Processing ELCA J3 Experience

Processing ELCA J3 Experience is a task on my to do list that has been on there since I moved to Oita at the end of March 2021. It remains on my list because I procrastinate, especially around emotionally heavy and painful things. There is a lot of grief, pain, disappointment, and anger involved those two years and the way I felt scapegoated and gaslighted by my boss amidst a difficult but very necessary decision to not renew my contract with the Service & Justice division of ELCA Churchwide. I still have not been able to attend a worship service at the congregation I grew up in since leaving, but I have watched online a lot both in Japan and since I moved back home.

As I have processed this pain, I have not always reacted the best. I have lash out when I see behaviors by people who represent the ELCA that are wrong. I am am right, but I am not always constructive and therefore loving, and therefore I am wrong. I confess, I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself. I remember the words of my former, now retired, pastor who admonished me not to globalize the bad things I witnessed in the ELCA to every part of the ELCA, presumably my home congregation.

Yet, tonight as I was unpacking a box of stuff from Japan I came across a bunch of small letter cards from former students at Kyushu Luther Gakuen. There was so much healing for me in that little stack of cards. As much as that time felt like a failure, these students wrote to me about how my presence and teaching made a difference for them. And I don’t share this at all to toot my own horn. I was and am not that great. Yet, I am glad and proud that I made a difference for the good in a few students lives. I am glad for the Japanese teaching colleague who said she always felt the presence of God when I was teaching in the classroom.

Its been hard for me not to globalize my time in Japan as a J3 with all of the hurt and pain and crazy stuff that went on. But it wasn’t all bad. God worked through both hard and good things. God is worked in the lives of students, and teachers, and me. Things are not as they ought, but that is true everywhere in this fallen world. That doesn’t mean I should have stayed. I couldn’t. I was totally spent spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and in terms of vocational burn out. Yet, opening up that box of cards tonight was like lighting off fireworks in a dark chapter of my life.

So I have thanks to God and I hold onto his promises.

The Way Through it is the Way Out

“The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”

Numbers 21:8, NIV

There is seems to be a pattern working in the book of numbers. First it was the censors, then Aaron’s staff, now it is the snakes. All of these are signs of rebellion and judgement transformed into sanctification, life and healing, God makes rivers in the desert, even the desert of our making.

And our sin does make literal deserts when we look at the ecological impact of our greed, carelessness, and egocentrism. We sin against the land, against its biotic life, plant and animal, we sin against our families, our companies and colleagues, we sin against our own hearts and we make deserts or we make our way into them. The snake was there at the beginning of exile and when the thought that God’s provision of Edenic fruit was not enough a snake came to plague our first parents. Here also the Israelites are plagued by snakes when they grumble against the provision of mana that Lord had provided.

“If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” (Matt. 4:3) Satan tempted second Adam. Perhaps Adam doesn’t do this because he is practicing the principle of enough that the Israelites failed to learn. God’s Word is enough. Perhaps he didn’t because by not doing so he was redeeming all our agreement and bondage to the spirit of lack.

How do we grumble when things don’t come according to the promise quite as we expect, or quite in the time frame we had hoped for. Hope deferred, does make the heart sick after all. But if faith is the certainty of things hope for, we see a secret principle underneath the exercise of prayer and faith. Whatever you ask for in my name, you will receive. Why do we fret? Have no fear little flock, for the Father has decided to give you the kingdom. As the Apostle Paul writes, will he who gave us his very own Son not give us all [other] things? By faith we begin to receive what is promised and by the promise we begin to participate in the divine nature, which is like getting the best thing ever and of course everything else is thrown in.

Snakes come when people grumble. Poison, adversity, toil, tragedy start to ooze out of our fallen world and our fallen perception of reality. But God says to take one of these and put it on a stick, look at it and be healed. God makes a way for our healing and correction right in very place of our judgement. From the cross, Jesus judges all: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And there on the cross he defeats Satan, and he redeems humankind, and accompanies us each in the depths of our rebellion, of our murmuring, and all of the fear and paint that lay at the root of it. He goes down to sheol for us, where the roots or our old Adam are screaming for redemption, and where the worms never seem to die. He goes all the way down and then all the way up.

If all of life is like a kind of lent, a kind of pilgrimage and wandering we have Christ before us and Christ with us healing us as we look upon him, carrying us as we stumble, and leading us forward as the Good Shepherd into the fulfillment of of faith, of hope invading the present as joy, as promises becoming reality around us, now and not yet but ever forward until the fulfillment of all things.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 10:19–22

For more on this idea of faith and promises being a gateway to deeper reality check out this great message by Tim Mackie given at the 24-7 Prayer USA conference in Portland last fall.

