A Prayer for Nepal

The death toll in Nepal is now over 2,000 people from Saturday’s massive earthquake near Kathmandu. It’s easy for us in US to feel removed from such an event. But please don’t ignore the devastation. Let the pain of the world become your pain so that you might develop the heart of God, who knows intimately the pain of us all. Let your prayers rise up. Here is one you can pray.

Compassionate God,

we’ve been taught to confess your compassion, your mercy,

your goodness, your grace;

today, we confess our confusion.

Thousands die through no human fault:

just the shifting of a plate and the poverty of a society,

a horrific catastrophe, an “act of God.”

We lack clarity, we see dimly:

we confess our confusion.

[Selah]

Yet we know, we confess:

you are a God who is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness;

you are a God under the rubble, with the children and their mothers,

with the dead and the dying,

with the hurt and the living,

you are with…

We pray:

let your compassion take form;

comfort those who have lost loved ones,

ease the pain of the injured,

deliver food to the hungry and water to the thirsty,

lift up the hands of the helpers,

and send your people to comfort, ease, deliver, lift up.

Come quickly, Lord,

and have mercy.

Amen.

Unto Every Person There Is a Name

I’m a member of the Richardson Interfaith Alliance, and last night some of us were invited to participate in Congregation Beth Torah’s 14^th annual 24-hour “Reading of the Names,” a Holocaust remembrance vigil. It started at 9:00 last night and finished at 9:00 tonight.

I joined Rabbi Elana Zelony and other spiritual leaders in Richardson as we lit a candle “in memory of all the spiritual leaders lost in the Holocaust.” Others lit candles “in memory of all the boys who did not live to become men” or “in memory of all the unborn generations lost in the Holocaust.” It was a truly beautiful memorial. After chanting the El Malei Rachamim Memorial Prayer and reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish, members of the community began reading the names—one by one—of those who perished in the Holocaust while the rest of us bore witness by listening. This reading of names lasted 24 hours.

From their program for the day, Congregation Beth Torah informed us, “In just six years, Nazi Germany and their allies methodically murdered six million Jews and an estimated five to six million people of various nationalities, persuasions, and cultures. Each of these individuals had a name. Each had a story. We honor them, as we try to comprehend our loss, by reading as many names during a 24 hour period.”

In the now fourteen years that Congregation Beth Torah has gathered for a 24-hour vigil, they have read approximately 100,000 names. They estimated that if they were to read names 24 hours/day, 365 days/year, it would take about twelve years to read all 11,000,000 names.

As you can surely imagine, it was a deeply meaningful time, to hear these names read. My Jewish sisters and brothers really get the idea of “remembering.” It was overwhelming to hear each of the names read and to imagine a mother and father who lost a child, a friend who lost a companion, a child who lost a parent. The Creator lovingly made each of those 11,000,000 people who were so quickly erased. It is an act of supreme hope and devotion in the community who is dedicated to keeping their memory alive.

The most helpful portion of the introductory words for me as a first time witness was a story my friend Earl, a fellow member of the Richardson Interfaith Alliance and a member of Congregation Beth Torah, told. It’s a story from Moshe Leib Sassover, an 18^th century Hasidic Rabbi.

A peasant said to his friend, “Ivan, do you love me?”

Ivan replied, “Of course I love you.”

The peasant said, “Do you know what brings me pain?”

Ivan said, “How can I know what brings you pain?”

“Well,” the peasant said, “if you don’t know what brings me pain, how can you truly love me?”

To enter into the pain of a person or of a community is the ultimate declaration of love. In our own Christian tradition, we confess that this is precisely what Jesus did. He didn’t just save us from a safe distance: he entered into the pain of human history, acquainted himself with our grief, and suffered as we all suffer. And it is to this solidarity in suffering, this knowledge of our neighbors’ pain, that we are all called. This, being attentive to the pain of others, is love.

