Where does a life of faith start? Does it start with answers, or seeking? Does it start with knowing, or mystery, awe and wonder? The Apostle Paul stops in Athens and gives a speech for the intellectuals on the Areopagus (the Hill of Mars), using their search for an “unknown god” as the point of connection between them, and the jumping off point for a conversation about faith, the nature of God, and ultimately the resurrection.

Acts 17:22-31

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In a world of broken families, one thing that the church can offer, when done well, is a Christian community that embodies all the best things in families. It was key to the growth of the early Christian church, as evidenced in Acts 2:42-47.

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A small group of us went to Oracle State Park Saturday. The weather was gorgeous, and the hedgehog cacti were in bloom with huge, purple flowers. The park looks as though a fire had been through a few years ago, because most of the trees were dead. It was a sight of contrasts, the blooming cacti and the dead wood. I got a few pictures, mostly of the cactus flowers. Here’s the link to the slide show.

Our worship band at the 11:15 contemporary service, which we call “Celebrations,” has been doing several outreach projects lately. The band goes by the name “Twelve Measures of Interest,” from a comment made during a rehearsal. I finally got a picture of the group performing downtown for the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony. While this picture is late, they’ve been doing several outreach performances lately, including the benefit dinner for the Interfaith Coalition for the Homeless, the Southern Arizona Homebuilders Association (SAHBA) show, in addition to their regular monthly worship at the Gospel Rescue Mission.

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I just finished up a full day evangelism training seminar at the Gospel Rescue Mission. All the pastors, musicians, and worship leaders who volunteer at evening chapel were encouraged to come. It was a combination of some insights into the nature of homelessness today, the work of the Mission, and some practical tips for preaching and leading worship for homeless men.

As always when I go to things at the Mission, I’m amazed at the stories you hear of lives being changed through the encounter with Jesus Christ. Growing up in the faith my whole life, we rarely told those kind of stories of life transformation and conversion. It wasn’t that my church didn’t support that. It’s just that most of the people were also life-long believers. I can remember distinctly sitting in confirmation class when a lay leader in our church came in as a substitute and told us his story of falling through four floors of temporary flooring at a construction site, and how, in those moments in the air, he turned his life to Christ. All of us good Lutheran kids were sitting there with our jaws on the floor - partly from the amazement that a man could fall four floors and get up and walk away, and partly that the Gospel had that kind of power. I wish we were more open telling those kind of stories in our churches. There are more out there than we know, I suspect.

It’s those kind of stories that make the work of a place like the Gospel Rescue Mission so powerful. They don’t just provide for the basic material necessities of life, which they do in abundance, they change lives. Or, better stated, God changes lives; we are the conduits of His work.

Part of why I resonate with the work the Mission is doing is because of experiences I’ve had with traditional social agencies. Speaking generally, and from my experience, they get lots of government money to run programs that take care of basic material and physical needs. Good things. But they keep doing this over and over for the same people, who never seem to get out of the situations they’re stuck in. We keep giving handouts, and they keep coming back. I’ve not gotten so cynical, as I’ve heard some say, that social agencies deliberately keep people dependant so they can keep getting government money to preserve the agency. The people I’ve met who work in agencies really do care, and are doing their best, and they’re not getting rich. But, the problem isn’t being solved, only band-aided.

And this gets to the root of what causes and perpetuates homelessness. If the reasons for being homeless were purely economic, then they should be relatively easy to solve. If the problem is hunger, you give food, if it’s shelter you provide a bed, if it’s medical care you provide a doctor etc. But this doesn’t seem to be working, not permanently.

Some information about the backgrounds of homeless men:

• High percentage with parental issues, particularly absentee, addicted, or workaholic fathers. (Isn’t it interesting that a dad working too much can create the same problems as one who runs away. I was particularly disturbed to learn how many pastors’ kids end up at the mission. Dads so busy doing “the work of the Lord” that they neglect their families.)
• Lack of education. Few finished high school
• History of broken relationships
• Broken homes

This is just a brief list. But what it says is that the root causes of homeless stem from a place deeper than material needs, it stems from a lack of love, family, community, role models, values. And if that’s the case, then there is a real limit to what the government can do. How can a government program provide community, acceptance, values? These are personal, emotional, relationship issues that can only really be dealt with in a personal, relational, community context. This is the beauty of the mission. They don’t just address the needs, they address the whole person, down to the pain and hurt in the soul.

