Faith Autopsy

This may sound random, but these thoughts have been tumbling through my head for a long time...

I have been in love once.

I didn't even realize it at the time.

When you don't think you are allowed to be in love, you generally don't recognize it.

It didn't work out. And I have never told him. And probably will never have a chance. Which may be okay, because life is sometimes just like that.

I regret that i wasn't in a place to see it, appreciate it, say it.

I fear I may never fall in love again. But I entrust that to the lover of my soul. 

Next time, I will be ready.

I hope.

I pray.

I wait.

I am preaching again this weekend at Riverfront Family Church. The title of my message is "Tikkun Olam".  Tikkun olam (תיקון עולם‎) is a Hebrew phrase that means "repairing the world." In Judaism, the concept of tikkun olam originated in the early rabbinic period and is closely linked to both Messianic hope and the pursuit of shalom.  This week, as Jews across the globe prepare to enter into the "Season of Awe" (Rosh ha Shanah, Yom Kippur, etc), it is good o reflect on this basic human responsibility and privilege.

My passage is Micah 6:1-8 and I am focusing on a very simple idea: as God's people, we are called to be "repairers of the world" -- and this is indeed our proper worship in response to the character and heart of God.

I actually gave this message a few weeks ago at one of the summer services at RFC.  It was a low-attendance Sunday, but the response from people was powerful.  I have been asked to give the same message again this Sunday at their Adult Worship Service (this summer it was at the combined Family Service).

I think this concept is core to both Judaism and what it means to follow Jesus. I am excited to give the message and will post it here on the blog sometime next week.  I would appreciate your prayers and I finish my preparations the next few days.

Plus I would love to see you at RFC on Sunday --- 10:30 AM service at 960 Main Street (former G Fox Building) in Hartford.

Or at least, more rules for meetings!

Yesterday I posted some tips here from Jason Fried about meetings. Today, I want to continue with some practical meeting tips from Patrick Lencioni, author of Death by Meeting.

But first, a confession.

I am someone who actually loves meetings. I thrive on ideas and process. So for me, getting smart people around a table, breaking out the white board and flip charts -- this is about full engagement for me. The downside of this is that I tend to allow longer and less focused meetings than I should and for people who don't like meetings, this is bad.  So, when I was a lead pastor and responsible for scheduling and leading dozens of meetings a week, I had to become a real student of meetings, organizational decision making models, etc.

One of the most helpful books was Lencioni's.  He suggests that you need to have four different kinds of meetings -- and be clear upfront about what kind you are having.  The four types are:

1. DAILY CHECK-IN. Often a stand-up meeting, 10-15 minutes. Focus on team alignment and information transfer).

2. WEEKLY TACTICAL. Focus on specific, actionable and tactical issues that need to be decided upon now. Generally, anything that takes more than 10-15 minutes of discussion should get "tabled" and added to a "strategic meeting" agenda, or taken offline to be worked out by a sub-workgroup.

3. MONTHLY STRATEGIC. Best if these are 1-topic agenda meetings where people know what the issue is and come prepared to discuss and really dig-in around a particular strategic issue.

4. QUARTERLY OFF-SITE REVIEW. Getting to the 30,000 ft level. This is where you can identify some upcoming Strategic Topics to cover in the coming months.

This is not a perfect model, and has some severe challenges in a volunteer-driven organization like a church. But, I think once we started to use this framework, the quality of our meetings -- and decision-making -- improved exponentially.

I would love to hear from some other folks... WHAT MEETING STRATEGIES HAVE WORKED WELL FOR YOU?  WHAT HASN'T?

As a pastor, I used to spend an inordinate amount of time in meetings. I was lucky, because at my last church we had banned committees (we only had ministry teams) and most of our meetings were productive. (Generally, committees talk about things and teams do things... most churches would grow almost instantly, I believe, if they banned committees!)

Even so, we still had our share of unproductive or too long and unfocused meetings.  The truth is, most of what we accomplish at meetings can probably be better dealt with through email, phone calls or good project management software (like Basecamp, for example).

While meetings are unavoidable, bad and time-wasting meetings are avoidable. I have been reading the book Rework by Jason Fried and the team at 37Signals (creator of Basecamp, btw).  He has six simple rules for meetings that I think every organization could implement and would improve our meetings almost instantly:

1. Set a time. When it rings, meeting's over. Period.

2. Invite as few people as possible.

3. Always have a clear agenda.

4. Begin with a specific problem.

5. Meet at the site of the problem instead of a conference room. Point to real things and suggest real changes.

6. End with a solution and make someone responsible for implementation.

What do you think?

