I DREAM WITH DR. KING

When I arrived at the park and picked a spot where I could read my book, a young mother who was watching her kids at the playground came up to me and said, “I see that you’re a fan of CS Lewis. So am I. Are you a Christian? What do you do?” I politely replied to her. Learning that I am a minister at the Baptist church she asked, “So how are you adjusting to life here? How do you find the people? Do you feel well-received? You know, this is place is….(reluctant)…you know….red neck country.

Very interestingly, on my way to the park earlier, a group of men (maybe in their 20s) in a red pick-up truck blew up an air horn to my face that nearly surprised the life out of me causing me to drop my book. Altogether they hollered, “Hey! You! Asian! Go home!” Did I get scared when they hollered? Yes. I actually prayed they would not pull over, hop off their vehicle, drag me to their truck and take me somewhere and get beat up. I have read of starlight tours before coming here. Good thing they didn’t. But I thought to myself, “What did I ever do to be loathed that way?” Is it because of my tan skin every other non-tan skinned person wishes their skin to look? Or a person’s inadequate ability to communicate in a particular language. If it is, then that is just plain s.t.u.p.i.d. But in that moment, all I knew I should do was to respond to their hatred with a smile. I remembered what Mother Teresa said, “Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of peace, and love.”

At any rate, I figured that as a minority, I will always encounter people who lack wisdom and understanding about other races and cultures. There will always be times when I will find myself encountering ignorance-based hatred. But I shall respond with a smile hoping that a sincere smile might spur their process of education. But I must also say, my experience is not the norm. The majority of this country’s populace is peace-loving, welcoming and embracing. The love I feel everyday coming from the members and attenders of the Church in which I serve far outweighs the scoffing I received that summer afternoon. This country in which I have chosen to live is still one of the most welcoming, open and free countries in the world, for which I am very much thankful. But I must also say, my experience is not the norm. The majority of this country’s populace is peace-loving, welcoming and embracing. The love I feel everyday coming from the members and attenders of the Church in which I serve far outweighs the scoffing I received that summer afternoon. This country in which I have chosen to live is still one of the most welcoming, open and free countries in the world, for which I am very much thankful.

Jesus came to set this world straight. That was his deepest passion and his life’s purpose. He lived with a fundamental conviction that the world that he and his contemporaries inherited, and were building upon, had lost its soul, it’s essence, and he came to initiate man’s struggle for its rediscovery. He was a spiritual revolutionary, and if we fail to understand that we fail to understand him. He refused to accept the societal and personal compartmentalization that had become the norm of his day. He sought to restore a holistic understanding to human life, one in which all of our identities-economic, political, spiritual, ethnic and national (to name a few) were intimately related, and could not be considered apart from one another since, after all, they co-existed within the realm of God. He sought to restore the world with love and grace. He was and still is God’s “smile” at this seemingly hopeless world.

On this Martin Luther King Day, I dream with the Reverend King, that someday, “…we will be able to speed up that when day when all of God’s children…will be able to join hands and sing….’free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last.’”

CAN YOU WORSHIP SINGING “THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY”?

In between services, I was in the middle of editing words in the slides when a man came up to me.

He: “I am gravely disappointed! I feel that this morning’s service was an insult to God.”
Me: “What, may I ask do you think was an insult to God?”
He: “Well, Little Drummer Boy! It’s secular! Why would you allow such a song to be sung on a Sunday morning?”
Me: “Is there anything sacrilegious with that song sung as a special music? ‘Come, they told me…a newborn king to see…The finest gifts we bring to lay before the king….so to honor Him when we come.’”
He: “It’s Christmas! We should sing more carols! All we sang was ‘Silent Night’! We even sang something about Christ death! That is so out of place. That was an insult to God and the occasion.”
Me: (I smiled) “With all due respect, sir. You are not in the position to tell me how God feels about this morning’s service. By saying that today’s earlier service was an insult to God is basically casting aspersions on the rest of the congregation who came to worship Him. Only God knows people’s hearts. We sang other songs: ‘The Heart of Worship,’ ‘Your Love is Extravagant,’ ‘In Christ Alone (My Hope is Found),’ ‘Give us Clean Hands.’ If in their heart of hearts they sang sincerely, obeyed the Spirit of Christ, lifted His name, acknowledged His greatness, praised His excellencies, and surrendered their lives, then I have no reason to believe that God was insulted like you say, as much as He was magnified. And, the message of Christ’s death and resurrection is never out of place, and never an insult.
He: “Well, we pay you to lead us in music. You should be on stage more often. We feel more engaged when you lead. You have the gift as well as the maturity.”
Me: “I lead as often as I can each month. But December is a busy time for any worship pastor with productions, special services and all, I can only thank God for the volunteers we have who can lead worship thru music.”

