The Day my Mother Died

Death brings perspective. It forces us to reflect on our relationships and priorities. With the news of my mother's death came thoughts of both sadness and gratitude. Sadness over a life that was ruined with alcohol, gratitude that by the grace of God I had escaped a similar fate.

It was a fun day on vacation. We had just finished touring Cade's Cove, a beautiful valley and meadow in the Great Smokey Mountains. The cabins and buildings and structures date back to the 1800's, set amidst beautiful scenery and the occasional wandering bear or deer. After driving about three miles out of the valley cell phone service returned and I heard my voice mail tone. I pressed the button to listen and heard the voice of my younger brother, "Bart, it's Jim. Mom died last night." Boom. Just like that. I didn't even know she was sick!

More surprising to me than the news was the lack of emotion that came with it. I felt nothing,  no sense of loss, no grief. I think it was because my mother had not been a part of my life for so long. She was an alcoholic who had abandoned relationships years earlier. I had not spoken to her in 6 months and only one or two times in the 5 years prior. It was as if I had just been informed of the death of a stranger.

As I hung up the phone I thought back to my last conversation with her. During the call I had explained to her my reasons for not calling more often. While an explanation should not have been necessary (she had abused me as a child and abandoned me as an adult and it was a wonder I called at all), it was for my mom, so I told her,  "It's like we live in parallel universes. When we talk you make comments about the way you raised us kids, as if you had been a good mother. You say you are proud of me and speak as if you deserve some credit for how I turned out. You do not realize that every day of my life is a struggle to overcome the damage that you did to me. I do not need you to apologize or make it up to me, but if you are going to have a relationship with me, you need to understand me, and to understand me you will need to understand the pain that you caused."

"I don't want to do that," was her reply, "that will hurt." This was my mom. If it was difficult or painful, she wouldn't (or couldn't) bring herself to do it. She consistently looked for an easy way out.

I thanked her for at least being honest and we said good-bye, and that was that. We never spoke again, which is why her death simply finalized a fact that had been true for years, the woman who had given birth to me would never be a part of life.

In spite of this sad truth I have not been left motherless. There is a woman who has loved me as a son, loved me for who I was and am, a woman who understands my struggles and pains and who loves me just the same, and who, ironically, was with me that day when I received the call, my mother-in-law. She has modeled what it means to be a loving mother and grandmother

The failures of my mother make me profoundly aware of the importance of a mother's love and appreciative of the mother my wife is. For 24 years I have watched with wonder and amazement as she has loved our children. Her delight in our children, her warm smiles and wonderful laughs at their stories and exploits,  has helped our children grow up knowing they are truly valued and truly loved.

Sadly, stories of broken parental relationships such as mine are not rare. Over the years I have observed many broken families and seen many estranged parents and children. Every time I see such a family I think of how much my mother missed, and how grateful I am for the relationship I have with the children with whom I have been blessed. 

If you have been blessed with a loving mother, make sure to say "Thank you." Mothers, give your children a hug when you can, tell them you love them a little too often and remember to thank God for the blessing of family, for their is no greater blessing in this lifetime.

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A reminder to remember God's Priorities

My favorite tenet of religion is that God gets to do whatever He wants. It's part of His job description. He makes the rules. He never has and never will conform to what we think He should do. He works to fulfill His plan and His agenda, not ours. It is good to keep this in mind as we read scripture. I have seen many well-intentioned pastors totally mangle a verse or passage by approaching it with misinformed preconceptions.

A well-known and widely read pastor of a large New York church once preached a sermon on Proverbs 29:7- “The righteous are concerned with doing justice to the poor, the wicked have no such concern.” He preached a passionate message exhorting his flock to go out and help the destitute and the homeless, charging them that this was their mission.

He communicated a great sentiment, but he did not communicate the meaning of the verse. There are multiple words for “poor” in Hebrew, including one for the destitute and another for the working poor, those who constitute the lower middle class. Proverbs 29:7 uses the working class word for poor. Oops! The passage speaks more to how employers treat employees than it does to how we treat the homeless!

Several years ago I listened as a pastor of a large church in southern California mangled the parable of the Good Samaritan. He so desperately wanted to encourage his listeners to love the unlovable that he made the Samaritan the victim in the story instead of the hero! Oops again!

I have seen these types of mistakes a lot lately when it comes to the issue of social justice. Because the American Church is wealthy it is popular to emphasize our need to share the wealth with those who are less fortunate in the world. This is a noble effort, but it is not God's top priority. God's top priority is eternal, not temporal. The Great Commission is not to go into all the world and share the wealth. It is to go into all of the world and make disciples. To train others to follow the teachings of Jesus

Just a reminder! Social projects and material gifts are easy when compared to the serious time investment required by discipleship. As human beings we have a tendency to try to reset God's priorities to match our own. God's priorities always require much more of our time and energy.

When You Look Up, People Let You Down

It always hurts when people let us down, but there is a special sorrow that comes when we discover that someone we have looked up to and emulated is not the person we thought they were. A friend of mine recently shared a particularly sad story. He met his wife at a small church in Huntington Beach. Friendship became romance and they were soon serious. Desiring to lay a good foundation for marriage they sought out a mentoring relationship with a  respected couple in the church. They met together regularly with the mentor couple, learning all they could.
The friend had tremendous respect for his mentor, so much that he asked him to perform the wedding ceremony. The man agreed and conducted the service. A few weeks after the wedding came the devastating news- The mentor had abandoned his wife and moved in with a girlfriend! He had been carrying on an affair for months, during the entire time he had been doing marriage counseling for my friend! He was devastated. What stunned him the most was the hypocrisy. It was one thing to be unfaithful. It is another thing to be unfaithful while at the same time counseling others on how to have a good marriage!

