Tag Archives: lead

September 9, 2015

Who Goes First?

By pbstone

stop signAt 7:50pm 4 cars came to the intersection at roughly the same time.  I was second. The first driver was to my left and made a left hand turn.  As he cleared the intersection, I began to cross the intersection. I was second.  My daughter and I had just left the gym after working out, we were tired, thirsty and in desperate need of showers.  We were heading home when the lady from my right pulled out in front of me to cross the intersection.

At that moment you would have been hard pressed to find any love at the corner of Ravine and Nichols in the Kalamazoo area!  My windows were up and the air conditioning on so I don’t know what it was she was yelling out her window.  But as I uttered inside the confines of our 2001 Subaru Forester (180,000+), “Not your turn,” I could tell by the look on her face that she was maybe more angry than I was.

But, it was MY TURN! 

Have you ever noticed how often we think about it being “my turn?”

It’s my turn for a promotion at work. It’s my turn to go first. It’s my turn to be successful. It’s my turn to get the biggest piece. It’s my turn to use the car. It’s my turn to get… You get the picture right?

Ironically, just yesterday morning I had a conversation with some amazing people looking at how to live a more mission/other minded life and what it looks like to create more loving spaces in the mundane places of our lives.  It’s hard to live a life of love when we are focused on MY TURN.  In the book of Philippians, Paul reminds those of us who have been deeply impacted by Christ’s love to be more concerned with OTHERS than ourselves.  Here are the words he uses in chapter 2:3-4:

Don’t let selfishness and prideful agendas take over. Embrace true humility, and lift your heads to extend love to others. Get beyond yourselves and protecting your own interests; be sincere, and secure your neighbors’ interests first.

In spite of all the rhetoric about love wins, our culture is making it increasingly more difficult to live a life that is other focused and rooted in love. In fact, today Tim Cook and Apple will tell me that the new iPhone 6 I got two months ago is now obsolete, that my iPad is too small and that AppleTV is a real necessity!  Technology isn’t bad. That’s not what I am saying.  Our culture, however, continues to disciple us into thinking and behaving more and more individually and in self-centered ways.

But I am responsible for how I live and love – not culture.  I can make choices about who I want to be and the way I want people to experience me.  And last night there was a stranger who didn’t experience love while crossing an intersection.  Last night, without thinking, I also discipled my daughter teaching her to be as self-centered and unloving as I was.

I don’t have to be selfish.  I don’t have to be self-centered.  Because of Christ’s work in me I can choose to be different.  I can be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I have this amazing partner, the Holy Spirit, who helps me learn to lead myself.

Who will you be today? Will you choose with me to love someone you otherwise might not want to?

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September 29, 2014

Going Postal

By pbstone

racism-2014

She tilted her head and looked over the top of her glasses and said, “You know I’m joking right?”

Mary (not her real name) is a bright 27 year old follower of Jesus. I know Mary through Jesus Loves Kalamazoo and those are the last words she heard as she left the post office last week deeply embarrassed and offended. Mary is African American and those last words came from the lips of the Caucasian postal clerk at the end of a transaction filled with judgment and racism.

Because I know Mary a bit, when I heard about her experience in the post office, I asked her to share the experience with me. I wanted to know what the impact of that experience was like on her. So today she sat down with me and shared her story. I’m sharing it with you, not because it is the most horrific event known to man, but because I believe it tells the story of so many and highlights what is still so in our culture today.

At this point, many of you are going to be tempted to quit reading. I get that. There’s also a part of me that doesn’t want to know this goes on still.

It is September of 2014 and Mary goes into the post office to pick up a package, from the VA, for her mom. Her mom has all the proper paper work filled out so Mary can pick it up on her behalf. But as she engages the postal worker at the window Mary is harassed, belittled, profiled, accused of being a junkie and a drug dealer by the clerk.

 Loudly, so loud every one in the room can hear, the clerk tells her that often the VA will send narcotics through the mail and that she is wondering if Mary is going to go sell them.   Mary, of course, is horrified and offended. She is embarrassed. “You just don’t talk to people that way,” Mary tells me.

After proclaiming she needs her supervisor’s approval, the worker leaves Mary standing at the window feeling just slightly awkward. When she returns with the package, it is with an equally as loud, “I guess you can go get high now” that she hands it to Mary.

Maybe it’s because of the color of Mary’s skin? Maybe it’s because Mary is young (a whole two decades younger than me!)? Maybe it’s the combination of the two? I think we all know there are white folks selling drugs and doing drugs. I think we also know there are old peeps who also sell and do drugs. And if we all know that, then why profile Mary?

I don’t know if it was the look on her face as Mary turned to leave, but the clerk – probably realizing she has crossed a line, finishes their interaction with “you know I’m joking, right?” What I can say is this, the only time I have ever said that is when I KNOW I have crossed the line, said something unacceptable, and want to cover it up and make sure I don’t get into trouble.

When I asked Mary what the impact of that exchange was on her, I could tell it was difficult for her to identify it. She felt humiliated and embarrassed – like her dignity was being stripped away. She didn’t make eye contact with anyone else in the crowded lobby as she got out of there as fast as she could.  At the same time, however, she also said it is what she has always experienced.

Mary went on to tell me about being ignored by white teachers when asking for help, of being snubbed by white students at school and how even being on the same sports teams didn’t make the playing field level.

