WHAT MAKES IT MERCY ~ 4/14/11

The man sat behind the wheel of his parked car, wiping sweaty palms on his jeans. He looked again in his rear view mirror, in time to see the Highway Patrol officer getting out of his cruiser— and neither of them was happy. The driver let out a final, loud sigh of resignation before rolling down his window to hand the lawman his license and registration.

“Do you have any idea how fast you were driving sir?” the patrolman asked professionally, accepting the small stack of documentation.

“Yes,” the man muttered, hanging his head in frustrated shame. There were times he’d been pulled over for ridiculous reasons and times he should have been pulled over and wasn’t, but this was neither of those times. This time, he’d been caught red-handed doing 70 mph in a 55 zone, and he knew it. He was guilty as charged.

The officer was quiet for a moment. He could see lines of fatigue on the man’s face. He noted the slumped shoulders. And, oddly enough, he felt bad for the man.

“I’ll tell you what,” the highway patrolman said, glancing around quickly and handing back the paperwork—“Why don’t you just have yourself a good day. And… slow down.”

The driver’s head jerked up suddenly in a disbelief that turned quickly to gratitude.

“Wow, really? Seriously? Thank you! Thank you!” he repeated again, scrambling now to close his glove box before adding to himself, a little louder than he meant to— “YESSS, mercy triumphs over judgment! There should be more police officers like that.”

By this time the officer had already begun heading for his cruiser, but, at these last few words, he winced and stopped in his tracks. “Well now,” he said, turning around slowly, “I really wish you hadn’t said that…” the driver froze— “…did you just thank me for showing you ‘mercy?’”

Sensing trouble but not daring to offend his benefactor, the driver of the car nodded an enthusiastic affirmative.

The officer was clearly troubled now and seemed to wrestle with whether or not to take the matter any further. Finally, with a look that betrayed a guilt of his own, he spoke.

“How do you understand the idea of mercy?” He asked, somewhat cryptically.

Taken aback, the driver thought furiously for some answer that would end this nightmare and get him back on the road.

“I don’t know,” he stammered, “I guess it’s sort of like love. Loving people are merciful people. Mercy is letting people off the hook.”

“So let me make sure I understand you,” the officer repeated for the sake of clarity—“Me, sweeping your guilt under the rug like I did just now, is ‘mercy?’”

“Yes?” The driver asked, eyes wide and hopeful.

“No.” The officer replied with a sad smile. “No, it isn’t mercy at all… it’s something else entirely.”

Now the driver was mystified.

The officer explained.

“We may call it a lot of things— like compassion, or having a heart, offering forgiveness or even showing mercy, but really— the hard truth is, if a crime goes knowingly unpunished, if nobody pays for guilt, it’s not love, it’s not justice, and it’s not mercy, it’s another thing altogether—it’s leniency. Leniency is never the same thing as mercy, because leniency ignores justice by excusing guilt. Leniency literally makes excuses for the guilty party so no one has to admit wrongdoing. You were tired. You had a long day. You were provoked. You didn’t have a healthy family life, were plagued by dyslexia and your parents named you ‘Jarvis,’ or whatever— so it’s not your fault— don’t worry about it. Leniency makes excuses for the guilty party. But mercy… well, as a sub-set of love, mercy is a sacrifice—it’s always costly to the one who dispenses it, it’s always inconvenient. Leniency excuses guilt and ignores consequences. Mercy forgives guilt by bearing the consequences of someone else’s actions. Leniency is never the same thing as mercy, because to make it mercy, someone’s gotta pay.

An unexpected whimper escaped the driver’s tightly-pressed lips. His eyes had begun to glaze over. Undeterred, the highway patrolman continued.

“You said you wished there were more police officers like myself, but if you understood that what I almost did for you wasn’t loving at all, that it wasn’t really mercy, but leniency, you’d be glad there aren’t more officers out there being lenient—it would be a much more lawless world. A good officer of the law doles out justice indiscriminately. That’s the most fair thing. The problem is— I also want to help you out, because… I’ve been in your shoes.”

