John Fischer The Catch

“Again, [the kingdom of heaven] will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. [Later…} ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.’” (Matthew 25:14-18; 24-25)

Everyone is equal; our talents are just different. Yet some make more with their lives than others. Why? Why do some make less with what they have and others make more? Wherein does the difference lie? The answer is: fear. “I was afraid…” said the man.

Fear deceives us into thinking we are not capable of doing more with our lives. Fear turns us into little, insignificant people. After a while we grow into liking not having the responsibility of being bigger people, making more of our lives, being givers instead of takers, so that our fear actually maintains a sort of comfort zone of inactivity around a huddle of unclaimed riches. We have a bag of gold but it’s buried in the ground and we buried it. As long as we don’t do anything, we can at least assure ourselves of not doing the wrong thing.

But we have a Master who harvests where we have not sown and gathers where we have not scattered seed. So unless we expand on what we have been given – unless we turn it into more than what it was when we received it – we run the risk of disappointing, even angering our Master. The fact that he harvests where we have not sown says that he expects an increase. He expects us to reach way beyond what we have grasped.

And anyway, what is there to be afraid of when he is waiting to meet us when we step out in faith? Are we going to be afraid of walking in the Spirit with authority and freedom? Are we going to be afraid of being able to give instead of take? Are we going to be afraid of significance?

If you fear anything, fear God being disappointed because you only brought back what he gave you.

Your suggestions for January’s Isaiah House theme have been overwhelming. While we can’t honor them all in January, you have given us enough ideas to last the rest of the year and then some! Thanks to everyone who participated.

It’s amazing to watch how the guests of Isaiah House are bringing us an opportunity to reach beyond ourselves and make a real difference in the lives of some pretty special people. Who would have thought that this global connection could have such a reach and such a direct human application? This is not the mere cause of homelessness we are talking about; we have connected to the psychological fears of most women, regardless of their level of wealth and their varying degrees.

I have watched in amazement as each month, Marti overcomes her fear afresh and even gains strength from being close to these women. I know her. I know this fear is real. I remember how surprised I was when I first discovered it in relation to bag ladies we’d encounter in various places, pulling all their earthly possessions in overloaded shopping carts. I used to think she was kidding when she talked about the fear of homelessness that seeing them brought up in her. I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now, except I have come to accept it as a reality in her life. Which makes it all the more impressive how she throws herself into the project. It’s as if getting close to her fear is empowering her, and I think we could all learn something from her.

Our natural reaction to fear is to run – to put as much distance as possible between us and that which is causing our fear. Get in and get out. And I suppose there are instances when that is the right thing to do, when the fear is a legitimate response to some outside threat. But in my case as in Marti’s, I’ve noticed that my fears most often come from within – things which are my responsibility to handle. These are fears that need to be overcome in order for me to grow. So when I see Marti getting right up next to these women – see her understanding them, honoring them and bringing them joy – I see also what I need to do in relation to my fears.

What about you? Have you got any fears you need to get close to?

So I finally took the tree down on the twelfth day of Christmas and it turned into an all-nighter. At about 9:00 pm when I started, I remember telling Marti no sweat: it was going to take about two hours. She was way under the weather at the time, well into a virus that knocked her for a loop, and medicine that made her dizzy. I knew she was feeling bad when she went to bed leaving me with the takedown project, something she would normally be fully invested in. She was so out of it, she didn’t even hear the chain saw I took to the tree in the living room.

Yes, you read that right, although it’s an electric chain saw, but it still makes a lot of noise. In spite of our little house, the living room has an open beam ceiling that reaches 14 feet at its peak, so we like to take full advantage of that at Christmastime with a large tree that takes two people to haul in, and only me to haul out… in pieces.

At 4:30 a.m., Marti appeared in the doorway like a zombie, saw me amidst all the decorations still not in their boxes and turned right around and went back to bed. I was going to be gone the next day so I was very motivated to get everything done, knowing how badly she felt. But I’m sure she was fully convinced at that point that she was going to wake up to pretty much everything in a mess.

