There is no shortage, it seems, of people telling others how to live and seeking to justify a point of view.  I was reading this week about the ongoing investigation of the late Ravi Zacharias’s ministry and how it concealed and enabled his abuses.

(https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/you-are-one-step-away-from-complete).  It is, of course, one more reason for people to dismiss Christianity and most certainly hastens the collapse of the evangelical moniker of the church.  It has been “par for the course” for Christianity for centuries has it not?  

What are we to make of this?

As we come to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, the words echo from the ye-olde-english: “Rend your hearts and not your garments... (Joel 2:13).”  It is time for the Church Universal to come to grips with its many failings and faults.  More importantly, it is time for you and me to do the same. 

I think it is most easy for us to do just what I did...hide in “group” and make “straw-Groups” as opposed to “strawmen.”  I do it when I write many times and have to check myself.  It is easy to cast stones at “Those people,” or “them,” or “they.”  I can right about “us” and “we” and that tends to be easier than saying what is really at the crux of the problem…

Me.  Just me.  I did.  I did it.  I do it.  I fail.  I fall.  I sin.  

The words of Jesus apply to me, first.  When I read them.  When I reflect on them.  As I prepare to preach them...

17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 5:17-20, ESV

But how do I really handle it?  I think we have to go back to some of the other ancients of the early centuries.  As Dr. Roberta Bondi, who has written extensively on the Desert Fathers and Mothers, “they saw judgementalism as just about the greatest sin.”  Bringing the ideas of cancel culture into the church is so deadly.  There is no justification for it in the Church and both the so-called “left” and “right” should be listening.  Classical Christianity as John Wesley saw it, could not pick sides in these arguments. The idea such division was abhorrent to Jesus in his mind. 

Like the mother crab, it starts with me - I cannot tell another to do something unless I can set the example.  And, we must also listen to the words from the mouths, even from Balaam’s donkeys (those unlikely prophetic voices) that challenge us to “rend our hearts,” for you and I are sinners.

1. Be Present.

This is kinda fresh on my mind because of The Upper Room Daily Devotional yesterday.  Still, when Jesus saw people and talked to people, he was right there - present with them.  I get distracted.  I start thinking about what I need to do next, heck, I even forget whether I told someone something and think that I did!  Maybe I am just getting old but I have learned how important it is to be present with the person in front of me. 

2. Actively Listen.
   This goes with the first one but it goes a bit deeper.  Do you actually process what you are hearing???  I think about cooking.  All those ingredients are fine on their own but when you put them together, something totally different comes out and if not done correctly, we get something else altogether.  When you listen to someone else in an active way, you don’t add stuff that doesn’t belong but just what you get.  Then, you confirm, in your own words, what the person said they can confirm you got it or if you missed it.
   
   Throughout 2020, there has been a WHOLE lot of talking and not enough listening.  Ok, it isn’t just 2020, I’ve observed this happening for a long while. 
   
   
   

3. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

My mom taught me this one long ago and it seems pretty clear, some of us have missed the lesson or forgot it.  In 2020 it seemed like no one could come up with anything nice to say about anyone.  So far, 2021 isn’t fairing much better from what people keep saying on TikTok.  This doesn’t go for just political posts but religious ones and most certainly Covid.  There is another saying that is much like this one...two wrongs do not make a right.

4. Corporations are not people and neither are political parties.

5. Remember Three Simple Rules

They go like this

One: Do No Harm,

Two: Do Good,
Three: Stay in Love with God.

When John Wesley introduced those three simple rules, they weren’t intended to be the end all for the journey of faith but a minimum reminder; the starting place where a follower of Jesus can find their footing.  (David Watson has a great blog on the topic here: https://davidfwatson.me/2016/12/05/wesleys-caution-about-the-three-simple-rules/).  These outward signs should be experienced in an inward transformation.  That “Stay in Love with God” is a good reminder of what should be happening in us.  Really, that meme isn’t wrong, because if your religion is teaching you to hate, you are doing it wrong.  And it ain’t Christianity if you are being taught to hate.  That doesn’t mean Christianity is all about rainbows and unicorns and Kum-ba-yah, Jesus actually does challenge us and convict us regarding hate and all kinds of other nasty stuff in our souls.  Dealing with it isn’t easy.

But…

If there is one thing 2020 taught me and 2021 is encouraging me to continue it is that God doesn’t turn away from us because we are a mess.  God’s grace is more than enough!

Change does that to us.  As we change with the season and experiences of life, there is always an “adolescent” period where we awkwardly come of age and we must incorporate the changes, the “hormones” and growth spurts and growth pains, into the journey toward maturity. 

And the spiritual journey is no different. 

Even so, we don’t want to talk about it.  Though the great leaders and theologians of many faiths speak and teach on growth, even indicating how like infants they are, our version of the Christian faith is egotistical and built upon spiritual celebrities.

Paul speaks to the church at Corinth and rebukes their attitudes and how they stand so “mature” in their own eyes.  I have been “rebuked” as a pastor for not giving “meat” in sermons enough times to get how these words of Paul get abused.  If you and I determine we need more “meat” we don’t need to look farther than Paul’s words:

“1My friends, you are acting like the people of this world. That's why I could not speak to you as spiritual people. You are like babies as far as your faith in Christ is concerned. 2 So I had to treat you like babies and feed you milk. You could not take solid food, and you still cannot, 3because you are not yet spiritual. You are jealous and argue with each other. This proves you are not spiritual and you are acting like the people of this world.” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3)

It seems to me, the Bible’s images are more often slow growth models.  Not only are the images of human babies like Paul, but also like the Psalm writer who notes we are to be “like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season.” (Psalm 1:3)  Not too soon or out of season, not forced or rushed but we grow and produce fruits “in season.”

Paul points out the church was acting like “the world.”  How does the world act?  The world is “jealous” and people “argue with each other.”  Uh... hello???  Anyone listening? 

The spiritual journey requires watering and maturing not steroids and botox.  If you are constantly in arguments and expressing jealousy then make note of it - the issue is in you and it is a sign you are not growing.

What Wesley understood was a person must indeed be free, fully, so they might then fully respond, freely, to the grace and gift of salvation found by giving one's faith and life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  Wesley struggled with the revolution taking place in the colonies but came to understand the significance.  Though he could not prevent the revolution, what he lived and taught would change the heart of England.

Just as I keep the founding father’s lessons near, I also keep the Works of John Wesley close by in my office.  While traveling on horseback, Wesley read and wrote often. While preaching in England, on October 6, 1774, John Wesley wrote:

“I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them:

1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy,

2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and

3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.”

Consider these “Leadership Lessons of John Wesley,” if you will, that challenge us in our day to act as Jesus might to others who we might disagree with.  We might disagree without being “disagreeable” people.  Some might consider Wesley’s three points, an application of Jesus’ command to “love your enemies.” (Matthew 5:44), but are they really my enemy or the neighbor I am called to love into the Kingdom of God?