MLK Day of Service

In Richard Foster’s classic book Celebration of Discipline, he lists service as one of the outward disciplines. It’s a discipline, something that we have to practice, something that we occasionally have to make ourselves do. Foster says, “In some ways we would prefer to hear Jesus’ call to deny father and mother, houses and land for the sake of the gospel than his word to wash feet. Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure. If we forsake all, we even have the chance of glorious martyrdom. But in service we must experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial.”[1]

This coming Monday, January 19 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Schools are off, and many businesses are closed. An entire movement has sprung up in recent years to honor Dr. King’s legacy: the MLK Day of Service. People all over our country spend the day in service to others. What a holiday!

I want to encourage you to consider spending at least two hours of this day with members of your family—spouse, kids, grand kids, whoever’s nearby—serving other people. There are several opportunities to serve, but I’ll point to two.

1. Volunteer to serve with our brothers and sisters at Cornerstone Baptist Church in South Dallas. There are always lots of great ways to support the amazing ministry of Cornerstone in the Fair Park community. If you’re interested in serving at Cornerstone, Pastor Chris Simmons has asked folks to show up at 10 am and call his cell phone on your way: 214-676-7315. (I know, I know, but he asked me to post his cell phone.)
2. Join other Texas Baptists in packing nutritious rice/soy meals for those suffering from food shortages in West Africa. Learn more and sign up here.

If neither of these fits you, call your local homeless shelter or hospital or library or women’s shelter and ask how you and your family can serve. Make service to other people a spiritual practice this week. Try it for a couple of hours. You may find, as countless others have found, that in “the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial,” God is present and at work in ways you couldn’t dream. And let us know how it goes.

[1] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 126-27.

Candy Smith

Tonight, a good-sized group gathered at First Baptist Church Richardson to celebrate our Learn Pastor Candy Smith and her upcoming retirement from leadership at our church.

When I accepted the call to come to First Baptist Richardson two and a half years ago, I knew virtually no one at the church. I was impressed with what I had heard of and from Pastor Ellis, and I had friends who knew certain people at this church and spoke very highly of them. But none received consistently higher praise than Candy Smith. Several of my seminary professors in particular, when they found out I was coming to Richardson, said, “Oh, you’ll get to work with Candy. She’s one of my favorite people in the world.” One of them, my mentor in Waco, said Candy was one of the most important influences on his life at a critical point in his life. So you can believe I was going to pay attention to this lady.

I’ve had the privilege of knowing and working alongside Candy for these past two and a half years now. It’s not a long time in this church in which I’ve found myself. People here stick around for long periods of time. Candy herself has been here for 24 years. There are plenty of people here who have known her for 24 years. There’s a good handful here who have known her far longer than that. Many people have known her better than me and have lived without remembering a time before Candy was there. But for me, these two and a half years have been profoundly marked by the presence of Candy Smith.

Candy has led our church with a beautiful combination of gentleness and strength. She’s performed just about every pastoral function there is to perform here: few people have had as wide an influence at FBCR as has Candy. Candy is the consummate pastor: she is fully present to our community here, having held its hand through very dark days and cried with joy in its moments of elation; she’s welcomed babies—including my own—with arms ready to hold and gently watched over others as they passed from this life to the next. She is such a great minister, giving tremendous care and attention to every person she’s with. She listens and remembers and helps and speaks. And she works hard: really, really hard.

Candy graduated from Howard Payne University over 40 years ago and began working for the Baptist General Convention of Texas as a youth specialist. She then served on staff at Shiloh Terrace Baptist Church in Dallas, Westbury Baptist Church in Houston, and then at First Baptist Richardson for these past 24 years.

Candy is a pioneer, a trailblazer. She is a woman, she is a Baptist, and she is a pastor. For her generation, it is rare to find someone who can wear all three of those distinctions. As Brian Harbour said tonight, “You meet Baptists occasionally who say, ‘A woman can’t be a minister.’ But all you have to do in response is introduce them to Candy Smith.” I’m proud to serve in a church that believes God can and does call and equip any follower of Jesus—male or female—to lead and shepherd God’s people. But it’s still unfortunately rare within the Baptist world—especially in the American South—to find women in pastoral positions in churches.