Meditations in the Desert: The Waters of Quarreling

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord and where he showed himself holy among them.

Numbers 20:12-13, NIV

Sometimes we think we know best. Sometimes we think we know what God wants or expects or intends. Sometimes we know. We live in a knowledge/information society. Knowledge is power. But in reality, knowledge puffs up. We think we know but we do not know what we do not know and we fall into pride. We think we are the solution, the key, the center of the story. But we are not.

We may become acquainted with God’s ways and slowly drift from our walk with him. We drift from his Word. We begin to confuse our way with his way and we do not enquire of him because we have drifted in our walk. We rely on knowledge as information instead of knowledge as intimacy.

This is actually a crucial problem. It is where our first parents went wrong and it seems that perhaps God would not permit that to enter in the leadership of Israel when they were about to cross from the wilderness into the promised land.

This “original sin,” if I may call it that relates to knowledge over relationship, a breakdown in trust, and choice for the false self over God. It is absolutely a form of pride which is in classical theology is kind of the fountainhead of the seven deadly sins. Sin, as missing the mark, is of greater gravitas at the outset of a new thing because it sets the orientation for where that thing is going. So it may seem like a gross overreaction of God in response to Moses’ transgression, it is appropriate and necessary for the new thing to start well. Furthermore, it teaches that even if the Prophet is over the secular authorities the Prophet itself is not over the Word of the Lord.

I want to get a bit personal here. My own desert wandering has very much had to do with pride. I don’t know, so I cannot trust. I cannot lose control by surrendering my command center operating space based on logic with technology so I keep that inner, inner room to God shut, but put him onscreen when I need him. God exposed this command center in a powerful way in the fall of 2017. I had just lost my car and my smartphone and my plans went to ruin. God said: you cannot keep building your life on this foundation. He also revealed to me a new foundation: the coracle is sonship. This means my command center is a little sailboat with Jesus in it with me, the Father fathering me, and the Holy Spirit being the wind that moves the sail. The repentance began back then but it has been a slow process of getting set in the new mode of life. In the meantime, I have continued to struggle with profound mistrust in the Lord because of my fear loneliness, rejection and isolation.

This mistrust looks like besetting sin keeping me in a merry-go-round of attempting self-comfort, self-soothe, and self-master this deep seated aspect of my life apart from the Lord. I have been, maybe without seeing it this way, quarreling with God. And even before the 2017 revelation, I was still acting this way. Will it take forty years? Lord have mercy no. But this is the lesson of Moses’ transgression. As the old preacher says, sin will always take your further then you want to go, keep you longer then you want to stay, and cost you more then you want to pay.

Thanks be to God, we have new and better promises. We have the ministry of Jesus our high priest who lives to make intercession for us. We have the sacraments and means of grace including holy absolution that announces to us the forgiveness of our sins. We have the Holy Spirit who lives to make intercession for us and by whose power we can put to death the misdeeds of the body.

I have not been disqualified yet. And therefore I have hope. And therefore I still trust him. And therefore I still surrender.

Therefore, when Jesus stands at the door and knocks, I will let him in and I will confess my sins, and and repent of my quarreling, and open my heart all the way deep down into that inner room where my inner child is still lonely and terrified and I will sit on Jesus lap and lay on his chest and let him breath the Holy Spirit in me, undoing fear and shame by the power of his love.

Is there a place where you are quarreling with God? He stands at the door and knocks. Bid him in, I implore you. His ways are better.

Meditations in the Desert: We are lost!

The Israelites said to Moses, “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all going to die?”

Numbers 17:12-13

The context of this passages is the budding, flowering, and bearing of almonds from Arron’s staff, who’s staff alone does so, showing God’s approval and choice of his leadership and priesthood. This is another repetitive account of protest against God’s chosen leadership from those are not chosen. The response of the people is recorded in the passage above.

The conclusion seems to be the realization of exile. Who is worthy? They thought they were but they realize they are not. Like the tree of life in the garden, they are barred from entrance. They remain lost and they realize their plight. Things are not going to go according what they are devising of their own understanding.

However, God is putting a tree before them and it is a tree of life. It was a dead branch, a staff, but it has become a budding tree a sign of life amidst rebellion which continually lead to death. We also know of the censors of Korah in his rebellion that were rejected but God sanctified and were put on the altar. Now Aaron’s staff too is to be placed in front of the altar. God transforms our rebellion into our salvation. And salvation is nothing less than restoration of our fellowship, relationship and vital union with God.

