Getting to know Grace

Grace and Mom, 1994

In my earliest memories, I lived in a small bubble of Chinese families in a Southern town. But when I was eight, my parents went off the reservation, and we started attending a large, mostly white church. One lady that befriended us all in that lonely transition was Grace Mutzabaugh. As a child, I thought she was old as dirt with her deep criss-cross of wrinkles, but she would have been 60ish when we met. She loved games and at a time when I threw temper tantrums if I thought I were losing, she helped me stay the course through rounds of Parcheesi.

I remember in middle school, she returned from a trip to South America with a gift for me, a bird made out of animal horn. I remember liking the bird, but really marveling that she had thought of me while traveling.

When I was in high school, she tutored my mom in English. I don't remember anyone else spending time with my mom like that. They were dear friends, taking walks and praying together for many years.

Miss Mutzabaugh was the never-married founder of the National Institute of Learning Disabilities which worked closely with the church and Christian school I attended. She traveled to other countries to help missionary parents with learning disabled children have the skills to help their child and stay on the field. She was my example of a woman doing big things outside of home life. But more importantly, she embodied the Jesus-life and showed me what it was like to see people and not projects, to see people and not see labels and expectations.

But I was thick and even though I grew up in a Christian home, in a church, with Grace in my life, it wasn't until I got to college that I understood God's grace. Somewhere between the lovely community of believers I met and the books I read, it finally sank in that there was nothing I could do to make God love me more (and nothing I could do to make God love me less).

As a black-and-white perfectionist, this was revolutionary and deflating. I could not try harder, collect more achievements, do anything to increase the love of God for me. But the primary orientation of my life up to then had been precisely doing more, doing better. So once you can't do anything to earn God's love, what do you do? The doing is what is called discipleship, it's training to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18).

Some time after I left home, Grace developed Alzheimer's and had to be moved out of her house. Many of her books came to our house, and maybe a dozen or so are with me now. Looking over those titles, I got a glimpse of how this friend chose to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in a lifeling process of letting God be Lord over all that she was, heart, soul, mind, and strength.

What Grace chose to read, how far she chose to travel, or how she chose to love my family did not earn her a place a heaven. But these were part of an ongoing habit in her life to entrust herself to God. This is discipleship; this is what we do in grace; this is what it means to say yes to Jesus. We apply the strength we have to move in the direction of the will of God and trust in the power of the Holy Spirit for the rest.

Incredible opportunity

When I was finishing university and looking around for what to do next, my internet searching brought up a professor doing work that I thought was interesting. So I applied to his department, and they flew me out to visit. It was a fun visit and I enjoyed sitting in on his class and office hours, but I decided not to go to graduate school straight out of college.

In the end, I wanted to learn from him so much, I re-applied to the program, moved to a big city I didn't like, and took his crazy 4-8PM courses for years. At one point, I was sick of that city and sick of the lack of funding in the department and looked to transfer to another program in another city. But I couldn't find a researcher I'd rather work under. And so I stayed in that expensive, crowded city, in that poor department, but with that professor. For all his faults and the surrounding difficulties, being his student was an incredible opportunity.

 [Jesus] must be clearly seen as the most important thing in human life, and being his apprentice as the greatest opportunity any human being ever has. ~Dallas Willard, "How does the disciple live?"

Being a student of Jesus is the most incredible opportunity. It is inconceivable yet true that the one who is right about everything invites us to learn from him. This learning doesn't consist of long-distance, over-the-internet lectures. This learning is an in-the-flesh, moment-by-moment, intimately-near and out-of-love experience. And from it, we can learn what is good, true, and beautiful.

This is really good news. It is a damaging half-truth to focus on our eternal souls when what we really mean is that we want Jesus to get us into heaven after we die. Indeed, it's a logical fallacy because eternity includes now. The good news of the Bible is not about later. The good news is about now and forever.

What Jesus actually says in "Great Commission" is this (which I've broken up for emphasis):

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
~The good news according to Matthew, chapter 28, vs 17-20

There are many points to make here, but what I want to push back against is our Christian cultural emphasis on just going. "Go means Go" I've heard pastors preach. And that's great. I agree. But what's to happen when we arrive? Making disciples. Introducing people to the incredible opportunity of learning all that is good, true, and beautiful with and from the loving Creator God.

