Think on these things...

I've been wrestling with my job as a stay at home mom lately. Today, I think I had some sort of breakthrough. It's all about how I perceive the job. I've been in the work world for a long time. That's been the marker of my success. In the past, I've viewed staying home as a demotion which is totally not true! The truth is that I am able to build my family up from the home out. It's an honor to be able to do this! I need to focus my attention on the things that are good not the things that I see as bad (i.e. mountains of laundry, millions of diapers, etc.)

Today I checked out a sermon by John's college buddy, Ken Hood, who happens to be a Presbyterian minister in Tualatin, OR. This sermon hit the spot. Ken references Phillipians 4:4-8 and it really made me stop and think today.

Philippians 4:4-8 (New Living Translation)
"Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again--rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."

I know that I focus too much on the bad and hardly ever look at the good things that have went on around me. I'm trying harder each day to recognize the blessings that are right under my nose.

Anyway, here are some brilliant excerpts from Ken's sermon. Enjoy!

From "Keeping the Peace"

...Sometimes, seeing things from a different perspective changes everything.

We see this in the letter from that other Jewish theologian we heard from this morning, Paul of Tarsus. Like Heschel, Paul also invites us to see life from a different perspective all while using deceptively simple language.

Deep in the bowels of the Philippian jail Paul writes some of the most well known verses in all his letters: Rejoice in the Lord, always! Again I say rejoice! And one of the great benedictions of the church: And may the peace of God, the peace that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. This is great stuff, right? I have to admit though, as positive as it all sounds- these lines, particular Paul's injunction for us to rejoice always, these have not always been my favorite verses. They've been used by some in the church to make us think that being Christian means being happy all the time. And this has caused no end of problems in my opinion- everything from believers faking that everything is fine when it isn't, to Christians not allowing others to grieve or express anger as Christ did, saying we should only rejoice when lousy things happen. I've heard from many of my friends this sense that to be a person of faith entails turning into a grinning airhead is one of the main reasons they've avoided church. It drives me nuts that so many folks stay home or hit the Starbucks not because they lack faith- they aren't here because they don't want to check their brain at the door.

And this text from Paul telling us to rejoice even as he is in prison, it has long troubled me.

I was terribly thankful this week to learn I'm not the only one who feels this way. On the advice of our Spiritual Formation group on Monday night, after we read this text together, many of them were reminded of the story of Corrie Ten Boom. Now, not having lived through the sixties, I naively inquired as to who Corrie Ten Boom was- she sounded like an Indian explosive expert to me. Ten Boom! Of course the entire group was astounded I'd never heard of this famous Dutch woman, imprisoned by the Nazis for protecting Jews during the occupation. Well, I'm grateful for their astonishment, because I ran out and picked up a copy of her memoir, The Hiding Place.

What a story. Ten Boom lived in Haarlem in the Netherlands. Her father, Caspar, was a watchmaker, and my favorite character in the book. When the family was arrested Caspar, an octogenarian at that point, faced a lenient Gestapo agent who wanted to have pity on the old man. The agent told him if he would simply promise to behave he was free to go. Corrie saw her father stand straight up and saw his halo of white hair as he replied: If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door again to any man in need who knocks. (p. 152) Of course that was the end of any kindness.

Corrie Ten Boom helped countless Jews escape from Germany. With the help of the underground they constructed a false room in her own bedroom, which they eventually used during a Gestapo raid- 8 people cramped themselves up in a space no bigger than most of our closets for more than a day until they were able to safely escape.

The whole family was arrested- though all were released except for Corrie and Betsie, her sister. They were first held at the prison, Scheviningen, where Corrie spent most of her time in solitary confinement due to her tuberculosis. They were then shipped to a prison in Vught, which was more of a work camp. Finally, as the war went less and and less well for the Germans, they found themselves at the infamous concentration camp, Ravensbruck.

It was their faith in God that inspired the Ten Booms to care for the Jews, who Caspar referred to as the apple of God's eye. It would be their faith alone that would keep Corrie and Betsie throughout their imprisonment. Although faith and hope seemed to come more easily for Betsie than for Corrie- which is probably why I liked Corrie so much more. After they had arrived at Ravensbruck and survived their welcome, which consisted of making all the newcomers sleep outside on lice infested ground for three days in the rain and cold, they found themselves in their new cell. In one of my favorite scenes Ten Boom describes something biting her on the leg as they enter.

"Fleas! Betsie, how can we live in such a place?"

"Show us. Show us how." It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie. (p. 209) Then, Betsie had Corrie read from a small New Testament she managed to smuggle in- Corrie read from Paul about rejoicing always. Sound familiar?

