Pastor Judy's Blog

Counting the Stars

This time of year many college students begin to contemplate the end of their academic career. The unknowns are many, the uncertainty overwhelming and anxiety is a constant companion. "What do I really want to do after I graduate? Can I even get a job? Should I move back home and save money or save my sanity and get an apartment?" But this kind of anxiety about the future isn't reserved for about-to-be graduates, in fact, most of us wonder fairly frequently about what's going to happen next.

This past weekend I had the privilege of speaking to several hundred high school students at a youth retreat in Colorado. During our Saturday night session I spoke from Genesis 15, a chapter from which I have spoken many times. In this chapter Abram has a conversation with God about his future. Abram is anxious about the next phase of his life because he has no children and the plans of God for him to become a great nation seem impossible without offspring.

It is then that God himself comes to Abram and takes him outside and says "Look up at the heavens and count the stars - if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be." God also reaffirms his promise to Abram saying, "I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." This is the kind of God I love to be around. The One who comes to me personally to reassure me about my future, the One puts his arm around my shoulder and reminds me that that he can create things out of nothing, the One who reaffirms his promise to me to make all things well. But Abram isn't satisfied with just the promises. Abram wants proof that this is all going to play out according to plan. "O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?"

How many times have you been in this exact place...the place that knows the promise but lacks the proof? The place that believes God but, wishes for some tangible evidence that life will work out? How often have you felt like the father in Mark chapter 9 who wants to see his child healed but has difficulty hanging on to the hope, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief."

The interesting thing is that when Abram asks the Lord for confirmation that the promises are true God does not simply show him a video clip from the future or bring the promise to pass that very moment. Rather, God asks Abram for a sacrifice. "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." When Abram seeks confirmation about God's commitment to him God seeks confirmation of Abram's commitment in return. "Bring me a sacrifice."

So often we want to know all of God's blessings and all of God's provision without bringing a sacrifice. We like the God who puts his arm around our shoulder and promises good stuff. We like the God who comes to us personally and reaffirms the plan. But, if we hope to move faithfully into the future we must also fall in love with the God who calls us to sacrifice.

As we move together through this season of Lent and toward the cross of Jesus Christ it is good for us to remember that sacrifice has always been a part of how God has worked in the lives of his people. One quick reminder as we continue this journey, God gets to choose the sacrifice. God has always been specific with his people about what he wants from them, "a heifer, a goat and a ram, a dove and young pigeon," he says to Abram. And through the prophets he speaks even more directly, "What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

In the conclusion of my Saturday night talk at the high school retreat I challenged the students to consider what their specific sacrifice looked like. After the session a young man asked if he could speak to me privately. The following morning we met for a cup of tea and he said, "What do you do if God is asking for your entire life? I think that's what God said to me last night. I think God wants my whole life to be a sacrifice." Tears flooded my eyes as I looked at this young man who was responding to God's call for his future and with renewed conviction about my own life I said, "Yes, I believe that is what God wants from all of us."

The Organic Experience

Several weeks ago I took a trip to a local grocery store. I placed a bunch of bananas in my cart and I picked out a few apples, threw in a bag of carrots and grabbed a few peppers. I was feeling so healthy until I saw in the distance a sign that said "Organic". I looked down at my bananas and apples and suddenly they didn't seem as good. Perhaps I could even see a spot of pesticide on the peel of my apple. I looked back at the "Organic" sign that was nicely framed by a picture of a farm and I began to think about the origin of my carrots and peppers. There wasn't a picture above them, no barn, no field and no farmer on a tractor. As far as I knew they could have been made in a factory or at best forced off the tree or out the ground before they were ready to leave their nurturing environment.

I put back my produce and pushed the cart over to organic section. As I placed my organic produce into my cart I felt pleased with myself. No more additives, forget the pesticides, gone with the mass production, I would become someone who ate all natural products...and then I looked at the price. Come to find out, being this healthy was going to cost me a lot more than I was used to spending. All of sudden there in the produce section I was in an ethical dilemma. Do I buy organic and help the world by ridding it of pesticides? Or do I save my money and give it to someone who needs to eat today? If I say that organic is the only way what does that mean for people in this city that don't have an organic produce section in their neighborhood? Should they drive and what would be a reasonable amount of emissions to produce in exchange for produce? And what about people who simply can't afford it? I felt torn as I stood in that aisle, caught between two principles and not sure how to make the choice.

I bet you're hoping I will now give you the biblical answer to these questions so that you no longer have to sit in the tension between the two. But I don't have the answers or perhaps I have the answers for both. Actually my hope this morning is just that you and I would sit in the tension between the organic and the deliberately produced. My reason for raising this tension is because I believe this is a quandary that we are sitting in not only in the aisle of the produce section but in the aisles of our churches as well.

