Monday, May 28, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
What I Love about Jesus? Part II
His attraction to my infection
I was born of the same stuff that is common to all of us who come crying into this harsh world. Like you and everyone else on this planet, I am flesh and blood - vulnerable and exposed, fallen and depraved. Even in my adulthood, I carry the frailties and fears of a wounded child. Like everyone else, that which has become the exterior of my adult life is a cracked shell. Inwardly I am still the child startled by the sharp coldness of this strange awakening.
And have you ever noticed that most people are more attracted to you when your cracks are covered and unexposed. We all know that cracked shells are endimic to humanity, but we nevertheless cover them so that no one will discover what they attest in principle to already know. I come from a movement and community that celebrates grace as a soteriological concept and theological postulate. We celebrate grace in the macro. But when the opportunity is afforded to us to turn this theory into practice, we revert to a previous principle of condemning cracks in others and covering up our own.
Though I am incredibly grateful to the church for gifting to me the gospel, one thing that has always confused me is this point. As a young person it was the practice of everyone, to the point of cultural pervasiveness, to dress up for church. I remember how awkward it was for me to be wearing shoes that didn’t fit, clothes that didn’t match and ties that were outdated by a generation just to satisfy this cultural requirement. It is still the common practice of most churches - this covering of our cracks - this attempt to look deceptively attractive, even though inwardly we are intensely aware of our insidious shortcomings.
Let’s face it. The church is not always a safe place for people with problems. The church is not always a safe place to uncover our spiritual nakedness and own and confess our hidden struggles. Actually it has become for many a place to pretend.
Jesus, on the other hand is not like that. On the contrary, he pursues intimacy with us precisely because of the cracks in our shell. When all have abandoned us in our state of shame, Jesus tends. When we are consumed with infection, he visits us. When we have lost all attractiveness, then He is attracted.
Though my memories do not carry me back this far, when I was a baby, my mother has reported to me later of a serious illness that threatened my short life. I was given medication that my infant body was not ready for. Almost immediately my muscles contracted, my eyes rolled back, my blood pressure spiked. Full of fever, my limbs contorted and though I had not been in the world but a short season, I was on the razor’s edge of death.
I can only imagine the frantic scene. Scurrying doctors and nurses barking orders of medical intervention. Pushing parents to wait in isolated quarters. Having four precious children of my own now, I know that if I had faced the same circumstance with one of my own lambs, my heart would have become overwhelmed with the category of fear that we only experience in the absolute darkest and most desperate of times.
My mother tenderly conveyed that during the crisis, my Father refused to let go of me. I could not be pried from His strong arms. Whatever it was that the hospital staff needed to do with me, simply had to be done while my father held me. What inspired such dramatic devotion is not altogether clear to me.
My father died when I was 15. And it is rare to recall a similar episode in my conscious state as a child. I rarely recall being held in my father’s arms, receiving his extended embrace, hearing his clear affirmations and knowing his healing affections. Whatever it was that held him back - fear, insecurity, or deprivation in his own childhood - I do not know, but I now take courage from my mother’s stories. And the deprivation has made me to have a deep and unmistakable longing both to receive and to give a father’s love. Moreover, it has caused there to be a cavernous hole which can only be filled with the love of my heavenly Father - the One who is passionate for the healing and salvation of my soul.
What I love about Jesus is that He willingly offered Himself to be pierced, bruised and broken to fill those holes of desperation in my life. He brought the loving enduring embrace of the Father to me and to all my orphaned brothers and sisters who want nothing more than to experience mercy and love from our Father. He said clearly, that He is in the Father, and the Father is in Him. Anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father. I have only heard of this love through biblical stories. The love of my heavenly Father is veiled in time and space but is strangely apparent through the spectacles of faith. And though I have not seen Him, He nevertheless reaches out to me. And though I have not felt his touch, I one day will. Until such time, He has promised to never let go of me, no matter what illness invades my soul, no matter what disfigurement becomes of me…no matter…there is no one powerful enough to pry me of his perpetual embrace.
That’s why I love Jesus. It is His confounding attraction to my infection. And there is great healing dispensed in His promise never to let go of me. He clings until I am completely healed, restored and assured of His eternal affection! Wow, what a Savior! What amazes me most is that we would ever resist Him or to project an image that we have no need of Him.