There is a different sacrifice and tree that we know of that made a way for us, a new and living way. He stand and says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Now that I have made a few allusions to different images of salvation history, I want to go back into the words of the Israelite people. They have just seen this profound miracle and are cut to the heart, humbled, and perhaps terrified. We will die! We are lost, wea re all lost! There is almost a reversal of what is said in Eden. God said they would die if they ate from the tree of knowledge. The snake says, you shall not die. Here God is saying to place the staff which had budded in front of the altar, so that they will not die. But the people say, we will die!

The way forward God is making is through the priesthood and leadership and ministry they have to make atonement. If we will have it no other way than our way then we might as well give up hope and say, we will die! We are lost! Are we all going to die? But if we repent, if we forsake our own way, and accept what the Lord is providing as a gracious gift of life to us, we will not die but live. We must continue to believe his Word as we wander through deserts, as we get offended, as we think it should go a certain way but does not.

Its so hard to do, it feels like many deaths in the desert. Maybe that is precisely appropriate type and shadow these lessons serve to teach us. Be careful lest you think you stand. There are many conversions throughout life, and each of them a death. Luther went as far to say it is a daily dying to self, a daily drowning of the old Adam in the waters of baptism. Who can do this? But thanks be to God, for salvation is of the Lord.

We sing:

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin
My hand will save.

ELW, 574

His hand will save. He will bring forth shalom. Each shall be able to rest under the shade of that tree, and make a home in it. Its branches go wide and there is room for people from all nations to come. He seeks us out and finds us, not all who wander are lost, and we will not die, but we shall live and tell the works of the Lord.

Meditations in the Desert: confusing the profane with the holy

Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites—Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—became insolent and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council.  They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”

Numbers 16:1-3, NIV

There is a trend these days, especially conversations of deconstruction, to redefine holiness in terms of wholeness and to define wholeness on one’s own terms without regard for the Word of the Lord.

Holiness and Wholeness

These are not entire unrelated concepts. The levitical law reveals that deficits in wholeness impaired the holiness of both people and sacrifices. I do not want to go into a big detour on this, and I understand the offense this may raise but I will say two things here.

First off, the application of declaring something unholy is the only way to do proper justice to natural evil. Natural evil is not a moral evil, it is a deficit in the order of creation and generally speaking these deficits are theologically viewed as a result of the fall. The Apostle Paul says that the law was given so that sin might be utterly sinful, in other words, so we can see what is missing the mark. Modern obsessions with equality may cause us to try and erase the differently abled’s difference in ability with the notion that differently abled people can do anything a normal person could. Even using the term, normal, may be offensive here, and I am not trying to cause any offense, I assure you. But the difference is different on the basis of its contrast with a norm. I will never be able to enter the air force because of my poor vision. 20/20 vision is what is normally good vision. I miss the mark for entry. This is because the task of air force men and women has a measure being set apart.

Certain qualities are needed, and perfect vision is just one of them. I was probably born with bad vision and it is hereditary. But lets say I had perfect vision and then I was attacked by someone and now I am blind in one eye and my vision is blurry. This moral evil resulted in a natural evil (my condition of impaired vision). This situation might remove some of the blinders our equality obsession may obscure. We can more easily draw the line between moral evil and natural evil. This caused that. And we are more willing to say my impaired vision is bad, because it is a deficit caused by an attack.

Calling bad vision, bad, is not a judgement against the visually impaired. In fact, recognizing this problem is a precursor to seeking a cure or improvement of that. I am very thankful for my corrective lenses that allow me to function a relatively normal life. All of this being said, the function of prognosis is one of the law and it is good and important but it does not bring healing and wholeness. This leads to my second point, which was that the levitical code was largely a containment for uncleanness and sin, it could contain and cover over but it was limited in its ability to bring holiness and wholeness.

God alone sanctifies

To be sanctified, means to be made holy. God defines holiness and he is the one who makes us holy. The be made holy is be made like God. In the text I am reflecting on today, we see that God set up a system of sanctifying the people through the Aaronic priesthood. The levites were set apart to certain extent and they thought it best if they had the same access to working in the priestly role as the descendents of Aaron. The problem was, the Levites were not set apart by God to do this. They were declaring themselves to be holy.

Now, as part of the people of God, this was true to an extent. All of the Israelites and especially the tribe of Levi were called to be a holy people. But they were not called to be holy priests in the tabernacle.

In the new covenant through Christ we see Christ entering the seen as one with power to forgive sins and make holy and whole. He healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, forgave sins, rose the dead, and he himself conquered the power of sin and death forever changing the approach to sin and uncleanness through his perfect, once and for all sacrifice. Read the book of Hebrews to get more on this but for starters Jesus is the one who heals, makes whole, and baptizes us in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who calls us, makes us holy, and empowers us to be a kingdom of priests under the high priesthood of Christ.

