A LETTER ABOUT VIOLENCE AND GUNS AND THE USA

This is a letter I wrote and read to our community of faith known as Denver Community Church on May 21, 2018. After another shooting in the Denver Metro Area I've decided to post it here. It's about a 15 minute read.

The preaching this morning will be a little different than normal. Typically, if you are familiar with our gatherings at Denver Community Church, I’m found walking around on the platform and preaching without notes and preaching from our predetermined schedule, which for the last season has been from the letter to the church in Ephesus – the book we traditionally call Ephesians. But today, I am going to read a letter of my own.

A letter written by me to all of you who call DCC home. A letter to all of you who listen via our Podcast each week. A letter written to any and all people who call themselves a follower of Jesus and claim America as their home.

My reason for writing this letter is because I am here on the platform once again only a few days removed from another mass shooting. This time it took place at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas; a shooting in which eight students and two teachers were senselessly gunned down and lost their lives.

When I read the news of the shooting on Friday morning my heart sank to new depths. How long, oh Lord?I found myself saying, “Lord, have mercy,” over and over.

I picked my kids up from school Friday afternoon, and they shared their real fear of whether there could be a shooting at their schools. How long, oh Lord? I found myself saying, “Lord, have mercy,” over and over.

Then last night I heard from a friend. He is a pastor near Santa Fe, Texas, asking for prayer as he planned to preach about the shooting this morning at his church. How long, oh Lord? I found myself saying, “Lord, have mercy,” over and over.

I am fully aware this morning, that we could enjoy the comfort distance provides. We could allow the shooting in Santa Fe to remain another part of our nonstop newsfeed; a newsfeed that has been quickly crowded out by our insatiable interest in the Royal Wedding.

Or because the shooting was not in our backyard or because the shooting was not in the Denver Metro Area we could go on as normal at our schools. Or we could do what we normally do on a Sunday after another mass shooting. We could take a moment, we could pause, we could pray, we could offer words and we could get on with the pre-planned sermon.

But the families who are making funeral arrangements instead of graduation plans cannot go on as normal. The students in our midst who are scared cannot go on as normal. My friend who is preaching right this minute, not far from Santa Fe, Texas, cannot go on as normal.

So to only stop and reflect and pray before preaching this morning, quite frankly, did not seem like enough. And I am not sure anything I can say this morning will be enough.

However, I felt compelled to scrap the sermon I had prepared and say something. So I came to this building early this morning and wrote this letter so that I could say something about our society, about violence, about guns, about confession and about repentance.

As I read this letter, I am indebted as I read to Joe Kay, a pastor, who wrote a convicting article, shortly after the Las Vegas Massacre, for Sojourner’s titled, “When's the Last Time You Heard a Sermon About Gun Violence?” It is his article and its words - some of which I will use this in this letter with his permission - that inspired me to write this letter. I also will use the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who, over fifty years ago, spoke about the violence that plagues this nation and his words are as important for us today as they were when we spoke them.

With that said, let me continue ...

It is obvious that there is something terribly wrong in our society. If our religious leaders won’t find words to address it beyond superficial sentiment, then they and we and I are contributing to our sickness. We have a divided and a violent and a gun-soaked society. We’re at verbal war on social media. We can’t seem to disagree without being disagreeable. While many see this problem; few speak about it with any real conviction.

We say, “We don’t want to get too political.” Or, “We don’t want to bring politics into the church.” Forgetting the Church, when gathered together, ought to be the safest place to speak about everything and anything plaguing our country and ourselves.

We say, “We don’t want to get into a conversation with friends or family who think differently.” We believe we are somehow keeping the peace, even though we are doing nothing more than allowing violence to remain in our hearts and theirs.

We say, “We don’t want to engage with bullies on Facebook or Twitter.” And we fail to see that by our silence we fail to see we are complicit in the ills of our country.

We’ve reached the point where we can’t send a loved one to school or to church or to work, to a mall or to a nightclub or to a concert without concern they could be the next one gunned down by a person wielding a gun. Our streets and our offices and our churches and our nightclubs and our public squares are spattered with more blood every day.

What seem to be the loudest voices are not the “peacemakers” - those whom Jesus called blessed. Rather, the loudest voices, seem to be those who continue to propose and sell guns as the solution, believing we need more “good people” with greater firepower and better aim.

This illustrates we have fallen for the age-old lie of redemptive violence. We believe somehow more violence will bring about peace. If this were true, one would have to believe that with all the wars, deaths, murders, bombs, guns, bullets and fights that humanity has engaged in over thousands of years, we would be experiencing, right now, a time of prosperous peace. We have refused to recognize violence cannot bring peace; violence only gives birth to more violence.

AND WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT VIOLENCE.

Because the conversation isn’t just about guns, although that’s certainly a hugepart of it. We need to look at the bigger picture of how we’ve made violence our norm and how we endorse and encourage it in so many ways.

Our children shoot imaginary people in video games; treating killing as entertainment. We normalize violence through our television shows, movies, and our national monuments. Murder on the screens is commonplace. Hollywood’s version of justice is the murder of the “bad guys”.