I’m the husband of a wife whom I believe is specially equipped by God with gifts traditionally assigned to men. I’m the father of two daughters whom I hope will see any—absolutely any—vocational option as that: an option for them. I’m so grateful to be a part of a community that nurtures those gifts in our girls and in our boys and that has women like Candy who lead with wisdom and kindness and grace and strength. Candy has trusted God’s call on her life and in the process has been a true example of a female pastor to so many.

But Candy is, of course, more than a symbol to my family. She is our friend, our mentor, our mother, our sister. She is Candy. And we love her. Thanks be to God for Candy Smith.

Epiphany

I posted this three years ago as a reflection on Epiphany. It was helpful for me to re-read today.

Last year, for every season of the church calendar, Ellia and I constructed a short, preschool-aged prayer that we prayed every evening. Every night before bed, Ellia and I would say our Advent prayer, or our Christmas prayer, or our Epiphany prayer…It went decently well last year when Ellia was three, though she had a preference for the Advent prayer. We ended up praying for Jesus’ advent with a lot more regularity than the others.

This year, Ellia’s sensibilities about the church calendar are being refined (as are her parents’), and she has journeyed well as a four-year-old through Advent and then through Christmastide. Today is the feast of the Epiphany. In the West, this has traditionally been a celebration of the visit of the magi. Or better, it is the manifestation (meaning of Greek epiphaneia) of Jesus to the nations. In the Eastern tradition, the central event is the baptism by John, but again the focus is on the manifestation of Jesus as God’s beloved son.

Epiphany (and, for us, the season of ordinary time that follows it) is a time of reflection on the willingness of Jesus not only to come, but to be revealed to us. God did not send Jesus incognito as it were, just an anonymous blood donor sent to effect our justification. N. T. Wright is fond of pointing out that, for many Christians, it would have sufficed (following the creeds) for Jesus to have been born of a virgin…and then to have suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, and buried. But the Gospel writers spilled much ink to give us a picture of the life of Jesus between the cradle and the cross. This is what Epiphany (followed by Lent) reminds us: that God wants to be known not just believed in; that Jesus is not just an instrument of God but is true Life sent into the world; that the gospel is not just about the magnificence of the incarnation or the resurrection but is also about the manifestation of God in a humble baptism and a human life.

At Epiphany, we travel with the nations represented by the magi to wonder at this gift of God, we hear the voice of God declare at Jesus’ baptism that he is the beloved of God, we begin to take notice of the things that Jesus said and did. On this day of Epiphany, let us draw near to this person and know God.

Our Epiphany prayer, which we will begin praying tonight until Ash Wednesday, is

Jesus, thank you for showing yourself to us.

Now show yourself through us.

Good Friday

I remember the weeks leading up to Ellia’s birth. We had never been parents before. We read the What to Expect…books. We read books on cuddle cures and feeding schedules, on positive discipline and shepherding children’s hearts. We took birthing classes and parenting classes. We talked to friends and mentors, people who had been there before, to try to figure out what we should do. And then, the day came. Ellia was born. You can talk about theory; you can talk about concepts. But there’s a time to put analysis to the side and just be.

The cross is arguably the most considered object in Christian history. And rightly so. The cross is the heart of the Jesus Truth and the Jesus Way. Paul spent the bulk of the space in his letters considering the significance of the cross for the communities he had helped to begin. What happened on the cross? What was God up to? Why did Jesus have to die?

We deal with concepts like atonement, substitution, reconciliation, redemption, freedom. And this is fine. We need to do that heavy lifting analytical work. That’s part of our theological tradition.

But the discipline of the liturgical calendar reminds us that we’re not simply recipients of a divine transaction; we’re pilgrims with Christ. The cross is not simply an object to be analyzed and preached; it’s a subject that exists in its own space and preaches its own message.