The conversation went a little bit longer, but my point is: unless people understand that as long as preference is lord over principle, and pattern is above and beyond the Person, they will never be satisfied with “worship.” They will come in and out of a “worship” event without having had the experience and engagement with God in spirit and in truth.

The Bible remains to be our guide of faith and practice. Culture is never above the Word. But also, I am a strong proponent of taking, redeeming and using what’s good in culture as a way to express praise and declare the excellencies of God.

But here’s something that I do know for certain: you and I are now the ones who have been chosen to declare God’s Word, incubate God’s purpose, to give birth to God’s purpose, to deliver and announce God’s purpose, to live God’s purpose. We are, in fact, that valuable to God, we are that beloved and He receives the worship of a person captured by God’s grace and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Good friends, may God, indeed, bless you this Christmas.

15 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS…

Fifteen days to Christmas. It never ceases to fascinate me when I think that in Manila, it’s fourteen days to Christmas. I always tell my friends back in Manila that I am living in the past and they’re living in the future. The time difference makes my present their past and their present is my future. It gives me goosebumps to think that the future has already taken place! We all fear the unknown and the unknown includes the future.

But isn’t that what we all hear the angel Gabriel announced to Mary in the days ahead: “Fear not, Mary; the future belongs to God! Embrace your present circumstance!” The story will tell us that an angel also visits Joseph who sincerely doubted the decision he had made about Mary. The angel proclaims: “Fear not, Joseph! The future belongs to God!” And so, together, hand in hand, accepting their situation as it is Mary and Joseph walk into their future together which, in the near term, will take them to the town of Bethlehem where there will be no room for them at the inn.

Trusting God with our future has the direct opposite effect of escape from the present. Radical trust allows us to thrust ourselves into the moment, living it as though it were our last, freeing us to do what must be done, to see the truth and to act accordingly. This trust is the mother of profound hope and drives every worthwhile human cause.

In Advent we’re invited to consider what life might be like if we actually trusted God’s future for our lives. There’s no prediction in this that life will be particularly easy or free from suffering. But it does predict that any present circumstance can be embraced with confidence because the future remains secure…it belongs to God. That’s the vision that grabbed hold of Isaiah, Mary, Joseph, John, and even Jesus, passed on for generations. The future has been set, God has gone ahead of us! It’s all good!

I NEED FOOD

One of the things our entire church’s staff share in doing in the absence of a receptionist/church secretary is to pick up the phone when it rings. After lunch, as I updated the church’s facebook page to announce our Christmas Food Hampers Drive, the phone rang. I picked up it up and for about four or five seconds all I heard were children crying in the background. For moment I thought I answered a prank call, when suddenly a woman, with a discernible tone of reluctant shyness, asked, “Is it possible to ask your church for some food?” I asked again to confirm what I thought she said. “My apologies for the inconvenience, sir. But is it possible to ask your church for some food?” asked the woman. “I am a single mom. I’ve been out of a job for three months now and I have six children, my youngest is 17 months old. My kids are in desperate need of food, and some diapers. Can you help me, please?”