We struggle to tolerate some forms of violence against life portrayed on film. We have not accepted scenes of rape or spousal abuse. We will not tolerate scenes of child molestation, but we are curiously and comfortably numb to gun violence that results in murder constantly shown in motion pictures. We watch it, we take it in, we yawn and we change the channel.

Forget about “In God We Trust.” Our country’s motto should be “In guns and violence we trust.” I say this because we applaud warriors and dismiss peacemakers as out of touch. We conclude that the one with the most bullets and bombs should get their way, so we as a country spend mountains of money making more of them. And we have become the world’s leading arms dealer, selling weapons to other countries proliferating violence around the planet.

We herald the founding of our nation, one earned through the violence of war, and we extol and cheer on our military because we are the world’s most powerful. Our collective arrogance and hubris regarding the extent of our violence seemingly knows no bounds.

This is evidenced by the fact that as a nation, only relatively recently have we apologized that the foundations of our country were built upon the backs of those who were kidnapped from their homes on a continent across the sea, were shipped like cattle to a land they had never seen, (because of this millions lost their lives in the middle passage) and forced to work a foreign land under the constant threat of violence.

We have only recently sort of confessed to the mass genocide perpetrated against First Nation people who had long lived and worked the land we stole from them. The only expense to get this land was our bullets and their blood. It is a rare thing for the United States to repent for the violence our country has been responsible for in our own land and around the world.

And this is not out there in “the world” or our culture. This is in the hearts of those who faithfully attend church each week and call Jesus Christ their “Lord and Savior.” We claim, in the Church, to worship Jesus. A King, who when interrogated by Pontius Pilate, said, “My kingdom is not like the Kingdoms of this world … if it were my servants would take up arms, fight and use violence to prevent my arrest. As it were, my Kingdom is not like the Kingdoms of this world” (My paraphrase of John 18:36).

It often seems that Christians in America have no time for a God of Peace; instead we worship the god of war. It’s the mighty Roman god of war, Mars, in whom we have placed our faith; not the Mediterranean, Jewish peasant named Jesus, the humble Son of God, who was a peacemaker.

We have chosen to brazenly use his cross, the cross of Jesus Christ, as flagpole to fly the American flag. We bow our knee at altar of the American Military, and glorify the founding of our country. And then have the gall to Tweet glib offers of thoughts and prayers in the midst of continued and normalized violence.

How did we get so lost?

We must talk about this, and the pulpit must be part of the conversation. We need prophets like the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who forced us to confront the way we, in our culture, glorify guns and violence and thus create a “morally inclement climate”. He wrote about the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing and assassination of President John Kennedy in the “Death of Illusions” in his autobiography. I have taken the liberty to paraphrase what he said about violence then, to apply it specifically to the violence we experience now.

We live in a morally inclement climate. It is a climate filled with heavy torrents of false accusation, jostling winds of hatred, and raging storms of violence. It is a climate where people cannot disagree without being disagreeable, and where they express dissent through violence and murder … So in a sense we are all participants in the horrible acts of school shootings and many more mass shootings that tarnish the image of our nation.

By our silence, by our willingness to compromise principle, by our constant attempt to cure the cancer of gun violence with gradualism, by our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.

Shootings on the university campuses, at high schools and middle schools in places like: Santa Fe, Texas; Palmdale, California; Ocala, Florida; Raytown, Missouri; Lexington Park, Maryland; Mount Pleasant, Michigan; Parkland, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; Oxon Hill, Maryland; Los Angeles, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Benton, Kentucky; Italy, Texas; Winston Salem, North Carolina - all of which have occurred on school campuses in 2018 alone – each has something important to say to each of us. And how many were not mentioned in the news? How many school shootings were not in the headlines?

Whether reported in the media, or not reported, they have something to say to every politician who has failed to act while receiving millions of dollars from the NRA, and to those politicians who use gun control only as a platform while doing little to enact any real change.

They have something to say to every clergyperson who observes gun violence, division and hatred yet remains silent behind the security of stained glass windows.

They have something to say to the devotees of guns and those who cry out for their right to bear arms who use irrational fear to rally their supporters – those who brand everyone Anti-American with whom they disagree.

 They have something to say to those who do little more than waste words each time there is a shooting, but fail to work toward any sustainable solutions.

The lives lost have something to say to all of us … that this virus of violence has seeped into the veins of our nation, if unchecked, will lead inevitably to our moral and spiritual doom. Thus the epitaph of the students’ lives illuminate profound truths that challenge us to set aside our grief for a season and move forward with more determination to rid our nation of the vestiges of gun violence and the epidemic of mass shootings. 

The spat of recent school shootings killed not only young people, but a complex of illusions. It demolished the myth that hate and violence can be confined in an airtight chamber to be employed against but a few. Suddenly the truth was revealed that hate is a contagion; that it grows and spreads as a disease; that no society is so healthy that it can automatically maintain its immunity. There is a plague afflicting our country, and it appears its perils are not perceived. 

We were all involved in the death of those students and teachers earlier this week. We tolerate hate; we tolerate the sick simulation of violence in all walks of life; and we tolerate the differential application of law. This may explain the cascading grief that floods our country every time the media informs us another mass shooting. Yes, we mourn the lives of those lost, but somewhere deep in our bones we grieve as well for ourselves because we know we are sick.