So this Good Friday, I’d invite you to leave analysis of the crucifixion for another day. For today, be there. Be with Jesus. Be the beloved disciple who’s standing with the women at the foot of the cross. Be the mother of Jesus, gazing on as her beloved child struggles to breathe. Hear the final words of Jesus.

Don’t be too quick to draw theological conclusions like how Jesus is doing this for me or about the amazing grace displayed on the cross. There will be time to come to those sorts of (correct) doctrines in the months and weeks ahead. Instead, for today, lean in to the darkness of the moment.

When it comes to parenting, I believe deeply in figuring out how you’re going to parent: reading good parenting books, talking to other parents, figuring out with your spouse how to deal with this or that discipline issue. But the moment your child is born is not the time for analysis. Instead, it’s the time to be a parent. It’s time to be present, to feel, to lean in.

Good Friday is a day to lean in to the darkness, the pain, the abandonment, the isolation, the brokenness of the cross. May you have space today to experience the depths of the cross.

Maundy Thursday

“Maundy” comes from the Latin word mandatum, which means command or mandate. This Thursday we remember the mandatum nova, the new command: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-­35 NRSV).

It’s interesting that Jesus calls it a new commandment. Surely there isn’t anything new in a command that says to love one another. We could find verse after verse of commands in the Old Testament that insist on care and love of the other, the neighbor, the stranger, the poor. The Hebrew Torah is essentially concerned with these two concepts: love of God and love of neighbor (which Jesus of course quotes as his summation of the law). And love of the other is certainly not a strictly Christian or Jewish concept. Ever major religion of the world teaches some form of love for others.

So what’s so new about this command in John 13? I don’t think what’s new is the command to love another. I think what’s new is the qualifier: just as I have loved you. That’s what’s new.

In Jesus, we don’t just love one another; we love one another as Jesus loved us. With a basin and towel. On our hands and our knees. Against what’s expected in our culture. To the point of giving ourselves up for one another. We don’t just have a command in the form of words on a page; the command is now written in the obedience of the Son. And his obedience is emphatically now our example to follow (John 13:15).

Today we remember that Jesus didn’t just come to die. Yes, of course, he came to die. But he also came to establish a community of people who would embody the kind of self-giving love that he left behind for them to show. That’s why Thursday is so important. If we skip Thursday and jump straight to Friday, we could be tempted to think Jesus just came to punch our ticket to heaven. But his death is so much more than that. It’s our gift to receive, yes; but it’s also our example to follow. Lesslie Newbigin liked to remind us that Jesus never wrote a book; he formed a community. The community of the crucified.

May we take up the basin and the towel to serve the world Jesus came to love. May we take up our cross to give ourselves away for the world Jesus came to love.

Spiritual Disciplines and Preschoolers

Last night, a few parents of preschoolers gathered together at First Baptist Richardson to talk about spiritual disciplines as foundations for spiritual formation with our kids. I had the opportunity to share some thoughts, though it, of course, was very much a group effort. Here are some key reflections and practical ideas from our discussion last night.

To take an active role in positively forming your kids to know and follow Jesus, it starts with you, the parents. Far more than any times of prayer or family worship, your children will be shaped by who you are. So take seriously your own spiritual development and growth. Our emphasis last night was on the spiritual disciplines, which I defined as “things we do to be with God.” As parents, it’s important that you first familiarize yourselves with the various spiritual disciplines. I can’t more highly recommend that you read Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. It’s a book I return to about every other year or so.

We talked about viewing the spiritual disciplines as rhythms, just like breathing. If you only inhaled, you would die. If you only exhaled, you would die. We need the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out to live. It’s similar in the Christian spiritual journey. We need to practice things that set us up to receive from God and things that push us out into the world to pour out what we have received from God.

Once you have a decent grasp on the spiritual disciplines, consider crafting a rule of life for yourself that you might share with your spouse or your Life Group/Bible Fellowship. If you decide to follow a rule of life, know that it’s good to revisit it and adjust as needed. There is also the option of meeting with a spiritual director, someone who is trained and experienced in the Christian spiritual journey—someone who’s perhaps further down the path than you—who can speak in to your life and serve as a guide in your journey.

