Fan into flame the gift

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On a Sunday in early October, Mike Neelley and I went into Skagit County Jail together for our weekly services. Five men gathered around a stainless steel table cemented into the floor. We began with a prayer and then I passed out photocopies of 2 Timothy 1:6-14.

I invite someone to read the first verse:

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.”

I offer a brief introduction by stating that God has gifts for all of us-- spiritual gifts. These gifts are different from natural abilities, like being artistic, perceptive or a good communicator.  Spiritual gifts are distinct from learned skills like carpentry, welding, or auto mechanics. They include healing, prophesy, identifying evil spirits that afflict people, faith, and many others.

“Maybe some of you already know of a gift God has given you,” I suggest, looking around at blank faces.

“Or, maybe some of you still don’t know if God has given you a spiritual gift, and you’d like to receive something.”

The men seem to resonate with this option. I go on to share how these gifts enable us to become actively involved in God’s liberating work in the world, I share how exercising a spiritual gift, like praying for someone to be healed or sharing a prophetic impression requires faith, which means taking risks. I ask someone to read the next verse:

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and discipline.”

Hearing these verses in the heart of the jail, with the TV blaring a football game suddenly made me feel vulnerable. I think I was then and there experiencing the kind of fear or timidity we’d just read about. The next verse seemed to expose and directly address the underlying issue:

“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling.”

We talk about how natural it is to feel ashamed to believe in God’s liberating actions and of Jesus himself. You can feel like a fool believing in an invisible God.

Yet in the face of this Paul writes as an inmate himself, urging people not be ashamed. After all Jesus has saved us, and we need saving. Still when we respond to his call we do enter into a kind of suffering, which the apostle acknowledges.  But Christ Jesus “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

Suddenly I remember that the men hadn’t seemed aware that they had received a spiritual gift. I suggest that Mike and I would love to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal each person’s spiritual gift, and that we could gladly ask God to give new gifts.

The men all seemed eager to for whatever was going to happen next. Mike and I looked at each other and began to go for it, taking turns to speak prophetically over each man around the table.

Each man seemed to soak up the words of affirmation that Mike and I offered, agreeing with the gifts that we identified or spoke over them. We could see new hope ignited, there in this place of bleakness where negativity, harsh labels and curses abound.

Only one man joined us in “P pod”—a Mexican American guy with stars tattooed on his cheeks, barely visible under long curly black hair parted in the middle.  He is a man of deep conviction, born of suffering through years in prison.

Mike and I were moved by how easy it was to identify people’s spiritual gifts in the jail setting, and how precious and welcomed God’s perspective is among those who feel downtrodden.

We wrap up our time with each group by encouraging the men to step our in faith—fanning into flame their gifts. We encourage them to not let fear paralyze them, but God’s power, love and disciple.

Paul’s final words seem the perfect charge: “Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.”

Mike and I find ourselves being deeply encouraged by this Scripture and our experience with the men. I share this message at Tierra Nueva’s service that day, and the work continues.

For further reflections on the gifts of the Spirit, read "Guerrilla tactics: signs, wonders, justice and mercy," chapter nine in Guerrilla Gospel: Reading the Bible for Liberation in the Power of the Spirit.

Finding Security with the Good Shepherd in Turbulent Times

I have often led Bible studies on Jesus as the Good Shepherd, who lays his life down for his sheep.  In these increasingly insecure times I’m noticing that people are more in touch with their need for protection. Mass shootings in Texas, ICE raids in Mississippi, hurricanes in the Caribbean…

“Jesus describes himself as the door of the sheep pen (John 10:7), and all who came before him as thieves and robbers,” I summarize in a recent Bible study.

“Who or what are some of these thieves and robbers today?” I ask.

People mention politicians, drug dealers, addictions, prosecutors, judges, temptations, law-enforcement and other forces they experience as predatory.

Jesus says something that either shows he’s naïve, talking about something else, or believes that the sheep can in fact discern. He says “but the sheep didn’t listen to them.”

Yet we see that people do listen and fall prey!