There I was, updating the church’s facebook page to inform the faith community about our Christmas food drive for needy families when someone calls the church asking help for some food. All of which happened just after having lunch at this new restaurant that served me a humongous burger that I didn’t even get to finish. This morning’s devotional reading for me, incidentally, was Matthew 25:31-46, where Jesus puts a face on the faceless and nameless needy. He says, “the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless– when you extend help to them, you’ve done it to me!” By identifying himself with the persons we pass by and/or ignore, Jesus asks a very simple one word question of our claim to love God, to follow him, to want to serve him faithfully:  Really? When all is said and done it comes down to this:  as you did it to one of these forgotten or overlooked, you did it to me.

In a city as affluent as Lloydminster to see a homeless person or receive a call from a family in dire need, is fairly uncommon. And so there is a tug within to see or hear about such. In bigger cities like Toronto, where I was recently, homelessness is so common, people can get jaded to such a reality. So I decided to walk around St James Park in downtown Toronto to see what I’d recently seen on the news about this group of people living in tents and cardboard boxes, dubbed “Occupy Toronto.” I sat on a park bench and met a young man who finished law and lost his job at the height of the economic downturn and was never able to recover. He had been living in his tent around Toronto for months now. He’d relied on churches’ soup kitchens and shelters since.

A picture I took of St James Park during OccupyToronto

But beyond my own backyard, around the world there are people and families that are in even deeper need– a matter of life and death kind of hunger. Unlike the situation in North America where there are jobs available for the taking for anyone who isn’t too picky and in many ways despite the economic downturn still experiences overabundance of food, the hungry of Africa and Asia have no way of finding jobs within their own countries and cities.

Such experiences must lead to thorough assessment of the content of our lives.  We’re challenged to ask, “How have I lived?  What have I done, not only for myself but for others?”  We’re asked to take stock of our lives, of our commitments, of our priorities.  It’s an invitation to join in God’s judgment of the world.  Will you join with God and with your brothers and sisters and seek to make the world right?  Will you seek to make the world whole?  Will you be a part of the healing of the world?

When those questions are asked, what else is there to be said?  Very little.  But there’s much to be done.

(jlas.vieras)

“Did I overwhelm you with my awesomeness?”

As I walked home from Tim Hortons where I hung out with a little group after watching a high school band concert, I remembered what I overheard a student whom I have never met before tell his friend as we walked out out on the snow-laden parking lot, “Was I awesome or what?” “You were! Pretty good!” answered his friend. “Pretty good?! Just pretty good?! I think overwhelmed you with my awesomeness!” retorted the student. Well, first of all, it was a band concert. Band by definition is a group of musicians who play together. So to take personal credit for something a group achieved is not fair. Second, the person wasn’t all that bad, but the person was not phenomenal either.

Oh, such hubris reminds me of my high school and university life– a fraction of time in ones life when I believed I knew it all, and actually thought of others as hopeless idiots. Hubris is when one says, “I am awesome, you’re not! No one else can be better than I.” I was smarter than my teachers and even my dad. I remember writing a debasing article that sparked out of a little debate I had with my Social Studies teacher who insisted that Morocco was in South America! I knew I was right so I fought for it. I was right, but it was no reason for me to harshly criticize my teacher. I was all set to get my article lambasting the teacher printed out. A few days before my article came out, I remember my discipleship group leader who knew nothing about my plans, made me read Philippians 2. Verse 3 spoke so loudly that evening to me, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,…” I remember going to my senior editor the next day taking back what I had written.

But the hubris of youth should just be within a fraction of ones lifetime. Technically, the more we mature the more humble we must become, that is, if maturity happens within the context of grace and Christ’s lordship. Hubris is part of our fallen nature, and as long as we live in our mortal fallen bodies, hubris remains. In fact, it grows along with us! The more successful and intelligent we become to more hubristic we turn. We will always have the tendency to think we are better than others. We will always take egocentric pride on our accomplishments. We will always brag about what we know and what we have. We will always the inclination towards looking down on people. Growth in God’s grace helps people take control of their egotism with help from God’s Spirit, and eventually sees changes in perspective about one’s self and the people around her or him. One day, truth will have its way with us for good. The truth is: the only good there is is God, everyone else is trying to be or act like him. When that day finally arrives I suspect many will wonder why they had waited so long. They had been pretending and posturing with life when all along they could have had their real self in God.

