Exposing Myself In Public

Posted by Jim Thornber on October 28, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

 “Ham . . . saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside”– Genesis 9:22

private-vs-publicA while back I once worked for a company where the employees were very particular about their personal parking spaces. There were no signs stating whose spot was whose, but everyone that worked there long enough knew which spots were reserved for which employees.

I, of course, discovered this unspoken truth the hard way one day when I parked in someone’s spot. I wasn’t at work two minutes before I was told to go move my vehicle. This person was not about to walk the extra fifty feet to get in the building, and actually parked in the driveway until I removed my vehicle from “their” spot.

As I was thinking about telling some of my fellow employees about this situation (how this other individual made themselves look petty and small and how I took the noble road and moved my car) Genesis 9:22 came to mind – a Scripture, naturally, I’d just read the day before. Isn’t God interesting that way?

As I read the whole story, I believe the error Ham made was not that he saw his father naked (that was purely by accident), but that he told his brothers about it (that was purely by choice). There are many things we’ll see in life that will expose people. Lies, pain, pride, loss, vanity, fear, etc. – all these expose the naked truth about people. It turns out Noah acquired a taste for too much wine. Who wouldn’t want a drink after witnessing the destruction of almost every person on the planet? Why does this fact need to be spread? Why does Noah’s exposure need to be shared? It certainly wasn’t for the benefit of Noah, who was safely asleep in the comfort, if not the privacy, of his own tent.

Why did Ham find it necessary to share with others the shame he witnessed? Why do we? How many “prayer requests” are nothing more than Christians in Ham’s clothing exposing the nakedness of their neighbor’s shame? Who was really being exposed in this scene – Noah or Ham? Continue Reading

A Community of Two

Posted by Jim Thornber on October 26, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

For four years I was an Assemblies of God minister and a monk with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity at the Little Portion Hermitage. This is an excerpt from   my book, Taking Off My Comfortable Clothes: Removing Religion to Find Relationship.

Barb and JimAfter I left the Little Portion, many people have asked me why I went there in the first place. Shortly after leaving, my typical answer was, “God wanted to make me a holy man in His sight.” This is true, but that is also God’s agenda in every person’s life.

After Barbara and I started dating and I began seriously thinking about marrying her, I started to see another reason for my time at the community—God wanted to work on certain areas of my life so they would not be a burden to my future wife. The Lord wanted to rid me of as much of my selfishness as possible, because if He was going to entrust me with His daughter, I needed to be in the right spiritual shape in order to treat her as God intended. My time at the Little Portion helped me do that, and it was a girlfriend from high school who showed me that I’d changed.

One time I returned to California on vacation and visited some college friends in San Jose. While I was there, I called my high school girlfriend because I was in the area and I’d never met her husband. We had remained friends since high school and I was looking forward to seeing her. Since this was the first time she saw me in my brown monastic habit, her opening line after a hug and a kiss was, “Well, you’re not hard to spot in a crowd!” As she got ready to leave, she told me she could see a change in me. “I no longer feel like an object in your eyes,” she said.

Okay guys, admit it. When you were  eighteen years old, you have trouble looking at girls in any other manner. Paul may have told Timothy to treat every woman as a sister, but that wasn’t our first choice!

Continue Reading

I am NOT a Ditto Head

Posted by Jim Thornber on October 13, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Leadership. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

 “And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” – Jeremiah 3:15

ditto headI did not grow up wanting to be a pastor. I sort of stumbled into it by default. I’ve been told from my early teen years that I was a good teacher and I’ve developed that skill over the years. But I didn’t want to be a pastor, just a teacher.

However, this was the problem I encountered with not wanting to be a pastor: in order to be a teacher in a church, too often I was forced to fit into the mold of the senior pastor. He wanted to recreate me in his image, make me be like him. He wanted me to think like him, have his sense of humor and his manner of speech. Too often they wanted a “mini-me.” And since I wasn’t always willing to be like him, my teaching opportunities were infrequent.

The Lord says in Jeremiah 3:15 that He will give people shepherds (pastors) after His own heart. If this is so, then why did most pastors I served with (read that, “under”) want to make me in the image of their heart at the expense of God’s heart? Why did I have to do an imitation of them in order to do what God called me to do? I finally determined that to do what I felt called by God to do I had to be a pastor, a shepherd and leader, after God’s own heart. I couldn’t do an imitation of a pastor still living in the 1970’s. I had to be who God called me to be.

I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson’s new memoir The Pastor. In this book he quotes Baron Friedrich von Hügel who said “there are no dittos in souls.” When I read that I wanted to jump up and shout, “That’s it! I don’t have to be like anyone else. I just need to follow the heart of God!”