The driver swallowed slowly, hardly daring to breathe.

“I do feel compassion for you,” the officer concluded, “but to keep that compassion from turning into leniency, there’s only one legitimate thing left for me to do.” And with that, the officer pulled out his ticket book.

“Wait, what are you doing?” the driver cried in alarm.

“Justice,” replied the officer, eliciting a moan from the man—“and mercy,” he added, signing his own name as the guilty party on the speeding ticket. “Have a nice day sir— you’re free to go.”

GOOD SOIL ~ 4/3/11

The screen door opened with a pleasant creaking, stepping aside like an old friend to welcome me back from another time. The small room was quiet and still, row upon row of hardcover journeys, washed in dust-mote rays from a sandpaper sun. I remembered it then as it remembered me, a cathedral of words and ideas, people and places, each made for the other and strung along with syntax care— let no man rend them asunder!

Standing there, at the threshold of story, I read the shelves for memories. Down and to the left, a beloved collection of Bill Peet gems still promised their gentle humor. There, in the middle, the strange wit of Shell Silverstein beckoned. To the right, past a low-set row of glass-shuttered windows, a faded stack of Nat Geo’s cast an aging shadow on a complete series of tattered Hardy Boy adventures. I stood there reading my past.

For the first time since entering I was aware of the roar from a throaty, hand pushed lawn mower and, looking out the window, glimpsed it and its operator laboring methodically up a steep slope. It was my roll call, my soundtrack for reading those lost days growing up, and here, still, the piper played. All these things I noticed upon entering the simple library of my youth. But before all these there was the smell.

They say smell retains the strongest of memories. Each scent as we breathe it, each whiff of our lives, hitched fast to a thought, tucked snug in the vast filing slots of the mind, hermetically sealed and accessed again only by close simulation. Words have a smell, and the smell of words is like that of a rainforest— rich, musky, heavy like the damp of a soil that spawns giant trees. It was wisdom I smelled, and age, the smell of life, preserved for the coming on a page for the heart. I smiled as I smelled.

I smiled at the memory of story-time, there within those walls. I smiled For Whom the Bell Tolls, and wondered again Where the Red Fern Grows. I smiled at the memory of study hall, tempted by novels more novel than math. I smiled at the memory of knowledge pursued, and its detour when love walked in. My book eyes were hijacked by an auburn-haired girl; her smile stole my studies that day. I smiled at the thought of her smile.

The library girl is my everyday story now; we were married once upon a time. And every day since has unfurled like a fern, the tale of our happily ever after. Storm pages come, as do forest fire ones, and we turn them each one at a time. But we choose to read, in the life of the other, what we hope will be read in our own. And we trust for the happy ending, even when, on the cover, things looks grim.

Somewhere a door slams and I’m back in that room, holding a book, one of my favorites-- The Biggest Bear. I’ll read this to my children, I say. I won’t deny them their own memories, but— for now at least— their stories will begin where mine has been seeded, here in the soil of this library.

THE FULLNESS OF LIFE ~ 3/14/11

There is a person I know who likes to offer me kind words of wisdom, but doesn’t realize they often repeat themselves. I don’t see this as a problem; it’s been said we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. It’s been said we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. Ha. I made a funny.

This person keeps asking me how things are going. Which I appreciate. Not one to fake an answer, I usually smile and mumble something tragic about being ‘tired, but good.’ This always leads to a ‘why so tired?’ kind of reply. Which, in turn, leads to discussions about three boys, one a newborn, and full nights of sleep long-since fleeting. Fleeting for me, but more so for my wife. “Ah,” says this person kindly, gently, patting my arm with a knowing smile— “you’re in the fullness of life.” Yes indeed, the fullness of life. That’s certainly one name for it.

