John Fischer The Catch

Here is our evening routine: If I haven’t written the Catch in the morning, I help get Chandler down and then head to my office to write. Tonight things were rolling along as expected—even a little ahead of the game—when my wife came up with the dreaded words: “Tea party!”

Marti doesn’t like routine. Unlike me, she finds no comfort in it. She wants action. If every moment of every day were filled with intensity and discovery, she would be a happy camper. I get exhausted just thinking about what energizes her.

A tea party, when my two older children were more Chandler’s age, was usually late at night when they should be asleep, so they always thought they were getting away with something.

It starts with bringing out a miniature tea set suited more for dolls than for humans (it would take two of these cups to fill a thimble). Then it’s about making tea, finding some accompaniment to go with it from the pantry, and sitting down around a small table delicately sipping and talking. And I must say, if my memory serves me well, they talked up a storm.

So tonight with Chandler, I’m finding the late clandestine hour was having the same effect on him, and Marti, taking advantage of the little opening in his heart, brought up my mother, whom Chandler only met once before she died, but there was something magical in that meeting.

“Do you know how your Grandmother Leta started each day?” Marti asked, most certainly seeking to prepare us all for the next day.

“How?” came Chandler’s reply.

“By announcing: ‘this is the day that the Lord has made; rejoice and be glad! Do you know what ‘rejoice’ means, Chandler?”

“Awesome!” he replied bringing a smile to his parents’ faces. My anxiety over the lateness of the hour is starting to diminish.

“And what about ‘glad?'” I ask this one. “What does it mean to be glad?”

“Cool!” came his answer, and he punctuated it with a little arm thrust when he said it. I don’t think I could come up with a better explanation if I tried.

So there you have our “tankful” thought for the day: “This is the day that the Lord has made; and how AWESOME and COOL is that?”

Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:17)

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T/Find out what it means to me.” Aretha had it right. Everyone wants it; not everyone gets it. Followers of Jesus should know how to give it… to everyone.

Where does respect come from? Is it learned by example or can it be taught? Did we all start with it and just forget? Like love do you have to know it for yourself before you can give it? I believe to a certain extent all of these are factors. There are cultures where respect is ingrained in society. There are times in our own culture when respect was more the norm than it is now.

But the kind of respect that God expects of us lives at a deeper level than any of these. It comes from universal truths about God and us, the first being that we are all made in his image. That means every human being on the planet reflects something about the nature of God. Psalm 8: 5&6 says, “You have made them [human beings] a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.” This is true for everyone you meet today. That’s pretty impressive.

But there is another level of respect that comes, believe it or not, from embracing our on sin. If I weigh my sin against anyone else’s, no matter how bad they might seem, mine will always weigh more. Why? Because it’s mine. I know my sin. I know its depths and its intricacies better than anyone else’s. And I know how hard I work to try and forget this—to focus on how bad someone else is so I don’t have to face how bad I am. But the truth remains: no matter how bad someone else might seem to me, I am worse.

And then I bring all this to the table and find out about God’s mercy—that I’ve been forgiven, my slate has been wiped clean, and in God’s eyes I’m righteous, in spite of all that other stuff I know about me. And once this has happened to you, you can never look down on another human being. I know what a scoundrel I am, yet God loves me, then how can I not extend that same mercy to everyone else?

Our thoughts today are the courtesy of Peter from Canada. He sent me this some time ago and I just found it and thought we would all benefit.

My father had Alzheimer’s. He changed from a loving, robust, active, humorous, God-fearing man to one who could not remember who his wife was. In fact for quite a while he had the mind of a sweet little boy. My mother a former kindergarten teacher knew exactly how to deal with such a “child.” God deals with things in very creative ways. My dad thought I was his oldest brother. His oldest brother lived in the Netherlands; we were in Canada.

I noticed that if he was reminded of what he wasn’t, that he would become agitated and unhappy. I decided to meet him where he was at in his mind. I acted as if he was as lucid as he had been prior to the disease removing the bulk of his memory. As I told people, all I want to do is uphold his dignity.

