Soaking

Oswald Chambers who is best known to us as the writer of the devotional classic, "My Utmost for His Highest,"  was the administrator and teacher of the Bible Training College in London.  During its four year existence before WWI, it was a spiritual training ground for over 120 students who studied and went into the mission field.  In his writings Chambers often spoke of the College as a place for "soaking."  Under the care and leadership of Oswald Chambers, the students found themselves in a college which not only provided instruction, but also a spiritual soaking where they could be equipped by the Holy Spirit for His work through them.   

"Soaking" is such a wonderful image.  Soaking speaks of being immersed for an extended time.  The soaking takes place in a change agent.  Most of us need more soaking time.  In an ideal world we would go away from home to some retreat center and spent a weekend or a week under the guidance of a spiritual director, but the ideal world is not where we live.  We live in a world where a living has to be provided, children have to be reared, and schedules are too filled.  If any kind of spiritual soaking is going to take place in our lives it is likely to come out of our own initiative and from the time we set aside for spiritual devotions.   

Allowing the image of soaking to guide us might enable us to use a set aside devotional time differently.  Our normally structure times of devotion could become a time not of doing spiritual stuff, but of learning how to sit and listen to the stirrings of the Spirit.  Instead of reading chunks of Scripture, a verse or two could become a focal point for meditation for several days, or even a week.  The idea would be allowing the Word to become digested instead of just being tasted.  Our usual devotional time could become a time of seeking whatever change might come to us by being immersed in the divine change agent, the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Place

In the church tradition of which I am a part, Holy Communion is still offered to folks who kneel at the altar with outstretched hands.  Of course, expediency has taken hold in many places as people file by the servers and have a walk by experience.  There is no question about the walk by communion being quicker, but some things are not meant to be hurried.  This morning the Sacrament was offered at the church where I worshiped.  Even though the Table ritual began at noon, I was grateful for a moment to kneel at the altar and receive the holy meal.   

When I was growing up, altars were used much more than they are today.  Back then preachers were more likely to invite people to use the altar as a place of response to God.  It was a place where people gathered to pray.  It was a place where people knelt in life changing encounters with Jesus.  It was a launching place for many who responded to God's call to ministry in the church or in some mission field.  It was a place where people knelt to receive anointing oil and prayers for their healing.  When some tragedy touched the community, people not only gathered in the church, but also around its altar.   

As the years went along, I began to see the altar of the church as a place which provided an intersection between God's grace and human need.   If I could change one thing about today's church culture, restoring the altar to an important place in the life of the church would be one of the things high on my list.  Though getting down and getting up is not as easy as it was when I was young, I still love to kneel at that holy place.  I love to see the gathered people become the kneeling people.  I am reminded as  people  kneel in a place made sacred by generations of praying people that the Spirit who has worked in the hearts of those of the past will work in the hearts of those in the present day.  I love being there when He does.

The Good Way

When we started the faith journey years ago, we carried with us our favorite verse.  If asked about it, we were quick to pull it out for a recitation.  After awhile of walking with Jesus and letting the Word soak into our spirit, we are more likely to ask "Which one?" when asked about a favorite verse.  As the years add up, we start carrying not one, but many.  One of the most recent verses which has been added to my favorite list is Jeremiah 6:16.  It says, "Thus says the Lord:  Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths where the good way lies in it, and find rest for your soul."    

Perhaps, it is a verse which has more appeal for folks like me whose hair has gone from black to gray to white.  It is certainly true that age has given me a perspective which would have been impossible to see fifty years ago.  One of the things this passage does is to create images of moments and choices which come to all of us as we navigate the roads of faith.  More and more do I find myself wanting to touch the ancient ways of faith which have stood the test of time and more and more do I want to walk that way.   It is the way of some of the Biblical giants and the more contemporary saints.  It is the way I shunned for a more modern way when young and the way I find myself now eagerly seeking.   

A memory of a time of upheaval and darkness is in my not too distant past and while I have walked beyond its shadow, I remember seeking a spiritual tradition other than my own where I could be immersed in ancient liturgical prayers and where the Holy Meal was offered at each gathering time.  These ancient ways brought healing ointment to the brokenness within me.  When we stand at the crossroads of life, it is a good thing to look for the crowd that esteems the core values of our faith and to go in the good way they have walked. 

Starting Over

Starting over is never easy, but is always necessary.  We do not always see the starting over moments as transition moments from where we where to where we are going.  If we do see, we often push back against them trying to hold to what is behind instead of letting go so we can move into the future that is unfolding.  It is also true that our fear of what is out there just beyond what we can see causes us to ignore the reality of a starting over moment pressing down upon us.  We often only see starting over moments in the big changes of our life which send it spiraling down a road not anticipated and miss them in the daily ordinary moments which may be pulling us away from the past even before we are able to see them.  

When Saul was holding the coats of the stone throwers who were killing Stephen, something was taking place in his life which he could not see and if he could have seen it, he would have fought it tooth and nail.  It was only on the road to Damascus that the starting over moment begun with the stoning of Stephen became so visible to him that he was blinded by it.  At the moment of the blinding light, Saul probably did not think of what was happening as a moment of starting over, nor did he likely connect it to the seed planted as he held the coats of murderers of Stephen.    