In recent years, perhaps even over the past several decades much of the protestant church has moved toward the "organic" experience. Many worshippers are not interested in engaging anything that doesn't seem all natural, meaning of course that at that moment "it feels like what I would naturally do and there is nothing forced about it." As a result many protestant churches have tried to create a worship environment that caters to the worshipper and their natural affinities. I must say, I'm not sure that this has been entirely beneficial. First of all, I'm not sure worship is about the worshipper but rather the One being worshipped. And secondly, if faith is reduced to only what we would naturally feel like doing we are all going to be in trouble.

While I have been raised in and appreciate a church that cared for me as an individual worshipper and I am thankful for the experiences I have had before God that have arisen out of an organic move of my spirit as it joined with a Spirit that blows where it wills. I must admit that I am equally grateful for the deliberate disciplines that have been offered to me through my Catholic, Orthodox and main-line Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ. When I don't feel worship rising up from within me and I don't have the words to pray. When I'm not sure how to connect with God and nothing good is growing out of my natural environment I am grateful that not everything has to be organic and that the deliberate has redemptive qualities as well.

This Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the 40-day journey towards Easter (Sundays are not included in the count). Lent is a time when many Christians deliberately prepare for Easter by observing a period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline, not because such things are all natural, but precisely because they are not. Historically Lent was a season in the church where people prepared themselves for baptism and the preparation for entering this life as a follower of Christ required that each individual understood in their flesh that becoming a Christian required discipline, denial, and deliberateness. Each year even after their personal baptism members of the church entered into this season again to re-member, to put back into membership, their deliberate commitment to follow Christ

Lent is a clear call to conversion, to that movement away from sin and toward Christ, a movement that we have to embrace over and over again throughout our lives. We begin this season by the celebration of Ash Wednesday where ashes are placed on our foreheads during a time of worship in which we deliberately commit to the dying of ourselves and our sinfulness in anticipation of the rising of Christ at Easter and the ultimate resurrection of our own bodies. We don't wear the ashes to proclaim our natural organic holiness but to acknowledge that we are naturally a community of sinners in need of repentance and in constant need of God's mercy and grace.

When we receive ashes on our foreheads, we remember who we are. We remember that we are creatures of the earth ("Remember that you are dust"). We remember that we are mortal beings ("and to dust you will return"). We remember that we are baptized with Christ who was willing to die and we remember that we are people on a journey of conversion ("Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel"). We remember that we are members of the body of Christ (and that smudge on our foreheads will proclaim that identity to others, too). Renewing our sense of who we really are before God is the core of the Lenten experience. It is so easy to forget our identity and fall into habits of sin, ways of thinking and living that are contrary to God's will, so today we begin a deliberate journey through this season of Lent looking forward to the day that our faith might be fully organic.

Performance and Perfection

I like my world to be programmed and planned.
I like to have schedules and files in hand.
I know where I’m headed, my purpose is clear.
Don’t mess with perfection when Judy is here.

For some people perfection is about productivity
For others it’s just a part of their personality.
I could wrap up my reason with a nice little bow
and tell you that it’s because I want all to know
of a God who works perfectly without pause of defect
and that I’m planning my programs so that you would see His effects.

I could try and convince you that’s why I’m striving for perfection.
I could twist the truth and reinforce the connection.
I could quote chapter and verse of God using master craftsmen.
I could lie and tell you that my perfection is not an addiction.

But that would be only partially true.
The other piece of the puzzle is that I like to perform for you.
It makes me feel safe to avoid all critique.
So I program and polish so there will be no mistake.

This pastor of yours wasn’t always so prideful.
But when praise got attached to performance it’s hard not be mindful.
When payment became attached to the praise,
the perfect performance was what I wanted on stage.

Now let me speak words that are perfectly clear.
Let me speak clearly so that your employers can hear.
It is good to want a perfect performance.
It is not wrong to pursue such excellence.
Polishing up a project is how we get paid.
Doing a job well is how a resume is made.

The problem is when we begin to believe
Putting our faith into action requires we leave
Imperfections behind and have no awkward pauses,
When just perfect people find themselves working for God’s causes.

Perhaps as a pastor I’ve upheld this perception.
Do I do that when my programs seek out such perfection?
Have I led you to believe that faith is seamless and polished?
Have you learned that God wants the imperfect abolished?
Listening to perfectly poised people with impeccable speech
Do you now believe that a life of faith is out of reach?

If that is the case then let me repent
for that is a lie and not a life well spent.
For performance and perfection can often impede
putting our faith into action in the way the world needs.

Putting our faith into action is a part we all play,
not when it’s programmed but throughout the whole day.
We don’t need to be perfect or have it all planned.
We just need to perceive when God says to lend a hand.

The moment might be messy that’s perfectly fine,
it might happen in the margins not at a planned time.
Sometimes it feels pointless for not all people will praise you
but that’s not the point there’s a God who will raise you.

