Lost and Found

The Gospel lectionary passage for this past week was Luke 15:1-10. The passage containes two parables about things that are lost and then found. The first story is about a shepherd who has 100 sheep. The shepherd discovers that one of the sheep is missing. Jesus says, "naturally the shepherd will leave the 99 and go out looking for the one that is lost." The point of the story is that the need of the one is more urgent than the 99. It's not that the 99 are unimportant, but they are safe.

The second story is about a woman who has ten coins. She discovers that one is missing and she moves all the furniture and sweeps the house until she finds the lost coin. Jesus says about both of these parable that heaven rejoices when one sinner repents. These stories connect with us because we are familiar with the pain of loss and the joy of finding things that had been lost.

I just made a woman's day. She stopped by the church to see if, by chance, her missing glasses were left in her pew when she attended the chamber music concert this past Saturday. She had no inkling that they would still be there. More because it couldn't hurt to look, I let her in the church. She went to the pew where she had sat on Saturday night and found them perched on the pew cushion.

I love those unexpected moments when you get better than you deserve; more than you bargained for. I could tell that she was prepared to go buy new glasses if she had to. She wasn't desperate to find them. Her attitude was, "why not stop and ask? It takes so little effort to look." I could also tell that the gracious bonus that she had experienced was more than she had expected. It's a joyful experience to find something that you had almost given up on.

She, a good Episcopalian, was the one who observed that Sunday's lection fit her situation. It's not that God is desperate. But God's attentive searching and calling and gathering in what others give up on never stops. It's a good thing when we catch a glimpse of the joy that accompanies the turning of one person away from sin toward the mercy and grace of God that is always waiting to embrace them.

Fishing

My Father-in-law in the boat across the way turned around and spoke. "The Bible says to cast on the other side of the boat." That's the kind of thing that happens when a group of people from church go fishing together. It was hot and muggy and we didn't catch many fish, but we had fun anyway. We tried shrimp, squid,and mullets. We tried artificial lures. There was endless speculation about why we weren't catching many fish and even some stories about places around Edisto.

"That was where they filmed the beach scene in The Patriot," someone said pointing over to my right. I heard someone say, "I don't care if we catch any fish or not. It's really nice out here."

We didn't get to go out to 4KI, like we had planned. For those who may not know, 4KI is an artificial reef off of Kiawah Island. The forecast was for high winds and rough seas. The experienced boaters in the group said that we wouldn't have any fun out there under those conditions. I'll take their word for it. We had a great time fishing in the creeks and rivers.

At the end of the day we had five small croakers and memories of a day on the water in the sunshine with some good folks. We were sweaty and thirsty but I can't wait to try again. Maybe next time we'll make it out to 4KI.

Painted Buntings

My wife went to visit Botany Bay yesterday. While she was there they were catching and banding Painted Buntings. She texted me and told me where they were. I drove over. I've never seen anything like this before. There were several people working on tagging the birds. They had set up special feeders. When a bird would stop at the feeder the cages around the feeders were built so that they could carefully capture the birds. They would then put them in a tiny cloth sack and carry them to a table where the guy in charge would weigh and measure the birds. Then he would tag them or record information on the birds that were already tagged.

They are beautiful little birds. Here is a video of one.



I'm still gettting used to having so many wonderful things so close by. A fishing trip off the coast is in the works. That should be an experience. Edisto is flooded with visitors at the moment. It's easy to see how carefully the residents of Edisto are working to balance being hospitable with not giving away everything that makes this place special. Botany Bay is a treasure that everybody can enjoy. It's a good Idea to do what we can to keep it that way.

Tides II

Since my last post. I've been Kayaking in the creek that runs past our house on two different occasions. The first time I went by myself and paddled south to the ox bow that runs right past the front of our house. It's an incredible thing to have a marsh in your front yard. Then I paddled against the early and slow moving outgoing tide. I stayed out for about one and a half hours. It was remarkable how much the flow of the water changed during the time I was out there. Still I was pleased that I could pretty easily paddle against the tide. The kayak cuts through the water pretty smoothly.

