Introspection: Homecoming

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.


Homecoming

Scripture:

Don't remember the prior things;
don't ponder ancient history.
Look! I'm doing a new thing;
now it sprouts up;
don't you recognize it?

Isaiah 43:18-19a (CEB)

We've seen our share of ups and downs
Oh, how quickly life can turn around
In an instant
It feels so good to reunite
Within yourself and within your mind
Let's find peace there

From "My Sacrifice" by Creed

Last month, while enjoying a long walk at one of my favorite places, I began to notice, for the first time this autumn, the colors of the changing leaves. The glorious blend of green, red, and orange reminded me of something I might have seen on the old PBS show The Joy of Painting, starring Bob Ross. If an artist were to paint the tree I saw, perhaps she would begin by painting the trunk and the branches. Next, she might paint the leaves with splashes of green. Last, she might apply highlights of red and orange to represent the changing colors.

I began to wonder if God works in a similar way. Maybe the changing of the seasons marks the times when God gets His paints back out. Perhaps spring is the time when God paints the green leaves on the trees, and perhaps autumn is the time when God highlights the trees with the beautiful reds, oranges, and yellows we enjoy every year. At the very beginning of the Bible, it is said that God created the world in six days. Of course, when God stopped to rest on the seventh day, He didn't put His paints away for good. I believe that God continues to create and to re-create in every moment of every day.

Perhaps the very essence of change is something that God "painted" into His creation from the very beginning. From the changing leaves we enjoy every autumn to the supernovas that occur light-years away from our planet to the electrons that orbit the nucleus of an atom, all of God's creation is in a constant state of change. Of course, human beings and human lives are no exceptions. It has even been said that the only constant in life is change.

During autumn of last year, I was contemplating a very painful but very necessary change in my own life. At that time, I was still a regular part of my college faith community even though I had graduated over three years earlier. Because I was in a very different situation from the students, I was beginning to feel more and more as though I didn't belong. One year ago, when I realized that I could no longer be a part of my college community to the extent I wished to be, I knew that the time had come for a change. My mother had told me about a young-adult Bible study group at a large church downtown, so I finally decided that it was time to "put away childish things" and to visit the group.¹ The good people in the group immediately welcomed me with open arms and made me feel at home.

The months passed, and I began to have conflicting feelings about both my college community and my new Bible study group. Sometimes I thought about all the good experiences I had with my old community and began to long for those times. Other times I thought about how disconnected I had become with the people from that community and became resentful, wondering if I ever even belonged there at all. There were also times I compared my new community to my old community and became discouraged, particularly in regards to the shortage of other "single" people in the group.

Last month, I had the opportunity to attend homecoming at my alma mater, and that week I feel as though God taught me a number of lessons about life and the changes it brings.

A number of people in my Bible study group play for the church's softball team. That Thursday, I decided that it was high-time that I went to a softball game to cheer my friends on as they played, especially since it was the last game of the season. That night, I had the pleasure of cheering for my friends from the dugout, and I was invited to join them for dinner afterward. It was a blessing to draw closer to my new community.

Friday night, I went to the homecoming carnival, as I do every year. Instead of riding the rides and playing the games, I typically walk back and forth looking for people I know. What made this year unique is that, though I saw people from my old community, I actually spend more time with people from my new community. I also ran into someone I know from my current job and had a rather long conversation with her and her husband.²

Saturday morning, I joined some of my friends from my college community for breakfast. Afterward, I headed over to the university to visit the Biology, Mathematics, and Computer Science departments.³ Next I went to the tailgate held by my previous community where I reconnected with fellow alumni and with friends who are current students. Instead of watching the football game, I went with some others for a walk around the campus. That night a bunch of us went downtown for dinner and dessert.

In the events of those three days, I feel as though God was addressing the feelings I had been experiencing. In the time I spent with my friends from my new community, I feel as though God was telling me, "Don't long for your past, because your present is good." In the time I spent with my friends from my old community, I feel as though God was saying, "Don't resent your past either, because your past was also good." In the time I spent with my old friends and in the conversations I had with them, I feel as though God was reminding me that some things, like true friendships, I will always have with me.

