Rock & Sling

Some friends of mine do some cool writing things over at Rock & Sling. 

One of them asked me to write a guest post for their Writer's Ink series. 

Here's that post, about my "first, or maybe my second, tattoo." Check it out, if you're interested. 

My Emmaus Road [A Journey in Pastoral Licensing]

I’d like to share a story with you.

Although actually written as a sermon that I shared a few weeks ago, on Bloomsday Sunday, I’d like to share it with you as well, to give you a window into my Lenten journey. It’s long, but [hopefully] worth it.

I’d also like to note the great timing of our wonderful church fathers and mothers who set out the calendar of readings. How fitting that the Road to Emmaus passage would fall on Bloomsday Sunday.

Here is the passage, in The Voice:

_______________________

Luke 24:13-35

13 Picture this:

That same day, two other disciples (not of the eleven) are traveling the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. 14 As they walk along, they talk back and forth about all that has transpired during recent days. 15 While they’re talking, discussing, and conversing, Jesus catches up to them and begins walking with them, 16 but for some reason they don’t recognize Him.

Jesus: 17 You two seem deeply engrossed in conversation. What are you talking about as you walk along this road?

They stop walking and just stand there, looking sad. 18 One of them—Cleopas is his name—speaks up.

Cleopas: You must be the only visitor in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about what’s been going on over the last few days.

Jesus: 19 What are you talking about?

Two Disciples: It’s all about the man named Jesus of Nazareth. He was a mighty prophet who did amazing miracles and preached powerful messages in the sight of God and everyone around. 20 Our chief priests and authorities handed Him over to be executed—crucified, in fact.

21 We had been hoping that He was the One—you know, the One who would liberate all Israel and bring God’s promises. Anyway, on top of all this, just this morning—the third day after the execution— 22 some women in our group really shocked us. They went to the tomb early this morning, 23 but they didn’t see His body anywhere. Then they came back and told us they did see something—a vision of heavenly messengers—and these messengers said that Jesus was alive. 24 Some people in our group went to the tomb to check it out, and just as the women had said, it was empty. But they didn’t see Jesus.

Jesus: 25 Come on, men! Why are you being so foolish? Why are your hearts so sluggish when it comes to believing what the prophets have been saying all along? 26 Didn’t it have to be this way? Didn’t the Anointed One have to experience these sufferings in order to come into His glory?

27 Then He begins with Moses and continues, prophet by prophet, explaining the meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures, showing how they were talking about the very things that had happened to Jesus.

28 About this time, they are nearing their destination. Jesus keeps walking ahead as if He has no plans to stop there, 29 but they convince Him to join them.

Two Disciples: Please, be our guest. It’s getting late, and soon it will be too dark to walk.

So He accompanies them to their home. 30 When they sit down at the table for dinner, He takes the bread in His hands, He gives thanks for it, and then He breaks it and hands it to them. 31 At that instant, two things happen simultaneously: their eyes are suddenly opened so they recognize Him, and He instantly vanishes—just disappears before their eyes.

Two Disciples (to each other): 32 Amazing! Weren’t our hearts on fire within us while He was talking to us on the road? Didn’t you feel it all coming clear as He explained the meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures?

33 So they get up immediately and rush back to Jerusalem—all seven miles—where they find the eleven gathered together—the eleven plus a number of others. 34 Before Cleopas and his companion can tell their story, the others have their own story to tell.

Other Disciples: The Lord has risen indeed! It’s true! He appeared to Simon!

35 Then the two men report their own experience—their conversation along the road, their moment of realization and recognition as He broke the bread.

______________________

I love this passage. The language is so rich, so sensual; the heart language is particularly powerful. As I studied this passage, I couldn’t help but identify with the experience of the disciples on some small level. Tonight, I would like to share the story of my Lenten journey with you as we look at a few key phrases that speak about the hearts of the disciples.