Time to wake up to ourselves, to see ourselves with as much clarity as possible. To take it all in–the good, the bad and the ugly. No more dancing around the actual content of our life. No more cover-ups and pretense. No more hemming and hawing. No more rationalization, no more excuses, no more costuming and make-up. The day is long past for all of that. Way long past. End hubris, we’re not as awesome as we think we are.

LIFE IN THE POST CHRISTIAN WORLD

Sunday mornings at the Las home when I was growing up always included “The Hour of Power” TV program playing on the background as we readied for church. Service at the Crystal Cathedral was always spectacular and star-studded! Famous people got interviewed for testimonies, recording artists were featured for special music! Broadway musicals pale in comparison to its Christmas and Easter productions. Last Friday, it was finalized. The world-renown Crystal Cathedral will be sold.

I was a little kid when churches’ heyday began to wane. If I had not been raised in a church-going family, I would probably be like any other person in my generation of the de-churched. Now that GenXers are all grown up and many are raising families, having little or no church exposure growing up, do not know any better, just like their Boomer parents who didn’t bring them to church very often.

Now that I live in what is considered Canada’s Bible Belt it’s interesting to note that churches around here aren’t even half full on a Sunday morning, or worse, some have even closed their doors. There seems to be better things to do and places to be at on a Sunday morning- a hockey game, the mall, etc.. In a city of 28,000 that has 21 churches with a collective Sunday attendance of 2,000, ours is not exactly a churchgoing town. A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday morning following my sermon, a woman came up to me to say, “I didn’t think of coming to worship corporately with the church was important until today. I’ve always espoused the idea that I can always worship alone, and didn’t have to go to services with others, especially when it’s not convenient for me. Truth be told, I always went to church out of convenience, hence my adult kids have the same idea.” My recent trip to Toronto to attend my denomination’s annual convention corroborated this generic view of church life. Church and Christianity just no longer belong nor fit in to the wider culture.

Collectively pretending the spiritual realm doesn’t actually matter does not make it any less real, just less regularly accessible.  And here I’m guessing my readers would be community of people who are supposedly hip to this.  We know that sometimes life interruptions can re-animate the spiritual realm in real time, and Christians and churches can be those interruptions to people’s lives that can rekindle spirituality. Our existence and our lives should lead people to ask about God, the Bible, Christ and spiritual life and the possibility of change. Does a community like the Church really matters? How it cuts against the grain of the wider culture bearing a message that dignifies our humanity and elevates our concern into the realm of the things that matter most?  Can you see how important it is to have friends to help our becoming courageous agents in a world that values far lesser things?   Have you felt the downward tug of the lesser things?  And can you now feel the upward pull of the better things?  Can you see what’s at stake out there as well as inside your own heart? Are you willing to take Christianity to the streets of the Post-Christian city! Are you willing to make your church a “city on a hill” that cannot be hidden?

Once mighty now closed and abandoned church in Michigan

SPOILER ALERT.

Across the street from where I used to live were two malls with seven cinemas. On any given evening or whenever possible I come out of the condo building to watch a movie.

The condo’s white-gloved evening shift doorman always knew what played each night. Being friends with security guards and box office personnel in the mall, he got to sneak in to watch any movie of his choice each night after his shift. So the next evening he always made great movie suggestions, but he also gave out spoiler comments. It started when he learned what my job was. I tried to share the Gospel with him on the day I moved into the condo! That was when he described himself to me as a lay pastor of a small Pentecostal church who loved finding good sermon illustrations in movies!

Earlier in the year he suggested, “Sir, ‘Transformers 2′ is a nice movie! Optimus Prime dies but don’t worry, he resurrects later because of the matrix of leadership!” One November evening he suggested, “Sir, ’2012′ is out already! It’s a very nice movie. It’s like Noah’s Ark, only ten times better!” One day he said, “Sir, ‘Avatar’ is the best! The main guy became a Navi’i in the end!” I was like, “Mang Henry, why do you have to do that?” He asked, “Do what, sir?” “Make suggestions then spoil them!” I said. “Sorry, sir. It’s a hard habit to break!” he replied. Mark, my student in Bible College who used to sleep over at the condo a lot flipped when he heard Mang Henry say that! We both had a habit of watching movies. He had the horrible habit of spoiling movies for other people and for some strange reason, I had an even more horrible habit of always taking his suggestions!

