And in the midst of a great crowd

But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 19:18

Thinking about my kiddos today, and not hindering them, rather blessing them. All day long.  And they are actually not little children, but still they are young souls tender and tentative, trying to make sense of the world and how they belong.  

And really they have been brought to me so that I might lay hands on them and pray on the kingdom of heaven pilgrimage.

And may I prove faithful and not weary or careless. And I heard a great story last night, in that it was a true story. About someone who was in a hurry and there was a guy who was dirty and smelly and probably drinking and not so very terribly pleasant, so he pushed past. Who knows, maybe he pulled his cloak in closely as he edged along. But afterwards, his heart broke.  That was Jesus and an opportunity missed to kneel at the feet of the One.  And he vowed never to let that happen again.

And likewise may I never be too distracted because I need a few more copies or because once again my technology refuses to cooperate or because my eyes and heart are looking ahead to the next item on my list and are not noticing now.  Now, while I am here in the presence of such a child.  

For whoever receives one such child in my name receives Me.

Supping at His table, not mine

And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. Matthew 18:27

So Alan and I paid off our mortgage for 220 South Country Club Road last month. Or two months ago. Whoopee.  I guess. Because there really has been absolutely no change in anything as far as I can see, except I am sort of vaguely worried that I won’t pay the property tax on time or did our USAA insurance get canceled and anyway the mortgage has been automatically sucked out of our Tucson Federal Credit Union account for so many years that it never seemed very tangible. Just sort of a general weight hanging around that made me feel one with the masses.  And I guess I always tried to figure out how to deduct the interest off of my Federal income taxes, but it never seemed to make much of a difference.

And even as a child the “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” verse always made me uncomfortable.  And it’s only gotten worse, because I am so aware of the large sheafs of peeling paint in the back room and the kinda cute “artwork” Nicole finessed in the guest shower to make light of the fact that you have to turn on the shower with a wrench, and don’t even get me started about the cockroach-infested kitchen. And nice pastors always talk about Jesus going through my cupboards with me and helping me clean things up a bit, and really that makes my stomach tighten into knots because I know that the closet in Jincheng’s room is stuffed to the gills with random stuff like crumpled American Girl dolls and empty picture frames and old prom dresses.  

But that’s not the way it is at all.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  2 Corinthians 5:20-21  

And He really isn’t coming into my tattered and bedraggled albeit somewhat picturesque home.  Rather I have (past tense) stepped out into His glorious grace, according to the abundance of His steadfast love, because of who He is, not because of me. The old is done and gone. I have been released. 

And rather than the chore of sorting through my old rubbish, trying to decide what is salvageable, and what should be donated to Goodwill, and what should be hauled out immediately to the trash bin with an extended arm and pinched nose, it has been taken care of, totally. By Him.

And the whole thing about this story of the ungrateful servant is that I am not forgiving seventy times seven times with my leaky and spider-webbed and quite honestly, pretty self-centered understanding of paying off debt. Complete with mosquitos swirling, lazily, because they know exactly where their next fat and hapless meal is coming from. 

No. Rather I am joyfully welcoming the world to join me in place of reconciliation. His reconciliation. His mercy. His grace. Abundant and overflowing. The love of Christ which passes knowledge and understanding.

As He has forgiven me my debts. Glory

I love it how Cameron always kicks off his shoes

Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Matthew 18:19-20

So every Thursday afternoon, Sue Livingood comes over to Desert to pray. With me. And I gotta admit that part of it is downloading a whole chunk of my life into her insightful and honest heart.  But most of it is the very real sense that Jesus is present, whether we are sitting in my nicely air-conditioned room or walking up and back along the Pantano Wash. In the big scheme of things those very real aches and bumps to lay before Our Father Which Art in Heaven might seem of paltry significance, but truly in the big scheme of things there is no paltry significance, every woven strand is golden and worth more than two sparrows sold for a farthing in the marketplace. 