Typically we tend to divide time into three parts: the past, the present, and the future. The truth is that only one of these truly exists. The past does not exist any more. The only parts of the past that remain are the parts that we carry with us in the present, things like memories. The future does not exist yet. Furthermore, the future is amorphous: we do not know what shape the future will actually take. All that truly exists for us is the present, more specifically, this instant. As a gambler said in the movie 21, "Yesterday's history; tomorrow's a mystery. It's all what you do in the moment, baby."

Sometimes we fear change and try to hold on to the past for dear life. Sometimes we even try to re-create the past in the present. Living in the past, though, costs us the here and now. If we refuse to let go of the past, we sacrifice the blessings God wants to give us in the present.

Though sometimes we need to let go of the things of the past in order to embrace the present, it is important that we do not forsake the past. Sometimes, as we journey on the road of life, we get a chance to stop at the wayside to look back on where we have been. Sometimes life even gives us opportunities to retrace our steps at times like homecoming. These times allow us to remember how God blessed us in the past and to remember the things that have made us who we are today. This is the purpose of holidays. The Jewish people, for example, celebrate Passover to remember that God delivered their ancestors from slavery, guided them through the wilderness, and led them into the Promised Land.

Are you holding on to the past too tightly? Remember the blessings of the past, and be thankful for them. Just don't try to live in the past. If you do, you do so at the expense of the blessings that God wants to give you in the here and now. Remember what God told the people of Israel: "I know the plans I have in mind for you... they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope."⁴


Notes:
1 - I am not calling my former community childish, rather my attachment to it.
2 - Incidentally, her husband was a professor I knew from my job when I was in college.
3 - In college, I worked in the Biology department for more than two years and got to know the Biology faculty and staff. Though I never took a biology class, I was considered an honorary biology student. I studied Computer Science and, to a lesser extent, mathematics.
4 - Jeremiah 29:11 (CEB)

The picture featured in this introspection was taken by me at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.


If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.

Perspective: Blessed

Adapted from a Sunday School lesson delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina on October 30, 2011.

I recently listened to a series of sermons about the Beatitudes, from Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan from late 2009. This series changed the way I looked at the Beatitudes, so I decided to share the things I learned with my Sunday School class. Here and now I share these things with you, the reader. Contributors to the series are Rob Bell, Robert Sirico, Ed Dobson, and Kent Dobson. The Mars Hill Bible Church podcast can be found here.¹

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.


Blessed

Scripture:

When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. Then He began to speak, and taught them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Matthew 5:1-12 (NRSV)

There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus

From "Cry Out to Jesus" by Third Day

At the beginning of Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount is a series of blessings commonly called the Beatitudes. Often we read the Beatitudes as a series of states to attain if we want to receive God's blessing. While it is true that some of these blessings are indeed calls to change, most of them describe situations in which we simply would not want to find ourselves. For example, while we should seek to be merciful and pure of heart, we would not want to mourn or to be persecuted. A number of the Beatitudes are simply announcements of God's blessing.

Often we fall into the trap of believing that the good people, the happy people, or the successful people are the ones whom God has blessed. The Beatitudes break us from this line of thinking. According to commentator Frederick Dale Bruner, "First and literally, the Beatitudes are Jesus' surprisingly counter-cultural God-bless-yous to people in God-awful situations."² The Beatitudes are Jesus' announcements that, as Rob Bell would say, "God is on your side!"