I wish stories like this were rare, but they aren't. Leaders, especially spiritual leaders, often let us down. So how do we protect ourselves from hypocrites in positions of authority?
In many ways we can't. On this side of heaven everyone we meet is a broken person with the potential of doing terrible things, each a reminder that there is only one perfect person, and that He is the only one worthy of our devotion and praise.
 

The One Truth you Can NOT ignore on Easter

Jesus died. It is an historical fact. He was betrayed by a friend, rejected by his countrymen, and brutalized and murdered by the Romans who ruled over the land. His limp and battered body was taken down from the cross on which he had breathed his last, wrapped in burial cloth and placed inside a cave-like tomb, his story to be added to the list of those who failed in their opposition to power. He was dead.

Death can change the course of history. We can only wonder how different the world might have been if Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy and Martin Luther King had lived longer. World War I erupted after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The Greek Empire split soon after the passing of Alexander the Great. The death of leaders has a profound impact on those who follow.

From the Gospel accounts, the death of Jesus Christ was devastating to his followers. His closest friends fled the scene when he was arrested, leaving him to face his execution alone. While a few of them showed up to watch his final hours on the cross, most of them are not mentioned in the story. A few days later the friends were together but seemingly in hiding.

Reading through Scripture we can guess at their thoughts. From the recorded conversations we see that they had a typical Jewish understanding of Messiah. They expected Jesus to lead a military revolt against Rome and restore Israel to prominence in the world. While Jesus is described as making multiple references to his coming death it seems that his words were lost on his disciples. They clearly did not get it. The death of Jesus shattered all of their dreams and illusions.

And then Sunday came. The tomb was empty. Some of Jesus' female followers came back to the group with a preposterous tale of an empty tomb and Jesus alive. Two of the male leaders, Peter and John, ran to the tomb to see for themselves the massive stone moved and the revealed tomb empty. Later that night, Jesus appeared to them all. He was not dead. He was alive.

History changed in dramatic fashion. Within just a few years the message of this resurrection had spread throughout the Roman empire. Churches sprouted up in cities that were dominated by the worship of Roman and Greek gods, churches that continued to exist in spite of severe prosecution. 2000 years later the message continues to spread into areas where it is unwelcome, into cultures in which the prevailing ideology is opposed to it.

While deaths can change the course of history, nothing has change history as much as resurrection. Jesus the Christ through His resurrection declared to the world that He is not just another man. His resurrection allows no room for those who desire to simply add Him to history's list of great moral teachers and prophets, does not allow him to be classified as just another great man and leader. The resurrection declares that He is far more. The apostle Paul states it clearly in his letter to the fledgling church at Rome, saying that Jesus was “declared the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead.”

Indeed He was.

Happy Easter.

Be Careful Who You Trust, 4 rules to Avoid Being Hurt

It is the people we trust the most that can do us the greatest harm. So often the warning signs are there but we just don't see them. I learned the lesson the hard way.

I thought I knew him, but I was wrong. We had spent hours together and had deep conversations about faith, family, personal failures and life in general. I supported him, encouraged him and defended him against criticism. I held him out to the world as a quality man, someone to be listened to and respected. He seemed to be a man of insight, a man whose life was filled with remarkable experiences and amazing stories.
Sadly, the stories he shared did not actually tell the true story of his life. Over time I learned that the stories he chose to tell and the secrets he chose to reveal were not the open and honest disclosures of a great man but instead were part of a false persona, stories designed to lead others to falsely assume goodness and stability that did not actually exist.
As so often is the case it was adversity that revealed his true character.  Some bad decisions left him indebted to others, and instead of doing what he could to make amends he just walked away.
While his actions revealed the fraudulent nature of his personal claims, they did not stop him from continuing to make them. In post after post in social media he continues to make assertions of faith and statements of deep family commitments, implying he is a humble man working on the problems in his life. The false persona is continually on display.
In thinking about his story I am reminded that it is more normative than exceptional. We live in a world where people exhaust great amounts of energy creating false, praiseworthy images of themselves, where words and actions coexist in contradiction. We strive to put on a good face for the world, often showing who we hope to be instead of who we are.
Problems such as these are not new. 2000 years ago Jesus attacked this character flaw when he observed it in the religious leaders of His day. He called them "whitewashed tombs", beautiful on the outside but empty and dead on the inside. Like my friend, these religious leaders seemed to get away with it. They built a following of people who believed their lies, people who would defend them against criticism. They mastered spiritual language and used it to support their actions and to quiet any who dared to disagree.
So what do we do with such deception? while it is hard to stop it and difficult to correct, we can limit the negative impact on personal lives.

Here are a few rules I am setting for myself.
1- Avoid superficial praise. People love to look good on blogs and on Facebook. If they are truly worthy of praise they can get it in real life from people who know more of the story.
2- Look to actions over words. Not just momentary acts of goodness, but a track record of consistent goodness over time.
3- Look for lasting relationships. People of Good character do not leave a trail of broken relationships behind them.
4- Watch out for excuses. Quality people own mistakes, work to correct them and seldom play the role of victim.