And as we rummage through the stories, His hand of goodness is so very evident. And this is a good thing to do in the presence of a witness. And while I am a big fan of the prayer closet and my list of fixed prayers so I know that I am praying for Jon and Pamela and Harry and Charly and Lou Lou on Wednesdays and the back and forth swimming of laps, there is a bubbling up joyfulness in two or three gathered in His name.  

And every afternoon, or almost every afternoon I make a sort of pilgrimage over to Jack and Mary Anne’s next door. And Pippen greets me with a please-please-scoop-me-up scamper and I go lean up against the file cabinet and review the day.  And it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about the newspaper headlines or the kid whose mother just left or who is coming over for dinner, there is that moment at the end where we remind ourselves that He is present, in our midst, and we pray and cast of our cares upon Him for He cares for us. And probably maybe that is why so many people also find the house next door a comforting pilgrimage and His presence indeed permeates the very walls around us.

And reflecting on the moments of two or three gathered together in the past few days, whether it was sharing a bottle of wine under the stars or watching a movie on the living room wall about the destruction of life as we know it masterminded by a crazy North Korean, the bad guy du jour, or a Skype conversation with someone headed off to hear Pope Francis or burros and roasted jalepeños at El Guerro with an old friend or one more time around the table at family dinner, I know that a closing benediction would have been a meaningful act of faith. That only would have honored Him and heartened us as we head out into the world that so wears and tears at our collective souls. 

Weston sent me a little story this morning. He too showed Father of Lights to five of his classes and was struck by the simple obedience involved in prayer. 

It was a day of stepping out in faith a bit. I just felt so juiced up by how the Spirit is moving that I would just eye people on the bus and wonder what might be. Then this guy came with crutches so I gave him my seat. 'Do I pray for him...?' But I was afraid to. So another guy came on and asked him if he had a ficha for the transmetro, as he only had a 1 quetzal bill. He said no, and then this old guy, fished a coin from his bag and I gratefully traded to avoid the long line for change later in my commute.

I was just struck by his kindness. And it was this little shove, this tiny voice saying go for it. So I asked the guy if I could pray for him and God wants to heal him and I prayed there bending down in the chicken bus. I asked him how he felt and he said better and thank you politely. He told me his name and how he'd been in an accident and showed me x-rays of his leg where the metal plates were screwed in. And something else about an infection, and how he goes to church, but not after the accident. So I said Let's pray again. And that was that, apparently no healing fuego, no transforming shin. As soon as I looked up, I was right at my stop, just in time, Dios te bendiga, bendiciones and ~shoomp~ a la casa. 

But I just know that to try was not in vain. And recounting the story I see God's hand at work. I'll probably never see Carlos again, but I walked away full of expectation that God was gonna heal His son.

And so just thinking. Certainly I am not Jesus. But I am stumbling behind him in His footsteps. And I have in my hands His very prayers with which he sent out His disciples into the world.  And perhaps these students are not my disciples exactly, but Desert’s vocabulary this year is that I am their ladder holder, and I sure know that ladder holders pray for those teetering up above them. 

And in the same way that Weston is stepping into prayer by faith and lots of humility I decided that I would start praying publically with my homeroom class, sending them out into the day to face whatever demons of complacency or selfishness or doubt or loneliness might assail them. And I am now committed to ending my many moments of gathering with a verbal acknowledgement of what I am believing-LORD-help-my-unbelief that He is here in our midst. 

And I will hold in my mind the image of the Hindu guru who as he prayed to receive Jesus into his heart, slid the worn sandals off of his feet, for he knew He stood on holy ground.