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

The poor in spirit are people who are spiritually impoverished, or, as some might say, morally bankrupt. The first blessing runs contrary to the common belief that God favors good people. Jesus said that "the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."³ It has been said that lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for. In Christ, God came to earth to fight for the lost causes, the people on whom the world had already given up. In the parables, God is portrayed as a woman who turns her house upside down to find a lost coin,⁴ a shepherd who leaves behind ninety-nine well-behaved sheep to find the one that got lost,⁵ a gardener who would not give up on a tree until he gave it every chance to bear fruit,⁶ and a father who celebrates the return of his wayward, immoral son.⁷ The first blessing reminds us that Christ meets us where we are, even in our sin and moral bankruptcy and invites us into the Kingdom of God.⁸

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

I would wager that every person has been touched by suffering. This world is full of injustice, violence, and sadness, so life gives us many opportunities for mourning. It was a common misconception in Jesus' time that suffering was a sign of God's disfavor. The Disciples once asked Jesus regarding a blind man, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"⁹ I think that sometimes we fall for the same misconception in our time. Jesus, in his ministry, healed the ailing, cleansed the lepers who had been rejected by society, and even raised the dead. The second blessing reminds us that there is room in the Christian life for tears and that Christ meets us in our suffering to offer us hope and comfort.¹⁰

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

This world operates by the law of "the survival of the fittest." When we look at the world around us, it often appears that the most aggressive and the most ruthless are the people who succeed. The meek whom Jesus declares blessed in the third Beatitude include the weak, the powerless, the quiet, and the timid. They are the ones who are ignored, silenced, forgotten, or swept under the rug. They are the ones who are trampled under the feet of those who make it to the top. They are the ones who are not even aggressive enough to get their own fair share in the world.

Someday, God will reign on earth as in Heaven. God does not operate by the law of "the survival of the fittest." The world to come will not operate as the world does now. Things like greed and aggression will be done away with, and people will no longer step on each other to get ahead. The third blessing reminds us that, though the meek may be forgotten and pushed aside now, they will inherit their place in the Kingdom of God.¹¹

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Many think of the people who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" as people who seek to be righteous with all their being. This is a good quality to have, but do not forget the true nature of hunger and thirst. Hunger is what we feel when our stomachs are empty. Thirst is what we feel when we are dehydrated. Hunger and thirst are the painful feelings we experience when we are lacking something essential, namely food or water. If someone truly hungers and thirsts for righteousness, then he or she must be, by definition, without righteousness. This blessing is for the people who experience a lack of righteousness in their own lives. This blessing is also for the people who experience a painful lack of righteousness in a world full of injustice and violence.

St. Paul wrote a great deal about the grace God extends to us in our need for righteousness. In his letter to the Romans, he wrote, "God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us."¹² To the Corinthians, he wrote, "For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."¹³ The fourth blessing reminds us that Christ offers transforming grace to those who experience such a lack of righteousness that they ache for it.¹⁴

At this point in the Beatitudes, there is a transition. The first four blessings describe how Christ interacts with us in our own brokenness, but the last four deal with how we interact with others in a broken world.¹⁵

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

The fifth Beatitude is only one instance in Scripture that links the mercy we receive from God to the mercy we extend to others. Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us to pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." He goes on to say, "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."¹⁶

William Barclay defines mercy, "to get inside someone's skin until we can see things with his eyes, think things with his mind, and feel things with his feelings" and "to move in and act on behalf of those who are hurting." A good example of someone who was merciful is the Good Samaritan, who helped the battered Jewish man, a man who would have normally been his enemy, when the man's two priestly, Jewish brethren would not.¹⁷ The fifth blessing calls us to be merciful to other people just as God has shown us mercy.¹⁸

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

In our world, we often fall into the tendency to put on a spiritual act for other people; the sixth Beatitude, however, reminds us that true purity or impurity is found, not in what we show on the outside, but in our hearts. On one occasion, Jesus is criticized because His disciples do not wash their hands before eating. To this, Jesus replies, "For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile."¹⁹ Another time, He tells the Pharisees, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean."²⁰ The first step to for us to become pure of heart is to admit to ourselves and to others our own impurity of heart. The sixth blessing calls us to be pure, not just on the outside, but on the inside.²¹

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

In the seventh blessing, Jesus indicates that pursuing peace is a characteristic of being a child of God. Jesus makes this link in a similar way later in this sermon, saying, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven."²² Often we do not share this ideal, for our tendency as humans is to split ourselves into opposing opposing groups. We end up with an "us-verses-them" mentality, and often Christians can be the worst about this.

