by Jeff Christian
We have so many reasons to be thankful. Let us give thanks to God.
Thankful for Everyone
by Jeff Christian
A mass rebellion of mustaches is underway in India. In a caste system where the good people have it made, and the untouchables just have to scrape through life, one of their cultural norms is the privilege of a man being allowed to grow a mustache. For the untouchables, the lowest members of society, those called “Dalits,” they are not allowed to grow mustaches. So in rebellion to generations of oppression, the Dalits are putting their facial hair on display.
Here in Houston, Texas, it would be unthinkable for a church to meet a mustachioed Indian gentleman who grew up a Dalit during worship and say, “Sorry, pal, you cannot come in.” But in Christian history, we have practiced things every bit as inexcusable because of “the way we were raised.”
The now outdated issue I stepped into as a teenager looking for Jesus was the church’s treatment of divorced people. At one time, if you were divorced, too bad so sad for you. “Don’t come back to church, and enjoy your road to hell.” While we shudder to think people would have said something quite that crass, they did. Some still do. But somewhere along the way we realized that divorced people want Jesus, just like happily married people, and single people, and children, and everyone else for that matter. I think it was because some of the children of church leaders started going through divorces, and suddenly they had to rethink a limiting theology more concerned with restriction than collectively journeying through life, all of us wanting to be shaped in the image and likeness of Christ.
At the Bering Drive Church of Christ, we welcome everyone. We are thankful for everyone. Namely because every one of us believes that each of us have experiences in this world that are good and bad; in this world we all have limits. But because of Jesus, even when we are weak, we are strong.
I heard about Bering when I was a college student during the time when the church was taking a giant leap forward in doing what has long been a part of Christian history, but somewhere along the way became rooted in restriction. Women in the 1980s and 1990s at Bering started serving communion with men. Serving. Women started praying to God out loud. Children read Scripture during worship, even if they had not been baptized. People from different nationalities and races joined together in worship, hand-in-hand proclaiming the saving grace we know in Christ Jesus. Gay and straight people sat side-by-side in worship, knowing full well that the promises of God are far reaching. And if a man, woman, or child who grew up a Dalit in India happens to come our way, we will not think twice about swinging open the door, swinging it wide open to say, “We are less-than-perfect ourselves, but just wait until you see the ways the Lord is creating us anew. We cannot wait to share with you what we have.” And that is not because of who we are, but because of who Jesus has always been, who Jesus is, and who Jesus will always be.
Isn’t this the way it always should have been? We believe so. In all of our beautiful imperfection, that is the way it is to this day in this family-sized outpost of the Kingdom of Heaven that we call the Bering Drive Church of Christ. We do not, in any way, shape, or form, claim to have everything figured out and settled. Jesus taught us to practice mercy over sacrifice, so we take that seriously. And when we say we are thankful for everyone, we give thanks that we are still learning what all of that means in our daily walk with Jesus.
God After Harvey
By Jeff Christian
The waters of the most devastating rainfall in United States history had yet to recede before the blasphemy began. Armchair preachers decided it was time to speak, when in reality the better choice would have been to keep silent. “Hurricane Harvey was God’s way of rebuking the sinners,” was one such blasphemy shot into cyberspace like an unaimed shotgun.
I thought about such ungodly observations while many of our church helped clean out the house of one of our families who lost just about everything in the floods. Mind you, this household is a household of prayer, of Christlike hospitality, a place that continually seeks God’s will and shares the joy of the Lord. Many of us have prayed in that house. Sang in that house. Danced in that house. Raised glasses of cheer because we are loved, and because we love.
Granted, none of us are without sin. We know that. But we also know that the Lord of all creation sustains us in ways well beyond our earthly understandings. Like Elijah in 1 Kings 19 who experienced God, we too experienced God in a gentle whisper after the storm.
Each hug in the long lines at the grocery store was God’s gentle whisper.
Every time we carried waterlogged furniture into the front yard was the sound of God’s gentle whisper.
Every donation, every bottle of water, every time someone asked, “How can I help?” were all the places that God showed up and proclaimed, “I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.”
These were the works of God. These continue to be the moments when love remains, when it is better for us to proclaim God’s presence, not in the storm, but in the gentle whisper that comes after.
And God Always Shows Up
by Jeff Christian
Before the eyes open, it’s a deep breath. Maybe two. If I’m on my side, I roll over onto my back. Another breath. Crane my neck slightly up off the pillow to look across the dark room to the one light, the red light across that most often show three numbers, usually beginning with a 3 or 4, a 5 if I’m lucky.
