The Encouragers

The encouragers in our congregations probably don't get enough credit. Okay, I know they don't get enough credit. This week, we're talking about Barnabas and how he just sort of disappears from the story, but make no mistake - he's made his mark. We just have to keep looking for it. 

If you've ever been encouraged by someone in your life, I don't have to tell you what an important role this is. The encouragers are the ones who show up out of the blue to remind us that we're not alone. They're the ones paying attention to the prayer list for more than just the gossip of it. They are the reason that cards show up in the mail and meals show up on the table and flowers show up just because. At the very moment when we are tempted to question whether we're really connected or not, the encouragers are the ones who remind us that we are. 

And they're so quiet about it. That's what's so cool. Encouragement is such an intimate gift. It's such a personalized endeavor. They have this way of making us feel special and uniquely loved, like they are just our own personal friend (and often, they are; encouragers can't fake this - they genuinely love us). But they always make us feel like it's this special thing that we have with them. 

When an encourager dies (sorry to be morbid, but this is important), it's usually the first time that we realize their encouragement was less about us and more about them. That's right. We spend our whole lives with them feeling like we are loved, feeling like we are special, feeling like we are the object of their affection - and we are. But when they die, we start to hear the stories of how we weren't the only ones. We hear stories of the other cards and meals and flowers and moments that they've shared. It's like all of a sudden, we start to compare notes with one another and we discover that we were so busy feeling loved, we missed out on something essential about the nature of our friend. 

Mainly, that he or she couldn't help it. That's who God wired that person to be. 

And all of a sudden, what we've treasured so much becomes even greater than we could have imagined. It's something so beautiful, something so gracious....

We know that encouragers always inspire us to become more like them. We know this when we receive that card in the mail and think that we wish we were the kind of person who sent more cards. We get that little note that says, "I'm praying for you," and we're reminded to pray for others. A simple little gift shows up that reminds us of our connectedness, and we're drawn to reach out to someone we've lost touch with, someone who needs reminded of their own connectedness. When we share those stories and discover that encouragement from an encourager literally ran through that person's veins, I don't know that there's not one of us who doesn't say, "I want to be more like that." Encouragers just inspire us. They make us better versions of ourselves. 

And they make us better versions of our communities. They remind us to reach out to one another. They remind us of the bigger thing that we're all part of. They remind us what it means to be in real relationship with one another, not just when it's easy but when it requires something of us. The constant sacrifice of self that an encourager offers calls us all to be more self-sacrificing. It calls us all to be more other-minded. There's just...something about it. 

No wonder we see the mark of Barnabas all over Paul. No wonder encouragement becomes such a theme in Paul's letters. No wonder the churches depend upon the reminders to love one another. No wonder I just can't stop thinking about Barnabas even after he disappears off the pages of Scripture. Because the impact of an encourager doesn't stop at the edges; it blows right past them and into the hearts of our communities. 

The encouragers among us don't get enough credit. Not near enough. They are the glue that reminds us that this life of faith we're all trying to do is not a solo journey; we're in this together. Because they're right here with us. Not because of who we are, although our sacred nature as beings created in the image of God is part of it, but because of this beautiful gift that God has given them to do just this. To encourage. 

It truly is a holy work. 

Barnabas

One of the guys that I don't think gets enough credit in the Bible is Barnabas. And maybe it's just because when Barnabas and Paul separate, Luke (the author of Acts) goes with Paul and well, just sort of loses track of Barnabas, who goes on to Cyprus with John Mark. 

When we are first introduced to Barnabas, we're told...that's not his name. His name was actually Joseph, and he had been born on the island of Cyprus. They called him Barnabas because it meant "the Encourager." That's a pretty strong statement right there, when the apostles themselves know who you are and stop calling you by your name and start calling you by your character. That's powerful. This guy was so good at encouraging others that they just called him "the Encourager."

And for several years, Barnabas travels with Paul. Together, they go about the region helping young churches and teaching young believers and setting out a good path before them in a whole host of places. They are joined here and there by this guy or that one, but for awhile, the narrative is "Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Barnabas." He is integral to the early years of Paul's ministry; he is essential to the foundation of these churches. 

Paul gets a lot of credit. He's one of those power guys. He's one of those strong voices. We follow Paul, and we see all kinds of bold preaching and incredible teaching and a guy who isn't afraid to stand up in a crowd and speak the truth as he knows it in the hopes that someone might hear him. Paul is pretty good at setting up structure and about highlighting the guidelines for how you decide who to listen to or what message is worthy to preach. Paul's got a lot of his own talents. 