My most heart-rending time in his Alzheimer years was driving to the funeral of my mother. It took us 45 minutes to arrive at the cemetery. During that time every two minutes the conversation went as follows.

Dad: “Where are we going?”

Me: “We are going to Mom’s funeral.”

Dad: “O yes, she died. She was such a wonderful lady.”

Me: “She sure was, Dad.”

Not once did I correct him, not once did I say: “I’ve told you that fourteen times in the last half hour.”

You want to know where respect starts? It starts in the depths of who I am–in the inner parts of my soul. It started with an act of love for my dad. God commands us to love our neighbor. It is not a gift; it is a choice. It was one of the most difficult of my life, but how it made him feel made it worth it in a way I cannot describe with words. I beg all who read this to make that choice, now. Show respect at the cost of yourself.

"You know, I have seen many things in this museum, but I still have not seen EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. Where did they put everything else?"

The closing illustration in my chapel talk yesterday was taken from a favorite book I used to read my children. (If you don’t know what chapel I’m talking about, check out the last two Catches.) It’s a Sesame Street book in which Grover, the blue furry creature with the warbled voice leads us on a tour of a very strange museum.

The book opens on a big building with a sign over the entrance that reads: “Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum.” Once inside, Grover lead us through a number of rooms each one featuring a category of things such as the Light Things room or the Heavy Things room.

As you work your way through this picture book, you are of course aware that this building can’t possibly house everything in the world, and you wonder how this little dilemma will resolve itself. Your speculation increases as you reach the second to the last page and you and Grover are staring at double doors with the following sign over them similar to the one on the front of the museum, only this one reads: “Everything Else in the Whole Wide World.” Then as you turn the page the doors swing open and you are looking at a pastoral scene of a hillside sloping down to a sleepy river and the faint outline of a cityscape in the distance. It’s the outside world.

For many of these students, their faith experience was formed in a contained environment like this building. Surrounded by others who believe, their faith was reinforced and rarely contested. The rooms of this building might be the times and places God moved significantly in their lives but this building can’t contain all of Him. Sooner or later they will reach that last room with double doors to the outside world.

“When you open those doors,” I said, “what will you find? Will you open those doors on a secular world with fear in your heart, or will you open those doors on everything ELSE in the Kingdom of God? The answer is entirely up to you. You will find what you seek.”

Today is my second and final talk to the students at Olivet Nazarene University. If you didn’t read yesterday’s Catch, you might want to do that since this will pick up where I left off, which was to send them off into the world without a Christian label. “It’s just you going into the world with whatever you have inside you. You are it. You are the last Christian.”

So today I will try and describe what that looks like. Who will you be? How will you get yourself ready? How will you make a difference?

1) Find out what you believe. This has to do with struggle. You don’t own anything you haven’t struggled over. So ask questions. Chase everything down. If you have doubts, now is the time to voice them. Questions are not a sign of rebellion or a lack of faith; questions come from curiosity and a desire to learn. The really hard questions come from a certain anxiety that maybe there is something wrong with you because no one else is asking these questions. The truth of the matter is: no one has the nerve to ask the question, so as soon as you do, you find out you have given voice to others.

I’ve heard it said that some people lose their faith in college; I say if they do, that’s probably because they never really had it, and the second state is better than the first, because at least they found out the truth. Now they can hear from God. It’s hard to really hear from God when you are acting like you don’t need to.

2) Stop looking for what’s wrong with the world and start looking for what’s right. This will disarm the “secular world” kind of thinking that keeps people from finding God everywhere. The world is not wrong as much as it is lost. Which means the world is actually right about a lot of things, and those things, if we can identify them, can become bridges to the gospel, much like Paul’s use of an unknown god to the thinkers in Athens became a bridge to what he wanted to say to them about the true God.

“He who seeks good, finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it” (Proverbs 11:27). When it comes to being in the world, you always find what you are looking for.