This has become something of a family joke. “How are you feeling today, honey?” I might ask, walking through the door on my lunch break and into a house sodden with noise, diapers and piles of unsorted laundry. “Well, let me tell you,” she might reply, with a look that could wither an oak tree—“I’m in the fullness of life.” And although it’s terribly funny, I’ve learned it’s sometimes better not to laugh out loud.

It’s been a ‘fullness of life’ kind of week for me. But when I say that I don’t think I mean it in just the ‘dark humor’ sense. Certainly, I’ve seen my share of stress this week, but the person who repeatedly reminds me of how ‘full’ my life is, seems also to mean it in other ways too. It’s not just a fullness of crazy they mean, but of richness and diversity and memory-making that comes from the pace and idealism of young dreams, coupled with the blunt reality of life with young children. As overwhelming as life has been in the past few weeks, it's also been "full" in ways that I treasure.

I took a trip to Sacramento for some meetings and met a man there whom I had known for some time, but who I met for real the first time that day. He’s one of those people everyone seems to know but you. He’s on a leadership team I’m part of, but is soon departing for missionary work in Cambodia. I always sensed something special about the man, but it was as though he walked in a veil of silence. People clearly loved him. But nobody talked about him. He clearly loved people. But he didn’t talk about himself. I don’t know if there’s some special kind of humility that’s contagious, but if there is, he’s got it. You feel humble around him. That day we held a send-off party for him, and people finally talked. And that’s when my suspicions were confirmed: this man was a man anointed. Lives were changed around him. People were mentored by him. Strategies were formed because of him. Churches planted. Leaders raised up. Continents traveled. Languages learned. Hearts transformed. And through it all, through all the stories, he laughed, graciously laughed, eyes twinkling with joy and the quiet ‘thank you’s’ of a man full of God and empty of self. It was a beautiful thing to watch. I felt very small, and very full, all at the same time.

The next day I was given the opportunity to speak at a church-planting class at Simpson University, my alma mater. I sat there in a classroom facing students sitting in the very same cushioned green chairs I had sat in only… what, eleven years ago? The ironies were legion. I graduated intent on being an overseas missionary. I’d never wanted to be a pastor. Three and a half years later I had completed my M.Div. in cross-cultural communication and was… working construction (which is honorable work that I thoroughly enjoyed). Burned out after seven straight years of schooling, I needed a break. My first ‘break’ ended up being eight months of framing on a massive three-story structure, located… at Simpson University. There, from the top of my rickety scaffolding, I watched each day as my former profs swept by below, surrounded by the newest and brightest class of impassioned world changers. Where had my passion gone? Why wasn’t I changing the world? I was almost as afraid of the answers as I was of being recognized. I was thankful then, that hardhats had wide brims.

But God changed my heart— renewed me! I was a man reborn, given an adventure and a quest and territory to conquer for my King, and that territory, oddly enough, was a town barely an hour from these very classroom seats! As I looked back at their faces that day, I thanked God the hiding was over and the passion was back. I felt very small, and very full, all at the same time.

Traveling a lot when your wife is home alone with three small boys is kind of a bad idea. I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of law that says the fullness of life needs to be equally shared for sanity to prevail. When I got home from all my ministry gallivanting, I felt immediately the familiar burden of getting through a “routine” day with family. Dress the boys. Feed the boys. Sign their book reports. Get them to school on time. ‘Breakfast? What’s that?’ I ask. ‘Devotions? What’s that?’ my wife asks. ‘Rest? What’s that?’ we both ask. Busy busy busy. Where are my keys? Where is my wallet? Where is my mind? And then… it’s time for work. It’s time for ministry. God help me. God help them!

Sunday was communion Sunday. Afterwards, around the dinner table and wanting to gauge my 6year-old’s grasp of the symbolism, I asked what he thought it all meant. “Well,” he said, putting his spoon down, “The broken bread means the broken body of Jesus on the cross for our sins. And the grape juice is to remind us of his blood from the nails that went through him so we could be forgiven. 1 Corinthians 15:3 says that ‘Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.’ That’s what it means.” He picked his spoon back up and dipped it in his soup. Then, almost as an afterthought, he paused, looked back up at me and asked—“Was there anything else you wanted to know?” And at that moment, I felt very small, and very full, all at the same time. 

