Who do you say Jesus is in your life? 6 words or less?

by Heidi Jakoby


Thanks to Kari I had many great ideas for this week’s Bread for your journey. We have been talking a lot about who we are, as Christians, as job seekers and people trying to discern God's call to us. This week I took us back to some childhood characters, Tigger, Eeyore and the Velveteen Rabbit. What do these have to do with our text for this week Mark8:27-37? You can connect to the readings through this link.

http://breadforyourjourney.blogspot.com

Identifying who we are is a difficult process. When you join face book you are asked to put in a short bio. What I have noticed about these bios is that they are mostly positive. How would you describe yourself in the most positive way? But like all people we all have many layers to ourselves some positive and some not so positive. It is often easy for me to identify my positive traits and publish them to the world but it is difficult to publish my struggles and insecurities. I don't mind sharing them in small groups but not on my face book page.

It is interesting when Jesus asks "Who do the people say I am?" and he receives a variety of answers. Who would the people around you say you are? Would it be the same or different from how you define yourself? Would these insights help you to discover your real self?

Jesus goes on to say that "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way to saving yourself, your true self."

Can you know your true self without some suffering or struggle? I think it is difficult to know who you truly are deep inside and to be open and honest about all aspects of yourself. Part of this difficulty comes from the fact that all of our relationships and experiences influence who we are. We are always changing. The other two readings I selected speak to how we choose to live our lives.

Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore? (The Last Lecture) As we discussed this question I discovered that I don't necessarily want to be one or the other but to live in the tension between the two. In order to accompany someone in joy and in sorrow you need to have experienced both and be able to flow from joy to sorrow. Each new day presents us with a choice about what to do and whether to be optimistic or pessimistic. I believe as we serve and help others we learn more about ourselves and how we approach each day, and this awareness helps us to grow.

The idea of being real truly real flows from the children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit. In the reading from the Velveteen Principles Toni describes an elderly couple who see each other clearly they know who they truly are and know what it means to be real. They are not putting on airs for anyone they are present in the moment and in one another’s life.

So who are you and do you know your real self? If not think about 10 words you would use to describe yourself?

Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

Don't forget to join us next week for Bread for your journey.

oh tell me, who are you?

by Kari Henkelmann Keyl

“Tell me something about yourself,” says the interviewer, “What are your strengths and weaknesses? Who would you say you are?”

Like so many in our country these days, many of the people who make up the community that is by the way are in the process of interviewing for jobs. Or they recently have been, or soon will be. It can be a grueling business, finding a job… like placing yourself up on an auction block and trying to show your best side… over and over again. To keep it up, you almost have to have a supportive friend or two around, someone who will check in to see how you’re holding up, someone who understands what it’s like.

Who would you say you are? It’s tough to answer that. I don’t know about you, but who I am changes a lot, day by day even. I’m not the same person I was two months ago, in one way. In another way, there’s something about me that has been the same since my earliest memories.

This Thursday night's bread for your journey will be all about that process of identifying self. Identifying who I am can be stressful, but it can also be a release. When someone who really cares about you — the real person you are rather than the commodity you might be on someone’s payroll — then the question, “Who are you?” can be a gift instead of an nuisance.

Feel free, if you like, to use the “comment” section of this blog to tell all of us bytheway-ers who you are. What do you like? What are you passionate about? Who are you? I sincerely want to know. I’d love to know what it is that makes you you.

You could also use the comment section to tell everyone who you think by the way is. In a phrase or two, or a sentence or two, what does by the way mean to you? Who do you say we are?  Here’s why that would be really cool if you did that:

By the way almost has a website up and running. Last week, a bunch of people who care a lot about btw got together over dinner, and we worked and played with words and ideas to come up with an identity statement to put on the website. But we knew that statement would not be complete until everyone who is by the way has their say. And that includes you, even if you’ve stumbled upon this blog for the first time… whether you’re a local btw’er or a long distance reader.