We then talked about some practical things you can do with your kids to invite them to be with God.

For prayer, we talked about encouraging short times of silence. I like to set a timer that gives some structure to the silence. With preschoolers, start with a minute. You may not get to two minutes until they’re teenagers, but even a minute of silence exposes them to listening prayer. Be sure, of course, that you emphasize that the silence is for the purpose of being with God. I also like short, responsive prayers with my little kids. I’ll put a few that I’ve written below. I like the idea of a sacred space in the home, if you can create one. For kids, I’d encourage you to include other elements besides chairs and a Bible. Consider using a candle or a bell to create a frame around the time of prayer. Maybe have paper with crayons or paints available for your children to create something as their prayer to God.

In addition to getting a good age-appropriate Bible, consider learning Bible stories really well yourself and telling them to your kids without anything in between you and your child: just pure storytelling. Speak slowly and help them experience the stories. At the end of the story, I recommend using “I wonder” statements (For example, “I wonder what Mary was thinking when the angel told her she was going to have a baby.”). This invites some participation from our kids, encourages them to use their imaginations, and places them in the stories themselves. But it also doesn’t demand an answer. It’s not about being right or wrong about the facts of the story. It’s giving them space to wander around inside the story and get to know it well. (This is very closely related to the classic practice of lectio divina—spiritual reading—in which you read the story from the Bible contemplatively. Here is a pretty straightforward primer on lectio, though there are lots of resources out there.)

The church calendar can also be a very helpful tool as you journey with your kids. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost are the six major seasons of the church year. Each one is a journey of varying length with its own focus and direction. It can add some variance to your prayer time together.

Also consider intentional ways you can serve the world with your kids. Here are just a few practical ideas.

• Get to know your neighbors and intentionally reach out to them: make them cookies together, have the kids write them notes, maybe even go over and visit them in person just to see how they’re doing.
• If a friend at school or church is in the hospital, make something for her and go visit her.
• Fill a brown paper bag with non-perishable foods, bottled water, travel toothpaste/toothbrush; have your child decorate the outside of the paper bag; keep it in the car for when you encounter someone asking for money on the side of the road.
• Help your child pick out one of their own toys (maybe several toys) to donate to Toys for Tots or Goodwill (both accept used toys).
• If there are projects your kids like to help you with (yard work, gardening, cooking, cleaning, wood working, etc.), consider finding an outlet for those projects other than your own home: maybe an older neighbor or a different part of town; for example, if you like to garden together, maybe visit a nursing home or a school and see if they’ll let you plant a flower garden somewhere for the residents/students.

Prayers

• Advent: “Dear Jesus, we wait for you to come. Come, Lord Jesus.”
• Christmas: “Dear Jesus, thank you for coming. Come again, Lord, Jesus.”
• Epiphany: “Dear Jesus, thank you for showing yourself to us. Now show yourself through us.”
• Lent: “Dear Jesus, thank you for going to the cross. Be with us as we follow you.”
• Easter: “Dear Jesus, you died for the sin of the world. You rose to give us new life.”
• Pentecost: “Dear Jesus, thank you for being with us. Help us to be with you.”

On the way: “Dear Jesus, give me your eyes…to see what you want me to see. Give me your ears…to hear what you want me to hear. Give me your heart…to love who you want me to love.”

Nighttime [from the Book of Common Prayer]: “Guide us waking, dear Lord and guard us sleeping. That awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.” [This one I used to pray every night by myself as the very last word said before I left their room. Now, they like to do it responsively, because they’ve learned it.]

Candle-Lighting Prayer (at the beginning of a time of family worship or prayer): “We light a candle in the name of the Father who gives life, in the name of the Son who loves life, and in the name of the Spirit who is the fire of life.”[i]

A nice song of blessing (based on Num 6:24-26, sung to the tune of “Edelweiss”). I sing this as a kind of lullabye-blessing to my kids in bed.[ii]

May the Lord, mighty Lord, bless and keep you forever.

