Looking for Dawn

This is a great little story that Foster relays in his book Prayer.
   
    A venerable old sage once asked his disciples, "How can we know when the darkness is leaving and the dawn is coming?"
    "When we can see a tree in the distance and know that it is an elm and not a juniper," ventured one student. "When we can see an animal and know that it is a fox and not a wolf," chimed in another.
    "No," said the man, "those things will not help us."
    Puzzled, the students demanded, "how then can we know?"
    The master teacher drew himself up to his full statue and replied quietly, "we know the darkness is leaving and the dawn is coming when we can see another person and know that this is our brother or our sister; for otherwise, no matter what time it is, it is still dark."

Lots of Learning Going on... now about living and loving

The past few weeks my New Testament class has been focused on the very early Christian church. We've read the New Testament books Acts of the Apostles (I'd call it the Acts of the Holy Spirit, but I'm not really saying I've got a better name than the one given...just a thought), Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon. We've learned about the challenges of the church, the grappling with the covenant of the law and the covenant of faith, with the inclusion of Gentiles into the Jewish sect, etc. Such a difficult life's work for the early Christian leaders, and yet it was so productive.

In Theology and Film, the past few weeks we've watched Jesus of Montreal, God's Not Dead, Children of Men, Spotlight, and Star Wars VII for next class. We've been listening, watching, analyzing, discussing what things we can learn from our cultural contexts, both secular culture and Christian culture. We've discussed how our cultures understand Jesus, the church and mission, human value, meaning of life, etc. and what our Christian theology has to say in affirmation of the views presented in film and how it might instead offer something different.

In our Disciple Formation class we created a group covenant and have been reading some Psalms and learning a lot about the practices and life of prayer. We have supported, encouraged, and challenged one another within our Christian community of unity and love.

So that's what I've been learning and doing. How does it affect me? How do I synthesize all of this into real life and ministry? That's the big question. Sometimes I look around and see the amazing work that God is doing in and through me and in and through our community and world, and I can see comparisons to the amazing work that God did in the early church. Other times, I look around and think... I don't know what to say. What is going on? I grieve, with tears, physical pain, and everything, at the ugliness I see. I hope for unity, especially for and from the body of Christ. In my own experience with church it's been expressed to me: you don't belong here; it was relatively minor for me, but it occurred. How much more so do others feel rejection? I've also experienced loving acceptance! I pray that everyone will feel the love of God through Jesus Christ and experience it through the Church. I repent for the ways I've gotten it wrong. When I've failed to listen, when I've wanted to be understood rather than seeking to understand. I pray for those who I still don't understand, those with fears that I don't feel. God loves us all.

Scriptures and prayers for today from my devotional book are focused on love. Over and over in his New Testament letters, Paul focuses on love. The love we are to have that is from God.  Jesus was a sacrifice of love for all and Paul calls us to sacrifice in love for each other as well. Even when I don't know what to say, the Holy Spirit speaks to me through the Word. I'll share parts of the scriptures and one of the prayers from this morning.

It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors -Deut 7:6-8a

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. -Eph 3:14-19

Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid..." -John 14:23-27

"We admit and confess, God of love, that we need you. We pray that your love might draw us and lead us near. We pray that your love might infuse our lives, our families, our churches, and our communities so they may reflect your goodness, kindness, mercy, sacrifice, and friendship. Love of God, rain down on us today. Amen." From Dawn to Dark, A Book of Christian Prayer by R Douglas Jones.

Invasion of Purity

Niels Larsen Stevns's 1913 depiction of
Jesus curing the leper

This week I keep coming back to something I read in a text book, and then was challenged with the same concept by our New Testament professor. I want to share the thought and allow you to think on it too.

One of the themes of the Gospel of Mark is Jesus proclaiming the Kingdom of God. One of the new things that comes with the Kingdom of God is an "invasion of purity" that is a challenge to the traditional view in Israel that unclean must be kept separate from clean/holy. People who were unclean (ie: lepers, people with health problems like the woman with an issue with blood, and all people at one time or another) stayed away from other people because the uncleanliness they carried was contagious. Touching an unclean person or thing caused the clean person to become unclean and they'd have to go through a ritual of some sort to become clean again.

In this new Kingdom of God, Jesus reversed the idea of uncleanliness being contagious, and instead, holiness became contagious. When Jesus touched unclean people he remained clean; the unclean became clean. Revolutionary! This new system allowed Jesus to associate with everyone.

As members of this new kingdom, it is our mission to be like Jesus and absorb uncleanliness around us, rather than becoming unclean, and spread holiness by unleashing the power of forgiveness and restoration. How are you doing that today?