You could do this anonymously or give your name and where you live. Something like this:

“By the way is a safe place for me to come and hang on a Thursday night.”  Ebeneezer Smith from Nashua, NH.
OR
“By the way is a blog I read when I can’t sleep at night and I need to know that someone is out there who cares about me and connects me to God”.  Delilah Jones from Cody, Wyoming.
OR
“I personally don’t even know if there is a God at all, but there’s something about btw that keeps me grounded when I’m off balance,”  Jupiter Johnson from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Get the idea? Then when we get the website up, we can have your input as part of our I.D. Which makes sense, because you all ARE by the way.

Ok, so all this identity stuff really does flow out of a story that shows up in the Bible’s book of Mark, the version of Jesus’ story that we’ve been walking through since June. Take a look. It’s an intriguing story: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%208:27-37&version=MSG

So here’s Jesus checking out his I.D. with those who hang out with him. They all give their input. Then he gets serious, saying that who he is involves some negative stuff that turns out to be positive. That God is all about giving yourself for others. And so that’s who we are, too.

Here’s a piece: “Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how...  Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?...”

Do come, if you can, to get into this more. Btw will be at the Crowne Plaza in Nashua, as usual, Thursday 7pm. And if you can’t be there in person, come back to the blog on the weekend, and we’ll be here.

And thanks, in advance, for taking the time to comment on who by the way  is to you.

Peace in the storm,
Kari

wrangling with God when things aren't so good

by Kari Henkelmann Keyl

Are we really allowed to argue with God? Isn’t there something stupid or dangerous about fighting with the Highest Power?

And what about talking back to Jesus? Sounds sacrilegious, but I know someone who had the guts to do it.

Last night at Bread for your Journey, by the way’s weekly gathering, we talked about ideas of God that we grew up with. And none of us felt we had “permission” to wrangle with God. Talking, pleading, thanking… those are ok. But no fighting with the One who knows what’s best for you.

I think that turned out not so good for me to be taught that. When I was turning teen, I started fighting with my Sunday School teachers, and they didn’t like that. I questioned what they taught and what the Bible said, and my teachers made it seem like arguing with them (and with the Bible) was equivalent to cutting down God. That was the beginning of the end for me: the end of my simplified and stilted belief system, but the beginning of a deeper faith in God.

Go ahead and take a look now at the reflections and prayers that led into our discussion, and see where your thoughts take you. Please keep in mind that this blog can be a place where you get to air your opinions, too. There are no rules about not wrangling here, that’s for sure.

http://breadforyourjourney.blogspot.com/

So here’s this brazen woman who dares to spar with Jesus. Some look at this passage and wonder at the quite insulting words of Jesus, usually the compassionate one in the room. But I see a Jesus with a sparkle in his eye. He can see in the eyes of this woman that she’s got some fight and some wit in her. And he gives her the opportunity to show the snoopy people peeking in exactly what she’s made of. In a time when women weren’t viewed with much respect, certainly not in the intellect department, this little conversation in the book of Mark is pretty amazing.

Jesus had been trying to get some peace and quiet when this pleading person came in. He could have just healed her daughter and dismissed her. Instead he chose to engage her. And faith (that is: relationship) is the result. What could have been just a healing (which only lasts until the next germ or demon comes along), became an opportunity for a faith relationship which would likely last for all of eternity.

Then we have our Simon and Garfunkel song, Blessed. Not your usual poetry for holy conversation, you might say. But actually it fits in quite well with the Biblical poetry we call lament. So many of the psalms are like this. My wounds trickle down like a wound that I have no intention to heal. This poet is not budging. He’s going to stay in woundedness, questioning God, for a while.

And that’s ok. Sometimes that’s what we need. To sit in the muck for a while and get it all out. Someone holds out a hand to help get you out. You’re not ready.

But what then? There comes a time when you realize that hand held out might as well be God’s hand. And God invites you to come out of your dead place, not back to where you were before, but to a new place of faith. A deeper, more experienced faith. Having been through this suffering, you have a new “authority” (see the third reflection), a new way to author life in yourself and in others.

