Faith in the rainroom

This art installation offered people the opportunity to walk in the rain and not get wet. It must have been an eerie experience. Your senses of sight, smell, and hearing would have registered “wet” but your sense of touch would have denied the fact.

The installation worked with a special camera that saw the shape of individuals and turned off water sprinklers above them. Each individual would see and sense rain all around, but would stay dry.

I love this example because it is a mix of science, art, and experience. I also love it because I see it as a metaphor for my faith life. 

I want to go through life seeing and experiencing everything – but I don’t want to get wet, or hurt, or tired, or discouraged. I want God to protect me from all of that.

But God uses the wet, the pain, the weariness, and the sadness to teach and shape me. If I were to go through life without pain, I would stay the same. I would never grow. I would come to the false assumption that I did not need a Savior because I had no need of comfort.

Life has pain and weariness. Life is not fair or just. Life is life and I live what happens, feel what invades my heart, and learn the lessons in spite of me rather than because of me.

The rain helps me to feel the joy of being warm and dry. The rain reminds me that I am open to the dangers of the world and in need of protection. The rain, in its own way, teaches me to live and trust God.

God does protect me. He surrounds me with His love. He nurtures my faith in Him. He brings good out of my rain and uses me to reach out to others. The rain in my life does not come back to God empty. 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares 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 and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55: 8-11

Showing Mercy

Mercy is a challenge to receive and a challenge to give.

As humans, we are not built for the likes of mercy. We do not seem to be able to comprehend a gift with no strings attached, with no merit, given to people who decidedly do not deserve it

.

But that’s mercy for you.

Check out this clip of two basketball teams in Texas. One team is made up of boys from a private school. We can assume these young men work hard and their school to keep their grades up, to keep their record clean, to practice their basketball skills. When their schoolmates, teachers, and parents cheer for them, it is easy to assume they deserve it.

But, what about the opposing team? This team is made up- of boys who are in a detention center because they have been convicted of a felony. They do not deserve praise. Our justice system has determined that they deserve punishment.

Then mercy steps in where we think it doesn’t belong. Mercy in the form of a couple of young men bothered by the fact that the detention center team has no one to cheer for them. The end result is priceless as the crowd enthusiastically cheers for the team that deserves only punishment.

The young men in the detention center know why they are there and why they deserve punishment. It seems, from their comments, that perhaps they have experienced precious little mercy in their young lives.

Punishment is a powerful tool used to shape behavior. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. As I explain to college students preparing for teaching, some children are more motivated by their anger, their fear, or their need to control than they are by a punishment or a reward. Punishment alone is not likely to be effective in making a change in behavior.

Everyone needs mercy. Everyone needs to feel loved and forgiven. We receive mercy on a daily basis from a Heavenly Father who is perfect and has the right to hold us accountable for our imperfection.

May He bless us not only with His perfect mercy, but with the wisdom to share that mercy with others – especially the ones who need it most.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever. Psalm 23

Wheat Ridge Ministries

Wheat Ridge Ministries is a wonderful organization that has as its goal the support of health and human care ministries. I was recently asked to join their weekly devotion team. Please check out their website.


Here is the devotion I wrote for them.

On popes and politicians and the requirements for being a Christian

Apparently the Pope does not think Donald Trump is a Christian. 

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said when a reporter asked him about Mr. Trump on the papal airliner as he returned to Rome after his six-day visit to Mexico.

I would have to agree with the Pope that Mr. Trump does not show much evidence of being a Christian – but not for the reason he states. While I disagree with Mr. Trump’s policy on immigration, and wonder what his policies are in regard to anything he supposedly supports, political opinions do not make a person a Christian, nor do they guarantee someone is not a Christian. 

As I have said before in this blog – your political opinions will not save you.

Be that as it may, I think the Pope misunderstands the requirements for being a Christian.

Sinner : The first requirement for being a Christian is to be a sinner. This is the easiest qualification to meet as we are all conceived in sin. Sinning comes naturally to us. 

Needy: Not needy as requiring more food, money, or attention. Christians must understand their need for a Savior. If we do not recognize our sin, we do not see a need for a Savior. We instead begin to think we can save ourselves by living a good life. It is not that God waits for us to recognize our need. It is that the lack of this need turns us away from God. 

Faith: Christians need faith. Not a faith of our own making, but faith found in the Word and Sacraments. We need a faith given and nurtured by the Spirit. An additional aspect to being needy is that we cannot even manufacture our own belief.

Redemption:  Because the only thing we don’t need is sin, we do need someone to live a perfect life and take our sin upon Himself. We need the Son of God to die and rise again on our behalf.

Here is the Trump statement that makes me doubt his Christianity:

"I like to be good. I don't like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don't do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad."

Did you see what he did there? He sidesteps the question about asking for forgiveness by assuring his followers that he tries to do nothing bad. Hmm.

 

Given the sheer meanness of the campaign, this is probably the nicest thing that Trump has said to date. Perhaps the Pope approves of this statement, I don't know. 

However, this statement is not Christian because it is not needy. It is spoken by a man who thinks he can save himself in the same way he has remade his fortune after each bankruptcy.

Christianity is not about the art of the deal. It is about the perfect love. It is about supreme sacrifice. It is about life-giving faith. 

It is not about us.

But, it is for us.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6: 22-23, ESV

Mercy

Mercy is a word often repeated in liturgy and frequently used in casual discussion. It is a small word, easy to say, but, challenging to mean. It is an essential word to the Christian Faith.

May faiths are all about advice and requirements, but do not include unearned gifts, blessings, or attention. Participants are told that their lives will be better if they follow rules, guidelines, or the wise sayings of learned leaders. These faiths assume that perfect practice is possible and will achieve all that is needed.

Christianity is just the opposite. 

Certainly we have rules for living; rules that if followed, make for a better life. We also have the habit of collecting writings of leaders. We pour over these writings in an attempt to better understand God’s Word.

But, there is a stark difference between Christianity and other faiths. We accept that there is no such thing as a perfect practice of the Christian faith. In fact, even our attempt to follow rules, our attempt to believe and trust, even these actions prove only to separate us from our goal.

We are undeserving, we are contemptible, we are failures as followers of Christ.

And yet there is mercy.

Mercy is not a simple blessing or gift. It is not a random act of kindness on the part of God. Mercy is unequivocally undeserved – but given anyway.

For an action to count as true mercy it must go to someone who not only does not deserve kindness, but in fact has earned punishment. Mercy is compassion and forbearance shown to an offender. Mercy is not only a one-time act, it is an ongoing act.

It is a compassionate treatment for those of us who live in a distress of our own making.

Mercy is how we feel, how we know, how we experience, God’s forgiveness and unconditional love.

The second chapter of Ephesians has much to offer in the way of understanding mercy.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2: 8-10, ESV

God created us, we turned from Him, and still He saves us. He shows mercy in the act of the death and resurrection of His Son. And He shows mercy in His preparation for our lives.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. Ephesians 2: 17-18, ESV

The thought of mercy often reminds us of the death row inmate granted a last minute reprieve. The mercy God gives us is more than the gift of life or freedom. It is the gift of peace for the duration of our life. God does more than open the prison gates and send us on our way, free from much-deserved punishment. 

God walks with us in mercy and peace.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Ephesians 2: 19-22, ESV

The mercy granted by God is a perfect mercy and the perfect answer to our grief and suffering. We are His children. We are members of the household of God. And in an important and comforting sense, we are at the mercy of a loving and perfect God.

Live Lent.

Live always.

Live mercy.