But I can't help but think that there's still a dramatic difference between Paul and Barnabas, personality-wise. And I think sometimes, when we read about Paul asking the churches to encourage specific believers in his letters, that's Barnabas's influence coming out. I think Paul, who spent his whole life as a Pharisee who lived and died by the rules and loved the authority of learnedness, was probably softened by Barnabas, the Encourager. Barnabas probably taught Paul the kind of compassion and human touch that God needed him to have...just by being Barnabas. 

The whole falling out is pretty predictable, actually. It's a conflict of these two very personalities. Barnabas wants John Mark to go with them, seeing a measure of potential in the guy. Paul doesn't want John Mark to go with them because he's already failed at least once, and Paul doesn't have time for that. Barnabas wants to encourage the young missionary; Paul's already done with him. Barnabas refuses to give up on him; Paul gives up on them both. And well, I just think that this moment - this moment when Barnabas chooses someone that he can encourage over someone that he can work with - changes something in Paul. I think that's what we see in some of Paul's letters - Barnabas's influence. 

So they fall out, Barnabas chooses a young man who needs some encouragement (no surprise), and he takes the young man and heads home, back to the island of Cyprus. And we never hear from him again. After years as an essential cog in Paul's flowering ministry, Barnabas just...drops completely out of the story. After years of being part of the foundation of Christian communities, he's just gone. We don't know what happened to him. We don't know if he traveled around on his own some, if he visited those churches, if he wrote them letters. We don't know if they asked about him, if they were constantly asking Paul about his former sidekick. We don't know what kind of mark or legacy he left...anywhere. Except that we know that it was a legacy of encouragement. 

Otherwise, we'd be talking about Joseph right now. 

It's just one of those strange things that stands out when we read the Bible. This guy was part of everything, and then he was just...gone. He was in the thick of it all, and he walked away. But he walked away in order to stay true to the very core of who he was, who God had made him, the gifting that everyone so thoroughly recognized in him that they changed his name for it. And we turn the page and we keep reading and it quickly slips our minds, but...I think it matters. 

I'm going to have more to say about Barnabas this week. For a few days, probably, at least. But I wanted to introduce the idea and just let you start thinking about him. If you're looking for his story, pick it up in Acts. 

Life in Pieces

God has always been faithful to give His people a vision, even today. He is good about setting before us something that we can see Him making of our lives, helping us to discover the path that He's laying out before us. 

The challenge is that, given our limited human understanding, things aren't always what they seem. Sometimes, God brings us in one door just to get us accustomed to a grander idea that He's working toward and then, once we think we start to understand what He's doing, He starts to tweak it. 

This requires a couple of things from us, things that aren't necessarily easy. The first is that we have to be willing to hold onto this life God's given us with open hands. We can't let ourselves get too attached to the first thing God is doing because it might not be the big thing He's doing. We can't let ourselves ever think "This is exactly it, this is perfectly and wholly what God wants from me" because we know that God is constantly growing and changing His people. He is constantly calling us to other places. 

Just look at Paul. You could say that Paul did the same thing for much of his adult life, at least for much of his ministry. He traveled from place and place and preached and taught and challenged the believers who lived in those places. He helped to build churches and establish the ways of the faith in a very vast and diverse region. And yet, we cannot pretend that Paul did exactly the same thing in Corinth that he did in Ephesus that he did in Rome. Each was its own place with its own challenges and its own needs. In one place, Paul was meeting believers down by the rivers and in another, he was standing in the public square. In yet another, he was charming the guards of the prisons. If Paul had latched on to the exact style and shape of his ministry in, say, Damascus, right after receiving his sight, he would never have had the impact that God wanted him to have in these other places. Because what worked in Damascus would not have worked in Thessalonica.

So the first thing we have to learn is to not hold too tightly to one way of doing things or one idea that God has because whatever we do, even if it looks like the same thing, is going to grow and change as God challenge us to grow and change. That's the way that God works. 

The second thing we have to figure out is how to not move too quickly. This one's a lot harder, especially for me. You see, I think I understand what God is wanting to do with my life, at least in a general sense. But then, He starts tweaking it. He starts introducing the little ways that He's going to change it, usually one little way at a time. 

And it's tempting for me to want to jump and say, "Ah, yes, Lord! I get it!" and then run out and try to find a way to make the new thing work. I want to put that new piece into action right away, find a place to start loving others out of this new thing God is calling me to. 

The problem with this is that even when I move in faith on the new little piece God has given me, I may still end up in the wrong place. Because this one thing may not be the whole thing. And often, it isn't. I go out and excitedly jump into a new venture that requires this new thing, and then I realize that what I've been able to come up with - the limited imagination that I have - has usually overfocused on the new thing and missed something of the old that I wasn't supposed to let go of yet. Or it has failed to consider the things that I still don't know and tried to just fill in the blanks with my own excitement. 