There may be times when you need to go back to that lament place and just be sad and mad. Or just be nothing, numb… for a while. And when you’re ready to take the hand again, this time the hand is giving you something to eat… a chunk of bread, warm and tasty, washed down with a swig of sweet wine.

Every Thursday night at the Crowne Jesus is there feeding us. It doesn’t matter how many people come. Jesus is powerfully there. No matter what my week has been like, I am fed. And then I have the awesome opportunity to share that good stuff, as best I can, with readers like you who might not have been able to come. I hope I’ve been able to “author” some life, some hope, in you. But if not, please feel free to wrangle all you need.

Faith to Question God

by Dustin G. Wright, with a HUGE contribution by Crystal Mohrmann

The central passage of this week's upcoming Bread for Your Journey is Matthew 15: 21-28, the famous "Story of the Gentile Woman," who confronts Jesus and questions his calling:

21Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  22A Gentile woman who lived there came to him, pleading, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.” 
23But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. “Tell her to go away,” they said. “She is bothering us with all her begging.”
24Then Jesus said to the woman, “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.”
25But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, “Lord, help me!”
26Jesus responded, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.”
27She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their masters’ table.”
28“Dear woman,” Jesus said to her, “your faith is great. Your request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed.

Man, this passage is certainly a tough passage to preach on... there's so much go on here, and so much to question as humans.  In my undergraduate Old Testament class, my professor said that this story (and it's counterpart of the Syrophoenician woman in the Gospel of Mark) was besides Jesus's death and resurrection, the most important part of the Bible.  From a scholarly perspective, I'd tend to agree- it's the point where Christ saw his call to save as expanding from just the Jewish population to humanity as a whole.  As most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was written for a primarily Jewish-Christian audience, it really serves to highlight Paul's later argument that Christ was for all of humanity.

From a more theological perspective, this story is really important as well.

In all of the gospels (at the least the ones included in the Bible), we get to see very little of the human side of Jesus growing into his ministry and strengthening his sense of purpose.  Matthew 15: 21-28 definitely provides a glimpse into that process.  The persistence of the Gentile/ Syrophoenician woman, someone who would have been historically looked down upon by most Jews, had a faith strong enough to question Jesus, and thus she changed the world forever.  A second-class citizen, this strong woman encouraged Jesus to expand his ministry to all of humanity about 2000 years ago, and we're all saved by grace because of it.

Here's what Crystal wrote for this post:
The readings for this week’s bread for your journey are from Matthew, Chapter 15:21-28, and both discuss Jesus and his ability to heal.
Personally, I find this a particularly difficult scripture to reflect on because it is one among others that my family and I held on to when my mom was dying from cancer.  I held on to hopes of Jesus healing my mom, thinking that if anyone was worthy of a miracle, it would be her.  Unfortunately God had a different plan for her and one week from today, it will be five years since she passed away.
I share this personal connection to this scripture because I think it’s important to consider not just the many ways God answers our prayers through healing, but also the ways in which we are impacted when there is not healing and our prayers are not answered in the way we’d hoped they would be.
These people asked for healing for their loved ones and it was granted.  But, I wonder what their reaction to Jesus would have been had there not been healing.  Would they still say, “Everything he does is good!”?  Or would they back away angry and feeling forsaken?

I've lost my own mom in the last year, and I've certainly had some of the same questions that Crystal has... both of our mom's were great people.  It's easy to ask why good people die over people that we judge as not as good.  There's two final points I have to make.  First, this simply reflects that we're saved by grace and faith in God, not simply by our actions, no matter how great they may be.  Second, and in some ways I think even more importantly, God welcomes us questioning Him, strengthening our faith and understanding.

I'll conclude with one of my favorite songs called "Blessed," by Simon and Garfunkel.  Paul Simon's anguished questioning of God is really powerful here, and while some of the lyrics are challenging it really reflects on our Bible passage for the week... in the end, even the worst people can be saved through faith:



The last line is the only one I think Paul Simon got wrong... he wasn't 'tending his garden much to long' on his own... God was there with him, but he just might not have recognized it.

God's peace,
Dustin