Beauty, the early church, and the first test

We've been talking about beauty, so I decided I'd look for
beauty on my drive. When I saw these cows in the harvested
corn field, I pulled over to take a picture. I remember how
happy it makes the cow to be let into the corn. My New
Testament professor and I were talking today about how
beautiful it is that God created animals with the ability to
express joy. We also talked about baling hay and walking
beans. Neither of those seemed to hold the same beauty!

I continue to see seminary as a gift from God to me. It's a lot of work and occupies many, many hours, but I'm learning a lot and growing with a community of people that I will cherish for the rest of my life I'm sure. This week, in Disciple Formation, we talked about beauty. We often think of God in terms of love and truth and justice, but forget that God is also true beauty and as we recognize beauty in creation, we are recognizing something of God.

Another thing I've been thinking about this week is what it must have been like to be part of worship in the very early Christian church. I'd never realized or considered, until recently, that the Gospels weren't written until after many of the New Testament letters had been written. All the early churches were operating without the Gospel writings, so when they gathered together, people would bring original hymns, prayers, and thoughts to spur one another on in faith. That's how we got some of the hymns in the New Testament texts. I think about how often many of us are reluctant to volunteer to prepare a devotion or scripture or prayer for a group even though we have so many resources to draw from! These early church people didn't have the resources we take for granted. I imagine they had quite an openness to the Holy Spirit that we would find refreshing (well, unless we find it scary). Anyway, it's been something good to ponder.

This week will be my first test in many years. It's in New Testament and will cover Matthew, Mark, the "synoptic problem", basic exegesis, and several New Testament literary forms like midrash, hymns, genealogies, miracle stories, proclamation stories, pesher, yada yada yada (no, that's not really one). I look forward to having the first test behind me, but studying for a test is a great way to practice articulating what I'm learning, so I welcome it.

I also did my first film review, you can see it here (spoiler alert: it spoils the film Room, so if you're going to watch it, don't watch the review). Without the having the text book we used, the review might not make as much sense as it did to my peers (and thus might be horribly boring), but I share it as a way to include you all in my journey if you're interested. Next I'll be working on a discussion guide, which will have different content than the film review, but over the same movie. It's been a challenge for me to think in a way that evaluates messages in art. It's not at all the 1s and 0s of my computer science training.

In other parts of life, I continue to enjoy working at church. I preached for the 2nd time a week ago. I have been working on my interview questions for an interview in December. At that interview I may be recommended to become a certified candidate for ordination, the first baby step in a long process. Also, Zoe enjoyed playing 8th grade volleyball this fall and is eager to start swimming again later this month. Lea is in tumbling for the first time and loves it. She lost a molar today. Both are doing well in school and enjoy time with friends. This is probably the best October ever for Ryan. Go Cubs Go!

Fall classes are in full swing

Our family took this picture on a beautiful night in the
Quad Cities while we waited for the Rend Collective
concert to start. It was part of our 17th wedding
anniversary celebration over Labor Day weekend.

Today marked the end of the third week of classes for fall semester, so it's high time that I write an update! To be honest, I've been somewhat overwhelmed at getting into the groove of a routine that works with work, home, and school, so I haven't even thought about blogging (well, I've thought about it, but realize it's actually not the thought that counts).

First things first, here are some things I'm learning, one item for each class:

1. People, particularly theologians, can learn about God by looking around. We can see God revealed in nature, in people, and in cultures (though church people often throw culture under the bus trying to be "in the world but not of the world"). One of my classes is Theology and Film where we talk about how to put movies into dialogue with our faith and vice versa. Movies have a lot of "common grace" or "general revelation", that is, they allow us to see goodness and we believe there is no goodness apart from God.
2. The New Testament is written from a variety of viewpoints. In Intro to New Testament we are looking at the Gospels right now and began by talking about the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) and the issue of how they are so similar, and yet often different and how to deal with that "synoptic problem". One theory is that Mark was written first and then Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source along with another source (called Q) and each their own other sources too. They each record things a little differently (and sometimes quite differently or omit things all together) for several reasons, but one being they had different intended audiences. The differences seem more troublesome to us modern readers because we don't like conflicting stories, we want to know the truth. Ancient readers were less concerned with accurate details and more concerned with the stories conveying the general message of the person they were writing about. The Jesus represented in each of the gospels together represent the real Jesus, and they're all important for us to understand God and God's kingdom so I'm thankful for all of them.
3. In my Disciple Formation class I've been able to practice several forms of prayer that I hadn't before. We are reading Richard Foster's book Prayer. We also have used meditation during walks and while coloring to help us spend time in God's presence. 