What are we to be about? What does being a disciple look like? We'll keep digging into that next week.



  

He is right about everything

For the next little bit, I'd like to reflect on this article called "How Does the Disciple Live?" by Dallas Willard. 

Willard starts off this way:

As Jesus’ disciple, I am his apprentice in kingdom living. I am learning from him how to lead my life in the Kingdom of the Heavens as he would lead my life if he were I. It is my faith in him that led me to become his disciple. My confidence in him simply means that I believe that he is right about everything: that all that he is and says shows what life is at its best, what it was intended by God to be. “In him was life and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4 NAS)

The idea of apprenticeship has fallen by the wayside. Perhaps if you're in the trades it might not have, but among the people I spend time with we don't talk about and don't know about apprenticeship. The best we get is Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice. But the idea is that a novice learns from an expert by spending time with and being under the direct instruction of an expert. 

Somehow in the Christian-ese I grew up in the word disciple and follower came up frequently, but this idea that Jesus is a life expert from whom I should learn how to live life did not. And this is true even though the word disciple finds its root in the Latin word for student, discipulus, -a. 

Willard pushes this idea even further writing, "...I believe that [Jesus] is right about everything." Honestly, that rubs me the wrong way. I know that he's God, creator of the universe, etc. etc. blah, blah, blah, but "right about everything" seems so inflexible, so hard nosed. 

But then I ran into this other quote:

When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian. ~ Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer.

The goal is not to become a Jewish carpenter from two thousand years ago. The goal is to learn His heart because that is and can only be right about everything.

Our church has been going through the 10 commandments which my small group went through only a few months before. (That, by the way, is a lot of 10 commandments.) Why would modern, new covenant, post-Jesus believers spend that much time with the 10 commandments? It's not to live a small, legalistic life. It's to live a large and enlarged life. The tagline for this sermon series is "Set free to live free".

Jesus, the expert on life, the creator and sustainer of life, is not just a savior for the down-the-road judgment day. He provides the pattern and instruction for how to live our right-now life. And far from being a ball and chain, the Jesus way is the best, and freest way to live.

Resting, Secured, Shielded

Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him,
for he shields him all day long,
and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.
Deuteronomy 33:12*

I've been savoring this verse this week. Over the weekend, we hosted some friends while they packed out their house for a big move. They did the literal heavy lifting (and cleaning, and sorting, and details), all we had to do was watch 5 kids under 5 (with help) and provide 3 square meals a day. I know why they were exhausted, but somehow we were too.

And then this verse.

Like lemonade on a hot summer day.

I think about all the uncertainty of a move and am comforted that in God our friends are secure and shielded. And then I think about how tired we all were by the end of the weekend and that image of resting between his shoulders is so powerful. There are many cultures that tie their babies on their backs up between the shoulders. How safe, how close, how restful.

I also notice that the beloved in this verse does nothing but rest. The Lord provides the security, the Lord does the shielding, the Lord does the loving. I think we fail to take that seriously to our detriment. We're afraid that if we rest in our loving God, something important isn't going to get done. We're not going to be secure or shielded if we don't do something. But this verse says differently.

While you're thinking about that, enjoy this trailer about beauty from unlikely places.

*Moses' blessing to the tribe of Benjamin, read the whole chapter for neat blessings given to the 12 tribes of Israel.

Blessed are the uncool

I had cool thoughts coming together this weekend to write up. But then I read this in Brennan Manning's Furious Longing of God and realized this was better than anything I could do. 

I say to you,
Blessed is he who exposes himself to an existence never brought under mastery,
who does not transcend,
but rather abandons himself to my ever-transcending grace.

Blessed are not the enlightened whose every question has been answered and who are delighted with their own sublime insight,
the mature and ripe ones whose one remaining action is to fall from the tree.

Blessed, rather, are the chased, the harassed who must daily stand before my enigmas and cannot solve them.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
those who lack a spirit of cleverness.

Woe to the rich, and woe to the doubly rich in spirit!
Although nothing is impossible with God, it is difficult for the Spirit to move their fat hearts.