For too long, religious leaders - including myself at times - have shied away from challenging our communities to do better. Instead, we look the other way when it comes to our culture of violence.

Churches are well known for speaking out on other issues. For example we campaign to protect life in some forms, but fail to acknowledge that all life is sacred as it is imbued with the breath of the Almighty God.  We deliver sermons about our religious freedom; at the same time trample the religious freedoms of others who do not share our faith. Somehow, we refuse to give the same attention to the lives extinguished and the rights erased by the pull of a trigger.

God, forgive us. God, forgive me. Forgive us who have been called to vocational ministry, but for our cowardice, have chosen to remain silent. Yes, the pulpit is a good starting point, but we all need to promote this conversation. We need to say in as many places, and as many ways as we can: THIS MUST CHANGE.

We must put away our weapons. We must stop glamorizing violence. We must give up our infatuation with conflict. We must stop adding to division and violence by spewing toxic words and vitriol on social media; for every word uttered or typed against someone else only adds to the downward spiral of violence.

And we must know, when words fail we turn to actions. We ought not to be surprised at these atrocious acts when we wound others with our words. We ought not to look away in horror when we destroy one another with name calling. “If you call your brother or sister a fool,” Jesus said, “it’s as though you’ve killed them” (my paraphrase / interpretation of Matthew 5:21,22).

We must speak out to our loved ones, our classmates, our teachers, our families, our elected officials and to our pastors. And we must have the courage to do this face to face, not sitting behind the anonymity offered by a keyboard on Facebook.

If we don’t say it, if we do not speak out against violence, if we refuse to confess our complicity in the violence of this country, then we, at the very least, should have the courage to admit our faith is nothing more than noise, or as the Apostle Paul said, nothing more than “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1).

If we remain silent on what plagues our country, then we should be honest and admit our faith is simply a self-serving, self-help program designed to make us feel better. If we refuse to preach this from the pulpits of our churches, then we must confess that our churches are nothing more than a leisurely country club experience designed to make us feel better while the world around us burns in the fires of violence.

Jesus lived in times that were soaked in violence, weapons, and conflict. His homeland was occupied by the Romans who killed for domination and pleasure. Crucifixion was commonplace. The religiously observant also advocated violence - death by stoning to those who broke certain rules. In the midst of this, Jesus told those who were bent on execution to drop their stones. He told his zealous follower to put away his swords. He invited his followers to resist the temptation to treat anyone as an enemy.

And when violence was done unto Him; he forgave those who perpetuated the violence against him. He did not just say to blessed those who persecuted him and loved his enemies – he practiced it. Jesus wept over the city that would be the site of his violent death.

In imitation of him, therefore, Jesus followers should not only pray for and bless our enemies; we must use our hands to heal wounds, not to wield weapons. We must use our voices to pronounce forgiveness and peace, rather than stir the pot of division and violence. Never forgetting we need to hear the message of love, grace, mercy and peace again and again, even if it’s widely unpopular in our culture, our homes, our schools, or our particular brand of politics.

And I contend this must begin with us and by us publicly confessing our failure to address the violence that lurks in our hearts, the violence we have embraced and accepted in our culture and how we have flatly ignored the violence that is fixed on the mantle of the living room of the United States of America.

May we confess that we have not taken the time and not been moved enough to care to act – to make a phone call, send an email to our elected officials. May we confess that we walk past people everyday without giving them a moment of our time or a shred of our presence. May we confess all the ways we collectively shrug our shoulders as a way of saying, “That’s just the way it is.”

Quoting Dr. King once again, who preached these words the night before his life was ended by a bullet:

“The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period ... in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding - something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up ... we have been forced to a point where we're going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history ...”

May it be said of us that it was dark enough and we saw the stars. May it be said of us that we are responding, we are rising up and we have been forced to a point where we have to grapple with the problems that plague our land.

I once heard a proverb, “Don’t ask God to feed the hungry family down the street when you have a cupboard full of food.” These words came to mind when I heard reports of another mass shooting. Of course, prayer is important, but I often wonder when we ask God, “When will you do something about this?” God may well respond, “When will YOU do something about this?” We have “food in the cupboard”, so to speak, and we can do more than simply offer condolences, thoughts and prayers after another shooting.

We can cease adding to the violence in word and deed. We can sew seeds of love, thoughtfulness and peace in all conversations we have. We can learn of the dignity that all human being possess and dignify them with respect – honoring others as ourselves – even in the midst of disagreement.

We can repent on behalf of the violence our nation has perpetuated over the centuries – a nation that has long claimed to be a Christian nation, yet does not resemble Jesus.  We can pursue justice for those who have long been oppressed by systems of racism and marginalization in our country. And we can live as peacemakers, seeking the wholeness, goodness, love, beauty and light in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our churches and in every place our feet take us.

In doing this, we must begin with ourselves and deal with the plank in our own eyes, before we ever seek to deal with the speck in our siblings’ eyes. We must look within and confess the way we hold violence, division and hatred toward the other and seek reconciliation where possible. In this we might learn to live differently, for then we may have the courage to speak to the other, speak out, make our voice known to our elected officials and begin denouncing violence - the very thing our country is built upon.