Wounded Flower
Mo Leverett
April 19, 2006 Elkhart, Texas
God defends His orphaned sons
and tends to all the injured ones
the more the shame, then more the care
that He distributes softly there
Thick the walls we form and raise
steeped in self-protective ways
infantiled and sulked within
like a child beneath the skin
Arms will speed from secret space
reaching toward our barren place
hidden holes where hope was hushed
deep where dignity was crushed
Lost and cold and desperate there
something sacred coming where
Wounded hands reach out to ours
opening like a wounded flower
Hands will raise us to our feet
fill our hearts with holy heat
lifting us toward heightened place
gifting us with stores of grace
Slowly changed and soon restored
mercies on our souls are poured
lavished love falls on the grieved
burdened hearts will be relieved.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
What I Love about Jesus?
The Christian Tradition of the Unconventional
One of the things I love most about Jesus, and there is much to draw from on this issue, is His approach to choice-making. Let’s be honest. Nearly every choice He made flew in the face of conventional wisdom – beginning with the decision to become human and thus take on our various disfigurements. The infinite, immortal and invisible God choosing to become one of us is akin to Bill Gates shedding all privilege, prestige and economic power, moving into a cardboard box in the slums of India in hopes to advance the cause of Microsoft – it makes no sense.
Choosing a mostly uneducated, rough and unimpressive group of working class men as the ambassadors of your newly launched international movement – makes no sense. Choosing to offend the powerful and empower the weak – makes no sense. Choosing to avoid the elite and yet invite the bum – makes no sense. Choosing to embrace the leper and confront the lawyer – makes no sense. Choosing your greatest persecutor as the leader of your missionary movement– makes no sense. At every turn he surprises us. At every turn he confounds us. At every turn he offends us.
This is partly why followers of Jesus, when we really are following Jesus, are called fools. When we launch something in the name of Jesus, not only should it look different from every other human initiative, it should naturally offend our innate sense of conventional wisdom and better judgment. His ways are clearly not ours.
When, for instance, in our modern day church, do we embrace HIV patients because they value both their falleness and ours? When do we make recovering alcoholics elders over our people because of their unique perspective on grace? How often do we establish former prostitutes or strippers as leaders over our women’s ministries because of their recovered capacity for true intimacy? When do we target for ministry the most offensive, beguiled and socially outcast and then ascribe to them the labels of light of the world and salt of the earth, much less invite them to our churches? Yet this is precisely what Jesus did. That is His tradition.
But then Jesus’ finest offense was the cross. When He elevated himself in utter humiliation for our sake, he confounds us. Yes, I know the cross is the emblem and banner of our movement. We cover it with carets of gold and wear it around our necks. But it was among the most despicable scenes in human history – and rarely as a principle is it imitated – not even in our circles. In its essence it is redemptive and beautiful. In its self-sacrificing essence it also offends our gross tendency toward self-absorption. In its meekness and gentle willingness to suffer it offends our instinctive need for self-preservation and self-defense.
This is why we should not seek to run our ministries or churches on proven business strategies or principles, or other worldly frames of reference. I don’t mean here that money should be managed inefficiently out from under professional accountability. And I don’t mean that ministries have nothing to learn from the business community. I only mean to suggest that the choices we make should be guided more by the unique frame of reference that directed Jesus’ choice-making. I don’t blame Christian businessmen for running their businesses on established workable theories of management. But I do warn them against establishing those principles as the appropriate philosophy of Christ’s church or mission. Frankly, the underpinnings of business and that of the church are not altogether the same.
More than anything else, the choice that Christ made which confounds me the most is this: His choice of me. Why? Why, after so many offenses, after so many failures, after so many painfully present personal flaws, would Christ choose me?
Of all the biblical figures I relate to the most, the leper seems most befitting. There are times when I would serve the public best by wearing a bell around my neck announcing my coming. Ring, ring…here comes a man who wounds…ring, ring…here comes a man with issues…ring, ring…here comes a man who offends…ring, ring…here comes a complicated man…ring, ring…here comes a dangerously difficult man…ring, ring…ring, ring…ring.
Or there are times when the tax collector in the tree is the better analogy. No, I’m not good with numbers like he is, but why in the crowd of so many, would Christ choose someone who has made a living on personal demands, manipulations and exploitations? Why would he come to our home? And dine at our table? And laugh at our jokes? And passionately love when the only thing we do well is imperfection.