Deconstruction as Rebellion

There is a lot of good deconstruction going on. This is where we go to the scriptures to test and see if the small ‘t’ traditions, beliefs, and practices we have received are rooted in truth and the teaching of Christ and the apostles. Since so much American (or other cultural) influence has gotten mixed into how we practice church or think about faith its good and right to test these things. But this becomes a danger to our soul when mixed with pride and egoism.

First off, and this is the less dangerous error, it is common for many American protestants, especially those from more Evangelical traditions to take an antagonistic view towards tradition. But the new testament has a pretty high view of tradition as something handed down from the apostles. In whatever congregation we may find ourselves in, the ministry of word and sacrament embodied in pastors and teachers represent this apostolic authority to us and it is a teaching office of the Word that is inseparable from traditions. There may be things to spit out, no pastor is granted infallibility, but our basic posture and orientation towards the pastoral office and other biblical models of church leadership should be one of humility, trust, and respect. This extends to the things we are taught and receive from them and other godly influencers such as catechists, those who have discipled us, elders, deacons, small group leaders, and our parents. It extends to the practice we pick up through the liturgy etc.

The more dangerous error is to prop oneself up as the arbitrator of truth. This is a collapse into the error of postmodernism with its hyper-individualism and its rejection of authority outside of oneself. This is the sin of Korah and those who accompanied him. They didn’t just challenge Moses but also God. I was reading one influencer on Instagram today who announced that she is no longer a Christian. And it is no doubt, she had long put off Christ as her Lord when she disregarded his Word and was willing to set herself up as judge over him and what he has to offer her. I have seen this often in progressive approaches to human sexuality that want to remove marriage as the normative place where sex is sacred. Consent becomes the new sanctifier and I declare that it is good and holy because it makes me feel good and I say it is so. Call it Christian, call it holy, it does not matter what it is called if it is neither from Christ or holy sexuality as God defines it. Rather than redefining the law, we should be looking to the Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out as we wait for the return of the Lord. We may need to have new conversations about human sexuality but we still must do it in a posture that seeks the Lord’s understanding above our own.

Both errors exult the ego. Whichever order it comes in there is an exultation above others or God and it is as simple as putting one’s trust in their own understanding rather than in the Lord. I am not suggesting here a rigid fundamentalism that leaves no room for anything other than scripture scripted lives. But what is our basic posture of the heart towards the living God and his Messiah? The Word of the Lord is living and active, not a dead letter. But we know we have that Word scripture and the office of the ministry and so we seek him there and we put our ears to it and we wait on him. Jesus said that man lives by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. And its that Word that makes us holy. Not our piety, not our self-care gurus, not our ability to care for ourselves, or our attempts to manicure holiness based off of church cultures or holiness codes, nor in false humility where we think of ourselves as a worm all the time. It is not humility to think of ourselves more lowly than God esteems us, and the same if we esteem ourselves more highly than we ought. And so I will end with some hymnody:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded,
for with blessing in his hand
Christ, our God, to earth descending,
comes our homage to command.

LBW, 198

Meditations in the Desert: Has the Lord only spoken through Moses?

Its been a long while since I picked up this series but its unfinished, drawn out nature fits the theme. Forty years Israel spent in the wilderness. The these years have largely been wilderness years for me in many ways.

The text I am reflection on is Numbers chapter twelve. Especially the following versus:

Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard this.

Numbers 12:1-2

In some ways this form of protest or doubtful talkback is reminiscent of the earliest archetype we hear of the snake in the garden. Did God really say? Its also a repetition of what just occurred in chapter 11 where the people complained against the Lord. The implication is that God deems rebellion against Moses as rebellion against him. Is he not the mouthpiece of God? And not like other prophets, as the text later implicates but Moses friendship and intimacy with God was unique as was is role as the “the Prophet.”

Both the fall in Eden and the fall at Sinai (golden calf), lead God’s people out from paradise. In the former case the way back was through the promise of child bearing. In the the time of Moses the way back was set up through the levitical priesthood and the ministry of the tabernacle. Later texts explicate that this was set up through angels. Angels still function as at Eden to be a kind of gatekeeper, in this case letting in, but also keeping out the unholy.

As I reflect on these things in relation to my personal desert wanderings it can be said, there is a chronic struggle as to whether my voice matters at all. Yes, God’s Word is good, and true, and right. Yes, Jesus, the Word of God alive, is Lord. But as I submit I also protest, does not my voice mean anything? Why did you make me God? Why am I having this queer experience that is riddled with dejection, and pain, and dislocation as a queer man in a heteronormative cosmos? For most of the crisis of my protest has related to how my sexuality is scrutinized under God’s law. But in as much as this is a participation in being dislocated, rejected, at times even abandoned or outcast it is not unique to the condition all of us face as sinners and because of sin working in unjust human systems.