It is a common myth that Jesus never encountered the issue of homosexuality in the Gospels. In fact he did.  I have written before about Jesus' teaching about sexual minorities (including LGBTs) here. But the most direct confrontation with homosexuality comes in Matthew 8 (with a parallel passage in Luke 7 and probably John 4):

MATHEW 8:5-13 (ESV)

⁵ When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, ⁶"Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly." ⁷And he said to him, "I will come and heal him." ⁸But the centurion replied, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but^(I) only say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."¹⁰When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. ¹¹I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, ¹² while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." ¹³And to the centurion Jesus said, "Go; let it be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed at that very moment.

To understand the context of the passage, verse 6 is key (emphasis mine):

καὶ λέγων, Κύριε, ὁ παῖς (pais) μου βέβληται ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ παραλυτικός, δεινῶς βασανιζόμενος. 

In the most common English translations, we read this passage and have no idea the context of this encounter between the Roman centurion and Jesus. The key word is "pais", which is often translated as "servant" or "boy".  However, most scholars believe that the term pais in the ancient world was a well-known idiom referring to a male concubine (often younger) and an explicitly homosexual relationship.

Kenneth J. Dover, noted authority on ancient Greece, in his book, Greek Homosexuality, tells us the younger partner in a homosexual relationship is called pais or paidika. 

Dr. Robert Gagnon, arguably the foremost anti-gay scholar of our day, writes that pais can refer to a partner in a homosexual relationship. He writes:

“boy” (pais) could be used of any junior partner in a homosexual relationship, even one who was fullgrown.” Dr. Robert Gagnon (The Bible And Homosexual Practice, p. 163, footnote 6.)

In fact, the overwhelming historical evidence (and perhaps, the implication of Luke 7:2, which literally translates as "had much love for") is that the Centurion and his "pais" were likely involved in a homosexual relationship that was very common in the ancient world. It is worth noting that this kind of relationship is one that today, we would almost universally condemn since it was between and older man and a young pubescent boy. However, these relationships were very common.

So how does Jesus confront this issue?

Does he refuse to heal the pais until the Centurion repents and breaks off the relationship? Does he lecture or judge the man?

No.

He simply heals the pais and then publicly affirms the deep faith of this Roman Centurion.

Does this, then, count as a clear endorsement by Jesus of gay relationships?  No, of course not. That would be stretching the text to say something it doesn't. We must take the text as it is and then wrestle with it as it is presented.  All we know is that the relationship was most likely a male-male relationship, Jesus would have been aware of this based on the self-description of the Centurion, and Jesus grants his request fully -- and does so without any judgement or condemnation.

How we interpret the implication of this passage will certainly depend upon our pre-conceived biases.  Some will argue that "pais" cannot mean "male concubine" in this passage, simply because it causes problems for their pre-determined understanding of Jesus.  Others use this passage to argue for more than I think the passage allows.  We must be careful to simply let it (and Jesus) speak for themselves.

For me, the meaning of pais in historical context is pretty clear and obvious.  I also think that the juxtaposition of this passage in Matthew is powerful. In Matthew 7 we are warned against judgement, challenged to present our request to God directly (as the Centurion does),and then given the basic discipleship lessons of loving neighbor as self, a tree and its fruits, and the importance of trusting the Lordship of Jesus. Then, in chapter 8, we get the healing of the lepor (a picture of the radical and dangerous inclusivity of Jesus) and is healing of the pais and affirmation of the faith of the Centurion (Roman... aka not Jewish).  This is a powerful section in the Gospels!

One last note... as I said, I don't think that we can over-state this passage to suggest, for example, that this passage means Jesus endorses modern-day same-sex marriage. That is a more complicated issue in which this passage -- along with many others -- need to be considered before coming to a theological and Biblical conclusion.  Also, we should not erroneously assume that this is the only (or one of two if you include the eunuchs passage) dealing with homosexuals. In fact, in 99% of the cases in the Gospels (and throughout the scriptures) people's sexual orientation is simply not identified because it is irrelevant to the narrative.  There is no logical reason to believe that there weren't gays and lesbians amongst the masses who followed Jesus, amongst those who were fed by him (in the story of the 5,000), amongst those who had life-changing encounters with Jesus, or even amongst the disciples.  The text is simply silent on this issue... and generally, when the text is silent, we should be too.