The first line that really grabbed my attention was the description of the disciples when Jesus approaches them in verse 17: “they stop walking and just stand there, looking sad”. I envision these two as the picture of dejection, exhaustion and pain. They are literally stopped in their tracks by it. The description says everything we need to know about where their hearts are at – full of disappointed hope and pain. They thought Jesus was the One, the one who would free Israel, but apparently he wasn’t. At The Porch we have been talking about the Lenten season as a time of cutting back, pruning, preparing and awaiting new life. These disciples are in the middle of an extremely painful pruning process – their branches have been cut back, perhaps too far. There are no signs that life will return to them.

I can identify with this feeling. I have had a disappointing, painful Lent. There were a few different factors at play in this, but particularly my failed licensing interview. In late March I interviewed to become licensed as a pastor with our denomination, the Christian & Missionary Alliance. Due to some miscommunication regarding what the interview would entail and how I was to prepare, I failed miserably. In the end I was told that I had the character and the call to ministry, but that I needed to have the doctrine piece better memorized and available. They said, “This isn’t no, it’s just not yet.” What an unfortunate misunderstanding.

As much as I tried to ingest this information in a constructive way, taking them at their word and prepping to try again in the fall, I was not succeeding. Although I did not realize it right away, what I was actually internalizing was words like failure, not good enough. I remember clearly, as I sobbed myself to sleep the night of my interview, thinking, “This is Lent; this is everything we’ve been talking about; this is pruning. And it just hurts.”

What we see next in this passage is Jesus speaking directly into the pain of the disciples. In verse 25 Jesus jolts them out of their fog, out of their pain and disappointment induced coma by asking, “Why are your hearts so sluggish when it comes to believing?”. He is saying “Come on friends, you’re almost there! Push through the pain. Wake up; new life is about to emerge! Your hopes aren’t destroyed. Let me explain it to you. This is exactly what had to happen!” Then, as the text tells us, he explains how his suffering actually fulfills the Old Testament prophecies about their redeemer. What we see here is Jesus giving the disciples back their hope.

Now, my natural response to painful situations is to avoid them. I try to rationalize and explain them away without really feeling the emotions that go along with them. After my horrendous interview, I tried to go along ignoring the pain, ignoring the shameful messages I was ingesting. Like the disciples, my heart was growing more and more sluggish.

Sleep was not even a place of refuge, as I began to dream. For as long as I can remember I have had vivid dreams, but these were different. I could feel the physical sensations about which I dreamt. One particularly horrifying dream involved me being choked and then stabbed in the eye, a dream from which I awoke coughing with a throbbing eye. Vision emerged as a theme – aside from the eye gouging, I often dreamt that my eyelids were heavy, requiring all of my energy to open. During a time of group spiritual direction, a friend pointed this theme out to me, and I began to ask God: What am I not seeing? What am I being kept from seeing? Or just, what are you trying to tell me?

After Jesus explains the meaning of the Old Testament prophecies, after he speaks truth and grace to the disciples, they invite him to dinner. And it is in the intimacy of sharing a meal that the disciples finally recognize their teacher. I adore their response in verse 32: “Amazing! Weren’t our hearts on fire within us while He spoke? Didn’t we feel it all coming clear as he explained it to us?” They are essentially saying, “Oh, we see you now, Jesus! Of course, our hearts were sluggish, deadened by pain and fear, blinded by grief. But when you spoke we felt new life!” They are acknowledging the fact that, although they did not see it, new life, renewed hope was right at the edge about to burst forth, all along.

One thing I notice they do not say at this moment: “We’re the worst. Why didn’t we recognize him instantly? What is wrong with us?” They do not beat themselves up over the fact that they missed him at first. They do not experience shame over it. Instead, they simply marvel at the fact that their hearts were telling them it was him all along, it just took some time to fully realize it. Once they recognize Jesus, as Darrel Bock puts it, “a flame relit in their hearts”[1], and they were amazed by it. And then, of course, they run an impromptu Bloomsday course to go encourage their friends with the news.