At 6:30, I climbed into bed with everything boxed and ready to go into the attic and the house vacuumed and straight. She’s still talking about it – the transformation that happened between 4:30 and 6:30.

With the exception of feeling pretty much out of it the next day, I actually enjoyed this marathon. I like packing things away for later use, and take a deal of pride in knowing they will be found next year in the same state as I put them away. It can be an emotional time as well amidst ornaments like “Baby’s First Christmas” (30 years ago), Christmas 1984, my favorite ornament (a page of music from a caroler’s book), and Marti’s favorite (a shopping bag full of presents). I slow down a little with these, staring off into a bank of memories. I don’t mind the time.

Which is probably the single most important reason for the holidays… to stop long enough to notice who we are, who we love, what we have, and what we will hold onto forever. In my book, that’s worth staying up for.

“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:1-4).

If “seeing each other through” had a scripture passage to go with it, it would be this one. Notice how helping someone else avoid temptation includes a realization of your own susceptibility. You can’t help your brother or sister with a splinter in his/her eye without dealing with the log in your own. And don’t forget: dealing with the log in your own eye makes you a different person. You approach his/her speck from an entirely different perspective than if it were only the other person’s problem. No, it’s your problem, too. You have personal experience.

And then notice that bit about carrying each other’s burden. God built us to do this. He means for us to have burdens too big for one person to carry. He made us so we would need each other. This, in spite of how hard we try to be self-sufficient. Don’t mistake this for pride. Sooner or later we have to give up being alone. Sooner is better.

The homeless women of Isaiah House have burdens too big to carry. The law of Christ is fulfilled in shouldering those burdens. Many of you have found joy in this with us.

And what about you and me? Where do we go with our burdens? Do we just take them to the Lord, or do we, like the scriptures teach, find someone to help us – a flesh-and-blood someone? Do we have this kind of sharing and bearing among ourselves? And if we don’t, why not? Is there too much pride? Is there no leadership? Someone has to start.

The following lyrics are courtesy of Dave.

Now the plumber’s got a drip in his spigot
The mechanic’s got a clank in his car
And the preacher’s thinking thoughts that are wicked
And the lover’s got a lonely heart
My friends ain’t the way I wish they were – they are just the way they are
And I will be my brother’s keeper – not the one who judges him
I won’t despise him for his weakness. I won’t regard him for his strength.
I won’t take away his freedom. I will help him learn to stand.
And I will – I will be my brother’s keeper
–       from “Brother’s Keeper” by Rich Mullins

I looked at yesterday’s Catch again and realize I got sidetracked by the AA/church comparison – something that has intrigued me for some time, but was not the reason I was drawn to write about this in the first place. So pardon me while I revisit the statement that caught my eye, “We don’t come to AA to see through each other, but to see each other through.”

Let’s think for a minute about those who spend their time trying to see through each other. Such is a statement of judgment, comparison, and superiority. When you think you see through someone, you think you have them figured out, and as a result, you are superior to them. It’s an orientation that is full of assumptions with everyone jockeying for positions. And when you are in a group where everyone is doing this, you are in a place where you can’t trust anyone. Everyone’s suspicious, so everyone is going it alone.

But if, instead, you are simply trying to see each other through, there is no judgment, no measurement, and no hierarchy. Everyone is serving everyone else. We are all trying to make each other successful. We are all giving each other a boost. In this environment, you are much more likely to trust and be worthy of trust. No one has anything to prove because everyone is already accepted. Membership in this group is automatic. You are who you are and that’s okay. People in this group need each other. It’s a good feeling.

I know which group I want to be in. And isn’t this the way it’s suppose to be? Isn’t this the body of Christ?

On Sunday there was an article in the Los Angeles Times written by a journalist who traveled Interstate 10 from California to Florida visiting local chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous to discover how they differ, or stay the same, throughout the country. An AA member herself, she had an insider’s view and I found many of her comments very insightful in understanding what I believe is the real role of the church in America – something I’ve always felt was more akin to a typical AA meeting than what passes for church in many houses of worship on Sunday. Though the writer is a self-proclaimed atheist – something I thought was as rare in AA as an atheist in a foxhole – I still found her experience and her sentiment close to what should be much more prevalent in most churches.