Moving to Canada, I no longer watch a lot of movies as I used to. The last one I saw was ‘Captain America (July), and even dozed off inside the most awesome Lloydminster May Cinema. It does seem like a very long time since I followed ‘Mang Henry’s’ suggestion. The last movie he suggested to me was ‘The Clash of the Titans’ which he spoiled for me complete with awesome fighting action and called the “Kraken” “Cracker’” instead!
I miss a lot of people from home, but I didn’t think I’d miss the spoiler!
Blessings on you, Mang Henry, wherever you are!

My old home on Eastwood City Drive!

Are You Inspired?

A horde of giddy teen-age girls invaded Sears one afternoon while I was trying on Armani’s latest scents! The saleslady said, “Ugh! So noisy! Boys! Boys! Boys! That’s all they think and talk about! But such are teenage girls, so full of life! I miss my teenage years. I used to be so inspired, eh!” I wondered what she meant by inspired. She probably meant “driven.” Driven to look great, to sound nice, to be better- mostly to be more attractive to the opposite sex. Such is teenage life!

Back in high school my guidance counselor said, “Take your crushes and infatuations (from another interesting Latin word) and make them your inspiration to be better. You see the better you become the more likeable you are!” It’s interesting how that little statement made a socially-skilled “studyphile” out of me, and eventually ending up dating her niece in college (and that’s another story)!

At one Bible study meeting sometime ago, I asked the group, “What is the root word of ‘inspiration’?” Everyone answered, “Inspire!” They answered right but it was not entirely accurate. Inspiration, respiration, conspire all come from one Latin word, spiritus, “breath.” To conspire means to “breathe with,” to be inspired is to be “breathed into,” and respire is to “breathe again.”

At the very heart of inspiration is the word, Spirit, which in the Christian tradition and theology, is a person in the Trinity of God. The Hebrew word for spirit is “ruach” the pronunciation of which conveys breath or breathing. The Greek word for for spirit is “pneuma” from which we get the word pneumonia, the respiratory condition. To be in-spirited means to be breathed into by God Himself.

Back in the town where my dad pastored a church for a long time, the most popular jogging and biking area was a cemetery! Well maintained grass, tree-lined asphalt roads and paths, cool breeze coming down from Rizal’s eastern hills, it was a great place to jog in the morning or late afternoon. That’s where my mom’s body lies. I jogged there a lot, and it sometimes gave me the creeps to think that I was actually surrounded by dead people! But it never failed to remind me of the story in Scripture which I read again this morning (Ezekiel 37:1-14). A prophet was taken by the Spirit of God to a valley of dry bones, a cemetery if you will, and was asked, “Can these bones live?” The Spirit breathed life over them. The bones rattled and started to come together. Tendons and flesh started to appear. Out of an entire valley of dry bones came human beings. Finally, the Spirit breathed into them and they lived.

Sometimes, we find ourselves feeling “uninspired.” Times come when things we do, jobs we hold, the relationships we treasure, and even the “religion” we uphold all seem to have become rote and lifeless. People grow tired and weak. That’s when we are encouraged to seek revival to be “inspirited” again. We are called to speak Life to our dead and dying situations with authority from the Life-giver Himself, Jesus Christ.

So breathe deeply. It is God’s pleasure to fill you with his very breath. And as we consider our individual situations, the situation of this highly troubled world and the problems of this fragmented humanity, it is important that we seek to be “inspired” by the God who wants to remake the human spirit. Having considered our situation in the bright light of day, let us claim the promise- the promise of life; the glorious impossible- to bring to life that which has fallen.

Facing Persecution

Youcef Nadarkhani, a man in Iran who is around my age, engaged in the same profession as I, is in prison and in danger of execution for upholding the same Christian faith I affirm.