But the inmates on Sunday afternoon and our Tierra Nueva faith community members later that same day feel seen by Jesus when they hear this. Many of them are really tired of their lives. They know and readily admit that people and forces they’ve listened to must be resisted if they’re to experience newness of life. They recognize their need to pay attention to someone who really is out for their best interests. But who might this be?

As we read what Jesus says about himself in John 10:9-11 I can see that these words alone seem to sooth the people’s tired spirits.

“I am the door. If anyone enters by me, s/he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

We read on about how hired hands will flee when they see the wolf coming. They don’t care about the sheep. But who are these hired hands?

I think of myself in my inability and sometimes unwillingness to respond to all the needs I see around me and in the larger world. Are “hired hands” anyone other than Jesus himself? I wonder. I know that I do not want to be considered a hired hand!

It does seem true that when we put our trust in people they will eventually disappoint us. Yet Jesus is recruiting others to join him in his shepherding ministry, embodying his compassion, love and care to a needy world.

I think about the growing numbers of people here in the Skagit Valley who are being ravaged by addictions to meth and heroin. When someone is ready for treatment it is rare to find room in the local detox facility or an available bed in a drug and alcohol treatment center. It is easy for the public to shrug and blame the addict—ignoring these sheep. In the face of increasing overdose deaths, who will pursue the addicted, announcing and showing God’s kindness, healing and protection?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Mississippi chicken processing plants have created a lot of anxiety amongst immigrants across the country. People without papers imagine being arrested, deported, leaving their US citizen children stranded.

In our community the grueling work in meat-packing, fish-processing and poultry-processing plants is largely done by immigrant workers. They’re some of the only people willing to put in the long hours and hard work for low pay. Yet they are being scapegoated, blamed for taking jobs at a time when unemployment is at an all-time high. As ICE steps up workplace enforcement raids, who will offer relief and protection?

Jesus critiques shepherds that are mere hired hands- unwilling to follow his lead in laying down his life for his sheep.

But who are Jesus’ sheep, and what might this salvation he describes look like?

Jesus says of his sheep: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.”

This appears to mean that no one else can judge who belongs to Jesus. The relationship is sacred and personal. Jesus goes on to add:

“And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

My take on this is that followers of Jesus, whomever they are, are representatives of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Everything we do must be in alignment with his protective, abundant life-giving, life-laying-down action (and not with predatory powers!). Making visible the love of Christ will “bring them also” (these “other sheep”- whomever they are).

And Jesus is confident that “they will listen” to his voice.

I get a sudden inspiration as I am preaching at Tierra Nueva to place chairs in a semi circle against the front wall of our sanctuary. I leave an opening in the circle and tell how shepherds in ancient Palestine would sometimes sleep at the door to protect their sheep at night.

“So Jesus describes himself as the door,” I summarize, and Jesus says, “if anyone enters by me they will be saved.” He even says that he lays down his life for his sheep.  Let’s read John 10:28-29 to see what else he offers.

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

“Maybe some of us are not sure we know Jesus or that he knows us. Or we are feeling a special need for his protection and salvation,” I say.

I invite people who want to affirm their desire to know and be known by Jesus to come up through the entry into the circle of chairs representing the sheep pen. I invite anyone who wants to know God’s salvation and protection more fully, to come forward.

People stream into the circle—and we open up an exit space at the back. But most want to take a seat. I call for help from our other Tierra Nueva pastors and faith community veterans and we pray for everyone while our worship team plays a final song before communion.

We tasted the abundant life that Sunday and I feel compelled to keep announcing it. May we work to more fully embody the shepherding ministry of Jesus in these turbulent times—not shying away from complex issues like immigration, mass-incarceration and addiction.

To hear this sermon “Finding Security in Jesus, the Good Shepherd,” click here.

Pursuing Wily Ones: A Shepherding Vision

At Tierra Nueva we train and mobilize shepherds who seek after lost sheep until they are found, bringing them back to secure “home” settings where their return is celebrated amongst friends and neighbors.