If you will follow the impulse to pray, praise and proclaim
If you will reach out to the person who is blind, poor or lame
If you open the door for the one you don’t know
If you open your wallet for their need they will know
That God works through his people in perfectly good ways
Whether they stutter or pause or have program delays.

May God use his imperfect people this day.
In perfectly messy ways this I pray.
So that all the imperfect and struggling people around
Would know of a God who still uses those who imperfections abound.

The Limits of Time

Sometimes I trick myself into thinking I have an external hard drive. Not one that sits on my desk serving my computer by providing a little more space for data but rather one that travels with me and serves my everyday walking around life by providing me a little extra time for the things I need to accomplish. When I’m in this place of deception I say “yes” to things I have no real time for in my actual life and I live as though there is always more time to cram one more thing into my schedule. When I am in this place of deception I live as though I am not limited to the 24 hours that everyone else is given but actually have five extra hours stored in some secret place. Perhaps you know this strain of deception…perhaps you have told yourself lately that you can actually do everything and that you can supernaturally cram more into your life than everyone else.

There are several downsides and even sinful sides to this deception. First and foremost it’s a deception. We actually all have the same amount of hours and space in our lives as everyone else who has ever lived. There is no external hard drive for time and space in our lives… not for you and not for me. And living in this deception breeds constant frustration because something in us knows that we are trying to cram one more thing into a life that has no more room. Like an overstuffed suitcase we feel the strain on our hinges and yet we slip in another thing and then spend our time and energy trying to get the latch to close… all the while hoping the hinges will hold for just a little while longer.

Perhaps the biggest deception of living a life that pretends it has an unlimited amount of time is that when we hear the call of God upon our lives we trick ourselves into believing it can just be added on to our already overstuffed lives. We try to feed the poor in our spare time. We try to squeeze in justice on the weekends and racial reconciliation at lunch. We try to love and serve the world in sound bites rather than in conversation with it and we try to live a life of significance in seconds. And we wonder why being obedient to God’s call feels so frustrating and exhausting. But we power through because we know it’s one of the essentials and traveling with out it does often feel like we’ve packed for a trip but forgotten our toothbrush.

Would you consider that busyness rather than outright sinfulness is the biggest threat to following God’s call upon our lives? Is it true that we have been trying to cram the call of God into too small a space? Is it possible that something in your life and in your schedule has to be let go so that you can truly travel in the way God intends?

For Christmas I received an under-the-sink composting bin. Maybe it wasn’t on your list (it wasn’t on mine either), but I was delighted to receive it. I had been thinking for some time about God’s call upon my life to be a good steward of His creation. I had been recycling in Chicago’s blue bins but that was about it When I received the composting bin I felt God calling me to up my commitment to caring for creation. Like many of you I had a few days off over Christmas and during that time when my work life was less intense I composted religiously. So consistent was I that if I mindlessly tossed an apple core into the trash I would go back and dig through the garbage, retrieve the core, and with a sense of great satisfaction and moral superiority add it to the composting bin.

I’d like to say that I’ve remained that consistent. However, just two days back into a busy schedule my compost bin was empty and my trash full. It wasn’t a defiant action. I didn’t say, “Take that earth! I don’t care about you I can consume you and not care for you!” Rather it was busyness rather than outright sinfulness that left me less than consistent. Come to find out God’s call takes up real time and it cannot just be crammed into an already limited amount of space in my schedule.

Let me speak the truth. You and I simply can’t put our faith into action if we have no time. Being kind takes time, feeding the hungry requires time, listening to God takes time, composting takes time, visiting someone in prison requires actual rather than virtual space in our lives. This month as we talk about God’s call to “Go” I urge you not to fall into the deception that the call upon your life can be crammed into an already over full schedule. You do not have an external hard drive and the hinges will eventually break. So would you consider with me making some actual space for the calling of God upon your life?

This morning in Chapel we begin our celebration of Black History Month by hearing God word for us through Lisa Sharon Harper. Lisa is a freelance writer, award-winning playwright, poet, public speaker and consultant who specializes in ethnic reconciliation and human rights. Lisa is currently Executive Director of NY Faith and Justice, a fellowship of Christian churches, organizations and individuals dedicated to following Christ, uniting the church and ending poverty. Guided by the vision of Isaiah 61, NY Faith and Justice is a 100% volunteer-based faith movement bridging multiple divides within the church through education, spiritual formation and public policy advocacy. Lisa will tell you this calling was not crammed into a full life, but that she rearranged her actual life for this calling. This morning we will also come around the Lord’s Table together to meet with God, to hear his call and declare our commitment to making actual time and space for God to work through us.

With much gratitude for the actual time and space you gave me this past week to be with you face to face.