripture come alive, but there are moments where I am doing the work and asking questions and looking up what others have thought about the passage.

All this to say, I have caught glimpses of the results (not so much from the working out – other than a sore body), but of this whole following Jesus thing. While despite being confronted with really hard questions about the Christian faith, I have found a deeper faith in the God that I am learning to follow.  I can’t totally say “I hate it”, BUT I can totally say I LOVE IT!

Sometimes I really just like this kind of music! I can feel this rumbling in me that wants my entire life to shout praises to God the creator at the top of my lungs – this song connects to this rumbling.

What is church?
What is a disciple?
What is at the core of being a follower of Christ?

I have asked myself many other similar questions. Some of my basic answers have been things like:

Love the Lord Your God with all your heart soul mind and strength.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Go and make disciples of Jesus Christ.

I have found myself repeating to the people of St. Paul UMC the phrase “We are called to Love and serve both God and neighbor”, because that has been my best short form answer to those questions so far. However, today that answer doesn’t seem near good enough. In the Gospel of Luke Jesus teaches something very hard that I feel like I haven’t incorporated into my little equation.  ”Love your enemies“.  I wonder if Jesus was kidding about that. Did he really mean that?  Maybe “enemies” is some kind of metaphor. Because that seems like it would radically change things.  Who could I hate, if I am to love my enemy? Who could I exclude from my life, if I am to love my enemy? Who are my enemies? Is it the people I don’t see eye-to-eye with politically? Is it people that voted different than me on NC marriage amendment? Is it someone who has challenged my faith in Christ or believes in something other than Christianity? Is my enemy someone who is just different than me ( anyone who is not male, white, married, has long hair…. )? It seems like no matter how you want to identify “enemy” in your life the challenge is radically clear – Love them!

Then what does it mean to love them? “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you“.  I almost wish this wasn’t in the Bible. Seriously. I am to be a blessing to those who hate and curse me.  I don’t think this means we keep a distance and say that southern phrase “bless their little heart” while allowing belittling thoughts to run rampant in your mind or do things to undermine them.

I guess this following Jesus business isn’t some simple thing. So there is Jesus on the cross dying after being beaten and saying things like “Father forgive them”. That sounds a good deal like enemy love to me… So I guess Jesus was serious about this.

God Almighty, I am going to need your help being your disciple if it means I am to love my enemies. Who are my enemies and how am I to love them?
-Amen 

Did you guess what it was?

You see, sometimes things don’t make sense without pulling back and seeing the larger picture.  You may have guessed it was my hairy arm and that I was wearing a black suit… but there is so much more to the story that you couldn’t know without the wider angle.

Have you ever seen those kids books or sometimes in a kid magazine that shows a picture of something really close up and you have to try and guess what it is? You would have to turn the page to figure out what it really is.
So here is a picture for you to try and guess what it is.  I will post the whole picture on Wednesday so you can see if you guess it right.

One of the things that got me thinking about this was looking back at some of the things I learned in my New Testament class we talked about reading the books and letters of the Bible as whole things(and the canon as a whole also). It wouldn’t make sense to receive a 3 page letter from a orphan in Africa that you just started being pen pals with and only grab the second page of the letter and only read three sentences from the 3rd paragraph and claim that you know what the whole letter was about.  Again and again we were encouraged to read the whole thing to help begin making sense of it.  Now it is good to study the little parts, but the little parts only make sense in the context of the whole.

I have been guilty of looking to close at things and assuming I have it figured out for most of my life of following Jesus. I have been challenged this year to both go deeper as I look close up at the details, but also to try at the same time keep a view from 10,000 feet. The trick seems to be is to keep both views in mind at the same time as we wrestle with the scriptures.

So this summer I plan on reading through the New Testament before school starts back up again in the fall.  I hope that this will help me maintain that view from the sky and not get lost in the details.  I am trusting that I will encounter God both with my feet on the ground and my head in the sky.  This morning I read the first 5 chapters of Matthew – I invite you to join me reading and trying to see things from both perspectives.

Mystery .— . … ..- … / .. … / .-.. — .-. -..

(alright, now that I have had my little break, I’ve got to get back to writing a paper and studying for finals)

In the midst of all the learning there has also been the experiences that have shaped my faith over this last year. There has been moments of reading the scripture that have come alive because I am being trained to both look close at the words, while also having an eye to the grand narrative of the scriptures. I have had someone speak to me days after the sermon and I got to hear how God had spoken through that moment.  I have been praying along with many other for a person with cancer only to find out they were healed. There has been a few times of praying over the pews at the church that God would bless the people that come, and would fill these pews with the hurting, the lost, the hungry, the needy, the outcast… . Then only to see a new person walk in and sit down the next day during worship. I have seen God change me the more and more I seek him. Some of these moments have been transcendent – where even in the midst of my deepest questions and doubts the only thing I can say is “Jesus is Lord” and be comfortable sorting through the details and questions the rest of my life.

This has been an amazing year and I thank God for bringing me this far! I am excited about all the next steps.  Thanks for being on this journey with me.

I have been praying Colossians 1:9-13 over Caleb since he was in the crib and I thank all of you that have helped participate in answering this prayer. Keep it up.

9…praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,10so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.11May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.13He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

It was very powerful to see all the faces that were there that day (even some of the saints that are now in the eternal presence of God) and reflect on how we have gotten to today. I hope and pray that Caleb(and me too) will be faithful in encouraging and supporting others in following Christ as they have been to him.

So yesterday I didn’t even mess with the heavy challenging powerful verse that says “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”  We talked about scars representing wounds that God has healed and we are called to show off those scars that represent victory, like Jesus showed off His scars.  We could have spent a good bit of time talking about how we are called to participate in bringing God’s healing to each other through forgiving each other.

Three times Jesus said “Peace be with you” in this passage. It was interesting to discover where our tradition of  ”Passing the Peace” comes from. I thought about talking about the significance of Jesus saying that three times, and how we need peace and need to follow Christ’s example and bring peace.

I am learning that sermon writing is partly about figuring out what to say, and a lot of figuring out what not to say. I am starting to see that a sermon is both a one time event, and it is a longtime relational process that builds on itself sermon after sermon for a lifetime that we share together.

I am thankful to those who have shared the process with me in the past. I am also thankful for those who are allowing me to share this process with them.