The Discipline of Community: How Syrian Refugees and the Girl Next Door are really no different.

Most of my life I have always considered myself an extrovert. I have always loved being around people.  The older I get, I also have begun to appreciate having time alone to myself, as well.  For the past three months, I have lived in a new town. I have been by myself 90% of the time.  As hard as it is for an extrovert to be forced into a season of quiet, I think it's when I learn the most from God.

It usually takes me a while to stop the noise, and I don't know if I will ever get it fully stopped. Usually my brain starts over analyzing things and I can't get it to shut off. But somehow in this process of very unintentional meditation, I find God speaking to me.  I usually get here because I feel small, alone and I realize how much I need God in my life.

All my life I have struggled between balancing my Texas independent, "I can do this myself", attitude with a genuine dependence on God's empowering grace.  It's really hard for me to find the balance there.

I really just hate the whole notion of being dependent on people.  I hate feeling weak and vulnerable. I so desperately want to be a self-made woman.  Deep in my core I am the most arrogant, proud, selfish person who ever existed. I would love nothing more than to build my kingdom and lord it over everyone, that I did it.  With my chest all puffed out, roaring like a gorilla at my audience, "I am something special."

I think one of the greatest lessons we learn in life is to do community well.  It is difficult to mix with people who are different from us, who are annoying, who challenge us and to love them well.  It's the whole iron sharpening iron idea.  I hate it!  I have spent most of my life feeling wounded from getting the edges knocked off of me, and now my heart hurts.  In many ways, I don't want to be around people anymore.  This isn't me trying to blame the church.  This is me saying why I have such a hard time being in community. I mostly feel misunderstood, under appreciated and like I am a failure. I am incredibly sensitive when it comes to sarcasm. Those little jabs hurt my heart.  I feel like the world has told me that I need to develop thick skin.  Maybe it's not my responsibility to develop thick skin. Maybe the world, the church needs to do a better job of loving and exhorting and admonishing people.  I for one always feel like I'm not "supernatural enough" (I come from a charismatic tradition) or I'm way too intense.  I need to be silly and simple and not think so much.  I'm too smart for my own good.  Everybody is always intent on trying to change me.

Because of all of this, the lack of community in my life is well beyond a point of deeply disturbing. I haven't been a member of a body of believers that I wasn't in charge of, consistently, since I moved away from Madison in 2005.

This makes it very hard to have a "multitude of wise counselors" in your life.  Sure I have friends who know me deeply and are believers, so they can fill those roles.  But they are scattered from Colorado to Wisconsin to Texas to Florida and I am in New Mexico.  The lack of day in and day out community has turned me into one of those people who just show up at church when there is a crisis. I am willing to let people in when my life is falling a part but anything further than that is miserable.

I don't want to care about other people's issues. I don't feel like others genuinely care about my issues. I don't have any reserves to offer people in need because I can't bother myself to "really" spend time with God and allow him to fill me up.  At least not enough, that I have something more to offer others.  I am burnt out on humanity because I don't spend enough time with God to be filled with grace to love like he loves.

I wonder if that may be the issue with the majority of Christians in America?  I wonder if the reason we don't want to open our doors to refugees, aside from rampant fear, is the fact that we don't have the emotional or spiritual energy to love our neighbors.  I think it is INCREDIBLY easy to become a carnal Christian, who lives a very moral life but is not really filled with the spirit of God nor empowered by him to do things.  I think it's really easy to allow the comfort afforded us by living in the West to be a much louder voice than the cries of the broken. In many ways, that's how I would describe myself these days.  I'm just a going through the motions, barely moral person. I guess it all depends on who I am comparing myself to.  Compared to some I feel like a heathen. Compared to other's I'll the next person to be nominated for sainthood.

I just bought my friend a copy of Richard Foster's "Celebration of Discipline."  I have felt for some time God calling me to be more disciplined in areas of my life. I have blown it off, convincing myself it was last night's pizza.  Discipline is difficult.  It is sacrificial. It is a place where the rough edges are knocked off of you, revealing a beautiful masterpiece underneath.  Maybe it's time I choose to celebrate the discipline of community once again.

A New Take on Dove's Eyes

2 Sam 6:7-- "The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God."

I think for humanity, at least Christian-God fearing humanity, there is nothing more frightening than the feeling that you are disappointing God. For passionate, God-fearing, people who want to do what is right, when they experience a threat of what they value, there is a visceral reaction that comes from deep within, that overrides their understanding of right vs. wrong.