In Galatians 3:8 Paul tells us, “there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one…” If that is our spiritual reality, I wonder how long it will be before we live that way?

I don’t know how many times I have been to the post office – often looking like I have been dragged through the gutter. Never has anyone assumed I was doing drugs or selling drugs. And, if they did, nobody has ever said as much out loud to me. And certainly not in a public space like the post office.

Because of the way I look, speak and dress, nobody has ever profiled me for anything except for being the amazing upstanding citizen I am! (ok, I see that look!)  Whether you want to believe it or not, because of the way I look, because I was born to white parents, I live in a position of white, male privilege. And in order for me to live in privilege, that means somebody doesn’t get to – that’s the nature of privilege, some get to have it and others don’t.

In this instance, Mary doesn’t. Mary doesn’t get to go to the post office and assume it is a safe place for her to do business. Mary doesn’t get to believe that others will just assume the best of her. Mary doesn’t get to have the privilege of being able to go in and out of places, like the post office, without wondering if she will once again be harassed, belittled, profiled and accused.

Not unless something deep changes in our nation. My hope is that the church will lead the way and that we will learn to love the way Jesus loved.

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September 16, 2013

Jesus’ Deep Belief

By pbstone

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My son Andrew helped plant my neighbors garden.  And this year he planted a row of popcorn, fully believing that there would be a harvest and many evenings spent enjoying the fruit of his labor…

 I love the Gospel of Mark.  It’s one of my favorites!  Part of what I love about Mark’s account of the life of Jesus is how he just gets to it.  It is shorter than the other accounts and most likely written first.  And in the first chapter Jesus is already deep into his ministry – even though it has just begun.

I believe that Jesus’ love gets expressed in three deep beliefs in the middle of the first chapter – in the calling of the first disciples. And, I believe Jesus believes these things so deeply it moves him into action!

Jesus believes the Kingdom of God is accessible.

In verse 15 Jesus begins his ministry with the words, “The time has come, the kingdom of God is here.”  Powerful and bold words spoken to culture that had been wrapped into another kingdom, Rome’s, and believed that God’s kingdom would come forcefully and politically.  But Jesus, see, knows what the kingdom of God is.  He has a deep belief that God’s kingdom, is inaugurated with his coming and is fully accessible to those who seek it.

So what does he do with this belief?  He get’s into action.  He goes out into his society with a message unlike any they have really heard before – that the kingdom they are longing for and looking for is here, now and fully accessible.

Jesus has a deep belief that the kingdom isn’t only reserved for another time or another place, but that it is fully possible for those who would listen to his voice to enter into and live in that kingdom in the present – without having to wait!

For Jesus the kingdom was now and the kingdom was accessible.  However, I believe that we, the US church, live as though the kingdom is sometime else and someplace else.  This is manifested in so many ways in our lives: a lack of urgency around the mission of God, lots of resignation that anything in this life is going to be or get better, spiritual disconnectedness and the list could go on…

Jesus held a deep belief in his capacity to transform lives.

Let’s face it, it takes a certain amount of ego (yeah, that term will probably bother most of you) to invite someone to follow you as a disciple – and more so on the first day of school!  But he did it didn’t he?  He asks Simon Peter & Andrew and then also James & John to leave their family business to follow him.  Why?

Because he is going to transform their lives, turn them upside down, and make them fishers of men.  What?  These are unschooled men – considered boys in our culture – and he is going to do what?  Look at what he says, “I will make you…”

Jesus believes so deeply in his ability to bring about personal transformation that he not only invites them to follow him, but he makes a massive promise at the same time!  Jesus belief is so deep, that he doesn’t waste any time and begins inviting others into his journey right from the beginning.  Why?  Because he knows.  He knows the kingdom of God is here and that he transforms lives.

Jesus held profound belief in our capacity too!

Think about it. Really. In fact, take 60 seconds to reflect on this – Jesus asks us to repent as we would receive the kingdom of God.  Repent means to change.  Repentance is not saying “I’m sorry.” It is a radical turning in one’s life from disobedience to radical obedience.  Follow my logic here:  Jesus is fully God, God is fully & always completely loving, therefore everything Jesus does and says is completely loving.  Even asking us to change!  What wouldn’t be loving is is Jesus was to tell everyone to transform their lives knowing that it just can’t happen.  That would be cruelty.

Then he goes on.  He tells Peter and Andrew that he will make them into something new.  We must be able to change if part of Jesus’ promise is that very transformation.

I don’t know about, but I know that I have spent a larger portion of my life than I wish I had full of resignation that anything can actually be different in my life, the way I am, the sins I struggle with and etc…

But.

That’s what Jesus promised!

Jesus’ deep belief in the potential transformation of those who are made in his image moves him to leave the Father’s side.  Jesus’ deep belief in you – his belief in me – is so profound he just can’t sit still and dream wistfully.  He got into action around it.

In John 15 so many of these dots are connected for us.  Jesus proclaims to us that if we abide in him and he abides in us, we will bear much fruit – kingdom fruit.  Jesus also tells us in John 15 that our transformation is only possible in that abiding relationship – apart from him we can do nothing.  Nothing.

I don’t want to do nothing.

I want a deep belief in the presence of God’s kingdom. I want a deep belief in Jesus’ power to redeem.  I want a deep belief that I too can be transformed.

I don’t want to do nothing.

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