The practice Lectio Visual isn't complicated. Take your time and as you view the image walk through the following steps:
Look (Read): Consider deeply the image and what is being “said.”
Linger (Reflect): What is the verse or word being given to you?
Led (Respond): How are you being called to respond?
Lay (Rest): Be in God's presence.
Live (Return): Moving back into the world with how we've been changed.
Take time to reflect on the image. As you look at this image, what words come to your mind? Look at the people, their faces, their body language. What speaks to you about the location? The weather? Specifically, what Scripture passage or phrase does the Holy Spirit inspire them to speak to you? You may think of a recent news article or a quote by a famous person. So it maybe from another word or phrase that you are inspired you to look up a Scripture. If you need help, you might try going to www.biblegateway.com to do a search through the Bible. In this case, consider Job 14 as this passage is given credit by the artist.
Remember that there are those images, icons or symbols that attract us right off the bat. We are now an incredibly visual society and images are important. Christianity has been using images since the earliest days of the church. BUT, we need to realize that there are also images that don’t attract us or inspire us with joy or peace that are just as likely to be used by God.
Everybody wants to know they are important to someone. Do you remember writing notes in Elementary School: I like you. Do you like me? Check Yes, No, or Maybe. God created us for personal and authentic relationships. In the beginning God noted, “It is not good for man to be alone.”
So when we are rejected or ridiculed – it hurts. And we hurt, we move away from the cause of our hurt. We hide our imperfections, our shortcomings. We begin to apply the same pattern to all our relationships, including our relationship with God. Just like the first man and woman, we run and hide from the sound of God’s footsteps because we sense shame. But remember, it is we who are running. God is not – God keeps after us. Christmas is the celebration that God is still coming after us with a passion!
This has been God’s history though. He made a very special promise – a covenant with a small tribe of people who became known as the Jews. He loved them and built them into a great kingdom but over and over again, they broke their side of the covenant. God sent prophets to them to teach them, remind them and warn them.
One of those prophets was Hosea. Hosea compared this relationship with God to a marriage commitment and the Israelites, the Jews had broken their side. As a living parable then, Hosea married a prostitute. Again and again she left him, just like God’s people did. Over and over, Hosea went out and rescued her and loved her.
When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.” So Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son. Hosea 1:2-3 (NLT)
Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them. ” Hosea 3:1 (NLT)
We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy. This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:4-7 (NLT)
"Hosea represents God’s relentless love and Hosea’s wife of prostitution, Gomer, represent’s God’s people – not just the Israelites but also you and me,” said Mike Slaughter. We’ve been created to find our most significant meaning in life in a relationship with God, yet like a prostitute we give ourselves to everything but God.
Hosea’s life shows us the real heart of what the Incarnation at Christmas is all about. God tells Hosea, “Go, show your love to your wife again…love her as the Lord loves the Israelites (3:1).” In the manger is born God’s son – God has come to buy us back!
God works in unexpected places that we might be tempted to ignore. Most would have given no thought of a young teenager named Mary or a young carpenter named Joseph. God did. The world had no interest in an enslaved people in Egypt called the Hebrews. God did. No one cared much for a prostitute. Hosea did. God did and God still does.
God was not oblivious to grief in our community, the tragedy Connecticut nor what happened in China. God does not miss the fact that 1 child dies every five-seconds from hunger issues. God knows about the 16.6+million AIDS orphans and every 45 secs a child dies of malaria. God knows this recession has stripped many of us of our homes, depleted our 401K plans and increased our debt. We try to run from the truth, hide from the reality but it remains. We may neglect the needs but God does not.
Only when we realize how far we’ve strayed from God’s love can we respond in faith; a faith that leads to loving actions. Jesus came to earth as a tiny baby, in scandalous and humble circumstances. Immanuel – God with us. That is the love we celebrate at Christmas, and the kind of love we are CALLED to show and CAN show in return. Do you really believe God loves you madly, passionately, and unconditionally? What would it mean for us to love others “scandalously,” in a way different from how we show God’s love in the world now?
An
education can be a dangerous thing.
Going back to school by choice, well, that can just really mess you
up! Well, at least that is what I have
thought since going back to work on my Certification in Spiritual Formation. It really has been good but it has me pushing
myself mentally, physically and yes, spiritually.
Of
interest for me on this journey has been a simple one: what did John Wesley
have to say about spiritual formation?
Now if you’re not a Methodist, this may not be of interest but we Methodists
are kind of stuck with what maybe an inconvenient truth – Wesley’s 52 StandardSermons and his Notes on the New Testament are part of the United Methodist Church’s
Doctrinal Standards and General Rules (see Paragraph 103). These are far more than merely a collection of
pithy notes and sayings, they represent the theological work of a transformed and
transformational Christian. We have said
the writings of John Wesley matter – we don’t get to ignore them or term them archaic
or of no value. We have declared they
are more than historical – we have said we need them for our work as the
church.