Now, before you go off and just “be yourself,” claiming all you need to do is obey God, not man, quoting Acts 5:29 as your proof text, you should know that when you follow the heart of God you also follow the leadership structures He has set up. I have willfully submitted to the leadership structure of my denomination. However, in that submission I am also free to be the pastor God has called me to be. No one in my denomination has ever suggested I would be a better pastor if I were more like Bro. So-and-So.

I want to encourage you, my half-dozen readers, to be the shepherd/pastor/leader that God has established after His own heart. Stop trying to imitate your favorite pastor order to be “successful.” Or worse, stop being manipulated by other leaders to do their imitation of what it means to be a successful shepherd/pastor/leader. When God gifted you, He did so knowing what He was doing. He didn’t make a mistake. He didn’t make a ditto soul or a ditto pastor.

Now, when you feed on that “knowledge and understanding,” you’ll be ready to be the best at whatever God has created you to be. There may be some dittoheads on the radio, but there are none in the Kingdom of God.

Gnawing On God

Posted by Jim Thornber on October 9, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Scripture. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” —  Joshua 1:8

dogs-chew-bonesI like the word “meditation.” Although some Christians are truly scared to meditate – thinking it is something done by cultic Eastern religions while forgetting that Judaism and Christianity ARE Eastern religions! – Scripture is full of injunctions to meditate upon the Word and Law of God.

The word for “meditation” in this passage comes from the Hebrew haghah, meaning to murmur, to mutter, to sigh, to moan, to roar, to meditate, to muse, to speak, to whisper. The word also describes the low moaning sound of a dove (Isa. 38:14) or the “growl” of a lion (Isaiah 31:4). Eugene Peterson uses the analogy of a dog gnawing on a bone, getting everything it can out of it.

This got me wondering: what is my heart gnawing on? What causes me to moan and growl, to be so totally consumed with God that I’m unaware of any thing else? If people could listen to my thoughts, would they hear me murmuring and musing about God and His goodness? Would they hear me whispering to God the joy and wonder I sense in His ever-present love? Or, would people hear me doubting my place in His Church, struggling with my pride and my desires and wrestling to place my wants into the realms of His eternal agenda?  Depending on when a person tuned in, I know they’d hear a little bit of both.  Continue Reading

The Truth About Obedience

Posted by Jim Thornber on September 28, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

streetsignsI’ve been teaching from the book of Philippians at my church, and I’m intrigued by Phil. 2:8 which says that Jesus “humbled himself in obedience to God.” That sentence alone should give us all reason to pause.

The word obey is a word we like to throw around as parents when we are teaching our children, and we are right to do so. Children must learn quickly that life is dangerous and they must listen to our instructions.

Later as they turn into teenagers they think they know what is good for them, but they still need our guidance. They still need to obey the rules of the house – rules we know they will push and try and stretch and seek ways to maneuver around, because that’s what we did as teenagers.

However, obedience is a word we still tend to rebel against as we grow out of our teenage years and become adults. In fact, we tend to laugh at it. Do you want an example? How many of you always obey the speed limit and how many set your speed control to 69 or 70 MPH when the speed limit is 65? When you come to a stop sign do you come to a complete stop 100% of the time or do you tend to roll on through? Is anybody consistently just a tad late for work or coming back from lunch? How many of you take ALL the antibiotics prescribed by your doctor, and how many stop taking it when you feel better? We don’t allow our children to pick and choose what orders they will obey, but we practice just that every day we drive or go to work or see a doctor. Continue Reading

Jesus is Looking at ME!

Posted by Jim Thornber on September 26, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

 “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” — Luke 5:1-11

I’ve been thinking about this passage for some time now. Jesus has finished teaching and decides to bless Simon, the owner of the boat He’s been Eyeusing as a platform. Simon puts up a bit of an argument with the Lord but obeys in the end (Simon argues and finally obeys. This is not my point, but it does sound a bit like me!). The result is a tremendous catch of fish that almost swamps his boat – and this after a night in which Simon and his buddies caught nothing.

It is Peter’s response to this is tremendous catch of fish that I find disturbing. “Oh, Lord, please leave me – I’m too much of a sinner to be around you” (NLT). At first I thought Peter said this because he had never been around a miracle or the power of God before, but this is not true. In Luke 4 Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and prior to that, Jesus cast a demon out of a man, and Simon was more than likely a witness to that miracle, too. Simon was accustomed to seeing the power of God, but still I wondered, Why did Simon react so strangely when God’s power was focused upon him?