Winking and glimmering under the setting sun

Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! Matthew 18:7

So my head hurts. Seriously. And I have seven more fourth drafts of The Pearl literary analyses sitting next to my computer, neatly paper-clipped with the peer revision sheets and the double-column quote and inference notes. And because this is my ninth graders’ first step into the big bad world of parenthetical citation and an inviting introduction and satisfying conclusion leave reader with sense of resolution and clear, comprehensive thesis statement in introduction sets up entire essay and details follow logical, effective order in body paragraphs and thoughtful transitions show how ideas connect through essay, I am dragging them towards doing it over and over until it is done right.  And they are all good sports about it, and not complaining, and smiling at the challenge of excellence, but I am reading and reading, over and over about how “being rich isn’t bad,” and writing over and over in the margin “focus on what Steinbeck is saying in his story and not what you personally believe” until my pencil lead breaks.  

And the mysterious google forces linked today’s verses to the 2350 Bible verses, one out of seven in the New Testament, that speak about money and possessions.  Boy oh boy, ol’ Steinbeck sure understood God’s heart on this one as well, as he traces the almost destruction of a kind and innocent man descending into the hell of greed. 

For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 1 John 2:16

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 6:24

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? 1 John 3:17

And of course in the NPR background drones the twisting pontification of our elected officials trying to squeeze the destitute into one more reelection slogan.

And this one might as well be the thesis statement of every sharp word of this parable, the parable of the Pearl of Great Price: But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. 1 Timothy 6:9-10

And I wonder about Mr. Steinbeck and the power of his words that also seem to rightly divide the heart of man. Are the prayers of dear faithful Juana making the magic of prayer, her face set rigid and her muscles hard to force the luck, to tear the luck out of the gods' hands, so very different from my homeroom students who mutter under their breath every morning, “I pray we have a good day and do good on our tests and if anyone is sick please make them well in jesus name amen and can I please copy your geometry homework?”

And at the end of the story, when all is lost: his home, his livelihood and his only son, Kino wrenches his soul back from the pearl, the pearl with its music of promise and delight, its guarantee of the future, of comfort, of security and drew back his arm and flung the pearl with all his might the ugly grey malignancy into the sea and what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

The music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared.

Waiting for the wind to shift

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, He put him in the midst of them and said,“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:1-4

And you know what is really humbling?  To give cups of cold water to one of these little ones. Cupbearers don’t get thanked very often.  I got an email of reality from a beloved cupbearer this morning.  Someone who has left it all to search out straying sheep. The destitute of hope and light and truth.  And it is not easy to feed scowling, fearful people who are imprisoned and don’t know when or how their suffering will end. And who never say thank you, but turn a moment of generosity in His Name into a sort of “you are stupid and I will be able to manipulate you to get more stuff from you” moment. Which did I already say, is humbling.

And you never know.  

You might never know who will spit into the cup or pour it on the ground.  Or sell it to someone else for a tidy profit. Or throw it back into your face. But it doesn’t matter.  We are called to give out the cups of water. In His name, because we are His disciples. 

And sometimes the water splashes onto a sown seed in fertile soil, and it brings forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

And you never know.  

Last night our community group talked about this act of serving as a Vineyard value.  The wind has shifted in Tucson and blown away the sweltering heat. And we sat wrapped in blankets by the first fire in the outdoor fireplace under the thousands and thousands of twinkly Sergio and Janelle wedding lights. Hung by all of those delightful uncles and cousins who showed up early in the morning and worked with a smile on their faces because they love Sergio and then they disappeared.

But their lights still shine.

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

And it isn’t easy, this message of reconciliation.  Humbling oneself is not poetic or picturesque. To die to ourselves and our late-night crabbiness and aching back or pressures and expectations from our job and our understanding of how things should be done or our need to get things done and see quantifiable results. And of course a lot of us were taught to argue people into the kingdom. Except that really doesn’t work. And it’s not at all what Jesus did. He who leaves the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray.

Do what Jesus did. Pause and look to the edges of the crowd. Or the one in the tree. Or the unclean outside city limits. The outliers.

And catch the splashes of the water He has given us, a spring of water welling up to eternal life in our small cup and offer it to the least of these, completely humble and gentle; patient, bearing with one another in love. And trust in Him to do the work, the LORD of the harvest, even when it is really dark.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

A promise.