Since 1982 when Gracie and I began Tierra Nueva in Honduras, the prophet Ezekiel’s special focus on lost sheep and call for shepherds has deeply affected us. This image animated Tierra Nueva staff  in Burlington to such an extent that for years we were all pictured hugging sheep on the staff photo page of our website.

After strong words reproaching the shepherds of Israel for their self-focus, Ezekiel writes:
“Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; my flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them” (Ezek 34:4-6).

We have witnessed firsthand widespread neglect of the poor in Honduras--visible now in a massive Exodus of migrants in search of refuge. Here in our own country we witness harsh treatment of immigrant workers, and severe sentences and fines for the incarcerated, and inadequate infrastructure for the addicted. We are inspired by God’s missional leadership of a movement in pursuit of the excluded, visible in the next verses:

“For thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. “As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for my sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day” (Ezek 34:12-13).

The Lord will “bring them back,” “gather them” and “feed them in a good pasture,” and “they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture.” (34:13-14). Psalm 23 fills out God’s shepherding vision even further!

We see that Jesus himself identifies with this movement when he says: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (Jn 10:11)

“Seeing the people, he [Jesus] felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. “Therefore beg the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.” (Mat 9:36-38)
When Jesus is critiqued by religious leaders for eating with tax collectors and sinners he tells the parable of a shepherd who leaves the 99 in the open field and seeks after the lost sheep until he finds it. Caring for the many who are already gathered should not keep people from going out after the ones who have wandered off.

We have sought after today’s equivalents of “lost sheep” through our regular presence in the county jail, state prison, in migrant labor camps, low-income housing units, on the streets and throughout Skagit County. We see a need for a renewed emphasis on this seeking and finding focus everywhere we go around the world.

More recently, we have been especially drawn to the actions of the shepherd in Ezekiel and in Jesus’ parable: gathering, feeding and bringing to rest, celebrating returns.
“When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing” (Luke 15:5).

We often act out this parable in groups, making sure to select a strong enough person to play the shepherd and a small enough person to be the sheep. In Glasgow a tall, strapping man (once a stone mason)went in search for a shorter, smaller man who played the lost sheep. Both men had recently been released from long prison sentences. In Paris, a tall African immigrant “shepherd” sought after an older white middle-class Frenchman. Both men were visibly moved when they were physically “found” and carried back. Each of these shepherds placed their finds across their shoulders and returned to cheers from the group, and we went on to read the next verse.

“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’” (Luke 15:6)

We have seen over and over that those we connect with in jail and through out other outreach efforts need special, deliberate attention that we are now more inspired then ever to offer.

The shepherd gets personally involved to the point of laying the found sheep on his shoulders—making sure each one feels secure and protected. Raising up disciples of Jesus involves building trust through giving people personal attention and love (for a fuller treatment of this see The Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus’ Global Liberation Movement.

Sometimes sheep who have wandered can be difficult and wily characters. However the shepherd doesn’t correct the sheep but rejoices when he brings him home to his friends. We at Tierra Nueva feel called to bring those we find to the equivalent of “home,” which here doesn’t equal a return to the 99. Home evokes security, familiarity, safety, and friendship.

The shepherd calls together his friends and neighbors, inviting them to celebrate the sheep which was found.

Here at Tierra Nueva we are deliberately trying to implement this vision. We have a number of sites that serves as circles of friendship, where people are gathered around Jesus—the master Good Shepherd.

In our Tierra Nueva building these include our Sunday worshipping community, evening Psalms reading group, morning Gospel reading circle led by Julio and also our Monday and Wednesday Family Support Center activities. We also enjoy sharing weekly meals together after Sunday worship, and community events.

Outside the jail we include: Kevin’s pastoral assignment at Mt Baker Presbyterian Church in Concrete, Salvio, Victoria and Julio’s visits to migrant families in their homes, our weekly Bible studies in men’s and women’s pods in the county jail and with Spanish-speaking inmates at the nearby prison. We have developed a series of Bible studies that build upon each other, for our growing circle of gathered people, so that they can grow in their faith (See Guerrilla Gospel: Reading the Bible for Liberation in the Power of the Spirit).

