Tag Archives: Christianity

The Most Unlikely Disciple

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(This blog is adapted from the first chapter of Rich’s soon to be released book, Grappling with God: The Battle for Authentic Faith. This book follows the life transforming work being done for over 20 years at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment.)

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10

My wife, Sue, and I had just moved to Corvallis, OR. This was our first assignment in the campus ministry we had recently joined the staff of. We had chosen our church home and were starting to make friends. I was both hesitant and hungry to form new relationships.  One Sunday I noticed a guy smoking cigarettes in the parking lot in between services. I was immediately drawn to him and started talking to him. Instantly, Dennis and I became buddies.

What was I looking for? Was I looking for a rebellious smoking brother? No, I think I was looking for authenticity. I was looking for someone I could trust to be him or herself. I had noticed that once people, including myself, placed their faith in Christ, they slowly became more secretive about their struggles. They seemed to feel the need to foster the illusion that they were pure and perfect. I often found people outside the faith to be more open and honest about how they were struggling and hurting.

Christians often stress the difference between themselves and non-believers. There are a number of words used to describe those who are outside the fold—unbelievers, non-Christians, seekers, sinners, and those who are lost. Those who go to great lengths to emphasize the distinction scare me. It has often been my experience that those who think they are found are often the most lost. Those who think they are lost know it and are open to help.

Christians, like any identified group of people, naturally want to delineate themselves as a unique and distinct tribe. We are like animals and seek the security of forming packs, gangs, clans and tribes. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of this clannish tendency is that we feel compelled to emphasize why our clan is superior to all those around us. Tribalism offers security while fostering division, distrust and enmity. We become quick to judge who is inside and who is outside our community.

The story of Zacchaeus in the Gospel of Luke (19:1-10) speaks to this human tendency.  Jesus was walking through Jericho. His fellow countrymen hated Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, because he worked for the Roman occupiers and was compensated according to the amount of money above and beyond the taxes he collected.  He was extremely powerful and wealthy. He was seen as corrupt, immoral, unprincipled, and a defector. His old gang, known as the JJ’s (Jews of Jericho), despised him.

Jesus was walking through town and Zacchaeus desperately wanted to see him. In addition to being undesirable, he was of small stature and could not see above the crowds. He ran ahead and climbed a tree in order to see Jesus and possibly get his attention. Why would this guy be so interested in Jesus? He would seem like the most unlikely candidate. He had what everyone wanted—position, power, and lots of money.

As Jesus was walking by, he looked up in the tree and saw Zacchaeus. He called him by name and said that he needed to stay at his house. Zacchaeus immediately came down and enthusiastically invited Jesus to come to his house. Zacchaeus was so moved, he repented of his evils and declared his intention to make amends to all those he had cheated.

What a sudden turn of events. Zacchaeus was now in good shape while those around him were dying. How could the tables have turned so quickly? Of all the people to show kindness to–why would he have to give grace to Zacchaeus? He’s a reprobate and a traitor. The disciples liked Jesus’ message of compassion and forgiveness; however, they wanted Jesus for themselves and their community.

Zacchaeus was the most unlikely disciple. But, was he really? We all long to belong and be loved and accepted. We are divinely designed—hard wired—with a hunger for intimacy and community. Even though Zach apparently had everything, he more than anyone knew he was lost and lonely. He was starving for deeper and more meaningful relationships.

His strategies for finding satisfaction had failed. He was unashamed of his hunger for relationship with Jesus. Instead of hiding, Zacchaeus hurled himself toward Jesus. He knew his ways were not working. He was ready to give up everything in order to taste the bread of life.

May we never forget that we too are lost. Let’s all go climb a tree and cry out to be seen by a God who knows our hunger. He also knows our name and wants relationship with us regardless of what we have done. Let’s tear down the walls that divide us and rally around our universal hunger for intimate and authentic relationship with one another.

Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul, who too was tempted to judge others instead of showing mercy and grace.

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? Romans 2:1-4

Choice and Intention

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(This is an exerpt from the eighth chapter of my soon to be released book, Grappling with God: The Battle for Authentic Faith. This chapter emphasizes the need to appreciate our magnificent power of choice and intention in the service of fulfilling our life project.)


Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles (Acts 2:43)


All of us have choices. We believe at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment that we have been gifted by God with the power and the capacity to decide how we are going to live our lives. Even in the midst of circumstances that are not of our choosing, we have a choice in the matter: what we want to experience and how we want to show ourselves to others.

For many of us, this requires a shift in thinking. We may consider it to be the pious and even in the polite thing to preface our plans and dreams by saying, “If God wills.” Too often, however, we use the concept of “God willing” to give ourselves an out. We are off the hook for what happens to us, positive or negative, because we give all the credit (and therefore all the blame) to God. A far more spiritually mature and empowering stance is to take responsibility for our lives, for our choices and for our intentions of what we create, consciously or unconsciously.