Are You the One?

And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them,“Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:18-20

And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” Mark 9:28-29

So just as Hector settled in front of the mic for his teaching Sunday, he turned his head, listening. And then he asked, “Does anyone here have pain in their left knee? I am supposed to pray for a left knee.”  There were not so many people at the Upper Room this Sunday, and no one said anything. 

So I spoke up. “I have prayed for three painful left knees this week.  Three. And none of them were healed.” 

Last week was sort of a practice week for me to grow in faith, in stepping out into the invisible and waiting to be caught by Him.  Saturday I went to a conference on the Holy Spirit all day and night.  And I went up to the main speaker and asked to be anointed to be a more powerful intercessor. And really it was so I could pray for someone’s left knee.  Which I did. And it hurt even more.  

And one of my students sort of fell and really messed up her left knee. It was screamingly painful and swollen and the only crutches we could find were way too big and I knelt down by the side of the road and held that ice-packed knee and prayed for healing. And she came to school on Monday with a distinct limp and a brand new cane. 

And Dustin rides his bike. Everywhere. To work and back. And up Mt. Lemmon. And on bumpy roads. And bike riding fills him with joy and his knee hurts so badly and my general experience with knees is they only get worse and ibuprofin can only do so much, so I prayed for his knee.   His left knee. And he took another fistful of ibuprofin and headed out the door.  

Nothing. 

So I have been pulling Jesus aside privately and asking, Why not? And publicly too, I guess.

And last week I watched Father of Lights, a documentary with a rolling camera of God doing His thing of powerful love in the name of Jesus all over the world.  And while it is not neat and tidy all of the time, it is clear that He is willing and able to step into the normal flow of brokenness and pain and bring healing and joy. With Chicago gang lords who changed from angry bleepers who drove by and filled homes with bullets just for the heck of it to gentle giants of peace. With an Indian guru who showed up because God spoke to him in a dream. With a bank president who gave up the earthly mansion to hold crippled babies in China, with children in India who grind rocks to sand for their entire lives, with an Egyptian who was crucified for the name of Christ and now is an international leader for human rights, and with a Muslim in the marketplace of Jerusalem who threw away his cane after twenty-three years. 

And this is the same answer Jesus gave to John the Baptist when he asked, Are You the One?” The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

But not all of the blind receive sight. There was also the clip of two Indian guys, one blind and one crippled who could not stop talking about Jesus their Savior, so the crippled rode the handle bars, and the blind guy peddled. All over the countryside, proclaiming His name. Rejoicing. 

And my heart burned, and I showed this movie to the nice little Christian kids at my school, in preparation for their first team research project to learn what are reliable sources of information, how to correctly cite resources and how to avoid plagiarism. And as our last written assignment on The Pearl by John Steinbeck, we are going to do a presentation on people group who fits the Proverbs 31:8 admonition: Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. 

Even though Mr. Steinbeck was not a believer, he had a great passion for the destitute and the apowerless, whether for the tenant farmers of The Grapes of Wrath, the handicapped in Of Mice and Men, and in The Pearl, the oppressed Mexican villagers.

In every bit of honest writing in the world … there is a base theme. Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, righting injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme: try to understand each other. Journal entry (1938), quoted in the Introduction to a 1994 edition of Of Mice and Men 

And the overwhelming message at school is that we are to love one another, even as Christ loves us. However, so often, we are caught up in the busyness of our small circle of friends and family, and we forget that God so loved the world, the whole world.  Thus I want our last project to focus on knowing and telling the story of those who are often on the outskirts, the powerless, the lonely, the discouraged, those for whom Christ also has a message of hope and love.  

So my students watched spellbound.  Except I had a problem for one of the classes because I forgot my power cord at home and the disk wouldn’t play on my ornery school PC laptop and no one at the school had a Mac cord, not even Mr. Winslow or Mr. Dalton the Mac Men, and my battery had about ten minutes left on it, because it is five years old and has a permanent warning to service the battery. 