3) Become proficient in something. Doing something well brings glory to God and opens doors of influence for you. People who come to you because you are an expert in something will be more likely to give merit to the faith you have as well. It will have more credibility because you are more credible. Notice I didn’t say incredible. I said credible. We are what we are, and though we are not perfect, we contain the treasure of the light of Christ anyway, and the closer someone gets to that, the harder it is not to see it.

[If you get this in time, you can watch a live stream of John’s chapel talk this morning at 9:30 a.m. central time. Otherwise you can watch this talk and yesterday’s by going to www.olivet.edu and clicking on “Olivet Live,” then “Chapel Talks,” then “Live Events” during the talk, or “On Demand” after.]

So I am writing this from the office of the Chaplain at Olivet Nazarene University. They have me in a lovely guest housing but the campus controls the Internet and I can’t get in on my laptop, so Chaplain Holcomb was kind enough to lend me his office computer.

I am here to speak in chapel the next two days and it occurs to me that you all might be interested in what I am going to tell 2,500 (mostly) Christian college students tomorrow morning. So here goes.

I’m going to tell them we need a new name. Say “Christian” and you’re a political activist bent on taking everyone’s freedoms away. Say “born again” and you’re a religious fanatic. Say “evangelical” and you’re an enlisted officer in a culture war. Say “Jesus freak” and you are… well, just that.

Point is: we’ve been labeled, but what the labels engender in people’s minds has little to do with what we are called to be as followers of Christ. How did this come to pass?

Then I launch into a brief history starting with the high idealism and the crushing disillusionment of the ‘60s, the birth of a new breed of Christian through the Jesus Movement, and then how what started as Jesus music focused on the world turned into Christian music focused on Christians, and finally into a Christian subculture with a Christian version of everything.  The point here being SAFETY became the key element and FEAR became the driving motivation and a big selling point for a safer alternative to the scary world out there.

The reason for this little history lesson is to show these students, many of whom have grown up in Christian homes and gone to Christian schools, that it has not always been this way. The Christian subculture is a product of my lifetime.

“The Christian subculture is more culture than it is Christian. It began as our attempt to affect the world, and has become evidence of the world’s effect on us. The Christian subculture is not the church. It is not the kingdom of God. Both can do fine without it – both are doing just fine without it.”

The final challenge? Be a Christian in culture, not a cultural Christian. The word Christian makes a really bad adjective. There is no such thing as a Christian anything; there is only YOU! Who you are is God’s answer to the world.

The world doesn’t need Christian music; it needs YOU making music. The world doesn’t need Christian TV; it needs YOU in television. The world doesn’t need Christian movies; it needs YOU in Hollywood. The world doesn’t need a Christian coffeehouse; it needs YOU in Starbucks.

Heck with labels; the world needs YOU. You are the last Christian.

Marti talked yesterday about “reaching outside the walls of ourselves” and I tremble a little when I hear that. I am so aware of those protective walls when I am around others. I like to stay in my shell. I come out in a calculated way when there’s an audience, but outside of that, those “walls of ourselves” keep me safely inside.

I might try and explain this away as a personality trait: I just happen to be an introvert. Not much you can do about that. But I don’t see any allowances for that in the scriptures. It’s not just extroverts who are called to love their neighbor and act outside themselves like the Good Samaritan. It’s all of us.

Something drove Jesus out of himself and all the way to the cross thinking not of himself, but of every one of us. What was that? It was love. “God so loved the world that He gave…” (John 3:16).

Once he looked out over the great holy city and said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37).

Jesus saw the multitudes of people as fields that were ripe for harvest (John 4:35). He was constantly attuned to the people around him, so much so that he could even tell when a woman touched him in faith seeking healing (Matthew 9:21).

What does it take to become this aware? What does it take to become other-oriented? It takes getting outside those walls. Identify with those around you. It doesn’t take much… a smile, a kind word, a leading question. Just make sure you start with those closest to you. You may find that’s where it is the hardest.

[Today Marti reminds us of our mission.]

For as long as I have known John, which is more years than I care to admit, he has sought to create bridges among people within the church to those out beyond its walls. By renouncing the rigid delineations of people into categories, he encourages Christians to meet individuals in the marketplace with a sense of inclusiveness, and diversity, while delivering a message of acceptance and love.

