Groundhog's Day Spirituality

When I was a young girl, I went to camp every summer. One year, during bible study, my counselor was talking about bullies. She said, "The lion with the loudest roar has the biggest thorn in its paw." This has stayed with me all these years and reinforces what the bible says in I Samuel 16:7 "The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” This insider information about bullies made me realize that there is insider information about nearly every situation. It was an invitation to big picture thinking and compassion that has helped me in dealing with conflict and reconciliation ever since. The Ian Maclaren quote "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," has also reinforced this idea.

Kindness doesn't come naturally to me. I am a quick reactor and often focused on behavior or justice. I find it hard to ignore the whisperers at the movie theatre or children being unkind to another child – even if I don't know them! I want to jump in and correct and set things right.

Being honest about my struggle and asking for help is a key to growth. Living in community has taught me the most about how unkind I am! That along with marriage and parenthood! Community has also caused me to be transparent with my neighbors and friends and ask for help when I need it. It is an amazing luxury to live with people who are also concerned about your growth and maturity.  But it is a challenge to accept help and to keep accepting advice and correction – it can be tiring at times when you are caught in a Groundhog's Day spiritual battle and living with people 24/7 in the midst of it.

If you have never seen the movie "Groundhog's Day" then you don't know what I mean by the statement "Groundhog's Day spiritual battle". In the movie, Bill Murray's character is trapped in the same day, February 2, seemingly forever. He wakes up to the same day over and over and over. He goes through the stages of loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, in his seemingly never ending Groundhog Day journey.

I like this as a metaphor for spiritual growth, because somedays it feels like I will never overcome some of my life dominating sins, ruts, and patterns and I feel like I'm trapped in the same spiritual "day". I think this is why it often gets harder instead of easier to walk with God, live in community and not become weary in well-doing.

We never arrive, and often our flaws and shortcomings become more pronounced instead of less as we get older. And if we are living in community, a small town or attending the same church for decades, people know us! really know us! and that is such a gift and an un-gift! Like family, the people that we are close to see us probably better than we see ourselves.

Parker Palmer – an author and educator who, among many other more recent honors, titles and degrees, was named one of the thirty most influential senior leaders in higher education and one of the ten key agenda-setters of the past decade back in 1998 by the Leadership Project, tells this story about his mom:

Mom had a hard time understanding how I could earn my living by working independently as “a writer and traveling teacher." For her, a REAL job meant having a title at a company, dressing in a suit and tie, and going downtown to an office, just like my Dad did for sixty years. It did NOT mean spending half of one’s life pecking out words on a keyboard while dressed in pajamas and a robe—and the other half flying around the country doing God-knows-what!

When Mom was in her late eighties, she asked me once again, "Parker, exactly HOW do you make your living? I don't get it, and frankly, my friends don’t either!”

I said, "Well, Mom, I spend half my time at home writing books and articles, hoping to communicate with people about things that matter to me. Sometimes, people read what I write and invite me to give a speech or a workshop where we can talk face-to-face. And… Um… Well... I guess that's about it.”

I can see her now, sitting in her wingback chair, cane planted firmly in the carpet, looking regal and annoyed. After a bit, she said, "So, you make your living by TALKING to people. Is that right?"

Knowing this was not going to end well, I threw in the towel. 

"Yes, Mom," I replied. "That's a fair way to sum it up."

She thought for a moment, then said, 

"Well, Parker, I don't MIND talking to you. But I certainly wouldn't pay for it!"

The grace and kindness I receive from the people I live with is the best reminder of why and how to be kind. But grace and kindness often arrive in strange wrappings.Kathleen Norris talks about grace like this: “If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.”  Or, in the case of letting ourselves be known and vulnerable, grace might come in playful teasing from a friend until we can laugh at ourselves, in a gentle or not so gentle word of reproach, or a look that means "you're doing that thing again."

Ultimately, Bill Murray's character breaks the cycle by learning to be kind, to let go of his selfishness and to be loved.

Several years ago I had a head injury – I fell down the stairs in our building and landed right on my head.  After several weeks, I was still having headaches and memory problems. My doctor prescribed "cognitive rest" – no reading, no screens of any kind, no long conversations – "I tell my athletes to stare at a blank wall," he said. So for two weeks, that is what I did. I took naps and baths and short walks and I tried to not think about anything too complicated or worrisome.  I had been learning about the practice of silence right before this happened, so I also tried to listen to God's voice. It was an amazing gift – this rest for my mind – and it started to change me. Dallas Willard had this to say about solitude, which is a key part of silence: "Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all. You will find yourself, and God will find you in new ways."

So what do these things have to do with each other? Well, I have always wanted to be kinder and to be able to step back from a situation to see the underlying causes and to believe the best about others, but I usually failed miserably: my quick reactions overriding my desire to be kind. What I was lacking was this silence. This ability to quiet myself.  And I definitely haven't arrived, but I know that a few moments of silence can help to right things again when I feel off balance. Not empty silence – but practicing the presence of the eternal God.