To miss the mark is to be exiled but somehow God is tabernacling with us, providing a way back in to holiness, a way back into fellowship, and thereby a way back into life. Because where the River flows there is life.

The levitical law was still exclusive though. Perhaps the inclusion of Moses’ Cushite wife is a foreshadowing of the later inclusion that would come for foreigners and eunuch’s alike but Miriam and Aaron seemed concerned that someone outside might get in ahead of them because they are only the siblings of the mouth of God but she is now his wife.

The entire prophetic tradition beginning with Abraham seems to be concerned with what is just and right and whether or not God is just and right and the implicit answer is that of course, for how could the Lord be the Lord of all the earth if he is not just and right. And therefore we have hope. This hope is the way forward through desert wanderings.

I can turn my angst into protest against the Lord or his Messiah. I can say, this is not just so I must rise up as judge. Has the Lord only spoken through Moses, or the Bible, or the Lord Jesus, or men, or straight people? Does the Lord not also speak through me? Through my suffering? Here is the offer of temptation, to put one’s own self up as the mouth piece of God on this matter. Perhaps Moses was entrusted because of his great humility. We should shun all such methods because do partake in that line of discourse is to imply that Jesus is not Lord, but that we are fine to be our own Lords.

The crucial question takes us back to the garden. Not the question of did God really say, but the question of Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me? We hear this echoed in the words of Frodo, I wish the ring had never come to me. But the successive part is the crucial hinge. but not my will be done but yours.

We all need a Gandalf to remind us All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. How will we live the question/answer of not my will be done but yours. That is the journey of invitation out of wilderness and into promise and paradise. Its where through the cross and our suffering Christ manifests himself present as God with us– anew tabernacling.

And in the end, no, at this point in the story God has not only spoken through Moses. For the Law was given through Moses but Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. Moses was with God at times but Jesus was with God at the beginning and was God. Moses is faithful in God’s house but Jesus is faithful over God’s house. What was instituted by angels and brought the domination of elementary spirits became obsolete and is passing away as a new creation through the second Adam has opened a new a living way.

This is our pilgrimage and we have our justice, vindication, and salvation assured in what is coming with the return of our Lord. So our hope must hinge on this, and not on temporary accommodations to the world order for though we strive for justice now the way of things now will perish with this world.

And not to sound too pie in the sky. The cross plants the future in our midst, we brings heaven now, we have access to the holy of holies through Christ’s blood now, and new commandment to order this new and superior covenant is also illustrated through the cross, of holy and sacrificial love. Plant this in ever social relationship and every context of disordered desire and things will be brought to holy order. Against such things there is no law. And this is not our work, but the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us.

We are invited to hear God and at times speak the words of God but this is not an opportunity for us to lord over as the gentiles do, as Pharaoh did, as Miriam and Aaron perhaps mistook Moses for doing. This invitation is one to serve, one to get dirty, one to love sacrificially as we are united with Christ as priest, prophet, and king.

So I may be making it out of the wilderness years but the pilgrimage does not end. He is the both the way and the destination. Jesus’ profound key may be in the ora et labora of the Our Father. And so with lack of neat, tidy, reasoned conclusion, I offer this prayer as my conclusion, a way forward, unknown trajectories abound but I know I am oriented toward New Jerusalem and seeking his face is the way there.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen

Redeployed and Repositioned Part 3: Periwinkle Quantum Mechanics

I know the title is weird but bear with me.

In high school I wrote a poem on the plane from Lima to Cuzco about being a periwinkle particle in the grey abode between ying and yang. It was about being queer. It manifested a lot of the gender insecurity I had that time that never took a transgender direction, and I am glad I was going through that a little bit before now because the juggernaut transgender ideology can be merciless to those who lack gender security. That’s another story so I will leave it be.

The grey abode, it felt like that. The line between ying and yang is just a line, its not a great abode but it was foggy and dim and I couldn’t see beyond it nor could I see many around me in that season of life. God eventually asked me to repent of this identity. It was one of the “false visages of the ego” I wrote about earlier. It was not just rooted in insecurity but also pride. I am not either or but somehow I can transcend them both and be some thing greater. “I will ascend to the heavens,” said Lucifer of old. He would not stay in the station allotted to him. But the Lord has given me a good station. “Male and female he created them.” And, “He has set my boundaries in good places.” Once the Lord told me, “It is written all over your body that you are a man.”

