 She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
-Genesis 16:13 ---------- I've been too pragmatic lately. So here's a change of tune. I invite you to let it speak, let it stir, let it sit. ---------- "Where have you come from, and where are you going?" The question was piercing because she could not answer it. Leaving a home that was no longer safe, carrying a child knowing it would be stolen, owned and disowned and used and abused. Deserted. So what better place for the deserted to run to than the desert? But still there was nowhere to lay her weary head, nowhere to rest her traumatized body. "Where have you come from, and where are you going?" Running. Running away. And for good reason. An impossible situation with a hopeless future. But the voice would not let her spirit evaporate in the heat. "You are not abandoned... Your child will not be nameless... The Lord has heard your misery." As if almost to say You are worthy of compassion. And she was. And she trusted. And she named God. Yes, after the famous man had gotten to name all the animals in the garden, now this forgotten woman gets to name God. El Roi. You are the God who sees me. And I have now seen you because of it. And that's how it went. And that's how it goes. This is the mystical dance of grace and presence, even millenia later. We are all of us in the tradition of Hagar. Running away from our undeserved wounds and running in shame of the ones we deserve. Unsure of what is safe or what is sacred and so aware that we are Just. So. Tired. Surrounded by pixels, people, and programs yet somehow still crouched in the desert, huddled. Invisible to the world. Yet the voice still speaks The seer still sees And we are the object of his gaze. Seen in our brokenness Called out in our isolation Invited into trust Reminded of our belovedness. And in an indulgent measure of grace, given eyes to see the one who sees us. When life's harsh words and actions wound us and lack of care and connection numb us still we are sought and still we are found drawn back to the land of the living. The God who saw then is the God who sees now Inviting us to be restored. Jesus, thank you for seeing me today. Peace, Keith
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 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
-Romans 12:1 Remember that plague scene in Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail when they bring the wheelbarrow through town shouting "bring out yer dead!" and this one guy throws another guy on the pile, who pipes up in protest, saying he's not dead yet... The SPAMALOT musical version is even more entertaining. It's morbid, but also hilarious. And it's one of the reasons I'm thinking about living sacrifices this morning. The other reason is that my friend Nate and I spent Sunday morning discussing foundational understandings of what worship really is and if it's even relevant anymore in God's Church. Spoiler: We decided that it is indeed valuable, but we have to let it become bigger and broader than singing a few mass produced songs for 15 minutes on a Sunday. Worship involves opening ourselves up to give attention and value to God's goodness everywhere. "Worshipy" stuff like chord progressions and stirring choruses can be nice, but if we're not more expansive, we'll get bored and miss how Jesus can transform us through worship. In the Old Testament, worship was deeply connected to sacrifice. Animals and crops were burned on an altar, representing something valuable given to God. It wasn't just about sin and substitution and atonement (that was in there, but sacrifices went way beyond that). It was saying: here's what's valuable to me, and I'm going to give it to God. Hopefully that will appease God's anger, or help God forgive me, or give me rain for my wheat fields. Honestly, this really wasn't different from most other religions at the time. Ok. Fast forward through a whole lot of generations and a lot of prophetic challenges to the sacrificial system, and we find a God that is increasingly revealed to be more and more like Jesus. The prophets tell us that God isn't actually looking for a medium rare steak in order to be happy. God wants mercy instead. And then Jesus himself stands in the role of the final sacrifice and as the New Testament Church is birthed, the entire sacrificial system begins to break down once and for all. It was time to change how we see all of this. This is the back story to the Apostle Paul encouraging the early Christians to see themselves as "living sacrifices." The image can be incredibly formative if we sit with it. My friend Nate mentioned the old joke about how the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep wiggling off the altar. And that's true. But we also acknowledged the beauty of living sacrifices is that exact same reason. They get back off the altar. Instead of us giving/killing/devoting something "out there" that proves love and devotion to God, we are invited into the weekly/daily/hourly/minutely?? process