When I sit silently before God, I can find that bigger picture more easily. Everything else fades away and I am forced to think of eternity and meaning in a way that brings everything into perspective. And I stop taking myself so seriously. Spending time with the God of the cross, I can talk to Him about my pain; I can talk to Him about being misunderstood and mistreated. And He knows. Hebrews 4:15-16 from the Message Bible tells us that "We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help." v16 in the NIV says it like this "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

And once we've found that grace, we can extend it to others in their time of need. Like Groundhog's Day, sometimes music gets in our heads and plays over and over and over. And often, it's not music that we particularly love, but for some reason it's stuck firmly in some remote part of our brain. There is a song that runs through my head often that I couldn't even listen to all the way through while preparing for this sermon with its 80's electronic music and dramatic vocals, my apologies to anyone who likes this song, but the chorus says "it's your kindness that leads us to repentance O God; knowing that you love us no matter what we've done, makes us want to love you too."

And although it's not a tune I want in my head, it is a message that I want to play on repeat. and maybe, like Bill Murray's character, I will be changed little by little by little, day after day as I pursue kindness and I know that one day I will awake to find the lover of my soul by my side in a new day that will never end.

Use Your Words - a reflection on John 8

Then they all went home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.  At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

As I was studying for this sermon, many commentaries brought up the fact that the woman should not have been brought there alone. As one commentary put it "adultery is, after all, a team game." That the woman is brought there alone felt significant. So I tried to read it with that fact in mind and then I started to see echoes of the story God has been telling all along.

Marriage is a metaphor that God uses from the very beginning to describe His relationship with His people, Israel. Adultery is a metaphor that God uses starting in Deuteronomy and continuing throughout the entire Old Testament to describe the way His people will act towards Him. Over and over again we see Israel as the harlot, the prostitute, the adulterous or wayward wife. In Ezekiel, God says "I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery…I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers; they will strip you of your clothes and bring a mob against you, who will stone you..."

The accusations are swirling around Jesus' head and the woman is standing helpless and accused. Jesus writes in the dust of the temple court. The first covenant was written in stone by the hand of God. It established the covenant relationship between God and Israel. These marriage vows that were meant to unite God with His people became a list of do’s and don’ts.

How did we get here? How did our relationship get so broken? When God is talking to Jeremiah about his unfaithful wife Israel, He says "“How bitter it is! How it pierces to the heart!" God loves and longs for His unfaithful bride.

Then Jesus stands up and faces the crowd. When Jesus sees the crowd of accusers, He sees and hears THE accuser: the one who accuses us before God day and night. Later that same day He will say to the crowd, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning." Jesus knows who the real enemy is.

After He says to them "anyone without sin can cast the first stone," He bends down to write a second time. He is beginning a new love letter. A letter that will be written on our minds and hearts. A new covenant that will make the first one obsolete.

When Jesus stands up, He is alone with the woman. Such a powerful and intimate scene.

where are they? has no one condemned you?

no one, sir

then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.

Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself. I will promise to make you Mine forever. I will take you as My bride. I will keep My promise and make you Mine. Then you will know the Lord. It shall come about in that day,” says the Lord, “That you will call Me my husband."

God uses language to speak to us in ways that we can understand. He used the imagery of the wayward wife in order to communicate to the nation of Israel in terms that they could relate to. He does not use this imagery to shame, but to communicate His desire for His people. All through the Bible God uses different words to describe His relationship to us:  He is a Bridegroom, a shepherd, a king, a door, a Father running to meet us on the road, a bird, a rock, living water, the bread of life and the Light of the World.

This all reminds me of another story: The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. Let me read to you just a few pages:

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”

If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,“ I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.”

“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny, “I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you.”

“If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,” said his mother, “I will become a mountain climber, and I will climb to where you are.”

This goes on like this for several more pages until the conclusion:

Shucks,” said the bunny, “I might just as well stay where I am and be your little bunny.” And so he did.

Over and over again in the Bible, we see God like the mama bunny telling us how He will meet us at every turn. And like the mama bunny, He desires for us to give up our rebellion and wandering.

So what is our response? Can you see yourself as the woman in the story? Can you stand before the living Christ just as you are? Caught in the act.  Filthy, naked, exposed. In the presence of Jesus our guilt is revealed; we have no defense.

Only the one without sin has the right to cast the first stone. Only Jesus is in the position to condemn. But instead of condemning, He rescues. Instead of accusing, He intercedes on our behalf. He knows we are guilty but He wants us to be free from shame. Brene Brown, in her study of shame and vulnerability says this: “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither...language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.”