I believe the answer is in Peter’s response: “I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” When the power of God is pointed at our neighbor, or even our mother-in-law, we don’t have to react or deal with the results – we just observe. But when God’s power comes into our lives – and in Peter’s case, his business – then we must make a decision: Am I going to continue to allow this power to remain, or am I going to send it away, because if the power stays, then there is no more room for myself.

I wonder if Isaiah felt the same sensation upon seeing the Lord sitting on his throne, because his reply was similar to Peter’s, “It’s all over! I’m doomed, for I am a sinful man” (6:5 NLT). How does a mere mortal contain the miraculous power of God when it is focused upon his life? How quickly we go from feeling holy and just in God’s sight when He is looking at our neighbor, to searching for a hole in the ground to hide in because God is now focusing His attention upon us.

This attention of God upon my life used to bother me, until I read something in Song of Solomon. God the Lover is calling to His beloved to arise and go away with him. But she is hiding on the mountainside. So the Lover says, “Let me see your face; let me hear your voice. For your voice is pleasant, and your face is lovely” (2:14).

Yes, God enjoys looking at us and thinks that our voice is pleasant! Hey, who can know the ways of a man with a maiden (Prov. 30:19), much the less unending and unconditional love of our God for His creation? I don’t. All I know is that when He looks at me my first response, like Peter’s, is to ask Him to go away. But then He invites me to travel with Him, tells me my face is lovely and my voice is pleasant, and somehow, someway, I can finish the story by leaving everything behind to follow Him.

 

The Mind of Christ

Posted by Jim Thornber on September 21, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” – Phil. 2:5

Philippians 2.5-7How often have you tried to talk your kid into eating something that they were convinced they wouldn’t like, even though they have never tasted it? You humor them, cajole them, make a game of it and finally threaten violence or grounding to get them to try it. So they put a microscopic amount of this foreign food on the end of their fork, screw their eyes shut and with a motion slower than grass growing in January, they bring the fork to their mouth and just barely touch the end of their tongue, at which point they drop the fork, grasp their throat as if they’ve been poisoned and proceed to drink an entire glass of milk to wash the offending flavor from their mouth.

You have just witnessed the fact that it is easier to change someone’s behavior than it is to change their mind. You got them to taste it, but you couldn’t make them like it. Besides, since they already told you they wouldn’t like it, they weren’t about to lose face and admit they were wrong. Do any of you have kids who would rather go to bed hungry than admit you were right and the food you forced down their throat while pinning them to the floor with your knee was actually pretty good?

As Christians we are often like kids who avoid certain foods. We want to pick and choose what areas of Christianity we want to consume. We want a say over what we’ll obey, what we’ll do with what we know, how we will represent Christ and what areas of Christ’s mind and life we will make our own. And when Jesus tells us we must eat humility or obedience (Phil 2:8), we object in a way that resembles our children trying a new food: slowly, with apprehension, already convinced we won’t like it and God is trying to ruin our lives.

There is a tremendous difference between knowing the mind of Christ and wanting the mind of Christ. We often hear people ask, “What would Jesus do?” That is a great question. Let’s think about it. Well, in this situation or in that instance, I remember Jesus forgiving or stooping to serve those who opposed Him or didn’t understand Him. That is what Jesus would do.

So we think about that for a while, come to the conclusion that is it hard to do and then, hoping for a different answer we ask, “Okay, what else might He do?” Continue Reading

What Is That Ringing In My Ears?

Posted by Jim Thornber on September 14, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Scripture. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. Hebrews 11:8

bell-slide-1Abraham’s patient obedience is starting to irk me. He did not own any land, nor had he personally received any as an inheritance, and so Abraham lived as a tent dwelling nomad, moving from place to place. He waited twenty-five years to see the son God promised him, and never really possessed the land God said his children would inherit.

I keep wondering how Abraham could remain so patient in his obedience. We live in a society that grows impatient if it takes too long for the coffee to brew in the morning, much less wait four hundred years for escrow to close on our new property! Still, Abraham went to Canaan possessing nothing but faith.

  • He didn’t know where he was going
  • He didn’t have a house when he arrived
  • He didn’t own any land to build upon
  • He didn’t know anybody who lived there

He had no job, no prospects, no forwarding address, no inheritance from his family, and of course no children to give the inheritance to even if he had one. With all that going for him, Abraham “when called . . . obeyed and went” (vs. 8), because his faith was certain of what he did not see (Heb. 11:1) and apparently he didn’t even give it much thought. The phrase “when called” translated an action indicating a quick response. In other words, while the call of God was still ringing in his ears, Abraham was packing his bags and moving west.