God does not operate in this way. As I noted earlier, Paul points out that, in Christ, God reached out to us while we were still sinners. Paul goes to far to say that we were enemies of God, but God still reached out to us in love.²³ As followers of Christ, this is how we should seek to relate to each other. When we follow Christ, we put aside the differences that divide us from each other and seek reconciliation with each other. The seventh blessing reminds us to seek peaceful relationships with each other just as our Father in Heaven sought to bring us back into a peaceful relationship with Him.²⁴

Rob Bell points out that there is a beautiful progression to the Beatitudes. The first four Beatitudes show us that Christ extends grace to us, meeting us in our spiritual poverty, in our mourning, in our meekness, and in our need for His righteousness. When Christ touches our lives like this, we are transformed by God's grace. We begin to relate to others differently as highlighted by the next three Beatitudes. We become merciful to others as Christ was merciful to us; we become more pure of heart and more genuine in our love for others; and we no longer take sides against each other but instead try to bridge the gaps between us. This brings us to the last of the Beatitudes.²⁵

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

When we are transformed by God's grace, we seek to do God's will on earth as it is done in Heaven. The last blessings point out that we will be met with resistance. There are many who will refuse to give up the ways of greed and violence and who see the ways of Christ as a threat. It is from such people that we can expect to face resistance for following Christ. I believe that this is part of what it means to take up our crosses and follow Christ. Christ Himself was executed on a cross by those who saw His message as a threat to their ways and to their place in society. According to commentator Eduard Schweizer, this blessing "extols not the strong, who, to the admiration of all, heroically defend their faith, but those who are defamed and go down to ignominious [or shameful] defeat."²⁶

Notice that Christ says regarding both the poor in spirit and the persecuted that "theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." The final blessings bring us full circle. The persecution we face for doing what is right brings us to a lowly, powerless state not unlike the one in which Christ first met us. The final blessings remind us that Christ continues to meet us where we are and that we are not alone in our struggles.²⁷

Wherever you are right now, whether you are spiritually poor, mourning, meek, or desperate for righteousness, may you know that God's blessing is upon you. May you accept God's transforming grace to become more merciful, more pure of heart, and more of an agent of peace. May you know that God is with you, even if you feel as though everyone else is against you.


Notes:
1 - This particular sermon series is no longer available on the podcast, but it can still be purchased here.
2 - Frederick Dale Bruner, Matthew, a Commentary: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12. 2004, Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 165
3 - Luke 19:10 (NRSV)
4 - Luke 15:8-10
5 - Matthew 18:12-14 or Luke 15:3-7
6 - Luke 13:6-9
7 - Luke 15:11-32
8 - Basis for this section: Rob Bell, "Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit." Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 09/13/09.
9 - John 9:2 (NRSV)
10 - Basis for this section: Robert Sirico, "Whistling Past the Graveyard." Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 09/20/09.
11 - Basis for this section: Rob Bell, "Blessed Are the Meek." Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 09/27/09.
12 - Romans 5:8 (NRSV)
13 - 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NRSV)
14 - Basis for this section: Rob Bell, "Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst." Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 10/04/09.
15 - The idea of a progression in the Beatitudes is a recurring theme in Rob Bell's sermons in the series.
16 - Matthew 6:12,14-15 (NRSV)
17 - Luke 10:25-37
18 - Basis for this section: Ed Dobson, "Blessed Are the Merciful." Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 10/11/09.
19 - Matthew 15:19-20 (NRSV)
20 - Matthew 23:25-26 (NRSV)
21 - Basis for this section: Kent Dobson, "Blessed Are the Pure in Heart." Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 10/18/09.
22 - Matthew 5:43-45a (NRSV)
23 - Romans 5:6-10
24 - Basis for this section: Rob Bell, "Blessed Are the Peacemakers." Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 10/25/09.
25 - Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 10/25/09.
26 - Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Matthew. 1975, Westminster John Knox Press. p. 96
27 - Basis for this section: Rob Bell, "Blessed Are the Persecuted." Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 11/25/09.


If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.