The day after Easter a group of pastors in town, myself included, headed to Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon to spend a few days in retreat and solitude. I knew I needed to use those days to try to process this interview thing. I needed to recharge, to reclaim some energy and desire to actually do what I am doing. But my first afternoon there, I dreamt again - more difficulty seeing, another needle in my eye. It was pretty unsettling. All I could do was ask God over and over – what am I not seeing?

Over those few days I was able to identify and name my feelings of shame, my sense of failure over this interview. But I was still unsettled; I couldn’t shake this question of marred vision.

It was on our ride home to Spokane that things changed. One of the three guys I was traveling with asked me about my dreams, which I had mentioned at one point during the retreat. Since we had nothing but time, I told them everything. What followed was one of the most beautiful and healing experiences of my life.

You see, these friends interpreted my dreams.

After listening quietly, one friend looked straight into my eyes and said, “It sounds like there’s been a really painful experience that is blocking your vision, your ability to see and follow your call.” I burst into tears as I recounted my interview experience, and my lack of energy and focus since then, my general apathy toward my life, work and ministry. And then they prayed prayers of healing, prayers that I would know and reclaim my vision and the course that God has laid out for me. They prayed that I would know that I am not a failure, rather, that I am enough, that I am divinely known and loved.

In those moments, my sluggish heart reignited. Once again my heart is on fire within me! I can see the new buds growing from the painfully pruned branches; once again I have hope. For three days the disciples in this story were absolutely broken and destitute; all hope was lost. That’s often our story. Life is painful and messy, and fear tries to overpower us.

But then Jesus appears, amidst the struggle and confusion, to speak truth and grace. We hold on to this hope of Easter, this hope of Jesus! I don’t know how you have experienced him throughout your life, but my most recent experience was this. After weeks of questioning and days of turmoil, after specifically making the time and space to listen to God but hearing nothing, it came when I least expected it. It was in community that people spoke grace and truth into my life, and the Spirit revived my heart.

The disciples rushed back to tell their friends, “He is Risen!” I want to say the same to you today, “He is Risen!” I have experienced him anew. I want to encourage you - if we can just keep holding on through the pain and disappointment, if we can keep asking God where that hope, that new growth will be – he is faithful, he WILL show up and explain it, speaking truth and grace. This is not to say that all our problems will be fixed and we will never struggle again, rather, that he has the power to meet us in that struggle. He has the power to restart our hearts as he did with these disciples, and as he did recently with mine.

Father, teach us to be people who know and recognize you.

Help us to ponder the places where we need to experience your Spirit anew.

Let us be people who speak truth and grace into the hearts of those around us.

Amen.

---

[1] Bock, Darrell L. Luke. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994; 385.

January

New Year

          Twenty-Fourteen

New Studies

          Pastoral Care

                    Grief, Loss, Suffering

                              Difficulty, Mental Illness 

                                        Walking Life Together 

Slow Grief

          Lexus “Lexie” Moscow Marie 

                   The Tumor

                              Quickly Fading

                                        One Short Year Together

Fresh Hope

          New Experiences

                    New Opportunities

                              New Friends

Fresh Pain

          Two Weeks Ago

                    I Said Goodbye

                              Moscow Marie

                                        Kindred Spirit

New Age

          Twenty-Six

                    Celebration

                              Renewed Vision

Onward 

          To February 

                    To Spring 

Preacher Lady

That's what a friend called me a week ago. It made me smile. 

"Nice work, Preacher Lady."

He said that after I preached my first sermon. 

As I lean into this pastoral calling, preaching is probably one of the most intimidating pieces for me. Not because I'm uncomfortable speaking in front of people, but because I fear my words are not worthy of the format. However, this is a skill and a call I need (and desire) to cultivate, so on January 19th, we went for it.

Thank you to all of you for your thoughts, prayers and kind words. I felt very encouraged and affirmed, and look forward to further opportunities to preach, now that all the anxiety of "The First Sermon" has passed. Many of you have asked for my notes, so I thought I would just post my sermon here. So here you go. 

________________________________________________________

Let’s talk about names. I remember growing up with a little wooden plaque on my wall proclaiming that Emily means “industrious, diligent, hard working”. I remember thinking, “this is what it means to be Emily", and then living into that name. This is because to some extent I understood that names are a window into our identity. Do any of you know what your names mean? Have they impacted how you live?