We must be led to compassion, mercy, kindness and befriend the lonely, the forgotten, the left out and the bullied – and speak out for those who have been relegated to the margins by this country. You may be wondering, “What can we do?” And I will remind you the sermon is always the start of the conversation. As we sit together asking, “What can we do?” My hope is you will ask that question of your community in the days and weeks and months to come.

For if we take Jesus at his word, then we will do greater things than Him (see John 14:12). May we believe these words to be true. And may we glorify Jesus, our King, not violence, in the days to come so that we and our world may come to know peace. And may we not just long for, but may we all work toward a time when we will see, “People beating their swords into plowsharesand their spears into pruning hooks and their guns into farm tools … may we work toward the day when nation will not take up sword against nation,nor will they train for war anymore and all will sit under their own vine and fig tree” (see Micah 4:3,4). And may we never tire in that work – so that together we might see the Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

May it be so … amen and amen.

AN OPEN LETTER TO 81% OF WHITE EVANGELICALS

Brothers and Sisters,When the news broke of Donald Trump’s victory in November, many were quick to point out 81% of White Evangelicals voted for him. Many have attempted to demonize you; painting with broad-brush strokes and making totalizing statements about you. I know from experience many of the assumptions made and accusations leveled at you are simply not true. I know many of you, and am blessed to call you my friends. This is why I write to you.You are my tribe of origin.You see, I grew up attending church services on Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and was a faithful participant in Awana on Wednesday evenings. I won Scripture memory trophies, attended private Christian schools, received a degree from a Baptist college and attended an Evangelical seminary. And now I am a pastor. I am familiar with the Evangelical culture, and not only that, I am thankful for it.My experience gave me a love for the Bible, invited me to pursue Jesus and gave me a moral compass that steered me away from many bad choices (though I still managed to make many poor choices along the way – to be sure). You taught me the importance of prayer, and displayed what trusting God looks like – especially in difficult seasons. Many of you loved me, supported me and guided me as I navigated the trying path of life.So when I see you being broadly demonized as though you are all the same; I know from experience what is being said is false. My experience taught me that you are kind, compassionate, loving, thoughtful, gracious and merciful. And I was a recipient of that more times than I can remember.I know some treat you unfairly. I know some Evangelical Leaders who have a large platform make you cringe when they say awful and divisive things. I know your values and convictions are not opposed to seeking the common good.I know you. I love you. I am thankful for you.And this is precisely why I invite you to put on display the best of who you are and have always been. This is no easy task, especially in our current sociopolitical climate.Since November I seen few who are willing sit and reason together. Dignified conversation that seeks to honor the other above ourselves is, unfortunately, hard to find. Much dialogue is little more than swift judgments, followed by counter-judgments. Anger, name-calling, accusations and defensiveness are the norm.This is happening on all sides, and I confess, I have contributed to this. For that, I am sorry. I ask your forgiveness for not listening well and, at times, assuming the worst. It is not right or just, and does nothing to move us forward.My hope is to be one who judges favorably. I still believe honor and dignity will once again enter our conversations, and believe we will “be brought to complete unity” just as Jesus prayed. For this to happen, we must be quick to listen, and slow to speak. We must enter conversation seeking understanding rather than wanting to be justified or right. I am thankful for those of you who have shown me how to do this well over the last few months. As conversations have unfolded I have heard many of you explain your reasons for voting for President Trump.Many contend, “He’s better than Hilary.” Still, you’ve acknowledged our President’s moral fiber and character are less than exemplary. John Piper offers a thoughtful response about the character of our President (you can read more about that here).Many of you stated your hope to have a conservative President appoint the next Supreme Court Justice. And now that Donald Trump is our President, I presume Congress will approve his Supreme Court nominee. Again, many of you shared honestly that a particular Justice is no guarantee of your preferred future.The most common reason for voting for President Trump is your opposition to abortion. I understand this reasoning quite well. I believe your passion around this social reality reflects the goodness and love that I see in many of you.But here’s the thing. As important as abortion is for you as a voter, when I grew up in your midst, I rarely heard anything from you about abortion outside of election season. Your passionate stance against abortion is rooted in your belief that all life is sacred, and I know your belief in the sacredness of life is not exclusively focused on the unborn. Which leads me to ask you to consider the words of the late Evangelical Leader Spencer Perkins who wrote:“… to join demonstrations against abortion I would need to know that you understand God’s concern for justice everywhere … It is not a simple, glib response then when I must counsel an unwed teenager against an abortion, even though I believe with all my heart abortion is morally wrong. I feel that if the love of Christ compels me to save the lives of children, that same love should compel me to take more responsibility for them, once they are born … For me, the issue is not about abortion – whether it is wrong or right. The issue is much deeper – whether together we will embrace a Christianity committed to justice for all, or whether we will remain apart and fight our separate battles.” (Readings in Christian Ethics, page 268, 270)I know many of you resonate with Perkins’ words and care about human life. It is on this basis, that I plead with you not to remain silent - as I regrettably did for too long - regarding many important social issues that are directly tied to the sacredness of life. I have seen your work toward a more just and equitable society, which is inspiring. But our world needs your voice as well; remembering silence is every bit as lethal as actively working against what is good, noble and pure.I believe you want racial reconciliation. I trust you want the LGBTQ Community to know they are loved. I have faith you are willing to, in the words of Jesus, welcome the immigrant – regardless of status – and speak up for immigration reform. I have seen your desire for better education, to eradicate extreme poverty, and witnessed your longing for lasting peace.Many of you are willing to invite the “other” into your churches, but, due to your silence, many of those you would invite are hesitant to attend a worship service with you. Perhaps the words of Dr. King may help you understand why. He said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."I implore you: stand up and speak up. Use your voice. Allow the love and goodness and grace that are the foundation of your faith and values to be heard. Do this in imitation of the One you introduced me to … Jesus.Remember, he did not get killed for being a nice guy. Those in power did not hate him for healing people and raising the dead. The religious elite did not oppose him because he fed the hungry. Many reviled Jesus because he refused to be silent.He spoke prophetic truth to those in power. He challenged those who marginalized others to reconsider God’s wild love for everyone. He upset the balance of power by standing with the poor, the marginalized, the forgotten, the last, the lost and the least. And he invites you and me – and all who are weary and burdened – to follow after him and do the same.This includes speaking prophetic truth to our President. I understand you believe him to be a better candidate than Hilary. I get that you trust he will appoint a Supreme Court Justice that will align with your values. And he fulfills your desire to have a President who is Pro-Life. I do not wish to argue about any of those things.Rather, I ask you to consider the policies of his administration that are unjust. Policies that possess the power to denigrate and vilify whole groups of people because of their race or religion. Policies that will harm women and children in the midst of a global refugee crisis. Policies that could enable discrimination based on one’s sexual identity. Policies that will pull families apart.I ask you to consider our President’s rhetoric. His known proclivity for telling half-truths and outright lying. His insults and fierce responses to anyone who publicly offers a dissenting opinion. His poor moral character and his foul choices for which he has not apologized or shown regret. His lust for power and abuse of those he perceives as weak.I know you. I know these are not things you want. I know you felt he was and is the “lesser of two evils.” But this is not an excuse to ignore the evil that is real and present and doing harm.I know you would not point to your son and encourage him to grow up and become like President Trump. I know you would be outraged if your daughter was in a beauty pageant and our President purposely walked in on her in the midst of a wardrobe change. I know you would be filled with rage if he spoke of your wife the way he spoke of others wives – even if it happened 12 years ago – or attempted to do your wife what he has bragged about it doing to other women. I know you would be shocked and hurt if your husband spoke of and treated women the way our President has spoken of and treated women.I know you. I know what is in your hearts. And I invite you to make that known.To our President. To our country. To our world.May you not remain silent, but may you use your voice to speak prophetically the good news of Jesus that is for all people. Perhaps then, what you want, what I want and what so many want will cease to be a starry eyed dream – it will actually become a reality. And then, together we will celebrate, thanking God that his Kingdom has come, just a little bit more, on this earth as it is in heaven. May we never tire in working toward that day alongside one another.Much love, grace and peace to all of you,Michael