I am very grateful for this. This was good news. Through it, I could find the courage to “man up.” And although that can have a ring of “toxic masculinity it,” and it can go in that direction, I don’t mean it that way. I don’t mean it in the stuff your emotions in your boot and move on kind of rugged individualistic pseudo-stoicism that is a toxic form of masculinity. But I mean it in the sense of rising to the challenge, proving myself on the grand stage, not isolated, but under the loving presence and affirmation of my Father. The deep boyhood longings that were always there could begin to find fulfillment in real life instead of fantasy land. I am still in the unfurling of that journey.

This growth in gender security is what I am most grateful for in my various stints at reparative therapy. But I didn’t come out heterosexual. Oh well. Lol. God still has plans for me. I have more clarity about my own manhood and masculine call and am grateful for that. But now that I have unpacked the context of my metaphor I want to employ it some.

A periwinkle particle between ying and yang. Not one or the other. Eclectic. Not having my own clique, belonging in many but belonging in non. Growing up Lutheran and Pentecostal but belonging to both and neither. Growing up in a broken family (read two families) and belonging to both and neither. I am in process to grow in belonging in my own families of origin and that has been a feat living most of my adult life half way across the planet. Then,,, being queer and growing up in church…

I have tears, and tears, and tears that could probably picture what trying to belong has been like. I am still struggling with that. And all the deconstructionists be like what is the church really. Well, this much I think we can all agree on, the Church is the People of God. Sometimes those people suck but everyone of them is valuable and cherished by God so much that he sent his Son to die for them.

I must tread careful lest I, in reaction, think I can undo all of that and therefore crucify the Son of God all over again and subject him to public disgrace.

Factor 1) the struggle to belong b/c of upbringing

Factor 2) the struggle to belong b/c of queer experience

Factor 3) the struggle to belong b/c of personality and temperament (quimsical and having wide curiosity)

Factor 4) the struggle to belong b/c of becoming virtually third culture by living most of my adult life outside my home country

So, like a periwinkle particle floating in the grey abode between ying and yang, I can relate to Andy Raine’s words, yet again:

INTEGRITY means not separated or even distinct. This may be a pride issue for outliers who define themselves as standing apart from the crowd. But then YOUR crowd, your TRIBE, may unexpectedly feel like a natural fit: I was made for this time, this moment, this people. It is quietly a moment of destiny. It was worth having been born just to have this happen.

Andy Raine

So Jesus is continuing this work of integration. I am not separate from my own gender. Okay, that was good news. I am not separate from my family. I am not separate from that body of sinners called the human race, nor the hospital that ministrates them unto sainthood.

I want a moment for this right now. I just want to repent of all of the pride that says, I am apart in any way that I have decided to be apart. God is the one who sanctifies. He sets us apart. But when I do that I am playing God’s role. No oh baby, I cannot do that.

And so as I approach the end of this new year, I examine my heart and I repent. Others may connect with this and I invite you to repent. Jesus is waiting for you.

(Up and coming, writing about factors of being an outlier or my crowd/tribe, and or more repentance stuff).

Wend with the wind

From the Newsletter

 One of my favorite scriptures is John 3:8. Usually if I ever meet someone who likes this verse I almost immediately like them. I have met at least two people who have had some part of this verse tattooed on their body and they turned out very likable people to me.

     What I won’t be tattooing anytime soon is my address. I am finally starting to get writing the Chinese characters of my address down. It’s much easier than my last two addresses and so the learning curve is shorter. Getting a physical at a new clinic, appealing for a reduction in my national health insurance payments (four months of unemployment on top of reduced pay takes a hit you know), and I feel like I have been writing my address a lot these days.

     Growing up I did a lot of moving too. Not all over the place but with my mom’s family I moved across town seven times. My dad moved around less. After high school I moved around geographically a lot more. Copenhagen, Escanaba, Minneapolis, Nagasaki, Kansas City, Fukushima, Kumamoto, and now Oita are the cities I have lived in since leaving home. Each place has profound memories, friends, many have faded, but when I recall them I still cherish them. Each place had its investment in the process of establishing a community of support for myself. Each place came with the leadership of the Lord and his caretaking despite my lack of faith at too many junctures. 

     The quote from Bilbo above is his second rendition of the poem. He turns the word eager into weary. Weariness does not replace eagerness for me but it casts it in shadow. And maybe this is the end of my quest. Wandering in the desert, camping at “lonely mountain,” and growing among mighty men and brave sisters has exposed I think some faults in my foundation that going back to my own source waters in the Fox River Valley might help tend, fill, and set. 