When was the last time I obeyed the word of God while the sound of His instructions was still ringing in my ears? Too often, I’ve been guilty of telling God what I think He really meant to say, hoping that He would understand my viewpoint and change His instructions to meet my faith where I am comfortable. However, by the time I get through arguing a point with God, I sometimes forget what the original instructions were, and then of course I must start all over again.

I know I’m not the only one guilty of this. I’ve met other Christians who are guilty of giving obedient lip service to God, but when it comes to doing what they say they will do, they fall short of the mark. Jesus knew this to be the case for many of us and so He told a parable of two sons (Matt. 21:28-32), with one saying to his father, “I will, sir,” but in the end did not obey. The true children of Abraham, also known as disciples of Christ, obey in word and deed. In this spirit, Abraham believed God and quickly obeyed. Hebrews 5:9 reminds us that Jesus is the “source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” It is one thing to believe God’s directives, and quite another to obey them.

But there have been times when I have jumped up and obeyed at the quickest possible moment, and the joy from that obedience is enough to make me say, “Ask me to do something else Lord, this is great!” There is a joy in faithful obedience to God that one can find nowhere else.

Does this mean that every time I quickly obey I will like the results? No, but my limited understanding of “good results” isn’t really the point, is it? God calls me to obey and leave the results up to Him. By releasing the controls, God is able to work in a way that is beyond my understanding, setting me free from the burden of having to steer my own life. I believe that God’s vantage point gives Him a better view of my horizon, so I trust Him to steer me in the direction that I need to go.

So, what is that ringing in my ears?

 

I Will Never Stop Teaching

Posted by Jim Thornber on August 24, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Leadership, Religion, Scripture. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

“Then Jesus went from village to village, teaching the people” – Mark 6:7

PulpitI was in the produce section of Wal-Mart the other day when I saw Pastor Charles from another church in town. As is our custom when we run into one another, we stood there talking about God, church, Scriptures and life. We can’t seem to find the time to have a lunch together, but we have the time to share and encourage one another for half an hour while we lean up against the banana display. Weird.

While we were talking about teaching the Scriptures, Pastor Charles reminded me of the scene in Mark where Jesus couldn’t do many miracles in Nazareth, His home town, because the people there lacked faith. Mark 6:6 says, “And he was amazed at their unbelief.”

I know how Jesus felt. And so does Pastor Charles. We spend so much of our time as pastors soothing the saints and reassuring the redeemed we are the first to be amazed when people still doubt God and His Word and make the life of the church fifteenth on their list of important places to get involved in. We listen to people claim to love God’s Word but fail to show up consistently to Bible studies when they are offered. We hear people claim that their life is not their own because Jesus is their Lord, and then they complain when life isn’t going their way all the time. It is about this time in the life of a pastor when we wonder if we are doing anybody any good. Continue Reading

Our Common Jesus

Posted by Jim Thornber on July 27, 2014
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Church, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

For four years I was an Assemblies of God minister AND a monk with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. This is an excerpt from my book  Taking Off My Comfortable Clothes: Removing Religion to Find Relationship , which  recounts some of the the lessons I learned as a minister/monk.

During my four years at the Little Portion monastery in Eureka Springs, AR, I was usually the only non-Catholic at the community.  Because of this, I was often the “go to” person when non-Catholic guests arrived. Since the community is located about ten miles from Eureka Springs, AR (a vibrant tourist destination that is the home of the Great Passion Play), and 60 miles southwest of Branson, MO, we would often have visitors who were either fans of John Michael, or curious about our community, or both. If these visitors happened to be non-Catholics, then the call usually went out, “Find Brother Jim.” Besides John Michael, I was the only one at the community who was bi-lingual; I spoke both Protestant and Catholic.

One day, two couples showed up at the community, one Baptist and the other Mennonite. I was in the library when one of the sisters came in and said, “Brother Jim, some Baptist people are here.” By this time, I had been at the community long enough to know what questions they might ask, and they did not disappoint me.

The two couples were sitting in the dinning commons when I walked in and introduced myself. After a few niceties, one of the men cut to the chase and said, “Aren’t Catholics mostly work-oriented? I mean, don’t they believe that they are saved through works?”

I said, “Have you ever asked a Catholic what they did to ‘get saved’?”

“No,” he said.

“Well, let’s ask one. We’ll ask the first person who comes into the room. How does that sound?”

They thought that was a good idea.

About one minute later, Sister Betsy walked into the dinning commons. Sister Betsy is from Cut Off, Louisiana, which is WAY down in the bayou. (This is not pertinent to the story, but she is the only person I know from there, so I wanted to include it.) I called her over and said,

“Sister Betsy, what did you do to get saved?”

Continue Reading