This
arena of spiritual formation is not represented in this material directly. To find spiritual formation, you have to look
under mysticism and mystics of John Wesley’s larger works. Take your pick and use the index but
forewarned, these writings represent a varying array of opinions and ones that
do change over time. More to the point,
Wesley has varying opinions on different mystics even.
Not
much has been available to beyond two pieces that I have found in researching
this topic. Dr. Robert Tuttle followed
up his dissertation with the publishing of his book, Mysticism in theWesleyan Tradition, published in 1989. Dr. Kenneth J. Collins, also addressed the
topic of “John Wesley’s Assessment of Christian Mysticism in his submission to
the Lexington Theological Quarterly. I
have long been impressed with Dr. Collins’ writings on Wesleyan-Methodist Theology and I
certainly recommend both works.
What
struck me as of particular value is what Dr. Collins’ writes at the end of his
work. It is four questions, taken from
the whole of Wesley’s works on the subject of mysticism and Collins’ own
knowledge of Wesley’s thoughts and theology.
They represent what, I think, is a thoughtful and helpful gift to us as
clergy and laity to examine and reflect on practices as well as theologies and
theories we seek to bring into the church.
Consider these questions posed by Dr. Collins:
1. Is
it Christologically based?
2. Does it detract from Jesus as mediator? (Does it stress a direct relationship with
God apart from Jesus?)
3. Is
the practice rooted in the atonement?
4. Is
it rooted in the means of grace? (ex: prayer, communion, Bible reading, etc).
We
may be in the extreme center, but our discipline does not allow us do theology and practice in a vacuum either and I don't mean just in relation to spiritual formation but all of our work.
It would serve us well to wrestle more fully the history and reality of
our Wesleyan-Methodist Heritage in our day. We may well find it more than just fruitful but liberating to know more
fully the work of one whose heart was strangely warmed and then set on fire by God’s
grace and mercy.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you! ”Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.“Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” Luke 1:26-34 (NLT)
Chevy Chase’s character,
Clark Griswold, has seemingly lived a life of giving up on perfect but no where
does it come to hit home than in “A Christmas Vacation.” Nothing about Christmas goes as planned. In many ways, the movie is a stunning
editorial on the effects of today’s consumerism and marketing schemes. Christmas is often a time of painful
reminders of family or financial loss.
Christmas many times arrives not with the gifts we hoped for but the
unexpected we hoped to avoid. Like our
tree, Christmas many times arrives upside down.
But then, in truth, this
is just where and when God shows up in our lives - when things are upside
down. This is the truth of that stable
where Jesus was born, we just sanitized.
Come on, “The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes?” Whoever heard of a newborn not crying? Really?
The writer of Luke makes it fairly clear from beginning to end,
following Jesus is a real life proposition - it is messy, just like life.
We have an idea that if
we do the right thing, the good thing, then good is what we’ll get in life -
nothing bad is going to show up. Nothing
inconvenient will take place. The idea
that Jesus insulates us from life’s difficulties is another one of those
mirages. It disappears in the face of
reality. This is what Mary’s story
brings home to us.
Even though marriage at
the time was common for teenage girls, how emotional prepared do you imagine
Mary must have been? How theologically
formed would you expect a 12-15 year old girl to be when the angel appeared and
begin laying out this baby’s messianic ties to King David? Do not be afraid? Yeah, right!
We know in Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 1:18-19), her fiance, Joseph,
didn’t handle the news all that well when she said, “The Holy Spirit got me
pregnant.”
It becomes easy to
sanitize the facts of the miracle birth because we know the end of the story
but in truth, it only complicates our lives.
We then sanitize all of the interactions of God with us, thus creating
an unbelievable world of magic and fantasy with no messiness, no complications
and no difficulties. This flies in the
face of reality of Jesus’ birth, life and death.
Mary, a teenage girl,
betrothed in marriage to Joseph – finds favor with God and so what
happens? She becomes pregnant out of
wedlock. I’m sure you’ve seen the “I’m
proud of my honor student” bumper stickers.
Maybe you’re like us and have put
them up on your mini-van too. The reality
is even if your child was making D’s (and I made a few), you still favor your
child because the child belongs to you.
We miss this important reality, God’s favor can’t be earned. God comes to us in our times of doing right
AND in your time of doing wrong. As
Pastor Mike Slaughter put it, “You are highly favored by God because you are
God’s!”
Christmas is going to
come at times when the season in our life is not perfect. You may not feel much like celebrating. But Christmas is more than just another
holiday, it is a birthday and it is Jesus’ birthday. When we celebrate it, even out of our
weakness and pain, even when everything is upside down, we are celebrating the
birthday of one who has known suffering and life’s mess. We remember God DOES know what we go through
and he is with in the midst of it all.