The poor are willing and easy to direct. Like little puppies they do not take their eyes from their master's hand to see if perhaps he may throw them a little morsel from his plate. So carefully do the Poor follow my promptings that they listen to the wind (which blows where it pleases), even when it changes. From the sky they can read the weather and interpret the signs of the times. My grace is unpretentious, but the poor are satisfied with little gifts.
~Hans Urs Von Balthasar; Heart of the World (Fort Collins, CO: Ignatius Press, 1980)

Summer oatmeal

We eat a lot of oatmeal here. We buy 10lbs at a time.

Anyways, I've been just pouring boiled water over my old fashioned oats and leaving it alone while tending to the kids. By the time, I've got them going, my oats are ready. I've now done 1 cup of boiling water over 1/2 cup of oats enough times that I can eyeball the amount.

For the kids, I've been doing baked oatmeal because I could dump in eggs, oil, and milk which bumps up the fat and protein in their breakfast which I like. But now it's summer and I don't feel like turning on the oven, plus our oven has gone wonky.

So today I tried this:

6 cups of oats
3/4 cup raisins
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
cinnamon

And then I poured over boiling water to the level that I usually see when I make my own oatmeal. I would guess that I was in the neighborhood of 8-10 cups of water. I think the box would call for 12 cups of water.

Anyways, I put a lid on the pot and walked away for 15 min while changing the kids and getting the breakfast table set up.

Turned out pretty good. I poured some milk over their portions to cool it off. I later added a big scoop of protein powder since I didn't add eggs.

As a no bake alternative, I liked this. We'll see if the kids take to it.

Special enough to be ordinary

In a past life, I taught English as a second language. One summer in LA, I had an Italian student who marveled that LA Lamborghini drivers would get out wearing t-shirts and flip flops. He said in Italy they always wore nice suits. My first thought was if they owned a Lamborghini, who cares what they wore?! It was a Lamborghini!

Likewise, I think about the apostle Paul, who said he'd learned the secret to being content whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want (Philippians 4:11-12). Or how after listing his exalted resume, he said it was garbage (Philippians 3:4-9). There was no need to dress up because of who Jesus was to him. T-shirts or suits, PB & J or filet mignon, Motel 6 or the Ritz Carlton, whatever! because he was in Christ.

That, however, is not the world we live in. Every message we receive is about the exceptional. Part of it is that our very nervous systems give more attention to the extraordinary and new. So we're more aware of and seek those sorts of things.

But then we add a layer to the exceptional--we try to tie our worth and value to experiencing or owning the exceptional. The logic might be something like this: "If I am noticeable, then I am valuable." And conversely, "If no one notices me, I'm not valuable."

And off we go to buy the right stuff, date the right person, earn the right degree, get the right job, so that we'll be noticed and valuable. Or we can buy the wrong stuff, date the wrong people, have the wrong degree, work the wrong job, and poof! We're nothing.

But the story of the Bible is one of intimate noticing. God talks to Adam and Eve in the garden and notices when they try to hide. He notices Hagar when she runs away from Abraham and Sarah's abuse. The people of Israel, not powerful or mighty, are the object of his noticing, pursuit, protection, and judgment throughout the stories of the Old Testament.

When we join with Paul in grasping our "In Christ" status, that we are the objects of God's loving care and noticing, I think we can become t-shirt and flip-flop wearing Lamborghini drivers. We can be graciously ordinary. We've got nothing to prove. We can have nothing worth posting to facebook, nothing worth writing a news story about, no star stickers or merit badges, no 26.2s on our cars, no designer clothing, no alumni rings. Instead, we can wear our raggedy t-shirts, and not-so-skinny jeans, make non-organic mac & cheese for our kids, take a modest car camping vacation on a muddy, used-to-be-a-lake, and sing off key on Sundays in our not-that-hip church.

In fact, I think that ordinary, not-crazy, everyday love is what Paul encourages the believers in Thessalonica toward. This he says is how to live out loving our neighbors as ourselves.

 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. ~I Thessalonians 4:9-12

As children of the King, we're already special. There's no need to be more special, in fact, we can't make ourselves substantially more special. Sure we can gain notoriety, but only temporarily. So we're free to just live and love the people around us in the most everyday, unnoticeable, not-facebook-worthy ways.

Photo: PacificCoastNews.com