Through our weekly staff prayer and The People’s Seminary we seek to continually equip and strengthen our staff and others as shepherds adept at seeking, finding and gathering people affected by incarceration, addiction and immigration. We seek to follow Jesus in laying them on our shoulders, rejoicing, and bringing them into circles of safety and friendship, joining with the heavenly host:

“In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Welcoming and Becoming Strangers and Aliens

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We have spent the past ten days with Sub-Saharan African migrants in Egypt and Morocco—most of whom are undocumented. Spending time with these vulnerable and courageous people has refreshed our perspective on life and faith.

I share these thoughts on migration and immigration in response to disturbing news articles I’m reading about anti-immigrant rhetoric in the USA and Europe–and I hope to dissuade people of faith from any collusion with negative attitudes and the promotion of restrictive policies.

This past Sunday I preached at an underground church made up or largely undocumented African immigrants living in Morocco. Morocco is now the preferred crossing point for Africans seeking to enter Europe—though many have no choice but to seek passage via war zones like Yemen, or failed states like Libya.

At the Moroccan-Spanish border, high fences, dangerous waters and strict immigration enforcement are keeping migrants from leaving the African continent. Hundreds of thousands are blocked, settling in a foreign land. Many more are currently en route from countries ravaged by war, political impasses and poverty.

People told us of tremendous suffering in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo. “To tell people not to leave their country is like telling someone to not jump from a burning building,” a pastor from Congo told us. He and another Christian leader recounted going for days without eating in order to give what little they had to their hungry children.

Many of these migrants are Christians. We spent four days worshipping and studying Scripture together with a group of 40 French-speaking pastors and leaders who are taking our Certificate in Transformational Ministry at the Margins. They were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Guinea– all French-speaking Sub-Saharan African countries.

People told us harrowing stories of having to pass through the Sahara desert, where they were robbed of everything of value (including their clothes and shoes) at gun or knife point by marauding gangs. Others told us of having to drink urine or die. Migrant women are often raped and forced into prostitution. We prayed for healing for women who had been infected with the AIDS virus through forced prostitution.

Pastors recounted how they regularly officiate at funeral services for acquaintances and even family members who drown in attempted crossings of dangerous waters at the meeting of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean in over-crowded inflatable boats. These leaders needed deep comfort and encouragement as they accompany migrants battered by traumatic experiences.

One man in his early thirties named Jean-Luc from Cameroon told me how God spoke to him repeatedly to leave his country and head to Europe as a missionary. He journeyed overland through Nigeria, Niger, Mali, and Algeria, working for small change along the way. Like many others he spent several months in the Sahara desert in Algeria, struggling to pull together enough money to pay smugglers to get into Morocco.

Jean-Luc has been in Morocco since February, but is finding it difficult to get work. He makes the equivalent of 6 to10 dollars a day, cutting firewood for bakeries. Yet his sights are set on God’s call on his life, wherever that will take him—to win people over to Jesus.

Morocco is 99% Muslim. It is illegal for Christians to evangelize Muslims. This leaves established churches (and other Christian organizations like the seminary where we were teaching) to focus their theological formation on African immigrants and other foreigners. Since migrant churches are made up largely of undocumented immigrants living their lives under the radar, there is little stopping them from reaching out to Moroccans or Muslim migrants.

People told us how they prayer walk their cities and neighborhoods, reach out to homeless migrant youth coming from new countries like Guinea, meet three times a week for worship and prayer and see their churches growing and the need to plant new ones in other cities. They were eager for our training to support their demanding, front-line missions.

Gracie and I worshipped this past Sunday with 60 plus African migrants in a damp, musty underground room accessed by a steep cement staircase. All I could think about as people danced and sang were Jesus’ words to his disciples: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Are we Western Christians counted among these meek?

I preached on Hebrews 11, which highlights Abraham’s exodus from his country to a place he was to receive as an inheritance.