     Just off of the cuff, I can think of economic vitality, taking more ownership of a place amongst my people and having a sense of rootedness, therapy, addressing loneliness with the backing of friends and family instead of venturing out on my own, and finally, realigning in my relationship with the body of Christ. These were many of the things I had tried to do while in Kansas City my second time around there. I thought it would be my Rivendell. It ended up being more like my Mirkwood but there was an eleven kingdom there and I was ministered to in many great ways that advanced the journey of my heart. 

     I suspect that Lord took me to Kumamoto to help me realize my need to say no to compromise, to career/professional ministry that is not backed on a life submitted to the Word and full of the Spirit, that is not vibrant in brotherly love, and to gird up what remains in me and was about to die. I know my heart needs better soil and Oita has brought a lot of that. 

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

– John 3:8, NIV
     

I am so grateful for the faithfulness of God. I trust he used me in places where I have gone and I am grateful for those who have become followers of Jesus from Nagasaki, Fukushima, and Kumamoto but I can also see how he has been faithful to me in my wanderings. One of the things we talk about in YWAM Oita is that God is big and God is good. I know God has more adventures for me in Oita before the next change of address.

     And so I wait.

     And I watch.

And I intend to go His way, confident he fulfills all of his promises. 

Read the rest of the Newsletter

Redeployed and Repositioned: according to our integrity and authenticity

Currently there is a downfall of rain from the typhoon over Tokyo where I am in quarantine because we live in a pandemic still. Its been like a super nice mini-sabbatical where I have been able to stay with renewing Lutheran missionaries who know their stuff and have heart and hospitality. In some ways, I am in the shadow of what I am leaving behind but I am also gaining insights as to what leaving the ELCA behind could mean in terms of keeping relationships and and keeping vigil. But I am not writing about that transition today. I am in quarantine because I went home for a month to bid an eschatological see you later to my grandmother, see her buried, and be with family.

Let me just say that my time home was in one word: restorative. My last blog, in this miniseries I left with a lot of questions. One of those was, what is in the cards for me to get well? Well, a trip home was one of them. It offered a lot of time to just be and to just be with some pretty amazing people I am lucky to call my family. One of the great conversations I had while home was with my sister-in-law who sent me a podcast and book by Martha Beck, The Way of Integrity. The premises of the book based on what I could hear in her podcast (I have not picked up the book yet) are a bit post-Christian while also new aging, so if I read the book it will be like eating fish but more important than that is the conversation with my sister-in-law about integrity.

Whew. That is right in a line with what rang a pulse through my body when I read Andy Raine’s post about outliers where he says:

INTEGRITY means not separated
or even distinct.
This may be a pride issue for outliers
who define themselves as
standing apart from the crowd.
But then YOUR crowd,
your TRIBE, may unexpectedly feel
like a natural fit:
I was made for this time,
this moment, this people.
It is quietly a moment of destiny.
It was worth having been born
just to have this happen.

Andy Raine, Outliers #31

A common theme between Martha Beck, my conversation with my sister-in-law, and what Andy was writing about is this need to have integrity in which we are not internally separated. Separation is the same as duplicity, except it can be divided in more than two ways (although the double mindedness maybe shouldn’t be understood that literally). These divisions usually are rooted in some kind of dishonesty. In a culture that values the truth greatly dishonesty comes when one tells lies. But part of me wants to imagine, that regardless of culture, their is a human longing to be true and authentic. Lies come out of the need to protect oneself from unsafe environments where it is not safe to be one’s authentic self. What is needed for the emancipation of the authentic life, in order to live as a whole person, fully integrated or with integrity is unconditional love (including unconditional positive regard), forgiveness, and grace. Grace is critical because our true self is not merely buried in our created self but is actually hidden with God in Christ and emerges out of our dynamic and vivifying encounter with him and transformed by that encounter through the Holy Spirit.

Interesting that each of these things can relate to a person of the Trinity. The Father, who is our creator, holds us in perfect love and longs for us to thrive. The Aaronic blessing goes “May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.” That sounds like the perfection of unconditional positive regard, and I don’t have to do it for myself, its not dependent on me holding myself up it comes form the Almighty One who’s very Word holds the worlds in motion, and holds my heart in affectionate love.

Forgiveness is critical because, obviously, we make mistakes, make messes, are hurt and hurt others. As the Small Catechism states about the Sacrament of the Altar in response to the catechumen’s question “What benefits does communion give?“

The words tell us: Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
Through these words are given to us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation; for where there is forgiveness of sins there is also , life, and salvation [healing].

Luther’s Small Catechism, tr Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

So God the Son comes to bring both forgiveness, cleansing, and healing. He is the sign of this and is our great reconciler and advocate, championing our true selves even has he reveals it to us through the ministration of his lordship and the authority of his life giving word and work.