of offering ourselves fully to God... and then getting back up and walking away changed. This is worship that is full of both "spirit and truth," to use the wording that Jesus once chose. Spirit because we are trusting God to receive us as we breathe deeply and say, "I am yours." Spirit because there is a dying in that moment, and a resurrection too. Spirit because rather than ending our life, we experience a new mystical rebirth. Truth because a living sacrifice doesn't just say a prayer and then go back to hating their neighbors. Truth because those moments of surrender lead to days of fresh, faithful action. Truth because the world around us will see that a life of worship leads to a life of tangible love. To choose to offer our entire lives to God is a way of life more beautiful than any single "act of worship" to God. It leads to mercy, compassion, justice, forgiveness, freedom and more. It's the path to eternal life with Jesus. I love that an hour on Sunday can be a catalyst for that for many of us. But let's wiggle off the altars so that it can happen for the other 167 hours of the week too. You're not dead yet! You're a living sacrifice! So may you be on the altar daily, knowing that little deaths lead to abundant lives. When your offer yourself to Jesus, may you find yourself infused with life and grace, rather than drained of it. And may you then wiggle off the altar, ready to love boldly, trust fully, and see clearly the Kingdom of God around you. Jesus, bring me back to life today. Peace, Keith  “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
-Jesus, Matthew 28:19 This past Sunday was one of my favorite days of the year at our church. We shared a big outdoor brunch, heard stories of God's transforming love, and plunged a few disciples into the shockingly cold waters of an inflated swimming pool beside the parking lot. Brunch and baptism Sundays are the best. Jesus invited his earliest followers to begin a movement that included baptizing people into God's family (Mt. 28). And it's been going on, in all its forms, for over 2000 years. I find baptism to not just be a peculiarly beautiful action, but an ever-growing metaphor for understanding the work of Jesus in our lives. I learned something a few years ago that I mentioned Sunday, and I'm still thinking about it. Although today we hear the word baptize as a very religious word, there were other common uses of it at the time the gospels were written. Primarily, the Greek word baptizo (to dip/immerse) was a term used in textiles. When someone would make clothing, an important step in the process was coloring it. Dyes were made from a variety of plants, berries, and even animals. When the cloth was ready to take on color, it was "baptized" into the dye. When it was lifted back out of the liquid, it would bear the mark of what it had just been immersed into. Nobody would simply call it a dress anymore... they would call it a purple dress. Why? Because the mark of its baptism would be the characteristic that others would notice before anything else. "Which girl are you talking about? Oh, the one in the purple dress. Got it. I see her now." Jesus is always helping us embrace fresh understandings of what God's heart is really all about. Baptism isn't simply a faith ritual. It's a mark of a changed identity. To live a life trusting Jesus is to slowly, painfully, beautifully.... become marked by God's Spirit so deeply that it becomes the most noticeable identifier in our lives. When we are living a life immersed in Christ, it will be the easiest thing for others to see on us. Now sometimes what we hear in that statement is: Yes! Everyone should know that I'm a Christian. I'll make sure it's one of the first things they learn... by telling them that I'm a Christian. Now, certainly we should not hide that identity, and we should be prepared at any moment to give the reason for the hope that is within us. However, when we talk about being dyed with the color of Jesus, it's not about the t-shirts we wear or keeping our Bible prominently displayed in the baby seat of our shopping cart as we pick up a box of yogurt. We're talking about a way of being characterized by the sort of trust, love, and compassion that we see lived out through Jesus. It's the ability to walk through each day with hope that is beyond our circumstances. It's a life that reveals a sort of messy, imperfect reflection of a perfect love. A life dipped in Jesus will leave a remarkable stain. Over time, it will be so noticeable that people will start to notice in our lives what Paul in Galatians calls "the fruit of the spirit:" Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self Control. Now, there are plenty of days I don't exhibit that fruit, and my baptism reminds me that God's grace washes over me even then, restoring me through his Spirit again and again. On those days faithfulness totally looks like dying to my own self-centeredness... for the beauty of the better life before me. We are invited into God's