UNTIL NEXT TIME, BE WELL

Every time we say “yes” to something it invariably involves us saying “no” to something else. This is where I presently find myself – I have said yes, and, as a result I have also said “no”. So, I have to say goodbye.

Over the last several months a stirring in my heart and soul has grown; a desire to give more of myself than ever to the things that mean the most to me. Two things at the top of the list are my family and Denver Community Church – in that order. Over the years my love and commitment for both has only deepened and grown.

At the same time, my love and commitment has been diverted by a host of other things: writing books, speaking, traveling, blogging, interviews, conferences – all good things and opportunities to use my gifts, but things that demand my time and energy.

And we only have so much time and energy to give. And for every bit we give in one place it pulls from somewhere else. In an attempt to remain centered and present in all places I’ve gradually run faster and faster.

The irony is I’ve slowly been working on a book about slowing down, remembering to breathe, remaining centered, living with awareness and awe and wonder at this magnificent world we live in that gives us gifts each and every moment. The more I worked on this book, the more I realized the energy I gave to it lead me away from health, not toward it.

As a result, I have chosen for the next season to give my whole self – every bit of my emotional and spiritual energy, creativity, time and attention only to my family and Denver Community Church. My family and my church are my “yes”.

Which brings me to my “no.” I am taking an indefinite hiatus from writing books and blogging (outside of a few commitments I have to fulfill or articles that are already written and awaiting publishing), along with any and all activity on Facebook and Twitter. I’m shutting it down for a time and I have no immediate plans about when I will be back.

Until then … may you have eyes to see the few things that truly matter, and, with each passing day, may you give more of yourself to those things. Grace and peace to all of you.

SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT JESUS, GUNS, LOVE AND VIOLENCE

In response to my blog post yesterday (you can read that here) I was told two stories by way of a friend who lives and works in Nigeria. He, and many of his friends, have been the target of violence at the hands of terrorists and extremists.

The first story was about a group of Nigerian pastors. Family members were beaten for their commitment to Jesus, a brother had his tongue cut out so he could no longer speak of Jesus, threats of death and even death itself visited them at the hands of violent men.

My friend asked how he could pray for these pastors and expected them to ask for prayers of protection, and maybe even prayers for vengeance. But that is not what the pastors said.