Take for instance her comment: “We don’t come to AA to see through each other, but to see each other through.”

Have you noticed how in many churches, everybody’s business is usually someone else’s? We are all such experts on how everyone else is doing or not doing that we have little time to face into ourselves. And when we do, isn’t it amazing how well we are all doing under the circumstances? Just try coming really late to church and feel the eyes staring right through you. Everyone’s trying to see through everyone else, when what we really want and need is more people to help see us through.

There is a communal sense of failure and need in AA that, because of the presence of sin in all of us, should mirror what we encounter in a spiritual setting as well. Church should be as safe for sinners as AA is for alcoholics.

With zero tolerance for alcohol, and yet a commitment to brutal honesty about the last time one succumbed to it, there is a very real model of how Christians should be dealing with each other. Zero tolerance for sin, and yet 100% truth telling. It’s a tall order, but the presence of AA chapters across Interstate 10 proves it isn’t impossible. What balances this out is everyone’s need for each other. There’s no such thing as a lone ranger in recovery. If you’re in recovery, you’ve got company.

How ironic that our atheistic observer wrote about a Christian she encountered in one of her cross-country meetings that this woman had been sober since 1999, “and never came to AA because she asked the Lord to take away her desire to drink, and he did, and the Lord can do anything, and thank the Lord.” To which the journalist commented, “I’m not sure why she’s here.”

And I’m still wondering the same thing.

Well, okay, you folks have spoken. Charles was the first to tell me to relax: I have until Epiphany (January 6) to take my Christmas tree down. Many others chimed in with similar messages. Elizabeth went as far as to say what a commercial, non-Christian view of the world it was to take Christmas down before the 6^th of January.

So I did a little research to find out that Epiphany was first practiced by the Christian church in the fourth century, and that western Christians generally use it to celebrate the coming of the magi, and eastern Christians add the baptism of Jesus by John. The idea is prevalent that Epiphany corresponds with the end of the Christmas celebration (the twelve days of Christmas – counting from December 25 – are over on January 5).

Epiphany comes from a Greek word meaning manifestation, and it seems that the general idea here is that Christmas celebrates the birth (nativity) of Jesus and Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of who he was as both Son of God and son of man. I like that. Put it that way and Epiphany is a lot closer to what I usually think of as the real meaning of Christmas – the incarnation of Christ.

Bottom line here is that I don’t have to take my tree down until Thursday.

I always feel like I’m missing out when I learn of other generations and cultures that place great importance on certain feasts and festivals throughout the year. The Jewish calendar is rich with such special days. Our Jewish neighbors, whom I would call semi-orthodox, seem to be always celebrating something. I feel almost pagan in comparison.

And from my understanding of the Old Testament, it’s clear that God ordained many feasts and festivals throughout the year to be a time of remembering and making merry. It’s still a stretch for me to realize that God ordained partying. That’s a far cry from the way most of us stuck-in-the-mud western Christians live life, especially what we call “spiritual life.” In our tradition, partying and spiritual would be on opposite ends of a spectrum.

Maybe it would be good to spend a little time thinking through what we celebrate and why. If God ordained something fun (as opposed to somber) to remember him by, perhaps we could do at least the same.

Well, all I can say is, God smiled on the Rose Parade in Pasadena because it is raining again in southern California. I think we came close to our average annual rainfall in the month of December alone. If you watched the parade on TV, you saw a gorgeous day on January 1. Not so now.

Our Christmas tree is still up. I had every intention of bringing it down yesterday, but I couldn’t bear it, and so we have its light in the house for at least a few more days.

Our house glows at Christmas. We have a quaint little cottage that wears the season well. Everywhere you look it’s like a Currier and Ives Christmas card, so it’s always hard to part with what looks like it belongs year-round.