So I told the kids about a time I was driving out of Mexico in the big double cab pickup truck at night with my three little kids in the back, and the way that always worked is that you had to fill up both tanks in Navojoa, and then drive five hours to Hermosillo and fill them up again, and then you could barely make it to Nogales, another five hours away. 

But there was some holiday and every single gas station in Hermosillo was closed. And Hermosillo is a big city.  And I drove and drove, hoping to find some small gas station along the highway, somewhere, but everything was closed.  And then I made the goofy decision, at midnight, to just drive.  And if I ran out of gas, I ran out of gas, and we would sleep by the side of the road (mind-boggling lack of judgement, eh?). And I drove and drove. Looking at the little dial lying flaccidly on empty. Looking for a little light shining over one of the so many Pemex stations. And nothing. And I drove until the morning dawn glint off the billowing sunrises and we hit the border and crossed over and drove into a nice clean shiny Texaco station, and that was that, and it really happened to me and the little girls, and of course it was impossible, and God doesn’t always do that, but he sure did this time.

So I told them that story and said that maybe God would step in and power my computer, and maybe He wouldn’t, but let’s just give it a shot and watch it until it dies.  And the little red light warning that there were only seven minutes left flashed across the screen...three minutes before class let out.   The same computer that can't even hold a charge long enough to take Language Lab attendance.

I sure had the kids’ attention.

And these couple of weeks, I am having different folks write about why they follow Jesus for the monthly Vineyard devotional.  And every story is miraculous. Not so much about arms growing back after timid prayers, although they are there, but about transformed lives.  About a God who is living and active right now. And about His word that is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And this God is big enough to hold the universe in His palm and is certainly not a tame lion neatly caged by my understanding. But let me echo the words yet one more time, Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

And once again, let me echo the father of the child who cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

And the light shone brightly all about them

And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” He answered, “Elijah does come, and he will restore all things. But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him.” Matthew 17:10-12

Another thing that Hector touched on was the strand of time, which trips us mere humans up again and again, because The God Who Was, Who Is and Who Forever Will Be is not bound but unfettered. 

And one way that we are bound is that we allow the past to filter, to haunt our present–past hurts and unforgiveness and lies we believe about identity and who we can trust (no one) that we drag along clunking and clanging behind us like Marley’s ghost. 

Hector spoke of a stuffed back memory of his twelve-year-old self begging his dad not to walk away. But he did. And there is forgiveness like, “Yeah, I forgive you, again. Seven times.” And there is Forgiveness, as in Forgive-them-for-they-know-not-what-they-do Forgiveness. It-is-Finished Forgiveness. Done.  That is the only sort of forgiveness that allows me to live not in the spirit of rejection, but in the spirit of being a beloved Child of God who has received mercy and what a joy it is to offer the same that I have received, bubbling over and joyfully in the presence of love. Not even noticing when it has been done wrong.

And another way that we are bound is that we allow the fear and the unknown of what lies ahead to paralyze us, deer in the headlights.  We cannot see so we stand stricken.  All the What Could Be’s suck the Presence and daily manna Provision gratefulness right out of the moment. We weren’t created to know everything, but to know Him. His name is Jehovah, and He knows the end from the beginning; therefore His hand shall be over me.

And here on the mountaintop of transfiguration, restoration looks a lot different to the disciples that they had imagined. Jesus, ever aware of the Kingdom Come, saw things for what they were, for He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, the strong man was overcome in his own house, and the stronger man had taken from him all his armour wherein he trusted. And in this restoration it was possible to have a pleasant afternoon chat with Moses and Elijah.

May I live in this moment of “Have no fear,” because He has touched me and lifted me up, to be about My Father’s business, this restoration. The restoration that has already taken place. This “will be made” is not future tense in Greek, but rather present future tense, the action has already taken place and will continue for eternity. 

And the light shone brightly all about them.