Rather they said, “We pray for our brothers who have done this violence. We pray they would come to know the love of Jesus.” Notice, they spoke of those who had done violence to them as “brothers.” They saw the enemy the same way they saw themselves.

This is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, “ … love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

The second story he told was about a Nigerian woman who chose to follow Jesus. As a result extremists targeted her. They showed up at her home and beat her. Each time they struck her, she said to them, “I love you and Jesus loves you.” No matter how hard they struck her or how many times, she repeated, “I love you and Jesus loves you.”

They beat her on several occasions. One beating lasted more than 30 minutes. A half-hour of nonstop torture. Still, her capacity to suffer allowed her to say to her attackers, “I love you and Jesus loves you.” Eventually, the men killed her in cold blood in order to silence her commitment to Jesus. Yet, her words echoed in the ears and heart of one of her attackers. He was so moved by her clear love, that in the end he chose to follow Jesus and abandoned his life of violence.

This is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, “ … love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

These stories raise serious questions about the heart and mind of many Christians in America who prefer to shoot first and pray later in response to the cowardly and evil attacks on innocent people around the world. Perhaps it’s time for a gut check. So let’s ask ourselves some questions, shall we?

What if we heeded the words of those Nigerian pastors and prayed for the hearts of our brothers and sisters who insist on violence?

What if rather than become like those who insist on violence, we insisted on love for our enemy and Jesus’ love for them too?

What if we prayed, like Jesus, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing?”

What if our chief desire was to see the good news of Jesus move forward?

Of course, this sounds like rubbish and nonsense, right?

It does, but only if our chief desire is safety and national security, over and above the good news of Jesus. And we can't have it both ways. After all, it’s hard to imagine the song the angels sang to shepherds about peace on earth moving forward as we bear arms against those who call themselves our enemies.

While we may want to argue for self-defense, and debate whether or not carrying guns can stop those carrying guns let’s remember this: The Christian faith has long claimed the greatest victory ever recorded was Jesus’ death on a Roman cross. He died at the hands of a violent oppressor and did not fight back. This victory is central to the very faith Christians claim.

Yet, many who claim to follow Jesus use rhetoric that sounds as hateful as the rhetoric from terrorists. Many are scapegoating an entire group of people to deal with their fear. Many speak in cold and calculated terms about killing men and women who intend to kill us. Which raises one last question …

How is it that men and women who confess a forgiving, nonviolent Jesus as Lord and Savior, who trust in his death for all people, are so willing - some even seem eager - to kill others?

WHY WE ARE SCARED OF NONVIOLENCE

There is something that terrifies and angers many Christians even more than the threat of violence … and that’s nonviolence.

After Jerry Falwell Jr. encouraged students at Liberty University to carry concealed weapons to fight against Muslims, Shane Claiborne wrote a thoughtful article advocating a nonviolent response (read that here). I posted that article over the weekend and received many angry responses from people suggesting I am to pitied for how misguided I am.

This is nothing new. Anytime I write or speak about nonviolence I am met swiftly with counterarguments by Christians who advocate violence. They claim we have a right to defend ourselves. If someone is coming after them or those they love, they will, as I am told, “take them out.”

The assumption is if we kill someone trying to kill us then it is right. The trouble with this argument, while it makes sense to many, is that it flies in the face of the historic Church – not to mention the Bible itself.

If anyone had cause to carry concealed weapons it was the First Century Church. They lived in constant danger as the Romans considered them to be seditious, because they did not give their allegiance to Caesar and the Empire. Rome terrorized Christians by arresting, imprisoning, crucifying, feeding people to wild animals, impaling and burning them to death. Many today would advocate them fighting back. Curiously enough they didn’t.

St. Justin said, “… we who were filled with war, and slaughter, and wickedness, have each throughout the earth changed our weapons of war – our swords into plowshares, and our spears into tools for tilling the soil – and we cultivate righteousness, generosity, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”

In the face of imminent threat they chose to abandon the very thing that could have kept them safe. And it was not because they were ignorant to the threat of violence and death. Elsewhere, St Justin said, “… in order to not lie nor deceive our examiners, we willingly die confessing Christ.” Many early Christians pursued peace at all costs and willingly gave their life for it.

This is seen in Paul’s instruction to the church in Rome to pursue peace. He wrote, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:17-20, ©NIV). I wonder how many people wanted to say to Paul, "Seriously? You expect us to sit back and let the Romans continue to kill us? We need to fight!"

But Paul did not instruct them to fight, he clearly advocates nonviolence - even in cases of self-defense. Many Christians today choose to ignore this passage. Interesting, isn’t it? So many Christians demand we take the words of the Bible literally and seriously until it comes to the many nonviolent teachings of the bible … then not so much. Yet, Paul was insistent; for every act of hate, evil, violence, or persecution repay it with love, kindness, peace, and good.

This mindset leaves little room for the use of weapons. And in my experience Christians in America have a difficult time making sense of this.

Perhaps it’s due to our society being so conditioned by violence that we cannot imagine another way to respond to violence other than adding to it. Revenge, self-defense and retaliation are normal for us, and, in many cases, considered necessary. It seems the narrative of an earthly, militarized empire has captured the Christian imagination in America.