I think that's what happened in Uzzah's case.  He knew the right answer.  Don't touch the ark.  And yet, when put in a situation that felt threatening to the holiness and sanctity of the moment, his passion over ruled his understanding and he reached out his hand.  The penalty was death.  Out of all of the stories in the Old Testament, where people want to misconstrue the character of God as a nefarious dictator, this one should rank at the top.  It would be so easy to allow this story to completely jack with our notion of a good and loving God.  But, reader be warned, if you don't dig deeper, you will miss something very important in this story.

In Matthew 8:23-27, there is another story that has similar significance. The disciples and Jesus are crossing the lake. Jesus is napping. A storm begins to threaten their existence and the disciples wake Jesus in a panic.  Who could blame them?  And yet Jesus responds by calling them a people of "little faith."  That was the first century equivalent of ---

Another passage of scripture, in Ephesians 4:1-6, has a less obvious connection, but yet, it connects on a much deeper level.  In this passage, Paul is admonishing (to use a fancy bible word) the early church to choose unity at all costs.  

There were significant threats to the early church.  While Christians in the 21st century freak out over the differences between the prosperity gospel and the liberation theology (aka the poverty gospel), the LGBTQ (and any other initials) place in or out of the church, and so many other worthwhile theological issues that need exploring--in reality, we have nothing on the early church when it comes to divisive issues.  

I'm writing an exegesis of this passage in Ephesians, and in my paper I write, "Unfortunately, as the church grew into maturity, it faced countless perversions of the gospel. Leaders chose to draw lines in the proverbial sand, in order that they might prevent heresies from ruining the church."

For me, there is a distinct correlation between all three of these stories.  Quite simply it boils down to a lack of trust in God's ability to deal with what we perceive as a "hot mess."

In the case of the falling Ark, Uzzah decided that it would be better if he steadied the Ark, than if it fell to the ground, causing much shame and disgrace.  But in God's eyes, David shouldn't have been transporting the Ark that way to begin with.  God uses tragic, horrible circumstances to teach us that his ways are right. It would have been better for the Ark to fall to the ground and for the whole entourage to be forced to go through the ritualistic process of repentance and purification, so that the Ark could be transported correctly.  Holiness is absolutely worth doing it right.  It was worth, Uzzah losing his life.  God would have preferred that David transport the Ark correctly, so that Uzzah wouldn't have put in that situation.  God's not vindictive. But when David didn't do things correctly, Uzzah still had his own choice to follow God's commands and he didn't choose right.  

I think sometimes we don't believe God can pick up the pieces and make things right again. 

In the case with the lake, the disciples didn't really believe Jesus was who he said he was, despite having witnessed countless miracles.  Worst case scenario, the boat sinks and they all drown.  That would be a worst case scenario, except Jesus can raise people from the dead and walk on water. Soooo, don't panic. Trust Jesus.  He can turn this stuff around.

Finally, in Ephesians, the early church made decisions about who was in and who was out. They argued over the inclusion of the Gentiles, much like we argue over the inclusion of the _________. Insert the name of any group there, because we argue over a lot of people.  In the face of tragedy, the hardest thing to do is to keep loving Jesus ferociously.  We want to defend God's honor. It is so dang hard to let the chips fall where they may and keep loving God and each other.  Jesus prays that love and unity will be our defining marker.  When people threaten our understanding of the way to do things, we want to draw lines in the sand.  I think Jesus just says, love me and love each other.  The great commandments are summed up in these two, "love the lord your god with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself."  

God didn't ask us to keep the ark from hitting the ground or to freak out over the proverbial sinking boat or to draw lines about who is in or who is out.  

He just said, Love me and Love Them.  Even in the worst case scenario, God can redeem the earth. Do you really believe that he is that good?  It takes a lot of faith to let everything you love go down the crapper.  It takes A LOT OF FAITH to keep your eyes on Jesus and release love, when it looks like everything is burning down.  

Do you have what it takes to keep your eyes on Jesus and not reach out and steady the ark, freak out in the storm and to allow people to teach things about Jesus that make your skin crawl?  

I think that's what it is about.  It is a deep tethering in your spirit to the nature of God, that he is an overcomer, and he alone is responsible to clean up this stuff.  My job is to love him with everything I am and to love those around me, with every ounce of energy I have as well.  

But these are just my thoughts and maybe I'm one of the people who are screwing things up.  Are you gonna love me anyway?