But the tree will come down, empty boxes will go back up into the attic full, and Christmas 2010 will be wrapped up for another year. Our little house will look a little sad for a while. But here’s the deal: it’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing for Christmas to be over, because Christmas celebrates the Advent, the coming Christ. But in fact, he has already come, and he is both here, through his Spirit, and also at the right hand of the Father where he is constantly intervening for you and me, which is a good thing because we need intervention.

We also need power to be and do what God wants for us, and that is the most important part. God’s Spirit is now available to us by faith, and this is the practical stuff that way outshines Christmas. This is the ability to love when you don’t feel like it, to obey when you don’t want to, to believe when you’ve lost all hope, to move out when you’re still afraid, to accomplish God’s will with your life when you’d rather sit and worry.

No, it’s good that Christmas is over. Christmas is kid’s stuff. Time to walk into all that Christmas made possible, even when it’s raining.

It is necessary now to complete the circle. We’ve looked at the romance of rain and the responsibility of rain; now it’s time to consider the destructive power of rain.

Last night it rained the hardest I’ve ever known it to rain for the longest period of time. It must have dropped 2 or 3 inches in an hour. It was too much for the little town of Laguna Beach.

Laguna sits right at the mouth where a canyon meets the sea. It’s not a good place to build a city. It seems like about every 5-7 years we have a rain significant enough to send a wall of water and mud down the main street of town and into the ocean, taking much of the boardwalk with it.

My poor neighbor across the street lives in a new house that was built on a low spot. He was up all night pumping water out from his garage and under his house. His beautiful hardwood floors are all buckling.

And Chandler and Anne, coming back from snowboarding in Big Bear yesterday took six and a half hours to drive what normally would have taken under two. Three different attempts were thwarted by landslides across the road.

These are just a few instances I know about where the destruction touched me in some small way. Hundreds – probably thousands – have been similarly affected by this particular storm, many in ways much more devastating than these. There’s no way I could have known three days ago, when the gentle steady rain was talking to me so sweetly, that it would turn into so much devastation for so many people.

The hard rain it falls the same on us all,
And how you do depends on your point of view.
One man will curse, while another says, “It could be worse,”
‘Cause he lifts his cup, whether full or empty, to You.
–  from “Circle of Blessing” by John Fischer

Here’s the hard part: It all comes from God – the rain that blesses and the rain that curses – and part of living is learning how to receive both. Who can know it? Who can figure it out? Probably no one. But all can learn how to receive it. That’s the challenge.

It’s now 3 o’clock in the morning. Some of you will be reading this minutes after I write it. And after a day of no rain, guess what’s happening right now? It’s raining.

We have a small ravine that runs by our house. We have heard it called a “waterway” by people who have lived in this neighborhood for a long time and wondered how it got that name. Yesterday, on the fifth consecutive day of rain, we found out. Last night there was at least a foot of water in the ravine. We’ve got a river running by our house.

You must be getting tired of having me write about rain. I’m actually starting to grow tired of it raining. It’s hard to keep the mud from being tracked in the house. The dogs are looking for places to go inside because they don’t want to go outside. The gutters are filling up with leaves and mud, reminding me that I needed to clean them out way back before these rains began. Today the rain is not as romantic as it was yesterday. Today the rain reminds me of my responsibility.

There’s a good lesson here in that all good things carry weight. The Spirit of God brings joy, inspiration and freedom [“where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:18)], but these things are not without responsibility. Someone who is filled with the Spirit is filled to accomplish something. It takes discipline and responsibility to be used of God.

Our God is a God of action. “Be not only hearers of the word,” Jesus said, “but doers also.” We need to constantly be asking, “Lord, what would you have me do?” Following Christ is a life of service. Get used to it! (I’m talking to myself, here.) This is not a spiritual beauty contest; it is a call to action.

Soon the rains will be over. There will be nothing but a quiet night outside my window, but for the occasional loud car or siren. The ravine will dry up and there may not be water in it again for years. Will I be ready for what comes next? Will you?