GIVE ME A HAND ~ 3/7/11

The trick of the mind is its dependence on the eye. We decided, long ago, that what we see is what is most real. And so we are consumed by the world we see. Do not mistake the language; we don’t consume the world—the world we focus on consumes us.

And so, as a Christian pilgrim, I wake up in the morning and am immediately confronted by the urgent visible, for what I see demands my time, my attention and my energies. It's all so real. And real it is, there can be no denying it. But as with all things visual, to focus on one thing blurs another. Yes... there are other things to see.

I was reading Psalm 73 this morning. It’s about a God-follower whose focus has shifted, leaving blurred what is REALLY the most real. He’s looking at his own circumstances in comparison to the seemingly carefree life of someone who has no regard for the invisible God of the Bible and His greater REALITY—and this God-follower is jealous. He tells the story himself, as a confession, as a caution, as a coach from the past who has walked in our shoes before us. Do you think life was that different for him? Does time change the essential elements of the human experience? He’s tricked by the eye into focusing on what’s closest to him, the tyranny of the urgent, the felt reality of temporary circumstances that can seem like all there is or ever will be. Has 4,000 years made it any easier for us to look beyond our circumstances? Has the passage of time made it any easier to ‘walk by faith, not by sight’ (2 Corinthians 5:7)?

But the writer has a paradigm shift. Or maybe, it’s just a paradigm reminder. It’s triggered by a visit to church, where he’s no doubt venting the unfairness of the situation to God.  He, the writer, believes in the God of his Fathers, worships Him, obeys Him, and yet, his lot in life seems poor in comparison to this proud, smooth-talking, God-mocking success story. But here is his revelation of how God sees the world:

The person the writer envies, IN REALITY…

*   Has no sure footing (v. 18)

*  is living on the edge of disaster (v. 18)

*  is weak and vulnerable (v.19)

*  has no solid foundation (v.19)

*  and will have as much impact on what really matters as a dream you can’t remember and a ghost you can’t see. (v. 20)

In contrast, the writer is reminded, and now reminds us, the REALITY for those who wait upon the LORD is that they…

*  are never alone (v.23)

*  are fortified, because they walk hand in hand with God (v.23)

*  are led through life by the most experienced Guide (v.24)

*  and are welcomed at the finish line of life with the promise of a legacy. (v.24,26)

Now you tell me, Child of God, which is the greater reality—? The dream that fades or the hand you hold? You don’t need sight to be led by the hand. REAL is what God sees.

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Ps. 73:25,26)

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh

CLAIM YOUR LEGACY

Here is a message I was privileged to deliver two Sundays ago at our main campus of Neighborhood Church in Redding, CA. So grateful for the opportunity.

'A FORTIORI' GRACE (Part 2) ~ 2/2/11

(CONTINUED FROM Part #1, See below)

The apostle Paul understood exactly what Jesus was getting at with the whole ‘speck in the eye’ parable: Be careful of judging others without first taking an honest look at yourself! So Paul advises in Romans 12:3—

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Instead of looking at others and seeing evil, Paul followed his own advice and looked at himself first. Here’s how he judged what he saw there—“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). “Chief of sinners?” we think—really? Hitler, probably. Stalin, very likely. Dahmer—? He’s right up there. But Paul? This giant of an apostle, the archetypal missionary who penned between 13-15 books of our Bible? He hardly seems to fit into the same galaxy, much less the same category as these other men. So how can he claim this? Why? I think there are two reasons.

1) Paul was setting up an ‘argumentum a fortiori.’