Or maybe the former prostitute, Mary Magdalene is more analogous. I, like her, have reasons to be despised, reasons to be debunked, reasons to be defaced, reasons to be disgraced. And yet here He is, before me, receiving my tears, fears and twisted affections. Or maybe I’m like Paul, the chief of sinners. Or like Peter, the consummate foot in the mouth disciple. Or like Thomas, doubting. There are many other comparisons that could be made, and with them all there are 2 things we share in common – (1) our total depravity and (2) against all conventional wisdom, His choice. Against all conventional wisdom, He chose me and also the likes of me!
And so pray for me that in response I might follow in His tradition and make choices which are utterly unconventional. Pray for me that I too might be a fool. Pray that I might offend, as He did.
That’d be Jesus
Mo Leverett
November 7, 2006
Who from lofty sacred throne
Came as humble and alone
To the poor to give increase
To the slave to grant release?
Where to seek when all we crave
is an escort from the grave
Who gives life when death consumes
who gives rebirth in the tomb?
That’d be Jesus
Who has shared his holy seat
With the orphan from the street
Who has made deliverance free
And offers it eternally?
Who makes homeless sons a place
wounded children sacred space
Who puts rebels in a trance
Granting them their second chance?
That’d be Jesus
Who can satisfy the thirst
Of beggars then and make them first
Who can take the child recoiled
And give him bread that never spoils?
Who was here before the winds
and to broken souls attends
Who for pleasure does pursue
The likes of those like me and you?
That’d be Jesus!
One of the things I love most about Jesus, and there is much to draw from on this issue, is His approach to choice-making. Let’s be honest. Nearly every choice He made flew in the face of conventional wisdom – beginning with the decision to become human and thus take on our various disfigurements. The infinite, immortal and invisible God choosing to become one of us is akin to Bill Gates shedding all privilege, prestige and economic power, moving into a cardboard box in the slums of India in hopes to advance the cause of Microsoft – it makes no sense.
Choosing a mostly uneducated, rough and unimpressive group of working class men as the ambassadors of your newly launched international movement – makes no sense. Choosing to offend the powerful and empower the weak – makes no sense. Choosing to avoid the elite and yet invite the bum – makes no sense. Choosing to embrace the leper and confront the lawyer – makes no sense. Choosing your greatest persecutor as the leader of your missionary movement– makes no sense. At every turn he surprises us. At every turn he confounds us. At every turn he offends us.
This is partly why followers of Jesus, when we really are following Jesus, are called fools. When we launch something in the name of Jesus, not only should it look different from every other human initiative, it should naturally offend our innate sense of conventional wisdom and better judgment. His ways are clearly not ours.
When, for instance, in our modern day church, do we embrace HIV patients because they value both their falleness and ours? When do we make recovering alcoholics elders over our people because of their unique perspective on grace? How often do we establish former prostitutes or strippers as leaders over our women’s ministries because of their recovered capacity for true intimacy? When do we target for ministry the most offensive, beguiled and socially outcast and then ascribe to them the labels of light of the world and salt of the earth, much less invite them to our churches? Yet this is precisely what Jesus did. That is His tradition.
But then Jesus’ finest offense was the cross. When He elevated himself in utter humiliation for our sake, he confounds us. Yes, I know the cross is the emblem and banner of our movement. We cover it with carets of gold and wear it around our necks. But it was among the most despicable scenes in human history – and rarely as a principle is it imitated – not even in our circles. In its essence it is redemptive and beautiful. In its self-sacrificing essence it also offends our gross tendency toward self-absorption. In its meekness and gentle willingness to suffer it offends our instinctive need for self-preservation and self-defense.
This is why we should not seek to run our ministries or churches on proven business strategies or principles, or other worldly frames of reference. I don’t mean here that money should be managed inefficiently out from under professional accountability. And I don’t mean that ministries have nothing to learn from the business community. I only mean to suggest that the choices we make should be guided more by the unique frame of reference that directed Jesus’ choice-making. I don’t blame Christian businessmen for running their businesses on established workable theories of management. But I do warn them against establishing those principles as the appropriate philosophy of Christ’s church or mission. Frankly, the underpinnings of business and that of the church are not altogether the same.
More than anything else, the choice that Christ made which confounds me the most is this: His choice of me. Why? Why, after so many offenses, after so many failures, after so many painfully present personal flaws, would Christ choose me?