Life offers us no
promises about staying safe and living comfortably. The Bible offers no such promises
either. It is a very real book that does
not gloss over or sanitize the realities of how life was and Jesus’ birth makes
it clear, it was a messy affair – very much in keeping with reality. I had a great young mom begin attending one
of the churches I served. She had a
little background in Christianity but had been away for some time. She called me one day very upset. As we talked she said to me, “You didn’t tell
me about all this death and violence in the Bible! I started at the beginning and was trying to
read it to my daughter and I just had to stop.
I can’t read this to her.”
She was right. The Bible isn’t like any other book and it
isn’t something which can be picked-up and read straight through. Some of it isn’t for children. Maybe we need to put warning labels on our
Bibles. Imagine if the Bible only had
the “good stories” and “good teachings?”
How trustworthy would this book be if it denied the existence and
struggles of pain and inconvenience that we face? Paul, who tells in 2 Corinthians, of being
whipped, beaten, stoned, and shipwrecked, is bluntly honest with his young trainee
Timothy, saying to him:
“Everyone who wants to
live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” (2 Timothy 3:12).
Why did God choose Mary
to be the mother of Jesus? Because God
knew that even when life didn’t make sense, she would choose to continue to
serve God. Her words ring clearly even
now, “I am the Lord’s servant…May it be to me as you have said (Luke
1:38).” While we have no records of what
Mary and Joseph taught Jesus as a boy, surely, he learned this truth.
Have you given any thought
to the messy places around us – in our community, our country and our
world? What if you did the Christmas
present challenge or something like it and intentionally set aside some of that
money saved to go to the Christmas offering this year – our offering that goes
to those messy places? Imagine what you
could do if you gave up on making Christmas perfect and instead, as a family,
decided to make a difference.
Do
you ever have one of those thoughts that simply hangs on, digging in the
fingernails, refusing to let go? I have
been grappling with one ever since beginning my journey as a church planter a
number of years ago. But let me preface
it by saying, this is not intended to be even about church planting. No, it really is simply a thought.
It
started with listening to a conference speaker who explained how Acts 2:41, the
response to Peter’s sermon with “…three thousand souls being added to the
number,” was a good measuring stick for church starts. “Really?,” I thought and there it stuck and
it did not leave me. I learned the real
data later on, what churches need, people wise, to become a church. There is a simple reality of economics in our
day that plays into this but then this is no different from established
churches.
We
keep finding ways to measure and report effectiveness. It has been talked endlessly now how pastors
can be more effective as leaders and CEOs.
It seemed like for the longest time, we could have the best of both
worlds – borrowing from scripture on one handed and the sages of the corporate
world on the other hand. Yet, we’ve
neglected to consider what Les
McKewon terms “The 3 Things Every Leader Gets Wrong.” He identifies those
three things as:
1. The time needed to
do things.
2. The relative
importance of people and ideas.
3. What other people
hear you say.
And
just like getting the best of both worlds, when leaders err this way (and I
have), then the church receives the worst too.
Not only have we, as pastors, failed in leading our people, we’ve failed
to demonstrate to live out the pattern of life Jesus lived and the Fruit of the
Spirit-filled life which Paul taught - 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness,
self-control. Galatians 5:22-23 (NKJV)
I
know this too well from my own failings both in ministry and in my own heart. I kept coming back to my calling to ministry. Most of us did not come into ministry to
enhance resumes and gain our share of the pie (I did say most). I came into ministry because God called, or
let me put it this way – I prayed and God spoke. Now others confirmed this calling, so certainly it was
not in a vacuum. What remains as the foundation is my journey began
with prayer.
We
don’t have a means to measure prayer at all.
Now, we may try to measure our prayer but it doesn’t have the same measurability
as say, numbers in chairs on Sunday morning or giving figures. As Don Salier’s points out so pointedly, “…there
is a tendency to define prayer primarily by its effects and by our own
consequent actions in the world.The
prayerful life is shown by its fruits, assuredly; but it can never be reduced
to its “results (from Worship as Theology)."As
Salier’s notes, if we go down this road, reducing prayers to something
measurable, to results, “…prayer slides toward magic.”
We cannot find in Scripture where God calls us
to performance.To be actors in a play
for God’s amusement is the stuff of mythology.John Wesley in his sermon on “The Means of Grace,” declares, “The chief
of these means of grace is prayer, whether in secret or the great congregation…”There maybe many things on the to do
list.The chief among them is not to be
a more effective leader.Clearly not,
the chief among them is to recognize we’ve been adopted into the family of God
(Romans 8:15) and we as, the children, need our time with God.To keep our prayer practice in the forefront
of our lives and ministry, is indeed a challenge, one not so measurable but one
of far more significance to our soul.