At any moment, we are always a choice away from where we want or need to be. This doesn’t mean that we can magically declare our lives to be free of problems or hardships. On the contrary, living life fully may require some serious sacrifices and even more challenges. Nor does taking responsibility mean punishing ourselves for what we’ve done or failed to do. Instead of retreating into shame, we choose consciousness and aliveness: being aware, attending to what is happening in the moment, and fully feeling our feelings.

As we stretch ourselves to living bigger, bolder lives, we do not need to worry about exceeding our boundaries with God or stepping on His toes. As Jesus modeled for us, life is to be lived full-out with no holds barred. We do not have to become less in order to make God (or anyone else, for that matter) feel better. God wants us to take the initiative in our lives.  In the words of Francis Cardinal Spellman, we “pray as if everything depended upon God and work as if everything depended upon [us].”

Becoming spiritually mature, ours is an inter-dependent relationship with God, trusting that He will provide everything we need, while we take responsibility for everything we need to do. This brings us to the essential question: What we you choose? In the Old Testament, Joshua issued the same challenge to the Israelites: “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land we are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” (Josh 24:15).

As spiritually alive people, pursuing greater connection in our relationships with ourselves, with others, and with God, we believe that serving the Lord requires that we become responsible and accountable for our choices. Living fuller lives as Christ-followers, we move out of reactivity and victimhood, as we discussed in Chapter 7, and become empowered. Instead of acting like victims or lashing out as persecutors, we get out of the drama triangle. Now, in this chapter, we take the next step. We see that what we experience is the direct result of our choices and intention. Put another way, the outcome of our lives reflects how we choose to live and the intentions that we put into action in our relationships and interactions with others.

 

The Gift of Love

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Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you. 1 Timothy 4:14

Sunday, May 22, 2011, I was officially ordained as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ at Christian Life Church. My family, friends, and the community of faith from the Center for Christian Life Enrichment surrounded me with their love and support. It was an experience I had dreamed of and will forever treasure as one of the high points of my life. My daughter, Lauren, said it was as if I was at my own funeral listening to people acknowledge me and what I meant to them.

 

I began my message with a story about my big brother, Charlie, who is 14 years older than me. Growing up, Charlie was like a dad to me. I looked up to him and treasured the times we spent together. He consistently made an effort to include me in his life, teaching me to play football, hike, shoot, and fish. He was a powerful athlete and loved football like I did. As a result of his unending conflict with my father, he enlisted in the Navy when he was 19. Watching him leave was the saddest day of my childhood. At the time, I felt abandoned by him and did not understand why he couldn’t take me with him.

 

I recalled a time when he returned home and I was wildly excited to see him. I’m sure I was like an ADHD kid on steroids. We were playing around on the driveway and I started wrestling with him. I grabbed him, spun him around, and tossed him on the ground. I am sure I jumped on him as well for good measure. Suddenly, I saw Charlie holding his ribs and moaning. Somehow in the process, he had gotten hurt. I was stunned. How could Superman be injured? I felt like Lambert the Lion unsure of where my strength had come from!

Instantly, I went from feeling excited to feeling terribly scared. Fear that once again I was “too much” and shame that I had hurt my brother who I loved were threatening to overwhelm me. A trip to the doctor confirmed my brother’s diagnosis—broken ribs. I was mortified. This scene illustrates my conflicted sense of self—on the one hand, a rough and tough boy from birth and on the other hand a deeply sensitive guy who was extremely concerned about the feelings of others.

I recently returned from a visit with my 94 year old mother. She gave me a mid-year report she had found from Wirtabel Harris, my nursery school teacher. I was four years old. She wrote, “Richard likes active, outdoor play and is very definitely a leader in his group of friends…because he is so “rough and tough”, it is surprising to see how easily he becomes crushed when he feels rejected or has to wait too long for a special toy.” This tough/tender tension is part of my DNA.

When I was preparing my ordination message, I suddenly realized that this inability to reconcile my conflicted sense of self was part of why I was so drawn to Jesus. I saw in him the same tough and tender dichotomy.  Jesus was a courageously tough truth-teller who was willing to stand up to anyone regardless of position or status. He was also the most compassionate and tender-hearted physician of the soul. I saw myself in Him and believed that He would help me to make sense of myself.

 

It was in Christ that I found the incarnation of everything I was longing for. He became my hero and my savior. Jesus was the embodiment of strength and tenderness. He was my source of safety, security and rest. Jesus was the basis for me mattering—I believed He took the initiative to seek me out and invite me into a personal relationship with Him. It was in Christ that I had the hope of having all my hungers satisfied. It was through my relationship with Jesus that I found meaning and purpose. My call was not only to a relationship with Him—it was to a life of sharing God’s unlimited and unconditional love with the world.

This was such a special day because I was surrounded by those I love who were affirming God’s work and call in my life.