Sarah’s curiosity about what we’ll encounter once we get there is comical. I love fielding her questions. She asks me stuff that never even crosses my mind: “Dad, are we going to stop at Starbucks on the way?” “Dad, will there be kids at this church?” “Dad, why did they ask you to preach?” “Dad, do you think I should sit with you or go to a class with other kids my age?” “Dad, what if they don’t have a class for kids my age?” “Dad, are we going out to eat after you speak?”

The church and pastor I’m describing are unusual in many respects. Most pastors move on after three years. Most churches grow inward and self-absorbed after fifty. So this story is not the norm. But it’s true, and that’s what makes it so captivating. True stories stick with us. They’re hard to forget, and even harder to ignore.

Later that evening, at the conclusion of this 90-year-old pastor’s presentation, the moderator opened up the floor for questions. This was the audience’s opportunity to speak. I sat there wondering what they might say and how he might respond. Midway through the Q & A someone commented on the church’s exceptional faith and vision. The wise pastor said that they didn’t know any better; they were just following the biblical pattern. Then after a long silence, in which he seemed to replay each chapter of the church’s story in his mind, he said something I’ll never forget. He said, “With every ministry that was started, every property that was purchased, every ‘risk’ that was taken, if we didn’t do it when we did it, we wouldn’t have done it.” In other words, if they waited until everything was just right and they had “all their ducks in a row,” the moment would have passed and they would have squandered an opportunity to experience God’s faithfulness and provision.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom of Heaven is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow, we water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are the workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

May that future be filled with grace, peace and hope.

Amen.

1. How did we get the Bible and why are there some offensive stories in it?
2. If evolution is not true, why did God create a world that looks like it evolved?
3. Why are so many Christians mean and so many non-Christians loving?
4. How can a good God send Afghan kids to hell if they haven’t had a chance to hear the gospel?
5. Why does my church get so uptight about my lesbian friend who loves Jesus?

These are tough questions, big questions. And how we answer them has never been more important. “I’m not sure.” just won’t suffice.

But beyond the technical jargon and well-crafted definitions, all of which are necessary, there’s a rare, rhythmic pulse that pervades this book, an ancient beat that doesn’t usually accompany today’s most popular Christian literature. It’s a catchy tune too, like one of those radio jingles that you can’t get out of your head. I had almost forgotten that the gospel is supposed to have this kind of unforgettable impact on me, on us.

After reading Embracing Grace, it’s hard for me to recall the last time the gospel looked so big, so beautiful, so extraordinarily relevant to our times. Which leaves me asking myself the question, “How can I do what I do without a redemptive vision as large as, well, the gospel itself?”

Romano Guardini as quoted by Gary Wills in What Jesus Meant:

…If we could get back to the “original,” that is, if we could work our way back to the picture of Christ as it existed before it had been turned over in the apostles’ minds or elaborated by their preaching, before it had been assimilated by the corporate life of the faithful, we could find a figure of Christ even more colossal and incomprehensible than any conveyed by even the most daring statements of St. Paul or St. John…The statements of the apostles are guides to him which never quite do justice to the fullness of his divine-human natures. The apostles never state more about the historical Jesus than he actually was; it is always less.

And if this was true of the apostles, then it’s certainly no less true of us.

If you have not read Eugene Peterson before, you are about to enter unfamiliar territory. So read him slowly. He sounds nothing like the TV preachers that spend millions of dollars propagating a freakishly deformed gospel. And with the possible exception of The Message, I doubt if his books are on the endcaps at your local Christian bookstore. In fact, I doubt very much if he regards the word “Christian” as an adjective at all.

One of his latest books, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way, may be his best yet. I’m re-reading it now. It’s stunning. And I know you think I’m exaggerating for effect. But I’m not. The Jesus Way is great literature, and it is probably best to digest it in the company of friends, spiritual companions with whom you can share your most unsettling discoveries.

Pastor and author David Hansen has been pushing my buttons lately. As is usually the case between an author and a reader, David doesn’t know anything about the internal unrest he’s provoked. While he sleeps soundly, I’m trying to silence the unfortunate, but ever-present “voice inside my head.” You know the voice I’m talking about.

As you may have already guessed, I recently spent some time reading one of his books. It was a book about prayer. But what’s keeping me up at night — which I must confess is something of an overstatement — has nothing to do with the subject matter of David’s book. For the life of me, I can’t get past this one sentence he wrote. He said something like we’ve got to stop reading the Bible as perfectionists, implying that we need to read the Bible in the condition we’re in; which, as he sees it, is sort of this hybrid mix of sinner and saint. More troubling than reading what he wrote was thinking what I thought: I agreed with him almost immediately. That’s unusual, because I invariably argue my way through most of what I read. But David’s words coupled with my response brought a strange relief, and unexpectedly opened me up to a new way of interacting with God’s Word.

Like many Christ Followers, I have spent years reading the Bible as a perfectionist. I never thought of it in those terms, but that’s what I did; which probably explains why the Scriptures felt so heavy and hard. Through the eyes of a perfectionist the Bible is a rule book, outlining a rigid code of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. To be sure, the Bible is explicit in explaining what pleases and displeases God, creating a clear contrast between human nature as it is and human nature as it should be. But maybe it does that to point us beyond ourselves to someone greater.

Our moral brokenness and ethical frailty are obvious. We can leave our Bibles on the shelf and just pick up a local newspaper to uncover the depths of human depravity. The list of our offenses is long. The Bible, like the newspaper, never attempts to cover that up. But the Bible, unlike the newspaper, offers a real alternative to murder, theft, greed, rape, adultery, and war. His name is Jesus.

So now, when I read the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount, I’m not as frustrated by my innate inability to keep up with God’s directives; Jesus did that for me. It was his perfection that secured God’s mercy. If you think about it, God’s grace is amazing because it takes our absolute brokenness and imperfection into account and still offers a full pardon, an undeserved and limitless exemption from God’s just wrath. And it’s not because we’re flawless, but because we know and believe in One who is.