Tag Archives: love
The Earth Is Awesome
Driving up to Oklahoma this past week to be with my mom, I was pleasantly surprised to see the wildflowers growing like mad along the highways. I hadn’t seen them this abundant and colorful since moving to Texas. The notoriously long droughts were part of the reason why, I guess. Anyway, it was fun to catch glimpses of all this color on the median and in the fields rather than count the beef jerky and lawn statue stores like I normally do.
Let’s be honest, Dallas people – we do not have the prettiest city. We have some iconic buildings and distinct neighborhoods. We have lots of cement and asphalt. We have more trees than you realize, but some of our parks are a bit bland. The fact that we break up our city entirely by city streets, I think, reveals what you need to know.
It’s not the end of the world. My wife and I love the part of Dallas we live in, mostly because White Rock Lake is awesome. Every time I drive by it on the way to work, the city seems a little less mundane. We often take the natural wonders of our world for granted, forgetting how much they add to our lives. We forget that the earth itself is a gift, something to be enjoyed and cared for.
This Sunday is our Creation Sunday, where we celebrate the gifts of the earth and challenge one another to be good stewards of it. I’m not the biggest environmental guy in the world, but I want to do my part. I know that sometimes passing by that lake releases some stress from my tired body. I recognize that I am in fact a part of creation, not separate from it. I trust the most important bit from Genesis 1, which is that God created and thought it was good, even humankind.
God’s right – it is good. Celebrate that goodness sometime this weekend, okay?
Breaking Bread
Can eating with someone be a political or spiritual act?
I’ve tried to give up eating at fast food restaurants, for instance, because I’m not sure it really lines up with what I believe about our world. Eating at a fast food restaurant isn’t necessarily bad, but you make trade offs. You gain convenience and a low price for a system that can pay people very low wages and cheapen the price of food. Plus, fast food restaurants are intended for quick transactions – they are not always good locations for community and conversation.
Eating at a locally owned business isn’t necessarily good either. How do they treat their workers? What kind of values do they espouse? I’m not suggesting you interview your restaurant, like the sketch above from season one of Portlandia, but even something like eating ends up saying something about who we are and what we value. Our actions help shape the community we live in.
Jesus knew how eating was more than just an isolated bit of consumption. He used eating to make big points about who God was interested in. Sitting down and dining with tax collectors, people with skin diseases, and outcasts was a way for him to share his values. Jesus had come for the sick, not the healthy.
Jesus’ actions also permeated the movement that would follow after him. Early Christians and on throughout the centuries continue to celebrate agape feasts, the Lord’s supper, and community meals. Sure, everyone has to eat, but those meals took on different significance as they became ways to point to a new kind of community, where young and old, poor and rich, woman and man, outcasts and accepted sat as equals and tasted God’s abundant love.
My dream is that our politicians and our community leaders would sit down to meals like that more often. My hope is that churches, like the Table, might rediscover this mealtime as a way to build bridges and relationship with folks who seem different from one another. My desire is that we all see how we eat, when we eat, and what we eat as part of our spirituality, as part of who we are.
Heads up – tonight at East Dallas Christian Church, we celebrate Maundy Thursday, remembering Jesus’ last supper with his disciples through song, word, and food. Come join us. 6:30 PM in the Great Hall.
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Getting Jesus
There is an old Buddhist proverb that Christian Piatt shared with us at our big pub night a few months back – “If you ever meet Buddha along the road, kill him.” Then Christian, perhaps a little shockingly, suggested that we do the same for Jesus.
Granted, Christian wasn’t being literal – his point was that getting to know Jesus is a central and lifelong act of discipleship. The instant we think we have Jesus or God figured out is the same instant we probably need to start over. We won’t ever know all there is know to about the one we call Savior – there will always be something more to learn.
We can’t ever “get” Jesus completely, but we can keep getting closer to him.
It’s funny how we often do the opposite though in our spiritual walk. We put up walls as if we have gone far enough or figured everything out. This might allow us to justify our own behavior or habits as being okay, like how slave masters would use the Bible to justify owning slaves. It also could prevent us from really moving to a place where God wants us to be, being open to a mission project in our community, connecting with a neighbor who might be in need, or sharing our own grief and heartache with a community of support.
I’m grateful then that Jesus didn’t build walls. Even in our scripture that we talked about this past Sunday, Matthew 15:21-28, where Jesus at first throws up this wall to a Gentile woman who is in deep need, that wall eventually gets torn down and a table is put in its place. Jesus’ heart is opened and broken for this mother and God’s abundance is shared. Even if the text says they don’t share a literal meal, they sit at the same feast that the one at the center of all creation invites us to join.
That’s what the Table strives to be about – tearing down walls and sitting around tables – so together, we can figure out who Jesus is and what Jesus is calling us to do with our lives. That’s what I believe church should be about. That’s what I think the world needs more of. What do you think?
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