And maybe there’s another reason we can’t make sense of the early Christians in Rome not fighting back. You see, they were people on the margins, and many of us are people of privilege. In other words, we are far more like the Romans citizens enjoying the benefits of an empire than the early Christians who were constantly persecuted. Like the Roman citizens, we have way too much to lose to go quietly.

Maybe that’s why nonviolence is so threatening. It asks us to be willing to give up everything - all our wealth, power, possessions and influence that lend us a sense of self-worth and security and certainty. Maybe that’s why we get so angry at the suggestion of nonviolence; we are terrified of losing what we have worked so hard to get.

Think about it, the reason we believe in self-defense is because we do not want bad things to happen to us or those we love. We even say, "we have a right to defend ourselves." As though all we have has been earned by us and must be protected by us - how quickly we forget, it's not earned at all, only given by a benevolent God.

So, we arm ourselves to the teeth falling for the longstanding lie told by empires for millennia that violence will somehow and in someway bring peace. The idea of laying down our life in the face of the enemy is considered naïve and stupid. We tell ourselves it’s self-defense so it’s justified, and forget Jesus did not say, ““Greater love has no man than this, than to protect his friends by killing his friend's enemies” (John 15:13).

Perhaps it’s time for us to work together to imagine new ways in responding to violence. Before we do that, however, we ought to look at our hearts and ask where our deepest commitment and allegiance resides. And in that place, confess that we soaked ourselves in the doctrine of violence for too long. And repent – think differently – and “cultivate righteousness, generosity, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”

May it be so.

THE SHEER STUPIDITY OF GRACE

I indulged my guilty pleasure of perusing Facebook and was outraged and surprised by the many hateful and discriminating responses I saw in the wake of the Paris Attacks. Predictably enough the responses are cloaked as smart or reasonable. But the cloak is not thick enough to hide the fear beneath it. Hate is hate – whether from terrorists or from Christians.

But there are other responses; beautiful, simple and true. Responses that  bring us to tears. Those refusing to return hate toward the attackers. Those forgiving the terrorists for killing their loved ones. Those receiving refugees with open arms. Some believe these responses have thrown off the cloak of being smart or reasonable. To some, these responses look damned foolish.

And that’s how grace often looks, isn’t it?

Grace is not afraid to appear naïve or stupid because it doesn’t try to impress anyone or prove anything. Maybe this is why grace makes us feel awkward and clunky – because it just won’t play by our rules. It won’t participate in the arrangement of vengeance our world has agreed upon.

The idea of grace is as foreign to us as a primitive language long forgotten. And yet, it stirs something in the hearts of those who have exhausted themselves with anger, bitterness and rage. Somehow, it moves in such a way that it keeps us circling around, craning our necks, if only to take one last look, wondering if anything like grace could be real.

Maybe this is why grace moves us to tears when it makes an appearance. Our tears are brought on by the sadness of the whole thing. We watch in shock as grace absorbs the beatings, the hatred, the killings, the vitriol, the blood spilled and the evil we do to one another – and never once retaliates.

Never. Ever.

As Robert Capon wrote: grace “just dies for our life.”

It may seem to be total rubbish. It may seem like it could never work. It may seem too good to be true, but grace doesn’t need us to believe in it for it to be true. It’s always has been and always will be true whether we ever want to see it. Grace goes on dancing even when we silence the music.

That’s the story - the dim-witted story - Christians have told and retold for thousands of years. Yet, while Christians claim to be “saved by grace” we live as though we don’t believe it exists any more than we believe Santa Claus exists. Sure, it makes for a good story now and then, but anyone who gives it a moment’s consideration wouldn’t really believe such nonsense, right?

We claim grace directly from the hand of God for ourselves, yet our hands are clenched into fists refusing to give anything like it to others – especially those who are “the other.” We inch our way around our hate, whispering words of assurance that the impossibly high ideals of Jesus wouldn’t work in the real world. We tell ourselves we need to be safe and secure; to think otherwise is stupid.

All the while, we fail to see that grace, in her sheer stupidity, is smarter and more reasonable than anything we can muster on our most brilliant day. Grace stands alone; beautiful, simple and true.

Humanity has long proven hate only creates more hate and violence produces more violence. My hope and prayer for me and all of us is that we would learn the "unforced rhythms of grace" - that we would have the courage to live as fools. That we would have eyes to see we are citizens of another Kingdom that doesn't live according to the agreed upon arrangement of vengeance. That we would become those who, in our grace-filled responses to evil, induce outrage and surprise.

ON JUDGMENT AND ACCUSATION

One of the earliest stories recorded in the biblical narrative involves two people, mostly naked, hiding from God in a garden. They had done the very thing God told them not to do. Now, God came around and they were terrified.

God asked the man, “Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?” This question demanded a direct response, but the man’s response was to blame the woman. God asked the woman what happened, and she blamed the serpent that deceived her.

Neither the man nor the woman could admit what they had done. They covered up, ran, hid and blamed the other. Thousands of years later humanity is much the same, except we wear more clothing.

We still blame and accuse to do away with pain and discomfort brought on us through the choices we have made. It seems many of the problems in our lives and our world are the fault of someone else. One does not need to look far to see examples of this everywhere.

Politicians are always telling us why the other party is to blame for our flailing economy. They accuse one administration or another. If a politician were to admit fault, it may well be the end of their political career.