‘Argumentum a fortiori’ is Latin for “arguing from [the] stronger [reason].” If Jack is strong enough to lift a piano over his head, it stands to reason he is also strong enough to lift a chicken over his head, as inadvisable as that might be. My favorite Bible verse to illustrate this type of argument is Romans 8:32—“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Now… where does an ‘argumentum a fortiori’ fit in when it comes to grace? Well, I ask you, doesn’t the knowledge that God can forgive a repentant someone ‘that bad’—as bad as the likes of a Hitler or a Stalin or a Dahmer— doesn’t that knowledge make a powerful case for God being able to forgive the likes of you? Yes, of course it does. But don’t let your understanding of grace stagnate there—remember, that’s too easy. Grace will remain academic until it’s personal.

2) Paul really believed it about himself and wanted us to believe it about ourselves too.

In his biography on the apostle Paul, A Man of Grace and Grit, Chuck Swindoll writes this—“’Chief of sinners.’ Though you may be tempted to soften that, let it be. Leave him alone in that description. Saul wasn’t attempting to sound modest. In his mind, he was the chief of sinners” (Swindoll, 13). Luis Palau has taken a well-known Christian maxim and changed it to say something similar—“Love the sinner, hate your sin.” This is where understanding grace must start. This is where grace becomes personal.

Remember the song ‘Amazing Grace?’ Don’t ever change the words in that second verse:

“T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.


And Grace, my fears relieved.


How precious did that Grace appear


The hour I first believed.”

To become personal, grace must first teach your heart to fear. Fear what? Not what. Whom. Grace must first teach your heart to fear God. What is it we should fear from God? Punishment for our sins! It’s the grace of God that does this— that awakens in us, through the work of the Holy Spirit, an awareness of the seriousness of our sin compared to the holiness of God. But that’s just the half of it—once that ‘fear of God’ falls heavy upon you, the flip-side of grace kicks in—‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, AND GRACE MY FEARS RELIEVED—! How does grace “relieve” the fear it so recently aroused? By pointing us to the gospel: That Jesus took our lifetime of sin upon Himself and was punished for it, in our place, in order to make us right with God. ‘Personal’ grace is a brutally honest view of your own unmerited amnesty, coupled with the ongoing astonishment of unmerited favor.

The apostle Paul didn’t point fingers at anyone else to be the example of sin at its worst; he made himself the argument for grace. He was his own ‘argumentum a fortiori.’ Listen to him—“But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16).

Paul refrained from pointing fingers and expects us to follow suit. Until you are honest enough with yourself to become your own ‘argumentum a fortiori’ when it comes to the ‘amazingness’ of grace, you just won’t get it; grace will continue to offend you. But once it’s personal… once you stop comparing and thinking of others as ‘worse sinners’ and see yourself as the heavyweight title-holder that you are, or—that you have the potential to become (‘There, but for the grace of God go I’)— once it’s personal, THAT presents the greatest opportunity—not just for understanding grace, but for ‘paying it forward’ as well. Let me tell you something: it’s a lot easier to “love your enemies” when you first see yourself as the ‘chief of sinners.’

Swindoll ends his chapter on Paul’s honest self-perception by quoting “Amazing Grace” in its entirety. Then he makes this fitting conclusion—“It’s all there, isn’t it? Our wretchedness. Our deliverance from fear. Our claim of grace to see us through… to lead us home. Go back and read the words again. Do you know the hymn? Go ahead, sing it to yourself. If you listen closely, you’ll hear Paul harmonizing with you.” I hear you, Paul. I hear you.

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh

'A FORTIORI' GRACE (Part 1) ~ 1/31/11

Hitler. Stalin. Pol-Pot. Bin-Laden. The names ring out like a ‘who’s who’ list from the pit of Hell. We read them off and, in our minds, we see evil, almost unanimously. It’s so easy. Maybe it’s too easy. I’m repeatedly surprised by the passion for judgment I hear in connection with these names, from people who normally consider themselves highly tolerant. Apparently, there’s a point-of-no-return to the sacredness of modern tolerance, a point that’s ‘so bad,’ the evil of it trumps mercy and forgiveness without a second glance. These are the people we’re forgiven for hating.