That's really the problem - trying to fill in the blanks with my own enthusiasm at the very same moment that I'm trying to catch hold of God's enthusiasm for something. I get so excited when I see the way that He is changing and shaping my calling, creating a new vision for my life right before my very eyes, and I'm just excited to move. I'm just excited to go. I'm just excited to get started. But so often, I don't know what getting started looks like...or even what I'm starting. I only have one extra piece; I'm not really ready to move yet, except that I can't seem to stay still. 

But I'm trying to learn. Because what I've learned without wanting to learn it is that it can be devastating and discouraging to move too quickly without enough information. It is heartbreaking to feel like you finally know, and then to realize there's something you're still missing. It is hard to keep putting yourself in places you want to be sure of and finding out that something is still not quite right. It makes it feel like God is the moving target when, in fact, it's just me that's moving too fast. 

And I'm not saying that we shouldn't move on the things that God wants us to move on. That's not it at all. I don't want to make us afraid to move. But we have to know where we're moving and why. We have to make our first instinct not motion, but devotion. We have to make our first reaction not unbridled enthusiasm, but humble thankfulness. Our first response has to be to pray, to thank God for giving us this new piece of vision and to ask Him to keep clarifying it for us. 

Because...it doesn't have to be today. It doesn't have to be right now. We don't have to take whatever little thing God gives us and make it happen right now. Rather, we have to understand that it is something that God is making happen right now and whenever we finally see it, it will be in His perfect timing. We have to be content to wait. Because that one little piece God might be giving you right now is absolutely important, but it may not be enough to move on. It may not be the whole thing. And if we jump too fast, we'll still find ourselves far from where we want to be when, ironically, where we want to be is right here, right now - in His hands. 

So let God give you a vision. Let Him grow and change it before your very eyes. Let Him give you a new piece here and there, and keep praying for understanding and opportunity. But let God be the one to tell you when to move because He's the one putting this thing together and all the passion and excitement and enthusiasm in all the world will never fill in the blanks as beautifully as He's going to if we just keep, prayerfully, waiting to see it. And when it's time, you'll know. It will be so perfect, you won't be able to miss it. 

A Fragile Thanksgiving

It's hard to know what to say on a day like this one. One of the things that I have always desired for this space is that it would be real, whatever that looks like. We cannot tolerate the cheap sort of faith that always tries to whitewash over our very real human experience. While we know that God's truth is real and vital and lifegiving, we are still beings living a journey of death (for the time being), and a real faith has to find the balance in that. It just has to. 

And it seems so easy to rattle off things in our lives that we know we're supposed to be thankful for. All of the beautiful, lovely, shiny things in our lives that on any other day, any other day, we love so dearly. But this day...this day is hard. 

We want to say that it's hard because it's not going to be filled with all of the things that we normally fill it with. This day is not going to look like any other Thanksgiving that we've ever had. We want to say that it's hard because we're somehow mourning it, and of course we are. But what really makes this day so hard, I think, is not so much that it's going to be different. 

It's that this day, this day that has been so rock-solid in our personal histories, this day that has been so consistent in our experience...it feels so fragile this year. 

It feels like this day is hanging on a fraying thread, as we're torn between what our hearts desire. We desire the intimacy and connection and fellowship that we've been longing for for so long, and yet, it is tempered by our equally strong desire to love one another well, and this year, that means protecting one another. We want to be with our loved ones, but we want to have them for more than this day. Today may feel...totally fine, and yet, we know that if we get today wrong, it can all change in a matter of a few days. 

Today, there will be empty seats at tables where there was never a chance to say goodbye. Today, there will be families eating turkey together, but from different birds. Today, there will be some who will say they are not scared, but they will still hold their breath for the next two weeks, hoping they weren't wrong. There will be little children knocking on doors and waving at grandparents through windows, and there will be young couples making their own meal for the first time this year. There will be Zoom calls and Skypes, all that hang on an digital infrastructure that has never been tested with a connectivity like it's going to see today. Some of our Thanksgiving fellowships, like it or not, are going to be buffering. 

To be honest with you, it feels like probably all of them are. 

Thankfulness - authentic, soul-deep thankfulness - just feels so hard this year. 

And yet...and yet, we are so good at feeling true thankfulness for the fragile. We are. It's a cool breeze on a warm day, a wisp of wind that is here in a moment and then gone. We're thankful for this, even though it is so fleeting, in a way that we would never be thankful for a sustained wind. It's a single flower in a field of weeds. Our eyes go straight to it, and we cannot help but notice its beauty, even as we realize that it is being choked out by everything around it. It's the sound of the church bells in the stillness of a Sunday. So fragile, and yet, so beautiful. It has always been the fragile things in our lives that seem to drive the deepest into our hearts. It has always been the fragile things that somehow make us most thankful for them. 