It should not surprise us that God works in such a way in our lives.  In the most unpredictable and surprising ways, He brings into visibility a new reality which He had been unfolding in our presence for a long time.  We simply did not want to see the new thing God was doing in our life because we were so comfortable with what He had been doing.  When we find ourselves grieving over some ending and lamenting the changes it seems to be pushing heavy upon us, it may be a moment for pausing, looking for the wind of the Spirit that is pushing us away from where we were to where we are still to go, and then, going with it.

"Me and Jesus"

Some folks talk about their Christian faith as "me and Jesus."  It is a comment which is usually followed with a declaration of independence from the church.  The "Me and Jesus" folks have no need for those Sunday hypocrites who get together in churches.  The "Me and Jesus" people are those who prefer the river, or the golf course, or any place other than the church building.  These folks need no one but Jesus.  "Me and Jesus" makes for a very small community.  

While the "Me and Jesus" person may be espousing what is thought of as a very personal faith, it is actually a distortion of the Christian way.  It is a way Jesus never intended.  He did not call one disciple, or two, but twelve.  He invited each one to live with Him and the rest of the group as a community bound by their devotion to Him.  Each one of those twelve made a commitment to Jesus and to the others when they started the journey.  It was not a perfect group.  They lived with egos that got in the way of community living.  They argued over who was the greatest and who should get seats of honor.  They were at times guilty of saying one thing and living another.  In many ways they modeled a prototype of the church before it was called into being.  Certainly, they looked a lot like those Sunday hypocrites who get together in churches.  

Surely, Jesus called the community of the twelve into being as a way of teaching that disciples do not live alone.  The "Me and Jesus" model simply does not work.  It does not fit the mold laid out by Jesus for His followers to embrace.  We need one another.  We need a community for fellowship, worship, and service.  "Me and Jesus" see no feet to wash.  They cannot hear the sounds of worship or the celebrations of life.  They are claiming the cross as God's gift to them and them alone when it is His gift to the whole world.

A Hard Discipline

One of the Lenten disciplines is self-examination.  It is a spiritual discipline which requires a different kind of effort than reading the Scripture or praying.  Both of these have a degree of specificity about them that is both visible and measurable.  It could be said that such disciplines are external while the discipline of self-examination is definitely a work with the internal and invisible part of us.  It is also a more subjective spiritual discipline than some.    

What might make it an easy thing would be to think that self-examination requires no more than measuring the external dimensions of our spiritual life.  For example, does spiritual discipline point us toward measuring how many chapters of Scripture we are reading this year as compared to a year ago, or is it about looking at the calendar and counting up the number of Sundays we are worshiping compared to the last Lenten season?  This may be valid concerns, but the to enter into self-examination certainly requires walking in deeper water.  To this day the preachers after the discipline of John Wesley are asked at ordination, "Are you going on toward perfection?  A similar kind of question might be framed with the question, "Am I still confessing the same sins that I have always confessed?  Others might be, "How am I experiencing God differently now?" or "How is that I am hearing God speak to me and what I am doing about what I am hearing?   

There are no prescribed questions which fit each one of us, but each one of us knows where it is that our heart still has too many rough edges.  We also know where it is that we find ourselves confessing, "I know what to do.  I know the right thing, but I am just not ready to do it yet.  Why is this true?  Self examination is a hard one.  It may even require the help of some trusted friend who can listen and speak truth to us.  It is always true that these spiritual disciplines which cause us to do serious heart work are the toughest and many would rather find an easier way.

Journey of the Heart

In the mid years of my ministry while I was serving the Vidalia Church, I preached a six month series on the letter Paul wrote to the Romans.  It provided me meaningful preaching text for the year, but it also forced me to do a more intense study of a section of Scripture.  It could be said that I did it for the church, but I also did it for me.  I kept those sermons for a long time.  Somewhere in the move into retirement, the sermons got lost.    

I wish I still had them.  It would be interesting to read something I did over twenty years ago to see if I would say it differently.  I have a feeling the years might cause me to say or express things differently.  From the very beginning of my preaching ministry, I would stick a copy of a preached sermon in a file.  I remember somewhere along the way looking back at those first few years of preaching and being amazed that I preached what was on the paper and that anyone stayed to listen.  One thing learned, and there have been many things learned along the way of being a disciple of Jesus, is that things change.  The Word surely stays the same, but every time we come to it, we come to it looking through a lens never before used.  Our changing view of the world and our experience does not change what the Word says, but it can cause us to read it differently.  

The longer we live and study the Word, the more we see the grace of God between the lines.  We see more kindness.  We tend to be more generous in our own giving of grace and less judgmental.  In some ways the the life lived in these retirement years has brought along with it an awareness of how much God's grace has blessed me and how I need to be more grace giving of others.  This journey with Christ is always a journey.  Sometimes it takes us to different geographical places and other times it is a journey of the heart.