If you're interested in what a typical week in seminary looks like for me, I'll tell you (and if you're not interested, I'll tell you anyway, or you can just skip the rest): Tue-Fri I work in the mornings and in the afternoons/evenings I read, read, read, read and then write or watch lectures online (of course, I also cook, do laundry, go to ball games, church meetings, rehearsals, etc). I set aside some time on the weekend for myself and family and Sunday worship, but it hasn't been much time so far, with school work needing to be done by the end of the weekend. 

Mondays are my favorite: I get up and leave Tipton around 6:35ish to arrive on campus around 8:00 for fellowship. Then we have morning prayer at 8:30. At 9:00 I go to New Testament, followed by chapel and then lunch (the lunch is provided by staff, professors, etc or someone, I should find out who feeds us...). After lunch is Film and Theology and then Disciple Formation. The end of the day is a brief blessing and sending service (5-10 minutes) around 4:30 and then I go to the library for awhile to create a list of my assignments and schedule for home/work/school for the upcoming week. I get back to Tipton around 7:00.

I appreciate your prayers for me and Ryan and the girls. Please continue to pray for us as we journey together. You're a blessing to me! Experience the love of God today and then share it with someone.

Expectations

On the way to the Iowa State Fair on Wednesday our family was having a discussion about expectations and how what we expect shapes what we look for and what we look for shapes what we see. For example, if I expect the girls to be squirrely or out of control at inappropriate times, I'll look for that behavior so I can intervene to stop it, and since I'm looking for it, I'll probably see it.

The conversation caused me to think about what expectations I have right now for God. What do I expect God to be doing? Most of the time, I'd answer this with things that I expect God to be doing in the lives of those around me. I expect God to be comforting my friend who lost his dad. I expect God to be working in the hearts and lives of those in our congregation. At a closer level, I expect God to be helping our family as we transition to the start of the school year and as we process through a tough season of anniversaries of loss.

At seminary we read Psalm 139 many times. My prayer is that I also expect God to be doing this:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
 test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
 and lead me in  the way everlasting.
-Psalm 139:23-24

As I expect, I look, and as I look, I will see the ways God is searching me, knowing me, testing me, and leading me. I expect that I will respond with obedience.

What are your expectations?

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Note: I struggled with the idea of stating expectations of God. God is so big and beyond my capacity to comprehend. I'm not intending to make God fit into my expectations because that would be ridiculous. But, I do want to interact with God in a way that indicates we have a relationship and relationships are full of expectations.

Sinsinawa Mound Center in rural Wisconsin

Today our God's Redemptive Mission class got to go to Sinsinawa Mound, a Dominica Sisters convent just inside Wisconsin. We got about three and a half hours to spend away from our studies doing whatever we wanted to do to connect with God. It was wonderful. I spent most of the time on hiking trails enjoying nature. I made a couple phone calls to connect with people I'd been thinking about, and did a little prayer coloring (no, I'd never done that before). Several of the things I experienced I'm not going to share, because either I don't want to or time is too short (I still have reading and paper to write tonight), but I want to share a few things.

First, I saw a cute little blue butterfly and I wanted to take a picture but it wouldn't hold still with its wings open. After a minute or two trying, I gave up and just enjoyed looking at it. A minute or two later, I saw a huge, beautiful yellow butterfly (pictured). So, I realize that if I'd taken the time to capture the first, I may have missed the one that was more beautiful. There's a lesson in that.

Second, I was thinking about how when people do landscaping (not me because I don't do much landscaping) we tend to pick all the pretty parts of nature and arrange them just right based on what we think looks the best. Outside in the woods, in real nature, things are much more of a mess. There are beautiful flowers and insects and other lovely things, but there are also rotting trees, giant limbs that block the path, piles of brush, etc. That stuff isn't so pretty, and isn't as appreciated, but the mess is also natural and necessary. It's real. Reminds me that sometimes life is messy too, and that's natural and necessary as well.

Third, the trail I was on ran alongside a county road at one point and there was a driveway. The driveway had ominous signs saying "Private Property: NO Trespassing", but the gates were all open. In John 10:9-10 Jesus says, "I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." Because of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, all who believe can go in where it formerly said "NO Trespassing". The gate is wide open for access to full and abundant life!

It was a wonderful day. The weather was great; a little warm, but in the shade of the trees, it was really nice. Thank you, God, for all your many blessings!

A little mandala I colored while praying for a loved one.