It’s no better in the Church. Research continues to show that young people are leaving the church in droves, and that the influence of the Church in America is in decline. The response of many Christian leaders is to blame the media, universities or culture. Few have the courage to ask what the Church herself might be doing to cause the decline.

We fail to see God still asks us what we have done, and the best most of us can muster is to point at someone else and say, “It’s their fault.” This is no small thing, and we must not accept it as normal.

Our propensity to blame and accuse may in fact be one of the darkest evils in our world. You may think that’s a bit of an overstatement, but consider the word Paul used to name the evil one. In his second letter to the church in Corinth he named the evil one “Satan – which literally means “accuser.”

The name Satan describes one who stands in judgment, with his finger pointed at someone else all the time. Anyone can imitate this because it is easy to find fault in someone else. When we do this, it feeds something inside of us, and it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Anytime we blame another, we exonerate ourselves from wrongdoing. The more we do this, the better we feel about ourselves. When we make a practice of blaming others it is not about hating them, it’s more about feeding our bloated egos. With every accusation we whisper to ourselves, “At least you are not like them.”

The more we practice blame the more self-deceived we become. Over time we lose any real ability to look at ourselves, which brings us to a dark and dangerous place. And there is no one more dangerous than one who is unwilling or unable to look within

This is the Devil’s game. He never looks within because he is so busy pointing the finger and accusing. This is the evil that characterizes the devil himself. It’s no wonder that when the first man and the first woman fell into his trap, they imitated him.

Confronted with their true selves they accused the other. Considering the rampant nature of blaming and judging in our world today, we should ask ourselves exactly who we imitate.

GETTING LESS BUSY (OR HOW TO GET HEALTHIER)

Every person who has ever lived has the same exact number of minutes given to him or her every day. How we spend those moments makes all the difference. With so many busy people in this world it’s clear many of us constantly overspend on time.

My last blog ( you can read that here) explored how we never have enough time to do anything due to the expectations we place on ourselves to get everything done. This reality is often the most true among pastors. Of course, this is not good for anyone.

So, if pastors are often too busy, what can be done to move in a healthier direction? There are several things we can do, but we must remember it’s a group effort, involving everyone who belongs to a community of faith and not only pastors. With this in mind, here are three suggestions that may be helpful.

Pastors Are Not Heroes

There are many temptations that go along with being a pastor. Chief among them is the temptation to believe we are a cut above the average human being. At first glance this sounds like crazy talk, but it’s true. People want to know what you think, they show up Sunday after Sunday to listen to your sermons, give you gifts, invite you to dinner and send kind notes (and, at times, unkind notes). After a while it’s easy to think we are rather important.

As our swelling sense of self-importance grows we assume we can do it all. In fact, we must do it all because we are important. And important people are needed to do … well, everything. So we work and commit and teach and stay busy which only feeds more into our false belief of importance. History, however, tells a different story.

No pastor is as important as people think he or she is, and any honest pastor will tell you the same. Pastors come and go all the time and the Church continues to barrel on like a runaway truck. It’s essential pastors and congregations remember this. If we move beyond a special super-human category for pastors, they are then able to simply be human. They will find the freedom to exist as a brother or sister, a friend and a sojourner. In doing so we will remind ourselves and others, while pastors, like everyone, are important, we are no more important than anyone else.

We Need Each Other

Many believe they need their pastor for a multitude of things. Pastors don’t help the situation any by their willingness to consistently respond to the multitude of things they believe they are needed for. What is often forgotten is we need each other too. Next time you attend a worship service look around the room and notice something. There are far more men and women in the seats than there are pastors.

I know many who are a part of our church who possess great depth, maturity, insight, compassion and wisdom. Yet, because we’ve chosen to believe we need the pastor to meet our needs, we often walk right by a man or woman who may well be better suited to meet our need than our pastor. Rather than racing to meet every need we can, pastors must recognize the gifts of others, and allow them to meet the myriad of needs present in a congregation. Likewise, the congregation must recognize the pastor is one person, and the congregation is made up of many people who are perfectly suited to meet one another’s needs.

Give A Nonrenewable Gift

Time is a nonrenewable resource. Once a moment is gone; it’s gone forever. Busyness is the enemy of time seeking to steal every spare moment we possess. This is why one of the best gifts pastors can give to themselves and others can give to pastors is time.

Pastors tell me they receive negative feedback from others when they take a Sunday or two off from preaching or take a long vacation or skip work to go skiing. One of the best things about being a pastor at Denver Community Church is our congregation lavishes the gift of time on our pastors. This gift giving is built on trust in the pastor's heart and work along with a desire not to see pastors staying busy and fretting over all that needs to be done.

If you're a pastor, when is the next time you plan to take a day or three and do something fun? When is the next time you steal away if only to remind yourself you are not only what you do? When will you keep your phone off and not check email all the while renouncing any guilty feeling you have for doing so? Likewise, when is the next time you can celebrate - not question - your pastor taking time away to rest and refresh and renew and be fully away from it all? Perhaps making plans is the first step.

I suspect if we can just do these three things well, we may well find pastors would be less busy and far healthier. And if that’s the case, their congregations will be healthier too.