I’m a jerk.

I’m a jerk more often than I want to admit. I am pompous and believe I know more than I do. A friend reminded me today about the church in Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 the group that caused the trouble were those who understood that meat sacrificed to idols was nothing.

What they missed was that relationship with their fellow Christ followers was more important. He tells them that, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.”

I confess I have a great imagination and it shows. I’m so puffed up I could be in Ghostbusters.

They and I have more in common than I would ever care to admit. I too often am puffed up. I confess to being an unloving jerk. I just wanted to say this before I transition to another stream of thought.

Digging for Gold

A lot of pyrite has gotten thrown in with the genuine gold, plenty of dingy coal with the bright diamonds, but we can have or accept none of the treasure they bore without shouldering the entire load. (Also, only time will tell how much trash our own generations are adding to the load, and how little gold.)Rodney Clapp

I don’t know about you but I loved what he said. I’m not sure I have thought about it this way. Digging for gold takes effort and perspiration. Many hours are poured into the discovery of that first nugget. A lot of silt and debris is washed down the slurry in hopes that the glitter of gold will appear.

I guess I have decided I need to be more willing to go through the goo. When I see things going wrong, or at least as I perceive as wrong, I usually changes courses. Clapp makes me ask if the mistakes and the missteps are just dingy coal that must be dealt with to get to the diamond.

In my masters program I took a class on church conflict. I assumed I took it to learn how to avoid or minimize church trouble. After dealing with my share of church trouble I wonder if Clapp isn’t onto something. Maybe I needed to go through some pyrite to come to a place where we have gold. Maybe learning about conflict is only good enough to let you know you are in it and to inform you of what will most likely be to come. One of the statistics from the course was how few church conflicts are resolved in a positive way. Maybe the statistic was the problem. Maybe the majority were successful, some treasure was found while shouldering the entire load.

I’ve got to be willing to dig for gold. Gold as a fellowship, as an individual, and to see the possibility of gold in others lives. I am thankful for Clapp because he has taught me to see something different. Jesus said the harvest field was ripe but he didn’t say the fruit falls from the vine and walks over to the barrel for deposit. In any harvest a lot of chaff is left along the way.

May I enjoy today’s slurry.

Wind (conclusion)

I think of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. I have to imagine that it felt a lot like he was socked in the gut when he returned to find his closest companions sleeping during his time of need. I have to think that the second time had to be worse than the first. An excuse could be made that they didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, they were a little confused at this stage of history, but once he chastised them you would think they would try harder.

Jesus told them that he was filled with sorrow and it was serious anguish but maybe they didn’t grasp the brevity, but to fall asleep twice? I have to think that it felt like a sock in the gut.

I have tried to take as much as possible from what Jesus does in this moment. First, he is not afraid to tell them how he feels. I remember calling my friend who told me he had my back only to leave the church the next week. I called him and told him I wished he had never told that because I actually believed it was true.

What really strikes me though is what Jesus does after the initial blow. Yes he shows his disappointment. Yes he tells them to be careful about their flesh but this doesn’t keep him from returning to God in prayer. This has been the challenging observation. I often allow the blows to redirect my energy, to take me away from the task at hand, to keep me from focusing on God.

He didn’t allow these disciples actions to take his focus from God. I allowed this mans actions to cloud my judgment for weeks to come.

The last thing that has helped is to see that while Jesus is disappointed, e is not surprised. He warns them that our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak. How many times have I allowed my flesh to control a situation? How many times have I said something that came from my flesh instead of the Spirit? When I am confronted with Jesus words I see myself.

This doesn’t make it okay, it doesn’t sweep the events under the rug, it just gives me better understanding. It forces me to see that in the end Jesus promised these same men His Spirit. He charged them with leading His church. He was able to get past the punch to the gut because He was able to see bigger and better things.

I have a phone call to make. Thank God he is still teaching me, I hope I am always willing to learn.

Maturity

Mature, you know the spiritually mature. It is a word I have heard a lot lately. We need to be maturing our people. Sounds really good I don’t think anyone will disagree but what do we mean when we talk about mature?

I had a person recently tell me that it is biblical and I had to agree but I wonder about how some see maturing taking place. What kind of definitions have you heard lately? What is yours?

You see someone came to me to question how we were maturing our fellowship of believers. I appreciate the question because it is always good to ask. I realized in the discussion that we had some areas we needed to focus on. It was good but as we began to talk it also seemed clear to me that maturity has taken on some interesting legs.

Let me know if any of this sounds familiar. It seems to me that people measure maturing by how much what is said and done sounds like ones personal experience. The more this experience reminds me of the church I went to the better we must be doing at maturing. I suppose this could be true but I have my reservations.

“The church I came from had small groups,” someone said. “You really need those to mature someone.”

My response is, “Okay, maybe but tell me about your last fellowships small groups. What impact did they have on your maturity?”

“Well, we had some really close friends. We had a lot in common. We had some really deep discussions about our needs and problems, we grew close.”

Now I understand we need close friends, church is people, but if having friends is maturity then most bars are maturing their patrons. They are very close and they have great discussions about life’s struggles. I know because I spent many lost years frequenting them.

I think we have some strange definitions about what it means to mature. I hear people equate knowledge with maturity, attendance with maturity, worship execution with maturity, and having friends but how does the Bible define maturity since it is obviously a biblical principle?

In the parable of the sower recorded in Luke 8 Jesus shows us both the mature and immature. I want to focus on the last two soils, those in the weeds and those on good soil. I always point out in teaching this parable that the weedy soil didn’t fall away, it just failed to mature, to bear fruit. The Greek word used is “telesphoreo” which is defined as “to bring young to maturity.”

The mature in the passage are those who bear fruit with patience. I wonder if a lot of what we call maturing is actually just insuring that people stay immature?

In my office discussion I told my friend that I believe maturing someone means taking them from selfish to selfless. I told him I new we were not perfect but I do think we are trying to meet this goal in a biblical way. We give people opportunities to be selfless, to model Christ.

I wonder if in many ways the church bows to weedy soil. I wonder if the church often finds ways to keep weedy soil weedy. Does this happen because of attendance numbers? Am I off base?

I see those fingers pointing back, I really do, but does that make it okay to cow to weedy soil, and if I am right to call immature maturity?