I throw back the sheet gently so as not to wake Jen, slide my legs out, see my way in the dark into the bathroom to put on my glasses where I leave them every night. Grab a shirt, throw it on, walk to the door, open it, walk through it, close it softly behind me, and go downstairs where my not-so-subtle tomcat yells at me for food regardless of the time.
If I am up before the timer on the coffee pot is set to go off, and I usually am, I walk over to it first thing and push the button to launch it. A man’s gotta have his priorities. And most of the time I just stand there for a moment, leaning against the countertop in the quiet as the cat looks up at me adoringly the way an animal adores the hand that feeds. I wait. Stand and breathe and pray.
And God always shows up.
Ten minutes later I’m pouring the first cup, and then walking over to my recliner to read. It’s my favorite quiet alone-time morning activity. Sometimes I’ll check my email, but I am trying to break that addiction. Morning is a time for quiet without advertisements and images of shortsighted tyrants on the computer. Morning is my time of waiting in hope, waiting in anticipation that something great is about to happen today, even if that something great may not look great to the majority of the world. Rarely is the great thing a booming announcement with spotlights and fanfare. Most of the time the great thing is a breath, a feeling, a blessed assurance.
And God always shows up.
Two of the people I love the most in the whole wide world will eventually come downstairs, usually with a hi or good morning, often a hug or a kiss. That’s one of the first moments of great. That is one of the moments when I feel the presence of the one who sustains the universe.
And God always shows up.
Get past breakfast and cleaning up and packing lunch for the day and so on and so on. I know God is there too, but usually I’m too busy making other plans to notice. No offense, God.
But when the garage door closes and I roll onto the throttle on my way to my office where I will pray and hope and join the work of new creation… oh, man… let me tell you… sometimes it’s one hour, sometimes it’s five. Sometimes like when I was learning Greek and history and philosophy in college and I would completely lose track of time until the librarian would come over the speakers on the top floor and inform us that in ten minutes the library would close, it’s like that when you are waiting on God.
And God always shows up.
These are my Elijah moments, my 1 Kings 19 moments, and they are almost always in the morning. Don’t know why. But they are. Mornings are filled with greetings. Leah walking through the door with a “Good morning.” Don with his “Good morning, Jeff.” Cynthia with her, “Okay, you got a minute?” These are holy moments to me. Sunday mornings are even more concentrated. Noah taking my hand in his and saying “Thank you” whether the sermon is good or just regular. Gail’s sweet smile and her arm around my neck. Samira’s excitement on the day of the Lord. David’s faithful nod and acknowledgment that we are at church where we gather with the one who was, who is, and who is to come. These are the holy moments in the life of the church, in a community of faith, when all the other stuff that goes with church is suddenly worth it. Church is not all blue skies and rainbows. But when you gather, and when we remember why we gather, everything makes sense, even when it doesn’t make sense.
And God always shows up.
It’s similar to restarting the computer when the computer is like a fresh pot of coffee before it sits for hours and starts rolling its eyes at all the inattention. After the little electronic device has spent its day opening apps to entertain, to inform, to titillate, to direct, it gets to a point where it wants to shut down like C3PO mysteriously asking Luke if he can go to sleep for a while. But when we all wake up, at least this is my experience, no bombardment of images and frustrations and negative comments have had time to distract us from that which matters the most.
And God always shows up.
These are my Elijah moments, my 1 Kings 19 moments when God decided one day to contact a dusty old prophet, telling him to go outside, wait and get ready for what’s what. The technical Bible language is “pass by.” God tells Elijah that God is about to pass by. Same thing Jesus did that night on the lake. Pass by. It’s scary because it’s unfamiliar. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Once you get used to it, you come to realize the same thing Elijah realized in 1 Kings 19 that all the earthquakes and fires and hurricanes are not the arrivals of God. The story goes that after the earthquake came a fire. But God was in neither the earthquake nor the fire. Because after the fire came a gentle whisper, which is when Elijah pulled his cloak over his head. For me, that’s the deep breath, the walking downstairs, the ride to work, the flipping on of the lightswitch in my office in great hope and anticipation and blessed assurance that God still has something to say to the people who want nothing more than to hear that God is there, and that God still cares. Every day I wait. Every day God is faithful. Usually just a gentle whisper.
And God always shows up.