The second trip was just paddling in the calm at the turning of the tide and again against the start of the outgoing tide. This time I towed my younger son in an inner tube upstream. So that we could float with the tide back home for the last half of the trip. I'm hoping to get him in a Kayak before too much longer.

I'm confirming what I suspected. Even a little paddle boat opens up a whole new world of things to do at the beach. I have been looking forward to seeing my new island home from the marsh side and at water level since we moved. The views and the sounds are pretty overwhelming. It all looks diffferent from the creek than it does from the land.

Although it's not too shabby from the land. The other morning I arrived at church early and heard the unmistakable call of the Pileated Woodpecker. When I turned to look in the direction of the call, I saw a woodpecker flying toward a dead tree across the road. I noticed that there were several other birds perched on the trunk the way that woodpeckers do. I looked more closely and realized that there were five of them. It was like a woodpecker diner.

If, like me, you've wondered about the pronunciation of the name of these red headed woodpeckcers. I looked it up. You actually have a choice. Either PIE-lee-ay-tid, or PILL-ee-ay-tid is acceptable according to several sites that I checked out. This video is much closer and clearer than my view but it gives you a good Idea of what I was watching and hearing except multiplied by five.


That was pretty good way to start out a Sunday Morning.

Tides

I have uploaded a picture of my new kayak. I've wanted one for quite awhile. I'm looking forward to exploring the marsh right around home. I've asked several people about the tides and how to predict when the tide will be right for paddling around. I've been told that the tide at the creek near our house is normally an hour later than the time that the chart lists for Charleston.

My only experience so far was one of those learning experiences. It was a good experience because Lillian and the boys and I got to spend some time talking with the woman whose dock we were planning to begin our float from. The plan was to float on inner tubes down the creek back to our house. We had done this with a group earlier in the week and enjoyed it immensely. We thought it would be a fun thing to do as a family. We were expecting the tide to be going out when we got to her house. It was coming in and so we waited for the tide to turn. We waited almost an hour and it was still coming in. We will definitely try again.

With the kayak it will be possible, if I plan it right, to use the tide to go out and then come back to the same place. Of course adventure awaits because predicting the tides is not an exact science. Variables like wind and the depth of the previous high tide can change the times significantly. I'll let you know how it goes.

More About the Church.

It's about time for another post. I missed last few weeks. My goal to start with is to add something once a week. Mondays seems like a good day to do so.

I have been teaching a Sunday School Class for the last 4 weeks. The name that we have given the class is Presbyterian 101. The outline I am using for the class is the Apostle's Creed. So the topics in order are: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, The church and the sacraments, The Presbyterian Church, The Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island.

Recently, We talked about the image of the body of Christ (I Corinthians 12). Perhaps I'm making too much of this image, but it seems to suggest that the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the church is mirrored in the relationship betwen the Holy Spirit and Jesus. We discussed how the sending of the Holy Spirit to the Church at Pentecost is what made it possible for a dispirited group of outcasts, runaway disciples, to become the church described in the book of Acts. Dr. Andrew Purves at Pittsburgh Seminary gave me a helpful summary of the work of the church in a lecture at the Seminary a few years ago.

"The Church," he said, "is supposed to do the things that Jesus did." That's a significantly different view of the work of the church than I was working out of. I think many people think that the church is a place where like-minded people gather and reinforce each other's thinking so that they can go out and withstand the onslaughts of a hostile or indifferent world until they get back together. That is closer to the image of the church's mission that I was working out of.

It's sort of a defeated aproach to doing the work that we have been given to do. We are under seige and our job is to hold out until Jesus comes back. In the mean time if we can persuade anyone to join us in our cloister that's even better.

If we now say that we are supposed to do the things that Jesus did, it changes the character of our work entirely. Jesus didn't hide out in a safe place and try to persuade people to join him. Jesus went out and like a sheep in the midst of wolves.(Luke 10) He wasn't a sheep in wolve's clothing. He went out among the people without hiding who he was or what he thought. He observed that some were hurting and confused. He saw that others were misusing people or indifferent to the pain of others. Jesus observed that some people were grasping what they could take and refusing to share what they had.