"That's it, Corrie! That's God's answer. "Give thanks in all circumstances!"
That's what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about these new barracks!"

I stared at her, then around me in the dark, foul-aired room.

"Such as?" I said.

"Such as being assigned here together."

I bit my lip. "Yes, Lord Jesus."

"Such as what your holding in your hands."

I looked down at the Bible. "Yes! Thank you, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank you for all the women, here in this room, who will know your comfort because of these pages."

"Yes," said Betsie. "Thank you for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!" She looked at me expectantly. "Corrie!" she prodded.

"Oh, all right. Thank you for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds."

"Thank you," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for-"
These fleas! Wait a minute. This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."

"Give thanks in all circumstances," she quoted. "It doesn't say in pleasant circumstances. Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."

And so we stood between rows of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong. (p. 209-210)

As wonderful as Betsie's faith is- I love this scene mainly because of Corrie's humanness and honesty. I mean really- giving thanks for fleas? Ridiculous. I'm with her on that one.

So I was glad for the support, but I was also glad to discover this week that becoming a smiling idiot is not what Paul has in mind for us either. When I started reading the text again and again, I started to notice something very subtle, but very meaningful. I think Corrie was right to be a little reluctant with her sister's enthusiasm. The more I read and re-read the text this week, I noticed Paul does not actually teach us to rejoice in our circumstances. He doesn't say rejoice in your situation- whether flea ridden or otherwise. No, he says something quite different. What does Paul tell us to rejoice in? The Lord. Not our situation, whether good or bad, but the Lord. Paul isn't telling us when life hands you lemons to make lemonade-no, Paul asks us to shift perspectives. He's not asking us to pretend everything is OK when it isn't- he's saying that even in the darkest place we should be on the lookout- because even there God may find us. And I might add rejoice here is a rich, rich word. Paul doesn't say be happy- he says to rejoice. And rejoice in Greek is a complicated word- related to communion, and the same word used for saying hello and goodbye. Rejoice is to happy as the Pacific ocean is to the lake on the Tualatin Commons- to rejoice is an infinitely more complicated experience than simply pasting a smile on our face and it may well include great sorrow as well as joy.

Now this same shift in perspective happens again a couple of lines below when Paul promises us that the peace of God, the peace that passes all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds. First off, I find it amazingly comforting to realize it isn’t our peace that will protect us- as if you and I are responsible not only for getting through these lives of ours, but that we’re also supposed to create our own inner peace while we're at it. No, Paul knows it's all we can do to get up in the morning some days, especially on Daylight Savings day. No, it is God's peace, the peace that passes all understanding is what blesses and keeps us.

Paul drives this point home using some wonderful word play here, too. The term for guard or keep, as in the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds, is phroureo. It has two very opposite meanings: negatively, phroureo can mean to imprison; positively, phroureo can mean to protect, keep, or guard. In an act of sheer verbal genius Paul tells his friends the religious authorities, the church of the day, may think that by putting him in jail they could phroureo him- that they could imprison him and keep him down. He acknowledges that yes, he is being guarded- but it isn’t by jailers. No, using phroureo in an entirely different sense, Paul writes his heart and his mind are constantly protected in God's peace alone.

Paul shifts perspectives on us. When he rejoices he's not pretending he isn't in jail and that things aren't going well- he's rejoices because even there he finds his heart and mind are still cared for and tended by God.

So how do we do this? How on earth do we just open our hearts and rejoice no matter what? Well, if you're like me, you have to be surprised into it. Months later, after Corrie and Betsie had been at Ravensbruck for some time, they had noticed that while conditions were unspeakable, there were moments of respite- times where they actually had more time together than at either of the two former prisons. One day Betsie came in looking like the cat who swallowed the canary:

"You're looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself," I told her.

"You know we've never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room," she said. "Well-I've found out."

That afternoon, she said, there'd been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they'd asked the supervisor to come and settle it.

"But she wouldn't. She wouldn't step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?"

Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: "Because of the fleas!" That's what she said, "That place is crawling with fleas!"

And my mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie's bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for." (p. 220)

Sometimes seeing things from a different perspective makes all the difference.

Beloved, as we edge towards Holy Week, I pray that we all might be blessed with looking at our lives from a different angle. Whether you are full of faith like Betsie Ten Boom who never made it out of Ravensbruck, or whether find yourself with more questions than answers like Corrie Ten Boom and, yes, like me, may we know something of the peace of God, the peace that passes all understanding that guards our hearts and our minds this day and forever more. And fleas or not- let us rejoice.