Lonny Davis, the program director at the Men’s Center, gave a list of priorities for homeless men. They are:

1. Safety
2. Food and Water
3. Shelter and clothing
4. A safe friend
5. Security
6. Significance and worth
7. Spirituality

But when you look at the causes of homelessness, you get the reverse list.

1. Spirituality
2. Significance and worth
3. Security (emotional and physical)
4. Safe friends
5. Shelter and clothing
6. Food and water
7. Safety (physical)

The reason why we can stand up and proclaim the Gospel to homeless men, and know that we are doing the right thing, is that we know we are addressing, at the most fundamental level, the need at hand. I remember when I first started, the senior chaplain, who’s now retired, told me that he only allows “grace preachers” to preach at the Mission. He said that they guys know they’ve sinned, that they’ve screwed up, that they’ve made bad choices. What they need to hear is that God loves them, that God values them, that they are accepted. And when I head the testimonials of the men who’ve experienced the power of the Holy Spirit to change their lives, it consistently comes back to a theology of grace. Learning to rebuild your life begins with learning to accept that you are loved and accepted by God - unconditionally.

The reason the session was called “evangelism training” is that the next step for the guys to rebuild their lives is to have a Christian community where they can establish the kinds of relationships and support networks that will practice and live out that grace, even long after they’ve left the mission. And that is fundamentally what churches were first made for, in the very beginning of Christianity, is to be an extended family, a loving community, where people who came to Christ could support and uplift each other.

Some other statistics about homelessness in Tucson, from a 2007 street report:

• 741 single men
• 142 single women
• 118 of unknown gender
• 39 families with children
• 5 young males
• 1 young female
• 1099 total counted
• 41% increase over 2006

And, some statistics from a 2008 street report:

• 788 single men
• 129 single women
• 55 of unknown gender
• 105 families with children
• 12 young males
• 0 young females
• 1,398 total counted
• 21% increase over 2007

As you can see, the number of people on the street is increasing rapidly, faster than the overall population growth of Tucson. The need is not going away; it’s getting greater.

Here’s my sermon from Maundy Thursday. Yes, I know I should have posted it before the Easter sermon, but we had technical difficulties.

The text was 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, where the Apostle Paul retells the story of the Last Supper and Jesus’ words, what we now call “The Words of Institution” that we say before communion.

I titled it “Experiencing the Power of Communion,” because, like all sacraments, there is so much about it that we know, and so much that is mystery, and we miss out on the full experience of it when we don’t allow ourselves to let it work in and through us.

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Here’s my Easter sermon. The text is John 20:1-18. The topic is “Resurrection Living”. Enjoy.

A note on the recording: it was originally recorded onto a tape, and the tape ran out half way through the sermon. So, they took it out, flipped it over, and kept recording. So, there’s a little break in the middle, with a few seconds lost.

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We celebrated Palm Sunday at encounter today. In the midst of all the electioneering and campaigning I couldn’t help but think of the parallels between Jesus coming into Jerusalem and all the politics around that, and the all the politics around Jesus today. For Jesus, the problem was that the people were longing for a revolutionary king to rescue them from the Roman Empire and end their oppression. Jesus was the king, he did start a revolution, and he did come to rescue us from oppression, but not as a violent military ruler or dictator. So when the people hail Jesus as he enters Jerusalem, they’re excited about him being something he’s not - but something they want him to be. When the people discovered that he wasn’t a violent military ruler, they got disappointed, and killed him.

The problem doesn’t seem to have gone away - projecting onto Jesus our own wants and desires of who we wish he would be. Both liberals and conservatives seem to see in Jesus the total defender of their ideals. Yet, he can’t be the champion of contradictory political views. He can’t be both for and against gun control, the war in Irag, progressive taxation etc. When we look at Jesus, are we letting him be who he really is? Are we letting Jesus speak to us, appear to us, or are we molding Jesus in our image, the way we want him to be?

This is an exercize we did to help us understand the process of how we begin with legitimate longing for justice and relief for our suffering, turning to Jesus to help us address those, and making Jesus into the kind of saviour who rescues us, in the way we want him to. I call the exercize “Your Own Personal Jesus” - playing off the Depeche Mode song (which we didn’t use).

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Meditation: Your Own Personal Jesus

This is an exercize to help us understand our own wants and desires for Jesus, the ways we wish Jesus would be, and the things we wish he would do. The supplies you need are a bunch of pieces of card stock, pens or markers, and a local newspaper from that day.
 