Hosea, the prophet who married the harlot, writes these words: “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously" And God responds “I will heal [your] waywardness. I will love [you] lavishly.”

Lessons from Gideon

The text I have been reading for this sermon is Judges 6-8. I have actually been reading and rereading this text over the past 2 years when I felt that God put this story on my heart. It's the story of Gideon; which I think has some familiar parts, but maybe the whole story isn't as well known. It is an epic underdog story that has a lot to teach us today.

so let's pray and then we'll unpack it together

I am not going to read all 3 chapters to you this morning, but I am going to give you an overview of the story. First of all, the book of Judges is a book of a repeating cycle – apostasy, bondage, repentance, deliverance, freedom.

Apostasy means an abandonment of a religious belief. Twice in the book of Judges, it is described as "everyone did what was right in their own eyes." 7 other times, it is described with the phrase: "the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord." The result of this  was bondage or slavery under an enemy nation. In the midst of their suffering, they would remember God and call out to Him, and He would send a Judge to deliver them and then there would be a period of freedom and peace. Which would only last until the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord or everyone did what was right in their own eyes yet again. Gideon is the 5^th judge that God has sent.

And so this is how our story starts: Judges 6:1 "The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites." The Midianites were very oppressive, causing the Israelites to leave their homes and hide in mountain caves. They destroyed the Israelites crops, livestock and land. It was a terrifying time. 

When we meet Gideon, he is hiding in a winepress, threshing the grain. Threshing is something you usually do out where the wind can catch the chaff. But because Gideon was so afraid of the Midianites, he is hiding in a hole in the ground. As he is doing this defiant act somewhat cowardly, the angel of the Lord appears to him and says "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” to which Gideon counters with one of the most heartbreaking responses in the Bible. Judges chapter 6 verse 13 “With all due respect, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his amazing works that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Didn’t the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and allowed Midian to overpower us.”

To which the angel responds: “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” And again Gideon counters "With all due respect, my Lord, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I’m the youngest in my household.”

The Lord answered, “I will be with you" and Gideon starts to change. He starts to trust. But he needs some proof. He asks for his first sign. He goes and gets some offerings – some meat, some bread and some broth. The angel tells him to put the meat and bread on the stone and pour the broth over it. Then the angel touches the end of his staff to the offering and it goes up in flames and the angel disappears! And Gideon realizes he has been in the presence of God. Terrified, he hears God speak to him: “Peace! Do not be afraid."

Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace.

So now, God has a call to action. He tells Gideon to tear down the idols – an altar to Baal and an Asherah pole. Not only tear them down, but then to build on their ruins an altar to God. In Judges 6:26, God says, "build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this stronghold with stones laid in proper order."

Gideon does this at night because he is afraid that his fellow Israelites will not be happy about their idols being removed. And he's right. The next morning, somehow word gets out that Gideon tore down those idols (maybe one of the 10 servants he brought with him blabbed) and people want to murder him for it. Gideon's father defends him and says, if Baal is really a god, he can fight his own battles and so they leave him alone.

Next call to action God tells Gideon to fight the Midianites. This is where the well-known fleece story comes in. Gideon says ok, God if you are really going to save Israel through me, then show me. I am putting a fleece (wool from a sheep) on the ground – make the fleece wet and the ground dry around it and I'll trust you.

The next morning when that happened, Gideon felt a little sheepish (ha!) that the laws of absorption could have caused such a thing to happen and so he apologizes to God and says, can you do it the other way around? so the next morning, the fleece is dry and the ground is wet and Gideon is ready to obey God!

Gideon assembles an army of 32,000 and then God says – that's too many people. I want to show you My power and strength. Tell anyone who is afraid that they can go home. So 22,000 men leave.

Now there are 10,000 and God says, still too many. Take them down to the lake and anyone who laps water like a dog with cupped hands, those are your men. Only 300 men did that.

So now, Gideon and 300 men are going to fight the 135,000 Midianites. God knows that Gideon must be feeling a bit nervous about his odds, so he tells him to go listen to what the Midianites are saying.

In verses 13 & 14 of chapter 7, it says, "Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.” His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”

So Gideon and the 300 men surround the camp at night, break jars to reveal torches and yell "for the LORD and for Gideon!" which throws the Midianites into confusion. Then they blow trumpets and when the trumpets sound, the Midianites start fighting each other and the survivors flee.

Gideon sends word ahead to other Israelite tribes to fight the fleeing troops. There is some more fighting and ultimately Gideon is the hero of the day. Then everyone wants to make him their king, but Gideon wants God to be king.

But he asks everyone for their gold earrings and other plunder and melts them down to make an ephod.  So then everyone starts worshipping this golden ephod and it becomes a snare to Gideon and his family. 