Jesus observe that the people were like sheep without a shepherd.(Matthew 9:36) He didn't see vicious wolves, he saw hurting desperate confused people. Jesus moved out from where he was, beginning with his birth in bethlehem. Jesus left heaven and laid himself down in a manger. The rest of his 30 odd years were about moving out, taking risks, extending himself for others. Early in his ministry, Jesus took those whom he had gathered to himself and sent them out.

Those whom he sent out were an extension of himself. Toward the end of his ministry Jesus told the disciples, "Go into all the world." (Matthew 16:15) God is always moving out from the center. Jesus was sent. His followers were sent. I am sent. I am not made to hide behind the church walls and think and perfect my understanding of who I am and who God is. We are sent to be the body of Christ. We are an extension of Christ himself expanding outward from God's throne, out into all creation. I think this video does an excellant job of describing the difference between my old image of church with the new one that Dr. Purves shared with me.

Brother, Are You Saved.

I didn't grow up in the Presbyterian Church. I grew up in a denomination where questions like are you saved? and statements like, "You need to get saved," and "I'm saved," were uttered almost every time we gathered. It wasn't until many years after I had been adopted into the Presbyterian family that I came to understand that a better way to talk about what these people were referring to is to say "I, we, You are 'being' saved."

The difference is important and so I thought I would write a bit about being saved. There are actually two things that most Christians believe is happening because of what Jesus has done. Those who trust Jesus as Lord and Savior, are "justified" and they are "sanctified."

Justification is the forgiveness, the "slate wiped clean," part of what Jesus did for all those who follow him. Justification is a part of what happened when Jesus lived and died descended into Hell and was raised again. There are several, "theories of atonement," that try to describe how Jesus' life, death and resurrection justifies us, makes us clean and wipes away all sins for those who believe in Jesus. Each one is descriptive and satisfying in some ways and incomplete and troubling in other ways. Still Christian people agree that it makes a difference that Jesus lived and died and was raised from the dead. Presbyterian belief is that Justification is effective once and for all. Jesus didn't just die for the sins that were committed up to the point when you profess your faith in Jesus. If you accept Jesus' free gift of forgiveness you have accepted forgiveness for sins past, present and future.

The Bible also teaches that God was not just interested in accepting and forgiving me "Just as I Am," and leaving me in the condition in which I was found. That would be sort of like finding a poor and hungry person and saying to them, "God loves you. You are forgiven for your sins." and walking away from them. We do that sort of thing. We have a different understanding of how God relates to those who are mugged by sin and left to die on the side of the road.

I have heard many Christian people say, when they are talking about justification and sanctification, that God loves us enough to accept us just as we are. However, God loves us too much to leave us that way. Not leaving us the way that God found us is the part of the salvation that is called sanctification. In one sense those who are being saved can talk about their sanctification in the past tense. They have been sanctified because of their association with Jesus. His goodness and perfection is substituted for their imperfection and corruption.

In another sense our sanctification is not finished until it is finished. Lately I have come to understand that even the "work in progress" that I am, is a function of God's graciousness, not of my own concerted effort. It's a mistake to say that justification is God's work and sanctification is our work. We are permitted to partner with God in the work of sanctification, but it is God's work.

Salvation, (justification and sanctification) is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul says as much in Ephesian 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast."

Don't ask me if I am saved, as if I have achieved some status or arrived at some milestone. I am being saved. Often in spite of myself.

Musings on Being Sent

This is a new beginning. I have been a blogger before. That is, I have set up a blog before, but the problem with anything like a blog or a journal or any other sort of discipline is that in order for it to make any difference at all you have to do it every now and then.

I'd like to be able to keep at a task like a blog or a journal so that I can see the arch of change and progress or lack of progress in my life over time. I reason that if I don't observe where I've been spiritually and imagine and pray about where I'm being led, I may be right on course, but I am missing out on the joy of knowing and observing that truth.