[At this point there was some hilarious discussion regarding different names in our group. Imagine the "princess" being married to "God's gift"; a sister mentioning that her sister's name means "goat", then their mom muttering "and she's stubborn like one", etc.]

Besides our given names, we have other names or titles assigned to us, by ourselves or by others. These may be based on our work, interests, skills, personalities, even our physical appearance. Teacher, sister, father, musician, mathematician, fat, mean, selfish, conservative, liberal. These names, as well as our given names, can be positive and life giving, or they can be hurtful and shame inducing.

This is because names carry value and meaning; they influence who we are and how we live. When we name someone, we are essentially assigning them an identity. Let’s keep this in mind as we follow along in the lectionary with John 1:29-42, from The Voice:

_______________

29 The morning after this conversation, John sees Jesus coming toward him. In eager astonishment, he shouts out:

John the Baptist: Look! This man is more than He seems! He is the Lamb sent from God, the sacrifice to erase the sins of the world! 30 He is the One I have been saying will come after me, who existed long before me and is much greater than I am.31 No one recognized Him—myself included. But I came baptizing with water so that He might be revealed to Israel.32 As I watched, the Spirit came down like a dove from heaven and rested on Him. 33 I didn’t recognize Him at first, but the One who sent me to baptize told me, “The One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit will be the person you see the Spirit come down and rest upon.” 34 I have seen this with my own eyes and can attest that this One is the Son of God!

35-36 The day after, John saw Him again as he was visiting with two of his disciples. As Jesus walked by, he announced again:

John the Baptist: Do you see Him? This man is the Lamb of God,God’s sacrifice to cleanse our sins.

37 At that moment, the two disciples began to follow Jesus, 38-39 who turned back to them, saying:

Jesus: What is it that you want?

Two Disciples: We’d like to know where You are staying. Teacher,may we remain at Your side today?

Jesus: Come and see. Follow Me, and we will camp together.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they met Jesus. They came and saw where He was staying, but they got more than they imagined. They remained with Him the rest of the day and followed Him for the rest of their lives. 40-41 One of these new disciples, Andrew, rushed to find his brother Simon and tell him they had found the One who is promised, God’s Anointed who will heal the world. 42 As Andrew approached with Simon, Jesus looked into him.

Jesus: Your name is Simon, and your father is called John. But from this day forward you will be known as Peter, the rock.

______________

Let’s look at the setup. Last week we read about Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. During the baptism God identifies Jesus to John: “This is my Son, whom I love.” Now, we see John, sometime after that baptism, hanging out with his disciples. In those days, different religious teachers, ‘rabbis’, would go around teaching and preaching, and people would commit to following them and their teachings. In this scene we have John hanging out with his disciples, teaching, and suddenly Jesus approaches. John says, “Look, this is the one I’ve been talking about! He’s the Lamb of God, sent to take away the worlds’ sin.”

Now that John knows Jesus’ identity, it becomes his sole mission to tell everyone that he can. John knows his call is to reveal Jesus’ identity to Israel, so that’s what he does. He names Jesus to everyone around him. “Look, it’s him!”

We’re not given the rest of the scene, all we know is that the next day, the same thing happens. Again, John names Jesus to anyone who will listen:  “Look, there he is - the Messiah, the one who will cleanse the world of sin.” After having heard this today, and probably yesterday, two of his disciples start to get it. They leave John to follow after Jesus.

Jesus turns to them and asks them why they’re following him. They say they want to know him, to be with him, maybe to follow him. And Jesus says, “Okay, come and see.”  They go and spend the day with him.

After spending time with Jesus, Andrew, one of the two disciples who left John, runs home to tell his brother: “Simon, we found him. We found the Messiah, God’s Son, the one who will heal the world. Come and see”. Andrew, who has presumably decided to start following Jesus as his new teacher-rabbi, returns to Jesus, Simon in tow.

