Worship used to be all-encompassing.  Not that I always worshiped, but I certainly did my best to direct all attention to the One who is greater.  That’s what I taught (and hopefully) modeled for my teens.  That in actions, thoughts, and words, God would be recognized and we would be humble.

Since leaving the professional ministry (whatever that is supposed to be), and taking the role of a pariah (unwillingly), worship has become less of what I know it to be.  Finding a community to worship with has been a 2-year endeavor.  And worship has been relegated to that hour or so each week.

Or so I thought.

After recently hearing a sermon on worship, I took a retrospective.  Eventhough my mind has not been geared toward this purpose, my lifestyle (and that of my family) has certainly been one of worship.  As I have been teaching in the public school system this year, I realize that I have lived as servant, shown compassion to my students, encouraged them to be more than expected, and asked them to follow my lead and do as I do.  And through this all I have tried to reflect the realness of Jesus of Nazareth, the love of the Spirit, and the awesomeness of God the Father.

Then today I remembered the words of one of my teens from 5 years ago.  After months of living the idea of “the way you worship is the way you live,” my friend Zach, who was only about 16 at the time, said, “This is God as a lifestyle.”

Zach had nailed it.  The whole of life is for God to be our lifestyle.  I take encouragement knowing that even with inner doubt, anger, frustration, and fatigue, the lifestyle has been centered on the same thing.

And as I’m typing this, my wife sends me a text that reads in part: “the LORD delights in those who put their hope in his unfailing love.”  Feeling unlovable and questioning so much was not enough to dissuade God’s unfailing love.

That is more than enough cause to make worship a lifestyle.

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The Pentecost (liturgical red) party is over.

Now is the extraordinary span of Ordinary Time (liturgical green). That long green run into discipleship. Or at least it should be.

But I’m still stuck on the day after Easter, staring at an empty tomb.

After the hoopla and thrill of knowing the One is alive, I’m thinking on the meaning of an empty tomb.

Poor thing, that tomb. Didn’t even get to keep it’s quarry but a few days. Due to the 100 or so pounds of spices Joseph of Arimethea hooked up, there wasn’t even a smell of decay before the tomb’s resident hopped up and out.

A vessel barely used for it’s purpose, that tomb. And now it sits there useless. Not to be thought of much again until the next Triduum. And even then it will be but a passing flash in the pan … The earth will quake, the stone will roll back, and the pitiful tomb will once again sit empty.

I guess I can’t stop thinking of this tomb because I can so relate to it’s plight.

A symbol of the greatest triumph ever that now sits idle, unthought of, unused. Perhaps hoping to be useful again next spring.

It’s already gone through the only 3 phases it has: prepared, used, emptied.  Why does that emptied part last so long?

I’m in “career path” number 3.

First there was the starving artist.  The world of professional theatre prepared me in so many ways (said only retrospectively) for the next phase.

Second, there was the preacher / pastor.  I really felt I was being used by God to do some good things in the reconciling of creation.

Now, I’m a high school English and literature teacher.  It seems that all my preparation and usefulness (not to mention all my pride) has been emptied.

I sit devoid of all that was before, hoping to be prepped and used again.

*Sidenote: Granted, I fully believe I’m accomplishing something for the greater good.  I was amazed at the thanks I received from my seniors as they graduated, having only been with them for four months.  Who knows what may come of those young lives?*

As a younger man, I never wanted to sit empty.  I wanted to prepare for something.  I wanted to be thought of as useful.  Now, an older man (though still young, I think), I’m not minding the emptiness.

Perhaps, it is only emptiness that will allow me to be useful once again.  Perhaps, the emptiness is a preparation of sorts.

Perhaps Life will once more come to this symbol of Death.

As I’m writing this, I received a text from one of my very few close friends.  He reminded me of a dream we shared some time ago.  A dream we could both say we had been prepared to envision.  A dream that is still a dream.  Still waiting on the usefulness part, I guess.

What do you with a dream when you are simply sitting empty and waiting?

Poor tomb, may your dream be realized.

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During previous Lents, I have been able to move beyond repentence to cherishing the simple truth of God’s presence. This year, however, I have stayed in confession mode … and I haven’t tried to move beyond it. But this has been ok.