“By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise, for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:9-10).

This Biblical passage seemed written for these dear people, and yet it appears to offer very little concrete hope for a secure material future in this world. This verse most certainly challenges today’s entitlement mentality, and growing security-conscious “me and my country” first attitudes.

“All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb 11:13).

Is this how you see yourself, as a stranger or an alien? If we have died with Christ and we have a new identity according to the Spirit, then I believe our identity according to flesh (nationality, race, social class…) must be submitted to a higher allegiance to Jesus and the Kingdom of God.

This passage in Hebrews 11 spoke directly to this African congregation. They “are seeking a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” I keep asking myself if this is in fact what I am seeking.

“Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God— that is your God!,” I proclaimed to radiant faces. “For God has prepared a city for you!” (Heb 11:16)

Hebrews 11:33-35 describes these very stranger/alien people of faith as having “conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection.”

The people told us their own stories of healings, face-to-face encounters with Jesus, and even resurrections from the dead that they had witnessed. Others could certainly identify firsthand with adversities like “mockings and scourgings, chains and imprisonment…being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (Heb 11:36-38).

As I read on about “people of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground” I asked the congregation “how many of you have wandered through the Sahara desert?”

Hands went up around the room, including those of some who were still children and adolescents! They are counted among the people described as heroes of faith—and God is not ashamed to be called their God! These are the meek who will inherit the earth, “having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect” (Heb 11:39-40).

As we fly home now, I am thinking of the thousands of migrants from Africa heading to Europe and Central Americans en route to the United States. I know from years of travel to Honduras that gang violence and poverty make life near impossible.

May we not harden our hearts to the poor and desperate.

Undoubtedly many of these migrants are people of deep Christian faith, willing to risk all to seek a future. I hope that we will not oppose the spiritual renewal God wants to bring into our nations through those who come bearing good news. I hope we can welcome vulnerable migrants, keeping our ears open to legitimate asylum claims.

Rather than taking the side of border and law enforcement, may we identify with the one who “has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). May we remember some of the earliest appeals in Scripture to embrace the foreigner.

‘The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” Lev. 19:34

“Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:1-3).

God Provides Escape Routes

In late June I discovered what turned out to be a large mass in my abdomen. I was referred and scheduled immediately for a meeting with a surgeon at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance—and I hoped for a quick fix operation. But CT scans and a biopsy revealed follicular lymphoma—a slow-growing cancer that cannot be removed through surgery, but must be treated by chemotherapy.

This was hard news that I never expected I would receive—especially at a time when I’ve been in the best physical shape in years. Suddenly our future seemed up in the air. Our immediate plans for 2018-19 include Certificates in Transformational Ministry at the Margins (CTMM) trainings in Bristol, Glasgow, Paris, Vancouver, Tanzania, Rabat (Morocco), Stockholm and New Zealand (www.peoplesseminary.org).

We are entering a particularly fruitful season internationally and locally for which we’ve been preparing for years-- offering needed support to front-line workers. Rounds of chemotherapy beginning in August would make it nearly impossible to move forward with our trainings, or continue with our normal schedule at home.

All this upheaval drove us to prayer, and many people have been blessing us by interceding and showing levels of tender care that we had never experienced. An African pastor friend from Tanzania sent me a message saying that as he prayed for me he kept getting 1 Corinthians 10:13.

At first glance this verse didn’t seem to resonate with my situation. “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man…” I wasn’t experiencing what I would call a temptation—unless it was to fear.

I decided to look up the underlying Greek word and learned that peirasmos not only means temptation, but commonly includes meanings like adversity, affliction, trouble, and trial.  Suddenly the verse was highly relevant.

“No temptation (trouble, adversity, affliction) has overtaken you but such as is common to people; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted (troubled, afflicted) beyond what you are able, but with the temptation (trouble, adversity) will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

During the months of July and August I took regular trips to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance where I sat in waiting rooms filled with cancer patients I would have normally thought of as the “them” over and against healthy me. What I am now experiencing is common to so many people around the world.
It has been a deeply moving experience to find myself amongst others facing adversity, and I have been also remembering James 1:2-4.

“Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials (adversities, troubles, temptations), knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

I have found myself clinging though to the hope extended in 1 Corinthians 10:13-- that God who is faithful, will not allow me to be afflicted beyond what I am able to endure, but with the affliction will provide the way of escape also, that you will be able to endure it.”

God’s siding with the afflicted, the troubled, the escapee is at the heart of the news that we continually rediscover with people at the margins—in our Tierra Nueva church, in jail and prison and around the world. God is not alligned with the perpetrator—in this case cancer, which is not God’s will or part of his plan, as James 1:13 also states:

“Let no one say when he is tempted (troubled, afflicted), “I am being tempted (afflicted, troubled) by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt (afflict, trouble) anyone.”
That is good news! But 1 Corinthians 10:13 goes even further still, offering a prophetic promise—an escape route so that we can endure.  I have been in special need of hearing this for myself. Would God help me escape this chemotherapy and its effects—and the cancer itself?

The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance surgeon referred me to a lymphoma specialist-- but the appointment was set several weeks away. So very difficult to wait! Finally the appointment date came and the doctor outlined the normal chemotherapy process, telling me about what to expect, side effects and risks. He said that for especially active people like me, chemo usually feels like a major blow, which would make it unlikely that I’d be able to offer our planned trainings. No way of escape was yet visible.

Then he surprised me by inviting me to consider participating in a clinical trial of a drug that has been effective with follicular lymphoma over the two years the trial has been running.  This trial would involve me taking a weekly pill with minimal side affects, monthly check ups and lots of monitoring. Further tests would be necessary to determine whether I indeed qualified.

So during the month of August I underwent a bone marrow biopsy, extensive blood tests, PET scans and more CT scans, all before my August 29 appointment. Tests showed no cancer anywhere but in the tumor, confirming the original diagnosis. I was admitted into the clinical trial and began the medication that day.

September 2 we flew to London, and Gracie and I have completed chaplaincy and teaching responsibilities with Westminster Theological Centre, and two CTMMs in Bristol and Glasgow through Tierra Nueva Europe. We are now in Paris where we will offer our first French CTMM beginning this Wednesday.

I have now been taking the trial medication for three weeks and I’m feeling no side affects.  I continue to pray that the tumor and all traces of cancer disappear. With new eyes to see and a renewed hope, I am helping others whom I accompany to face adversity, with an expectation of discerning ways of escape. May you too look for and expect the Holy Spirit to reveal to you escape routes that give you breakthroughs in the midst of your troubles, trials and temptations.

The Invitation to the Cross

Last Sunday while preaching at Tierra Nueva Jesus’ words about rejection struck me as highly relevant for us today.

“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Jesus is talking about himself here. But his followers are also included in this trajectory that looks suicidal.

Right before Jesus says these words Peter had confessed Jesus to be the Christ— and Jesus had warned his disciples they mustn’t tell anyone. Now Jesus informs his disciples that he will not succeed in winning over religious leaders, assuming power, expelling the Romans and making Israel great again. He will achieve victory over death itself. But not without himself passing through death on a cross, the only way to be raised to new life by the Father.

Peter thought Jesus’ words and path were lame. He rebukes Jesus for his way of talking about being the Christ.  I imagine Peter insisting that Jesus be strong and successful, with growing acceptance until he achieves earthly power.

Peter represents those who want Jesus and themselves to be associated with social acceptance and material and political success-- not suffering, failure, rejection and death. Peter wants to make Israel great again—like some today (even Christians) want to make America, or any prized party, tribe, nation, ministry or agenda great again.

Earlier last Sunday at Washington State Reformatory I met with a group of prisoners I read the Bible and pray with every two weeks. I know from many conversations that they feel despised by the State and mainstream society—and assume churchgoers look down upon them unless proven otherwise. And yet their association with Jesus in the prison system also marks them for rejection.