Andrew and Simon approach Jesus. Jesus takes one look at Simon and says, “I know you, you’re John’s son, Simon. Well, now you’re going to be Peter”.

What? Jesus just changes his name?

One commentary I read said that at this time it was not odd for a rabbi to assign a “characterizing nickname” to one of his followers[1].Still, reading this and seeing the short amount of time that Jesus had known him, it seems a bit strange. Jesus is acknowledging that he knows who Peter is and who he will become if he follows Jesus. 

In the Africa Bible Commentary, Samuel Ngewa puts it this way:

“Jesus saw in Simon what he would become: someone who would be as firm as a rock in continuing the work of the kingdom once Jesus had departed. Simon is therefore awarded a new name. He will be prepared for the ministry that corresponds to his new name by a master teacher, one who knows the future perfectly, prepares each kingdom worker suitably, and fits each person into positions as he wills.”[2]

Jesus meets Simon, names him anew and claims him for his work and saving mission. This is Jesus establishing his mission, his church on Peter. On Peter! The most inconsistent of the disciples – the one who later rebukes Jesus for talking about his death, who blabbers amidst the transfiguration, the one who swears his allegiance to Jesus even unto death but then publicly denies him multiple times. It’s upon Peter, this sketchy, untrustworthy guy, that Jesus establishes his mission. He sees who Peter really is, and he uses this name change to call out Peter’s true identity.

This isn’t the norm for Jesus, just walking around, changing everyone’s names. For most of the people he called to follow him, he called them as they were, spoke their given names, into his life and mission. To follow Christ into our true identity in him, a name change like this is not necessary. What we see in Peter’s case is a very clear instance of Jesus using a changed name to acknowledge what will be a changed life, as Peter leans into his true identity in Jesus.  

            

Let’s review the naming going on in this passage – God to John (this is my Son), John to everyone around him (Look, it’s him!), Andrew to Simon (we found the Messiah), and Jesus actually changing Simon’s name to Peter.

There is another name in play here. As Jesus establishes and moves into his mission, he faces the baggage and the expectations of one name in particular: Messiah. The Jewish people knew that the Messiah would be a political savior, one who would throw off the Roman Empire, freeing his people, restoring peace and political sovereignty. Yet, Jesus goes and does the complete opposite: he speaks out for the poor and marginalized, talks about the first becoming the last, says we must become like servants and the least of these, and eventually gives up his power entirely, allowing himself to be executed as a criminal.

When he did this, when he allowed himself to be killed, taking on death and judgment in our place, he provided a new way, a new name, for all of us – You are MINE. Follow me, and I’ll supersede all the baggage and history of your names, and I’ll claim you for who you were created to be. As Adam Neder puts it, Jesus says, “Let me liberate you to be who you really are, in me.”[3]

As we think about identity, as we think about the names that we assign to ourselves and to each other, the reality here is that there is an accuser, one who tries to lie to us about our names, about who we are. Jesus taught us to pray, “lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil one.” For me, when I’ve done something hurtful or said something I wish I could take back, the temptation is really strong in me to accept those names, to give in to what they say about my identity. Selfish, hurtful, mean person, bad friend. 

But the good news is that we don’t have to listen to those other voices, to accept those other names! The call of Jesus is continuous and unrelenting – come to me and I’ll tell you who you really are – loved, forgiven, accepted, MINE. We probably won’t need or experience a first-name change like Peter, but if we do as Peter does, and simply come to Jesus, he can tell us who we really are.

I encourage us all to think through this: What names have we accepted, have we allowed to define who we are? If Jesus was here with us right now, what would he say about who we are? A helpful tool might be to ask those closest to us what they think the answer might be.

This week, let's take some time to ask him who you are in him, what our true identity is.

Come to the one who can tell you who you really are.

---

[1] Keener, Craig S.  The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament.  Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

[2] Ngewa, Samuel. Africa Bible Commentary. Nairobi: WordAlive Publishers, 2006; 1255-1256.

[3] Neder, Adam. Participation in Christ: An Entry into Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009; 77.