As broken as I know I am — as flawed, as helpless, as ineffective, as uninspired, as sinful, as ugly, as so much the antithesis of Jesus of Nazareth –, I have not been entirely crushed and dejected.

Oddly, I have gained more peace knowing that I am but a poor sinner.

Why? Perhaps this is because I know I can’t go lower. But in fact, I can; and I have. Perhaps this is due to my complete dependence on grace. But in fact, I know grace without reponse is no grace at all.

No. It seems I have peace because I am basking in the reality that God is the antonym of me. Knowing who and what defines all that I am not, brings a calmness to my search for identity. Consequently, I can fully acknowledge who and what I am without fear … for I know what I am being shaped into.

My telos is not mine alone. I am part of all the creation that is being reconciled. While at peace with what I am, I can live peacefully as I move, ever so slowly, toward that which I will be.

So, my Lenten confession: I am the chiefest of all sinners and the antithesis of all that is God. But this does not define me. Rather, I am defined by that which I will be; in whose image I (and you) were created; under whose will I have only begun to bend.

Clinging to the hope who is the ending of my story.

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Marked by Ashes

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises,
of forgotten children and frightened women,
we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
you Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

Taken from Walter Brueggemann’s Prayers for a Privileged People (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), pp. 27-28.

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Ah, the uncomfortable truth-in-jest …

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I would add, it likely is also a life-long process.

Some days I wish I had taken the blue pill instead of the red one. In the movie The Matrix when Neo reaches for the red pill, Morpheus reminds him “I’m only offering you the truth; nothing more.”

Some days the truth stinks.

It wasn’t so long ago I was on staff at a large, respected church, had closet full of nice clothes, a nice house, nice friends, etc.  But somewhere along the way I got offered the red pill.  Now I”m making just above the poverty level, spending my work time with those below and well-below the poverty level.

The church institution has become unreal to me and my wife.  As has the US American culture.  What is more real, more true, is the reality of the One who is the Way, Truth, and Life.

But this more real way is indeed painful.

Though I’ve never detoxed from street drugs, I spend lots of time with those who have or are presently detoxing.  It’s an ugly process.  Everything your mind fights against, your body wants to embrace.  It truly feels like life and death.

The financial comfort, the good social standing, the good standing within the institutional church … all these things I know are shams.  I know it in my head.  I know it like the deepest of convictions.  But the rest of me struggles with a sense of loss for these things.

The majority of the “respectable” folks consider me and my wife wacky, mistaken, bitter, or just flat out wrong.  Those opinions are painful.

A large portion of my clergy peers don’t understand why I left “real ministry,” nor do they see their own complicity with the negatives of institutionalism.  Their limited understanding and denial is painful.

Long time friends and even some family occasionally just don’t get us.  Believe me, that’s painful.

I realize that when Jesus declared that those who follow him must leave behind family, friends, and attachment to institutions and culture, he meant it.

Separation from those within the institutional and cultural milieu is not fun.  It’s easier when there are sojourners to dialogue with.

And it does feel like a matter of life and death.  Every day part of me dies.  And only through hope do I trust it is a necessary part of my life I must lose so that I might be saved.

I guess this post comes from a place of loneliness.  A loneliness I share with Jeremiah and the prophets, Jesus the Nazarene, and even Neo and crew.

Do you share it too?  Are you detoxing from institution and culture?  Is it painful?

–

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
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…when we are in different surroundings, or

…when we get back on our feet, or

…when I start (and hopefully complete) my PhD work, or

…when, when, when

Each time that sense of longing for a different future arises, the Spirit has a way of directing me back to the present.  And I’m blessed to remember (again) that God’s goodness is not out there somewhere, but right here, right now.

A passage of Scripture I’ve been meditating on daily this month will be a lifelong touchstone for remembering God’s goodness.

I’d like to share it with you.

“If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins,

If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,

Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.

I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—firm muscles, strong bones.

You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.

You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past.

You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.”

–YHWH, The LORD our God as rendered in Isaiah 58.9-12

The goodness described here is a very specific goodness, from a very specific God, in a specific context.  This specificty requires my response and involvement; and the involvement of my family and community.  This specificity graces me with light and thanks.

–

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
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It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

–Oscar Romero

Thoughts?

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Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.
Christ under me;
Christ over me;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

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