Finally, God the Holy Spirit comes to take residence in us and enact the work of transformation in us in a new synergy with God’s own nature.

I’ve digressed a bit from the emotional journey I’ve been on but its helpful for spell out how what is needed for integrity is provided in our relationship with the Triune God. God is not withholding anything from us. We should not think, like Eve of old that our true self is unlocked by the power of knowledge of good and evil, our own judging and judgements, but on the basis of God’s Word. We should be like Mary who says, let it be thus, according to your Word. What is this Word that God brings? While it is Torah, it is Jesus himself, it is the Holy Spirit saturated Word that is not like a two-dimensional piece of information on a page nor a simple law, its a new and living way. We are invited on way. Jesus says I am the way.

So I want to reconcile to myself but I cannot do it by myself, I need the Father’s work of loving definition, the Son’s work of saving, healing, restoring, and protecting work as the true shepherd who lays his life down, and the Spirit’s transformative and sanctifying work which empowers and recreates me out of false visages of the ego and into my true self.

I thought I would get how being an outlier complicates all of this but this is enough for now and I will write on that next time.

Saul’s armor, heavy burdens, and the way out.

Unplugging used to mean something similar to decompressing, or unwinding. The world compresses us, and our jobs and/or other responsibilities have us all wound up and sometimes we we need to unplug from all of that.

Nowadays, unplugging might have more of the connotation of a break from digital technologies which also now compress and wind us up in some kind of web. As I write from my quarantine residence in Tokyo I have been talking with my hosts a lot about the surveillance nature of digital technology and the companies that take advantage of us. We watched The Social Dilemma together as a part of this conversation.

When something doesn’t fit it becomes a heavy burden. This was David’s experience with Saul’s armor. It was my experience with my former job and denomination, and at a much deeper level its our human experience with sin whether that is in a superstructure of plastic market consumerism, imbibed with other systemic evils, or any personal vice that promises life while actually robbing us of life.

Sin is slavery. The Israelites were slaves and this is often used as a metaphor for how sin is slavery. In some ways, this narrative goes all the way back to the beginning. Originally, we see sabbath rest as a command of God because he rested on the seventh day. He set the example for us. Slaves don’t get to rest and both Genesis and Exodus were written in the ancient near east where most creation stories had the creation of human beings as some sort of slavery for the gods. This often justified the rulers who were the only sons of God. But Genesis shows us that all humankind are sons of God in the sense that we are decendents of Adam and Eve who were children of God, given rule, and not slaves.

But then comes the usurper. He enslaves humankind through his deception. In Exodus we see another type of this as a false narrative of Pharaoh being the only son of god being the basis for his rule and ability to enslave and oppress God’s people. So in Deuteronomy we are given a new reason to practice sabbath, because God rescued his people from Egypt. Sabbath is anti-slavery practice.

Jesus also rescues us from another kind of slavery, religious slavery. “For man was not created for the sabbath but the sabbath for man.” God’s Torah, his teaching and law are not given to enslave humankind in rules, like God is some divine rule master, but are supposed to show the way of life and to guard and dignify that life. That is the right use of Torah. In fulfilling the Law, Jesus offers us in his own life given on the cross, the power of an indestructible life. This life comes not only his divinity but also is perfectly applicable to us through his humanity, a humanity lived in perfect obedience and completion of Torah. He doesn’t give us Saul’s armor, he gives us a yolk which is easy and a burden which is light. He is the way out.

Capturing a flow of water on my way to home fellowship with YWAM Oita.

“You have to understand, most people are not ready to be unplugged…”

Morpheus, ‘The Matrix’ (1999).

So as I have been trying to unplug from burnout, a toxic and traumatic time in the last few seasons of life, how do I actually do this well? I can plug into Netflix, or plug into complaining; I can plug into human saviors or comfort foods or endless other masters that just bring more compression and bondage. I need to plug into Christ, who is my true rest and healer. Through him I am offered a new and living way where I can enter God’s rest. This Jesus centered practice of sabbath is my lifeline for getting out of this mess. Since last spring, I have started a new job, moved to a new apartment, went back to America for my grandma’s funeral, helped my niece bury her grandfather, been with family through their and my own mutual grief. And there is a lot of grief: losing grandma, living on the other side of the world and feeling the pang of lost time together while anticipating I am going back to do it again, COVID grief. And so, we all need to unplug and we can only really get free by plugging into Jesus Christ, the Author of Life. He has a way that is organically just fit for us and it comes by the Holy Spirit he puts inside us to inhabit and guide us on our way. It’s symbiotic. The Spirit of truth and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, the knowledge of God does life with us.