Take a piece of paper and a marker in your hand. And sit back and reflect on the news headlines for today [have someone browse through the local paper and read the headlines, taking a moment to pause in between each one]. As each headline is read, think of how it makes you feel. Does it make you happy, sad, angry, depressed? Allow your feelings about each headline to sit in your self. Don’t try to suppress them or change them. There is no right or wrong reaction
Take a piece of paper and a marker in your hand. And sit back and reflect on the news headlines for today [have someone browse through the local paper and read the headlines, taking a moment to pause in between each one].

Take a piece of paper and a marker in your hand. And sit back and reflect on the news headlines for today [have someone browse through the local paper and read the headlines, taking a moment to pause in between each one].As each headline is read, think of how it makes you feel. Does it make you happy, sad, angry, depressed? Allow your feelings about each headline to sit in your self. Don’t try to suppress them or change them. There is no right or wrong reaction.

Now, begin to ask yourself which ones make you the most angry, the most frustrated, the most upset. Which ones bother you the most? Why?

On your paper, draw a figure of Jesus. It can be as simple as a stick man, or as fancy as you’d like. Around Jesus, name the angers and frustrations you were feeling from the paper. Write them out. [pause for a minute so people can write]

What would you wish Jesus would do about those things? If Jesus could just swoop down from heaven and fix your problems, what would you like him to do? Write those things next to the problems. [pause to let people write]
Now, sit back and take a look at the things you wrote, what kind of person would Jesus be if he were everything you wanted him to be? What would be his qualities, his attributes? Think of those things for a minute, and write them down if you’d like.

As you reflect on what you wrote, listen to some verses from Jesus, where he talks about himself, who he is, and what his purpose is on earth.

Mark 1:38  “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”
 

Luke 12:49-51   ⁴⁹ “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!  ⁵⁰ I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!  ⁵¹ Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
 

John 8:42   ⁴² Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me.
 

John 9:39   ³⁹ Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”
 

John 10:10 I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
 

John 12:47  ⁴⁷ I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
 

John 18:37  ³⁷ Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

How does your image of Jesus compare to what you heard? How close to the Bible is your own personal Jesus?

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 Here’s three of the drawings we made. As is typical, I guess, they came out very differently.

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One of the challenges of leadership is not giving up on the people you’re leading when you don’t see any results. Teachers, social workers, ministers all struggle with keeping the faith in others. But where we see nothing but hopelessness and despair, God sees opportunity.

Ezekiel 37 - the Valley of Dry Bones

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I finally got to catch the Mexican Poppies in bloom at Picacho Peak State Park. I’d missed them in previous years, and I was actually a few days after peak this year, but I was able to get some good shots.

The whole hillsides were covered in the yellow poppies and these purple flowers, whose name I don’t know.

Then there were all these white flowers, with a really intricate center, whose name I also don’t know.

Here’s the full slide show of my shots.

I just got back from encounter tonight. We moved our service to 6:30pm today to make room for the stewardship breakfast this morning. It was cool. Our theme was “silence”, the last installment in our series on “spiritual disciplines”.

Jacob Acosta, our musician, made up a mologue with some music called “Silent Caller.” With each key word we had a picture on the screen. Here’s the words to the monologue. The pictures changed with each underlined word.

Monologue:
Hey Buddy
What’s going on?
I’ve been ok, how about you?
uh huh, …yea
No way man, that really , that reallys sucks buddy
I hope he gets well
How is he feeling about the whole thing?
Shaken up I’m sure
Wow that’s,  I  don’t even know what to say
Someone you depend on your whole life.  And that other guy… Yea I know
Where’s the honor in that?
A copout,  Me?
Oh me, I’m still looking to find some rest, somewhere to rest at least.  Hard to trust people you know.
Tonight!, I’ll probably ask my friends down at Rusty’s to pour out their biggest glass of brew
You?
Well. ya, I mean, yea man whatever happens we’ve got to pray, you know
Keep our hearts and thoughts on him, hopefully God will show up.
take it easy.
bye

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There’s a human tendency to get comfortable in any situation, even a miserable one, and prefer it to changing. Moses encountered this same problem when he was bringing the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt. Every time things got bad, they would take out their anger on Moses and complain about how things were better in Egypt - even though in Egypt they were slaves.

It’s a truism that, whenever we want to make a change in our lives, things will get worse before they get better. How we deal with the interim period will determine whether we make it through or not. And what brings us through is a vision for a new life, a vision that God gives all of us.

Exodus 17:1-7

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