newness each day. We can freely lay down our need to protect, to posture, to pretend, and to perform. We can lay down our self-obsessed nature, and just allow it.... to dye. That's what a life immersed in Jesus looks like. It looks like dying. And it looks like dye-ing. And both lead to life. My friends, Jesus is inviting you daily to plunge into the renewing depths of love and grace. This isn't actually about baptism. It's really about the life and identity that bursts with color when Jesus is the one providing it. So today, may you be so filled with the resurrecting love of God that you willingly die (dye), and come out changed forever. Jesus, mark me today for life in your beautiful Kingdom. Peace, Keith  “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
-Isaiah 6:5, being appropriately dramatic There's this wild drama that unfolds early in the Old Testament book of Isaiah. It's an origin story, really. God's people were in the middle of all sorts of turmoil as Assyria was growing stronger. Israel was tempted into unholy alliances with evil, and they lost their identity. They mistreated their poor, lost track of what God's heart was all about, and allowed violence and injustice to grow. It was a rough time to be alive. But someone would be called to speak a message of both challenge and hope, inviting God's people back to the covenant that they had made generations ago. He would also be the one to paint a picture of a future king in the line of David, who would bring ultimate redemption, peace, and salvation to all the nations. It was a long way off, but God was going to give this prophet a holy imagination. In the meantime though, God needed to find someone to proclaim the message. The only problem? Isaiah was just a normal guy. A product of his environment, with the same struggles as the people all around him. So when God appears to Isaiah in a vision, Isaiah completely freaks out. Appropriately so. In this vision, he sees God face to face. And since he probably knew about Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, he knows that nobody who gets that close to God makes it out with their skin still on. So Isaiah sees this vision of God on a throne and angels all around, and he cries out, "Woe is me! I am ruined." That word for ruined is sometimes translated "I am undone!" It means that Isaiah thinks he cannot survive. He is so ashamed and aware of every gap, every sin, every mistake, in the presence of God's perfect beauty. And he feels the crushing weight of condemnation. But that's when the turning point happens. After he cries out that he is ruined, one of the angels takes a hot coal from God's altar and brings it to him, touching it to Isaiah's lips. Interestingly, Isaiah doesn't get burned. Instead, he is told that his unclean lips have been remade. "Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." A moment later, the voice of the Lord officially enters the narrative. "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us??" Well, obviously no one is going to volunteer for this. Except. This voice pops up from behind the altar. "Here am I. Send me!" Wait, what? Honest question. How on earth does one go from "I am ruined!" in one moment, to a "Here am I. Send me!" in the next? Who's the new guy? It's still Isaiah, but he's been transformed. That is the power of Grace, and the power of honestly encountering the God who looks like Jesus. Shame and condemnation continue to play a pivotal role in many of our lives. I am so limited. I am so imperfect. If I am fully seen, I can't survive. I don't want God, or anyone else, to see what's inside. That will ruin me. But the story of God is always surprising. God purifies. God covers shame. God surprises with open arms. This is the good news. And it highlights one of the deep realities of life: We cannot be remade without being undone. There are times in life where, if we truly want God's transformation, we have to acknowledge our deep fear, inadequacy, and guilt. We must allow ourselves to be undone, naked, and aware of all the feelings that we bury deep. And then... we allow God into our ruined-ness. And we find transformation. It comes when we are seen in all of our terrifying imperfection and told, "I see you. But you are not ruined. You are redeemed." Isaiah learned that the path to being used was the path of being emptied. No more pretenses. No more posturing. Just trust. What if we allowed ourselves to be a little more undone, trusting that Jesus is in the business remaking us with gentle grace? What if we allowed our siblings in Jesus to see us in our "ruined" moments, trusting that they will be partners in God's grace-filled commissioning? What if we had the confidence that God always uses cracked vessels, if in humility we allow the spirit to get inside? What if we embraced our ruin to be remade? Jesus, we want to be used, but we often feel broken. Redeem us and send us out in love and compassion. Peace, Keith |
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