Isaiah 7:14 NASB "Therefore the Lord Himself will give
you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will
call His name Immanuel.
Luke 4:16-21
GNB Then Jesus went to Nazareth, where
he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath he went as usual to the synagogue.
He stood up to read the Scriptures (17) and was handed the book of the prophet
Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written, (18)
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to
bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed (19)
and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his
people." (20) Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to
the attendant, and sat down. All the people in the synagogue had their eyes
fixed on him, (21) as he said to them, "This passage of
scripture has come true today, as you heard it being read."
The time leading up to Christmas is often a time of
wonder. I’ve often wondered, like you have, just what does God looks like? If God showed
up today, how would I recognize it was God?
Or how about when you pray, how do you imagine God? Is it the face of stern judge or that of a
loving and concerned parent? Is the God
you wonder about a God who just cares about salvation and heaven or about the
reality and struggles of life here and now?
Does God know how stressed you are about your grades, does he care about
how tough it is in your family, or how excited you are about a possible
promotion?
As we begin our journey to Christmas morning, let’s cut
to the heart of this and admiit Jesus was not what or who people imagined God
to be. While today we acknowledge him to
be God’s Son and of absolute power and authority, when he was born into the
world it was a whole other story. Born a
Jew in the middle east under Roman control, his family escaped genocide to
Egypt, only to return to a non-descript village, growing up as the son of a
carpenter. His life was spent
associating with everyday folks and navigating the political and religious
turmoil of his day, resisting power, corruption, consumerism and
popularity. This is why Jesus could say
that Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled.
Jesus lived it out.
Along the way we substituted Santa Claus for Jesus. In more places than one. Think about our early wonderings
about God. In your heart haven’t you
ever heard these words echo when you pray:
“He sees you when you’re sleeping...He knows if you’ve been bad or
good?” If our picture of God gets
distorted, our perspective becomes skewed and we no longer see Jesus for who he
is but for what we can get from him.
Like magic, it is an illusion, and illusions are mere entertainment.
Let’s look again at the words Jesus read in regarding the
poor and the captives. Now substitute
the message we started hearing in our radios, tvs and pop-up ads weeks
ago: “...he has chosen me to bring free shipping on orders over $50 to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim Buy One - Get the Second for Half-off
to the captives and recovery of shopping
days to the blind, to set free the oppressed to decorate their homes (19)
and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people with 0% interest for one full year."
The magical Christmas promised by ads is an
illusion. It is certainly not
Biblical. What we have been given in
Jesus is a reality of a meaningful life.
Mike Slaughter, pastor at one of the largest UM churches in the US
brought this home when he shared a conversation with a friend who retired early
from his work. This friend was jabbing
Mike about still working, so Mike asked him, “What do you do with all your
extra time?” His friend responded, “Oh,
I play golf everyday and my wife and I collect shells on the beach.” So that
is the meaning of life? Like
Mike, I want to be able to say I left this world something far more important
than a lower handicap and a dust collection.
Imagine this Christmas to not be magical BUT
meaningful. Better yet, what if YOU were
part of a meaningful miracle? You must
remember though, that miracles don’t just happen - they are born, and there is
pain in birthing - this, Mary, the virgin mother, knew when she said yes to
God.
So imagine as a family what new
tradition you could give birth to help focus on Jesus’ presence rather than on
the presents. One idea is the "Four Gift Rule" going around. But I don't think it ought to be for our kids alone, what if the whole family did it? Just begin the conversation
today. In the coming weeks, we'll throw out some more ideas you might consider as you expect a miracle this Christmas!
Don't miss any of what is in store. Next week will be a Celtic Christmas and the next step on our journey as we work on "Giving Up On Perfect!"
With a new sermons series beginning about A Different Kind of Christmas, this visual seemed to leap out at me. Take your time with this one.
The practice Lectio Visual isn't complicated. Take you time and as you view the image walk through the following steps:
Look (Read): Consider deeply the image and what is being “said.”
Linger (Reflect): What is the verse or word being given to you?
Led (Respond): How are you being called to respond?
Lay (Rest): Be in God's presence.
Live (Return): Moving back into the world with how we've been changed.
Take time to reflect on the image. As you look at this image, what words come to your mind? Specifically, what Scripture passage or phrase does the Holy Spirit inspire them to speak to you? You may think of a recent news article or a quote by a famous person. So it maybe from another word or phrase that you are inspired you to look up a Scripture. If you need help, you might try going to www.biblegateway.com to do a search through the Bible.
Remember that there are those images, icons or symbols that attract us right off the bat. We are now an incredibly visual society and images are important. Christianity has been using images since the earliest days of the church. BUT, we need to realize that there are also images that don’t attract us or inspire us with joy or peace that are just as likely to be used by God.
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