Of all the biblical figures I relate to the most, the leper seems most befitting. There are times when I would serve the public best by wearing a bell around my neck announcing my coming. Ring, ring…here comes a man who wounds…ring, ring…here comes a man with issues…ring, ring…here comes a man who offends…ring, ring…here comes a complicated man…ring, ring…here comes a dangerously difficult man…ring, ring…ring, ring…ring.
Or there are times when the tax collector in the tree is the better analogy. No, I’m not good with numbers like he is, but why in the crowd of so many, would Christ choose someone who has made a living on personal demands, manipulations and exploitations? Why would he come to our home? And dine at our table? And laugh at our jokes? And passionately love when the only thing we do well is imperfection.
Or maybe the former prostitute, Mary Magdalene is more analogous. I, like her, have reasons to be despised, reasons to be debunked, reasons to be defaced, reasons to be disgraced. And yet here He is, before me, receiving my tears, fears and twisted affections. Or maybe I’m like Paul, the chief of sinners. Or like Peter, the consummate foot in the mouth disciple. Or like Thomas, doubting. There are many other comparisons that could be made, and with them all there are 2 things we share in common – (1) our total depravity and (2) against all conventional wisdom, His choice. Against all conventional wisdom, He chose me and also the likes of me!
And so pray for me that in response I might follow in His tradition and make choices which are utterly unconventional. Pray for me that I too might be a fool. Pray that I might offend, as He did.
That’d be Jesus
Mo Leverett
November 7, 2006
Who from lofty sacred throne
Came as humble and alone
To the poor to give increase
To the slave to grant release?
Where to seek when all we crave
is an escort from the grave
Who gives life when death consumes
who gives rebirth in the tomb?
That’d be Jesus
Who has shared his holy seat
With the orphan from the street
Who has made deliverance free
And offers it eternally?
Who makes homeless sons a place
wounded children sacred space
Who puts rebels in a trance
Granting them their second chance?
That’d be Jesus
Who can satisfy the thirst
Of beggars then and make them first
Who can take the child recoiled
And give him bread that never spoils?
Who was here before the winds
and to broken souls attends
Who for pleasure does pursue
The likes of those like me and you?
That’d be Jesus!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Orphans and Kings
Well, I’m standing in the C Group, about to board a Southwest Airlines flight to Nashville, hopefully for the last time for some time. We will be mixing down the new project which is now officially titled Orphans and Kings. We should have downloadable versions of the project somerwhere on the internet very soon - I’ll keep you posted. We are also in the process of designing the CD jacket and such for those who simply have to have their own copy of the project.
Thanks for your patience. It’s taken longer than I thought or hoped it would. I hope you will be pleased with what we came up with. I know I can count on all of you to help me promote the project and thus keep the work of Rebirth International going! Blessings!
Mo
Thanks for your patience. It’s taken longer than I thought or hoped it would. I hope you will be pleased with what we came up with. I know I can count on all of you to help me promote the project and thus keep the work of Rebirth International going! Blessings!
Mo
Monday, May 14, 2007
Untitled Project
We are nearing the end of this musical sojourn. It has been an incredible experience. As I’m writing this post I’m in the Love Shack Studios on Music Row, listening to Ashley Cleveland, a Grammy-award winning vocalist here in Nashville, as she performs gut-wrenching backing vocals on The Ditch. I’m just enjoying the heck out of this. But I’m also aware that though it’s cool to have accomplished musicians play along me on a record, it’s still my record, my songs and my story and that sobers me and keeps my feet on the ground.
Please pray for things as they wrap up. It is my prayer that this music minister to folks at newer depths and for wider audiences. My hope is that proceeds will continue to fuel a movement of God’s Kingdom among the poor. I also pray for a platform to inspire the people of God toward the heart of God among the poor. If you pray along those lines, you can’t go wrong.
We have considered two different titles for the project. We are presently polling for opinions. The choices are between (1) Orphans and Kings, (2) Like Hell Inside. Let me know if you want to chime in on this issue.
Blessings to all!
Mo
Please pray for things as they wrap up. It is my prayer that this music minister to folks at newer depths and for wider audiences. My hope is that proceeds will continue to fuel a movement of God’s Kingdom among the poor. I also pray for a platform to inspire the people of God toward the heart of God among the poor. If you pray along those lines, you can’t go wrong.
We have considered two different titles for the project. We are presently polling for opinions. The choices are between (1) Orphans and Kings, (2) Like Hell Inside. Let me know if you want to chime in on this issue.
Blessings to all!
Mo
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