With the Lord throwing an international ‘net’ over a vast number of people, the Catch of the Day (the “Catch”) with its capacity for both public and private exchange, has grown into a “faith home,” an interactive cyber-church—a community of people who are recognizing that they are the living bridge that John refers to coming out beyond the walls around them and changing the world with the Gospel of Welcome, one person at a time.

Let’s set the stage as living bridges by reaching outside the walls of ourselves and by participating in God’s business to everyone, everywhere, everyday. Both as pioneers and midwives, we serve men and women and their children worldwide, whether they are or are not a part of the body of believers, with the dignity and respect due an ongoing creation of God. Now that will surely startle the world into some sort of vigorous reaction.

This is the hope of the Gospel of Welcome that we are no longer the stereotype but a prototype of His Kingdom on earth – stepping out, one foot in front of the other, with the liberty found within the Holy Spirit and authorized by God.

Let’s think some more about asking questions. Often people don’t ask questions because they are afraid of looking stupid.

We’ve all experienced this. Some teacher is going on and on about who knows what and you are sitting there nodding your head and smiling, thinking, “What is he saying?”

But what if everyone else is doing the same thing? As far as you can tell, you’re the only one who isn’t getting it, when all along, maybe no one is. Who’s going to be the first to admit it? This is when the thirst to know wins out over your need to be like everyone else.

The act of asking, seeking, and knocking is a never-ending circle of blessing. It is God’s way of drawing us near to Him. Belief is never a static thing. We don’t ever “get something down.” There are no folding chairs and seminar notebooks at the cross. There is no quiz. Life with Christ is an adventure – discovering all that we are in Him.

My wife, as a new Christian, would have been a challenge to any pastor. Fortunately her first one was ready for her. He actually delighted in her questions and her directness. She tells the story about his response to her question, “How do I know that what you are saying is the truth?”

His answer was, “You don’t,” as he extended his gift to her – her first Bible. “Dig deep into these scriptures, dear girl, and never stop asking until you truly know with all of your heart, mind, and soul.”

That was almost 40 years ago, and believe me, Marti is still asking.

When you get right down to it, there are only two types of minds: open and closed.

A closed mind is like a cake that’s baked. It’s done. Apart from the frosting, there isn’t anything else to add. A closed mind believes there is an answer for everything. Even if it doesn’t know the answer, it knows there is one, and someone else can find it if they want to. For this reason, a closed mind has little need for questions; it’s all about answers. You can’t really discuss anything with a closed mind; you can only agree or disagree.

A closed mind doesn’t give much importance to process; it’s all about conclusions. When a closed mind tries to influence someone with what it believes, it finds it necessary to clear the table of whatever it is the other person currently embraces in order to have them adopt whole-heartedly what it believes.

When a closed mind goes to school or any kind of class or teaching session, it is only going to confirm what it already knows.

A closed mind has to defend what it believes at all cost, because if someone can prove it wrong, then the whole system of operation falls apart, but, of course, this will never happen because a closed mind can never be wrong.

An open mind is on a journey. It is in process and because of this, it will not arrive at ultimate truth until it is united with its Creator upon leaving this world. Because an open mind believes all will be fully known someday, it is able to live with lots of ambiguity in the meantime. An open mind finds that faith is a huge necessity because of what it doesn’t know or can’t understand now. An open mind doesn’t find security in answers, but in the God who ultimately stands behind all questions. For this reason, an open mind welcomes questions because of the opportunity to find God again.

An open-minded Christian believes that Jesus is the answer but that only means that questions ultimately lead to a deeper understanding of why He is. This is why in spite of knowing Christ; an open mind can sing along with U2, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

When an open mind wants to influence someone with what it believes, it does a lot of listening. It wants to get as much out on the table as possible. And then, instead of clearing it as the closed mind does, it finds what it can connect with on the table. It finds what’s useful in moving someone on in the process of seeking truth.