Granting peace, perfect peace, courage in every endeavor.

Lift your eyes and see his face, know his grace forever.

May the Lord, mighty Lord, bless and keep you forever.

 

Consider writing your own blessings for your children: maybe a blessing for any time you part and a blessing for nighttime. Make your blessings short but meaningful. These are the words you want to leave with them. Start with “May you…”

 

Resources

I have scores of books on spiritual formation, books on spiritual practices/disciplines, prayer books, etc. Here are four that are fine places to start.

 

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

The (modern) classic book on the Christian spiritual disciplines.

 

Valerie E. Hess and Marti Watson Garlett, Habits of a Child’s Heart

This is a kind of Celebration of Discipline written for parents. It’s wonderfully practical and instructive. Our church is buying copies of this book for the parents who were in attendance last night.

 

Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms

A great read on spiritual practices, with an especially helpful final chapter on developing a rule of life.

 

Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart

I recommend reading pretty much anything you can get your hands on by Nouwen. This little book deals primarily with the practices (and importance) of silence, solitude, and prayer. Really helpful!

I’d love to get feedback from you on this. If you have practices that have helped you and your young children be with God together, would you share them with me?

 

[i] I learned this prayer from my professor and friend Hulitt Gloer. I’m not sure if he wrote it.

[ii] I learned this song from a former church (DaySpring Baptist Church, in Waco, TX). Other congregations sing it as well as a benediction, with various lyrics. I can find nothing to indicate who first put these words to this tune.

Forgiveness

I first heard this story about five months ago on the radio program Radiolab.

I want to invite you to listen to Hector’s story. Hector is a Quaker, committed in his following of Jesus to resolute nonviolence. To me, Hector embodies that quote that Mr. Rogers used to carry in his wallet: “Frankly, there isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love once you’ve heard their story.” Enjoy.

Advent 4: Waiting for Jesus’ Return

Yesterday was the fourth Sunday of Advent. Here is a short piece I wrote for our church. It’s the last of four pieces that I’ve written that seeks to answer the question, What is Advent? (Here you can read the first, second, and third installments.)

Last week we talked about how Advent means “coming.”  Before Christmas and the celebration of Jesus’ birth, there is a season of waiting on the arrival of Jesus.  We talked about how during Advent, we’re joining with ancient Israel as we await the coming of the promised Messiah who will inaugurate God’s kingdom.

The other side of our waiting is waiting for Jesus to come again.  This is just the other side of the same coin.  Just as Jesus came at a time of deep darkness and need, when the time was just right, so he will come again.

And so Advent is a time when we look forward to Jesus’ return.  Our world continues to be in a bad place, overall.  Wars rage on every continent with varying degrees of struggle; divorce claims husbands and wives (and their children) at record highs in our own nation; a person dies every 3.6 seconds simply from not having nutritious food to eat or clean water to drink; close to two hundred million children have no living parents; 1.5 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the US alone in 2010.  And, of course, these statistics are just the tip of the iceberg.  Add to these the personal tragedies every human being faces in the course of his or her life, and there is little argument against the fact that the world in which we live—the world that God created—is a mess.

When Jesus returns, all will be made right.  We wait with eager anticipation for Jesus to return.  And the best way to wait is to live out our anticipation.  We anticipate the day when all will be made right by living with the appropriate end in mind.  We anticipate the day when all will be made right when we pray, “Let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Our prayer is for all creation finally to be reconciled back to God.

But for now, we live in the tension between the present reality and the future hope.  We are people who live between the darkness and the light.  We know that Light is coming, is ready to flood the earth, to dispel all darkness.  But our world is still dark.  There is still deep pain, loneliness, illness, death.  There is no apparent end in sight.  But Advent—the gospel—forms us to be a people who proclaim that there is Light even today.  And not only to proclaim, but to pray and work for the Light to break through the darkness even now.  There will come a day when all will be Light.  For now, we wait with active anticipation for that day to dawn, for the Light to come.