Like the majority of people who live in the Middle East, Youcef Nadarkhani said while he has Muslim ancestry, he  has never been a Muslim as an adult. But he was told by an Iranian provincial court that he must recant his faith in Jesus Christ because conversion is outlawed in that country. Now Iran’s Supreme Court had ordered the trial court to determine whether Nadarkhani had been a Muslim prior to converting to Christianity.

The White House issued a statement, “Pastor Nadarkhani has done nothing more than maintain his devout faith, which is a universal right for all people…We call upon the Iranian authorities to release Pastor Nadarkhani, and demonstrate a commitment to basic, universal human rights, including freedom of religion.”

Christians have been persecuted throughout the centuries and it actually fueled it growth. Christ himself said, “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.” Matthew 5:10 (The Message).  “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.  If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.” John 15:18-20 NIV

Christianity is a love-driven faith. This sort of love isn’t a matter of sentiment or emotion. It isn’t necessarily something we feel but something we do.  It is a choice.  It falls within that range of things that matter most of all and we can choose it—or not. Believers in Jesus Christ, because of His love for us and our love for Him, will, even in the face of death, choose to be identified with Christ! Hebrews chapter 11 tells us of the long procession of the faithful who chose Christ over life itself.

Back when Christianity was barely 200 years old, one of the Christian bishops named, Polycarp experienced persecution his entire life as a Christian. When Polycarp refused to burn incense to the Roman Emperor, he was told by the Roman court to recant his faith. He said, “Eighty and six years I have served him, how then can I blaspheme my King and Saviour? Bring forth what thou wilt.” Polycarp was burned at the stake.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister who believed in the God of love participated in the German resistance against Hitler’s hate-driven Nazism was taken to a concentration camp, and eventually condemned to death by hanging. The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer … kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

Polycarp and Bonhoeffer are but two of the thousands of persecuted Christians who fueled the spread of the Christian faith.

Many of us hope and pray that Youcef Nadarkhani will be released and be given the freedom to exercise his faith he and all of us so deserve. But even in the face of death, God allows for His power, love and witness be made known in ways beyond human comprehension.

FORGIVENESS 9/11

It’s September 11, 2011. Ten years.
Life as I knew it a decade ago is not like how I know it today.  9/11 placed us into a new reality.
I was visiting a family tonight. While we waited for supper to be ready, I sat in the living room with a 12-year old boy watching a documentary on the attacks. He and I engaged in a discussion about it when his 10-year old brother came down the stairs and asked, “Pastor Jon, what’s 9/11?” So I had every reason and responsibility to explain what happened.

Ten years ago, I remember sitting in the living room, dropping Grudem’s 900-plus-page Systematic Theology on the coffee table when my dad  and I watched the first plane hit a tower. As we watched CNN’s coverage of the attacks, our jaws dropped at the horror that it was. It’s interesting how in the days following, all the blame fell on members of a militant group believed to have acted on behalf of a particular religious ideal. Millions of people were mad, myself included, at the violence carried out by people who believed they were following the command of God. It’s funny how I saw a hand-written sign on a piece cardboard taped to a lamp post in Vancouver that reads, “9/11 was an inside job!”

But regardless of what people believe about 9/11, one thing remains, more than 2,000 people are no longer with us– all of whom were victims, and yes, even those who perpetrated the attacks.

It’s rather interesting to note that the Lectionary Bible Readings for today (9/11/11) speak of forgiveness. It’s easy to hear a sermon or a reading about forgiveness on any day of the year, but that topic is a pill too tough to swallow on the day we remember the murder of a couple thousands people.

But such is what we find in scripture, the Gospel reading (Matthew 18:35) says,  “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
As a global village or better yet, as believers in Jesus Christ, have we sincerely forgiven?
One of our worse offenses would be to take something as precious as this- forgiveness, and turn it into something un-sincere, cheap and tawdry by not granting it to others. The most effective way for this I know is maintaining relentless attention on the astonishing nature of what God is offering us: nothing less than full reception into his heart and home as full daughters and sons. Is there any better news than that? It is good to look back and remember. In remembering there shall be some pain, that is why we must forgive so we may be freed and healed.