Which is why I think this is a Thanksgiving that we will find a way to be thankful for. Once we settle into the strangeness of it all, once we embrace the fragility of it, once we let ourselves take hold of what seems so untouchable, I think we're going to find that the delicate nature of this Thanksgiving is going to give us a whole new view on things. I think this year, unlike any other, we're going to discover true thankfulness. I think that miles, cities, states apart, we're going to figure out how to love one another like we haven't in a long time. I think this Thanksgiving is going to bring us to tender tears as we realize the depth of our connectedness, even in a moment when we don't seem to have it. We'll find it anyway. And it will teach us something. 

Because yes, this year feels so fragile. I get it. Trust me, I get it. 

And yet, we are so good at feeling true thankfulness for the fragile.

Persons of Poor Character

Have you ever noticed that every time the Jews needed a person of poor character in the Bible, they always knew exactly where to find one? 

So many of the stories we read of the saints being condemned feature somewhere a person of poor character, some guy that the Jews found and had him make up stories about the righteous man so that he could be convicted of whatever crime (the crime was usually nothing more than contradicting one of the religious elite). The Jews can always find some guy willing to lie about someone else, can always get a guy to say whatever they need him to say, even though he knows it isn't true. 

And these are not buffoons they are finding. These are not simple men. The men who come forward with made-up stories to condemn the righteous are men who seem well-versed in Scripture. They always have a very specific ritual allegation against someone, always know what to say to demonstrate that the guy has broken the teachings of the Temple. These are smart men of poor character, educated men of poor character. These are guys who know what they're talking about, even when they're making it up as they go along. 

It makes you wonder how much fellowship the Jews maintained with these persons. It seems like maybe a silly question, but it's very important. Were these men who were part of the assembly? Were they men who were once part of the assembly but had been cast out? Were they men who were insecure and desperate to be part of the assembly, so would do whatever they were asked to do? Where did their learnedness come from? Were the Pharisees teaching them, but also excluding them at the same time? Was there any legitimate hope that they would eventually learn so much that they would become men not of poor character, or was it important for the Pharisees to maintain a pool of poor characters in order to advance their agenda as necessary?

There's just such a slim possibility that these men of poor character were men from outside of the assembly of the Jews that we have to ask whether their fellowship was meaningful or whether it was just for show. 

There are persons in our own assemblies that we have to ask the same about. 

There are persons who are just taxing for us to be around, whether it's because they are always in need of something or because they are always pushing the envelope or whether because they are always asking questions. Every church has them, and every church embraces or tolerates them to some degree. The question we have to ask ourselves is what it is that we expect out of their presence, what honest expectations we have for them in our assembly. 

These are not usually dumb persons; they pay attention, and they pick up on the lessons that we teach. They know the Bible, even if they aren't living it. They understand wisdom, even if they aren't practicing it. To hear them speak, you'd think the church was an integral part of their lives, but to watch them live, you wonder how seriously they're really taking it. They talk a good game, but there's a disconnect between what they know and how they live. (And this is all of us, really.) 

The question we have to ask ourselves about these persons isn't an easy one, but it's important. What are our honest expectations for them? Do we believe they are going to change the way they live and act? Do we think God can change their hearts? Do we expect revolution and redemption and re-creation in their lives? Or are we keeping them around because we are using them to say something about who we are? Are we using them to cement our own authority or generosity or goodwill? When we need someone to hold up to affirm what kind of church that we are, is that when we turn to these persons that we tolerate or even embrace, but haven't really changed? Haven't really impacted? 

Do we keep the poor among us to show our generosity? Do we keep the learning among us to show our wisdom? Do we keep the needy among us to show our provision? Do we put up with poor characters in our fellowship because some day, we might need them to help us prove a point? Do we keep them around for no other reason than that we plan on using them for our own ends? 

The truth in far too many fellowships is...yes. We have persons among us who never grow, who never change, who never mature, who never develop, who never move past the moment where we first found them, no matter how much we teach them, help them, love them, encourage them. We have persons among us for whom we have no real hope that they will ever change, persons we don't even push any more. Persons we don't even encourage any more. Persons we have so little expectations of that they're easy even to forget, until we need to use them for something, usually to show who we are.

It's strange, I think, to read the Scriptures and to see how easy it is for the Jews to find learned men of poor character any time they need them. And yet, I cannot help but wonder about those in our own fellowships.