One of the most common questions I’m asked about, when I talk with someone who’s troubled about aspects of Christianity, is this thing we call ‘grace.’ Not about how wonderful it is… usually the question is about how hard it is to swallow. About how cruel or unreasonable or unfair it is. Let me explain this reaction, in case it confuses you.

On May 10, 1994, a man convicted of killing, abusing, dismembering and in some cases even consuming 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, made a confession of faith and was baptized while in prison serving 15 life terms. His name was Jeffrey Dahmer and, inevitably, his name comes up in the challenges I hear to the fairness of grace. The real issue isn’t whether or not Dahmer’s conversion was sincere (I believe it was)—the real issue is whether Dahmer’s conversion was possible. This is the idea that really upsets people; that God could forgive such evil. That it could be possible for such an evil man to escape eternal judgment and get a second chance.

Grace can just seem so unfair.

I recently read a less gruesome but similarly troubled reaction to grace in Leif Enger’s National Bestselling novel, Peace Like A River. At one point the narrator tells the story of watching his godly father get unjustly humiliated and fired by a horrible boss (‘Mr. Holgren’), who happens also to have something like chronic facial boils. Without a word, the narrator sees his father suddenly but gently touch his boss’ face before leaving the confrontation. Looking first after his father, then back to the stunned antagonist in disbelief, the boy is shocked to discover that the man’s complexion has been instantly and completely healed. “Listen,” he says—

There are easier things than witnessing a miracle of God. For his part, Mr. Holgren didn’t know what to make of it; he looked horrified; the new peace in his hide didn’t sink deep; he covered his face from view and slunk from the cafeteria. I knew what had happened, though. I knew exactly what to make of it, and it made me mad enough to spit. What business had Dad in healing that man? What right had Holgren to cross paths with the Great God Almighty? The injustice took my breath away, truly it did.

Grace can just seem so unfair.

If there’s one take-away from the book of Jonah, it’s that God is more merciful than human beings are. That fact alone is a judgment on the state of our moral blindness. If you’ve read these two stories and found yourself agreeing with the verdict of ‘unfair grace,’ I have a challenging proposition for you: I propose that your problem with grace isn’t that it’s unfair— your problem with grace is that it’s perfectly fair; that it treats everybody exactly the same. I think you love grace when you get it. I think you hate grace when those you judge to be ‘undeserving’ get it.

Have you ever tried to see a freckle on your eye-lid? Kind of hard, isn’t it? We can see the freckles on someone else, we can even see the freckles on our own arms and legs, maybe even the freckles on our own nose if we get cross-eyed enough for a moment. But a freckle that close to our own eye? Not likely; the freckles closest to our eyes are, ironically, the hardest to see. There’s a reason Jesus talks about ‘specks in eyes’ in his famous Matthew 7 treatise on judgment. It’s a cautionary tale about ourselves that we ignore, again and again, when it comes to the hometown of evil. I was startled the other day while watching a National Geographic special called “The Science of Evil.” Startled, because I watched the documentary certain I would witness scientists, reasoning evil away into some relativistic point of view. Although they did not make serious reference to the spiritual realm, the researches did come to the unnerving conclusion that, according to their findings, anyone is capable of the worst kinds of evil, given the right circumstances—anyone. Wow.

The apostle Paul understood exactly what Jesus was getting at with the whole ‘speck in the eye’ parable: Be careful of judging others without first taking an honest look at yourself! So Paul advises in Romans 12:3—

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Instead of looking at others and seeing evil, Paul followed his own advice and looked at himself first. Here’s how he judged what he saw there—“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). “Chief of sinners?” we think—really? Hitler, probably. Stalin, very likely. Dahmer—? He’s right up there. But Paul? This giant of an apostle, the archetypal missionary who penned between 13-15 books of our Bible? He hardly seems to fit into the same galaxy, much less the same category as these other men. So how can he claim this? Why? I think there are two reasons... 

(Continued in Part 2 ABOVE, coming soon)