The men share how when they walk along their cell blocks with their Bibles to our gatherings, people mock them—saying church is for sex-offenders, hypocrites, and people who can’t face the consequences of their crimes or life without a crutch.

Jesus turns around and seeing his disciples, he rebukes Peter for trying to take him away from rejection—the direction he’s going. He rebukes Peter publically in the strongest terms:  “Get behind me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

Here Jesus is literally telling Satan and anyone associated with that agenda to get behind him in the direction he is going in his downward descent to save humanity through his suffering and death. Is Jesus calling Peter’s pressure to move upward towards social acceptance, earthly success and power ‘satanic’? It seems so.

Jesus is not about achieving acceptance, power and being number one, but about emptying himself, taking on “the form of a slave, humbling himself and becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8).

“You are not setting your mind on God’s interests—but on people’s,” he says.

Jesus is 100 percent committed to God’s interests for the world—which go in the opposite direction of normal human priorities. God’s sacred movement involves bringing rulers down from their thrones, and Jesus leads the way as God’s Son. Jesus’ priorities are about exalting the humble and filling the hungry with good things (Lk 1:52-53), not allying with the powers to dominate and control.

“And for whom might this be good news?,” I ask people at Tierra Nueva church on Sunday. A man in the front row, just released from a three-year prison sentence looks up and nods—“people like me,” he says. A woman struggling to kick her heroin addiction so she can get custody of her toddler is listening intently— her wide eyes are searching for hope.

Jesus invites the crowd and his disciples to make a radical choice to follow him on this same hard path: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.”

Here Jesus calls us to move in the opposite direction of our culture—which prizes self and personal success and security as sacred.

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are overrated,” I say. “Satisfying your every desire and giving yourself what you want is pursuing the American Dream, not the Kingdom of God.”

If you are drawn to Jesus and want to follow behind him, then he invites you to three practices: “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me,” (8:34). Denying our self is a necessary prerequisite for taking up our cross, and then following Jesus.

But how do we come to this point of being willing to deny our self?

We are more likely to be ready to deny our self if we have lost confidence that we know best how to run our lives. If choosing my own destiny has led to anxiety, serious troubles, addiction, relationship breakdown, and incarceration, then I’m ready to dethrone self and even take aggressive measures—what Paul calls “crucifying the flesh.”

But we must hear this call to deny ourselves and take up the cross positively, as a personal invitation from Jesus to join him in a new life together with him.

 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).

Jesus gives himself up for me ahead of my giving myself to him. I join Jesus on the cross as the instrument of his and my symbolic death—my crucifixion with Christ equals total surrender so I can go in a new direction, wholly given over to following Jesus in a life of joyful adventure behind God’s interests.

The cross also represents death to sin that enslaves me. “Our old self was crucified with him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin” (Rom 6:6). “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24).

For Jesus the cross was the means the powerful used to execute him. “Taking up your cross” signifies following Jesus even in the face of disapproval and rejection from the important people deemed competent to determine your value or legitimacy. Back then these were elders, chief priests, and scribes. Who would be their equivalents today for you?

There are pressures on us today to conform to other agendas, rather than choose the path behind Jesus and give up personal control to him. But the alternative according to Jesus is the forfeiture of our soul.

If we continue to believe we ourselves know how to save ourselves and be the masters of our own lives, Jesus has strong words of warning for us.

“Whoever wishes to save their life,” (going with Satan in the direction of being popular, well-received, successful, secure, and being on top), “will lose their life.”

In contrast, “whoever loses their life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (8:35).

Today Jesus might say something like this:  “What does it profit a person to make self/ministry/America great again and forfeit their soul?

He then asks his listeners: “For what will a person give in exchange for his soul?” In other words—what payment can you receive from the world that could possibly lead you to sell your soul?

Jesus calls his followers to turn away from the shame they might feel about him and his path, calling them to total allegiance to him and his teaching: “For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Jesus invites us to surrender to his love which saves us, rather than exchanging our soul for a false security.

“For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” (2 Cor. 5:14-15)