Israel has peace/freedom for 40 years while Gideon is alive and then in verses 33&34 of chapter 8: "No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side."

whew. that's a long story. But it is so instructive. For today, I found 5 lessons that we can take away from this story: 

1.  If God wants to use you, it doesn't matter who you are.

Gideon was a nobody. the least of the least. God chose him and that's that. It wasn't about him – it was about God.

2. God will not compete with idols. They have to be destroyed.

Jeremiah 2:5 Eternal One: What happened between us? What could I have done to your ancestors that was so wrong, so unfair?  Why would they pull away from Me to pursue the empty worship of idols that has left them just as empty? Modern day idols are not altars to Baal or Asherah poles, but things other than God that you are worshipping. Anything that is master over you. more on this later.

3. God will persist in His purposes until they are accomplished.

Through Gideon's doubts and tests of God, God remains patient and steady in His purposes. He often uses methods we don't understand and his numbers are way off, but He has a plan.

4. The miraculous way God accomplishes His work should leave no doubt that you did it in your own strength.

God wants us to know that it is His victory, His power, His glory.

5. After God uses you in a mighty way, don't let others praise you.

Gideon says to the Israelites that God should be King, but then he acts sorta like a king. He gets everyone's gold, he has many wives, he sets up a new place of worship in his home town. The temptation to be important proves to be great for Gideon – come see the guy that God used to conquer Midian! feels like the general vibe.So even Gideon, who witnessed the power of God so personally and so powerfully was not immune from wanting the glory for himself. 

As I was preparing for  this sermon, I got an email from Matt Walters, an intern from 2 summers ago. He and his wife Sandy are raising $10,000 for clean water projects in South Sudan. In their support letter, they wrote, " We are constantly being reminded that Jesus is the real God, and money/the fear of having it or not having it, is not." They identified a false god and are actively working to tear it down and work against its power in their life. 

In his book Your God is Too Safe, Mark Buchanan sums up the problem with these idols, or as he calls them "safe gods" "God calls us out of secluded winepresses and into open battlefields. Why ruin the idol of the safe god and risk our good standing in the community? The safe god is actually your worst enemy. He breeds cowardice. He keeps you stuck, complacent, bored, angry, threshing your meager wheat where the wind never blows. The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Now go, tear down the idol of the safe god; this flimsy, gimcrack invention cobbled together from faintheartedness and softheartedness. On its ruins build a real altar to the true God."

Identifying our idols isn't that hard. In Timothy Keller's book Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters he gives us some very simple tests: "What do you enjoy day-dreaming about? One or two day dreams do not indicate idolatry. Ask rather, what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart?"

"Another way to discern your heart's true love is to look at how you spend your money." 

This next test is for people who have been following God for a long time. Keller asks, "What are you really living for, what is your real—not just your professed—God? A good way to discern this is how you respond to unanswered prayers and frustrated hopes…when you pray and work for something and you don't get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god. Like Jonah, you become angry enough to die."

He goes on to say "A final test is [to] look at your most uncontrollable emotions. Look for your idols at the bottom of painful emotions, especially those that never seem to lift and that drive you to do things you know are wrong."

God will not compete. He wants your whole heart. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all you mind and all your strength. Timothy Keller again, "Why do we ever fail to love or keep promises or live unselfishly? Of course, the general answer is 'because we are weak and sinful', but the specific answer in any actual circumstance is that there is something you feel you must have to be happy, that is more important to your heart than God himself. "

Exodus 20 God said to the people of Israel: I am the Lord your God, the one who brought you out of slavery. Do not worship any god except me.  Do not make idols that look like anything in the sky or on earth or in the ocean under the earth.  Don’t bow down and worship idols. I am the Lord your God, and I demand all your love.

If you worship idols, you become enslaved. If you worship idols, you become worthless like an idol. If you put anything in the place of God, he will do everything within His means to reclaim first place in your heart. 1 John 2:15-17 (PHILLIPS) encourages us to see “the world” for what it is "Never give your hearts to this world or to any of the things in it. A man cannot love the Father and love the world at the same time. For the whole world-system, based as it is on men’s primitive desires, their greedy ambitions and the glamour of all that they think splendid, is not derived from the Father at all, but from the world itself. The world and all its passionate desires will one day disappear. But the man who is following God’s will is part of the permanent and cannot die."

The final thing I want to leave you with is these questions to help you identify your idols. find them. tear them down. build proper altars to God in their place.  

Questions to Identify Your Idols
from David Powlison's Seeing With New Eyes
What do I worry about most?
What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
What do I do to cope? 

What are my release valves? 

What do I do to feel better?
What preoccupies me? 

What do I daydream about?
What makes me feel the most self-worth? 

Of what am I the proudest? 

For what do I want to be known?
What do I lead with in conversations?
Early on what do I want to make sure that people know about me?
What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
What do I really want and expect out of life? 

What would really make me happy?
What is my hope for the future?