It's like so many things in life. The communication about what is happening is as important as the happening itself. If we care about someone and never tell them, nothing changes in our relationship. My objective truth never impinges on your reality if I stay silent. My ability to enjoy relationship with you and your ability to learn and grow and enjoy what a relationship with me would offer you is impacted by my ability to communicate.

It's true that it's not all up to me. You bear some responsibility as well but a healthy life giving relationship is watered and nourished by good honest communication. duh!? The point is that if I grow in some way and don't write it down and process it, there is a real possibility that the growth is sort of like the tree falling in the woods when no one was around to hear it or see it. Did it really happen? Does it make any difference? So talking about what is going on is important, even if the things that are happening don't seem important at all.

There is nothing to be gained by living an unexamined life. There is nothing to be gained by remaining at the center, never moving out beyond the circle of your own experience. This thought and many others are illuminated for me by the observation that God is moving out from the center of divine being. By definition, God is stretching beyond the boundaries of divinity to express love for that which is outside of God. In 1 John 4:8, 16 John says "God is love." Love is not content to remain silent and passive and unobserved.

God has always been relating. Within the Godhead, the one thing that we know for sure is happening is relationship, self revelation sharing and communication. "Let us make man in our own image," says God in Genesis 1:26. God who relates, shares, speaks chose to move out from that center, the starting place for all being and thought and action, and create being and thought and action.

Ultimately God moved out beyond the boundaries between creator and creation in the person of Jesus. Jesus said to his disciples, As the Father has sent me I am sending you. The movement of creator and creation is out from the center. The title of this blog is, Polite Imposition. It's a phrase that I believe captures the sense of an episode recorded in Luke 10:1-12. In this passage Jesus tells the disciples to go out and knock on people's doors with their hands empty and without provisions for themselves with the expectation that the people would bring them into their homes and feed them and shelter them.

Does that strike you as a bold and risky imposition. The Gospel is clear that the boldness the risk and the imposition are all real there is nothing timid or safe or backwards about the mission of God. It is also a polite imposition in the sense that there is a real, though it is somewhat troubling, choice that is preserved for the one to whom God's people are sent. That preservation of choice is not something that is to be violated. It is not to be violated even though it seems clear that the chooser is doing something against his or her own best interest.

In the same way that Jesus accepted as inevitable that people would reject him and did not gather an army of angels to back him up, the disciples are told to leave peacefully if the door is slammed in their faces. The words about shaking the dust off of the disciples feet and reiterating the truth that the Kingdom of God has come near, are about the disciple leaving the outcome of the encounter in God's hands rather than giving in to the temptation to press the issue, or worse to exact punishment for the household's rejection of God's good news right then and there.

The polite aspect of the imposition that Jesus has instigated is parallel with Jesus choosing not to "get back" at the Pharisees and scribes, and the Roman authorities who wrongly executed him. It would have been such a satisfying scene in the drama if the risen Christ had appeared to Caiaphas the high priest or to Pilate the Roman Governor, or to Herod the King. In making his resurrection appearances to the disciples alone Jesus, in a sense, has shaken the dust off of his feet. But Jesus did more than that at the moment of his crucifixion. Jesus forgave those who rejected him and prayed that the Father would forgive them.

What's more there is no crucifixion in Luke 10. The truth is that for most of us sharing the good news that the kingdom of Heaven is near doesn't result in persecution or imprisonment or execution. Luke 10 says for us to wedge our way into peoples' lives and put ourselves into their hands so that they choose to accept us and God's mission or they choose to reject us and God's mission. When the disciples did so in Luke 10 the result was astounding. Luke 10:17 says, The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!"

Our fear of rejection is based on the real possibility that we will be rejected, but that fear robs us of the experience of being a part of what God is busy doing in our lives and in the lives of people who are waiting for us to knock on their doors and impose ourselves on them. The Gospel is about being a polite imposition on the people to whom we are sent in the same way that Jesus imposed himself on us. Don't permit fear to rob you of the joy that God intends for you.