Things I Think…

1. I was trying really hard to put some coherent thoughts together this morning as coherent thought does not come easily for me these days.

I was getting ready to begin writing when I saw this from Beth Moore…and you need to read this more than anything I have to say…

“Effective teaching in the realm of Christian faith comes from the ever-obvious attitude of a fellow Jesus-follower. It flows from the true estate of the teacher as a fellow saint and sinner. As one on the journey. As one who has by no means arrived and could tumble into grievous sin before sundown. As one who indeed has gotten much of it wrong and hopes to help others learn from his or her mistakes. As one who has believed wrongly or interpreted the Bible wrongly in this way or that and hopes to be of aid to others.

Effective teaching comes from what a teacher is learning, not what he or she has mastered.

The teacher mentally counts her/himself among the students, only perhaps steps ahead in knowledge in this or that area and in experience.

The approach is far more “we” and “us” rather than “you.” Not “you need to analyze your motives,” “watch your mouth,” “repent of your idolatries” … But “WE need to …”

When preaching or teaching comes from a superior mindset rather than an ever-learning student a few grades ahead, the teacher or preacher who—make no mistake—is also weak in her/his natural self and needs the Holy Spirit in the worst way, will inevitably splinter into more and more duplicity and the student who believed the teacher’s/preacher’s press into more and more idolatry.

Then, when the teacher or preacher proves human after all, the student’s foundation cracks because the student’s foundation was the leader rather than Christ himself. There is an almost imperceptible line that can get crossed from being a teacher who is used by God to point people to Christ and being a teacher who uses Christ to point to him or herself. The only real way to perceive that line being crossed early is to have courage enough to test the quality of our own intimacy with God and dependency on the Holy Spirit. How is our prayer life? In what ways are we reading scripture for our own enrichment and correction and direction rather than simply to prepare lessons? Being brave enough to ask the hard questions not of our classes. But of ourselves. Then, as God leads, perhaps also our classes.

The teacher who has stopped learning and stopped growing in Christ is no longer a teacher but a talker. The preacher, no longer a preacher but a balloon loudly leaking hot stale air.

We don’t have to tell the graphic details of our weaknesses or our past lives. But we do indeed teach and preach as those inconceivably graced by God through the cross of Christ Jesus. We teach and preach as those for whom God’s grace has not been in vain.

Much of what I’ve learned in these 40 years of teaching and speaking I’ve learned the hard way. I know what it is like to think you would never do this or that only to hear the rooster crow. So this grossly long essay comes with love and much life experience and self-confrontation to younger teachers. I cannot help but wince when I hear an air of superiority in spoken or written words or see the relentless finger pointing at the audience. The scolding and scaring. And most of all I wince when I hear it in my own voice. Jesus, help me.

I wince not because I’ve won this battle. I haven’t. I wince not because the teacher is without gift or wrong in point of fact. But because I’ve lived long enough and experienced enough and observed enough to know that the higher the leader sets him/herself, the further he/she has to fall.

The question is not whether God will humble us when we think too highly of ourselves and teach and preach and speak as those better than our hearers. It is when. And we will want to hope it is soon because the longer it waits, the further the crash. And in it, God is always good for what brings humility is never wasted. A better teacher will emerge if we will submit to God’s process.

Consider this not a word from the wise but a word from the scarred.

Let this mind be in us that was also in Christ Jesus.”

2. Pain is greatly overrated as a force to humble us…in the short term it does humble us as we learn to rely on God and others…when it goes on too long one begins to feel superior to a God who would allow such suffering…

3. Pain softens us in the short run…we know we are weak and in need…it hardens us in the long run as it takes all we have to survive…

4. Theology becomes the temple of Job’s friends when one is suffering…only a Person will suffice in pain…as we wish the theologians would stand mute or leave…

5. “Do not fear” has become the theological hobby horse of many in these difficult days…they, of course, have no fear, because they are spiritually superior to rabble like myself and they are simply “quoting the Bible’….two years ago my town burned down…it’s going to be 106 today with wind…triple digits all week…and if the worst happens again, I’ll be evacuating an elderly woman with severe dementia, a man with Downs who cannot speak, and my cat…on one leg. I am feeling some fear…and so should anyone who dares tell me “do not fear” to my face…

6. The fearless theologians would opine that I have nothing to fear from a fire because even if we were burned to a crisp we’d all go to heaven and that’s what we all really want anyway…and there is some truth to that…it works as long as you ignore all the other ramifications of such a tragedy, which is what you have to do to keep saying banal words over and over again as if banality was the last word in theology…

7. This is the point every week where I realize I should have stayed in bed…

8. Lots of sermons preached this week on “aliens’… because those kind of sermons put asses in the seats and reflections on The Sermon on the Mount don’t…

9. As long as I’m annoying people, I will be watching the NFL this year…

10. I’ll be packing an emergency “go bag” today…go and do likewise…