Being still and knowing--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Minsitry)

Dear Friends,

 

It is another week closer to Spring Break—Yay!  We are meeting this Thursday.  Remember free food at 6:30.  Grab some food and go to the game, or stay and hang out and we’ll talk about Jesus!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

In this season of Lent I want to challenge you with these words from the Lord:  “Be still and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10).  In a time of self-denial and repentance, these seem like strange words to ponder and live into.  And yet the challenge is stark on this day when so many things threaten to make our hearts gallop away from us, even while they are still in our bodies!

 

Be still the Lord says.  Be still and know Me.  Know Me more than you know fear.  Be still and instead of telling Me who I am, let Me tell you who I am.  In the midst of your trouble, in the midst of your heartache, in the midst of your anxious toil, be still and know Me.  What an outrageous concept that Jesus demands we wrap our heads, and especially our hearts, around.  It is outrageous precisely because of what we see around us and within us in any given hour of the day.  The fear that permeates our moment by moment lives is punctuated by events that defy explanation.  Within the past week there has been another college campus shooting spree; there is constant talk of recession, while numerous people live with the possibility of losing their jobs and even their homes; there looms the ugly reality of cuts to higher education in the state of Kentucky that will wipe out whole programs of academia on our campus.  And this doesn’t even begin to touch the personal fears and tragedies that keep us drowning out our sorrows with some kind of mindless oblivion.  Yet hear the Lord say, “Be still and know Me.”  Knowing Him in silence is such a quiet enterprise and yet so counter-cultural.  What we discover there is powerful enough to break off every burden we have.  We discover the One who made us.  He knows us.  Delights in us.  Weeps over us.  Pines for us.   And invites us to truly experience His heart bursting with love as He thinks of us.  To know Him and the power of His love is to know that which can truly set us free.

 

In considering God’s invitation to stillness, there are two extremes that one would be wise to avoid.  The first is to never be still at all, to be so enamored of distraction, so needful of noise for fear of what silence might reveal that one never allows any kind of quiet in one’s day.  How easily we become entrapped in the cacophony of sounds when we are surrounded by electronic devices that deliver the instant gratification of drowning out any real and useful look into one’s soul.  Information overload so saturates our senses that we can easily avoid our negative feelings, memories, and relational quandaries.  The real loss however is that it also prevents us from perceiving the ever-present holy and sacred in our lives.  Sometimes the most spiritual thing one can do in such an environment is to simply hit the off button, to silence the radio in the car, to remove the ear-buds and look around at the world one travels in.

 

The other extreme is to indeed seek out solitude and stillness out of a need to be “spiritual” while effectively keeping it significantly devoid of God.  Such quiet is still quite filled with stuff, and in fact isn’t really quiet at all.  It is the kind of silence where we impose our own agendas, looking to find the quick fix for the things we can’t solve, or merely another “feel good” panacea that medicates and insulates the soul from unpleasantness without providing any real and lasting deliverance.  I am reminded here of the words of Jesus:

 

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.”  When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order.  Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first (Luke 11:24-26).

 

The lesson here is that it is impossible to draw near to the Lord if we are unwilling to do it on His terms.  We often want to make the Lord into our own image, to feel a closeness, that euphoric experience of happiness, which merely reinforces the fairytales we want to hear.  Perhaps that is why we are reluctant to be still in His presence.  Our Lord is the Truth:  the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  And His truth never compromises or bends to our wishes.  So in the stillness we are confronted with the ways that our lives do not conform to His Truth.  In the stillness that is His, we must hear the call to conversion that demands something of us, something we are not always willing to give even when the invitation offered is one of healing and hope.  This is illustrated in the movie “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” which  aptly describes Aslan the lion:  He is certainly good, but definitely not tame. 

 

So we come at last to an understanding of why seeking God, knowing Him on His terms, secluding ourselves in stillness so we have room to hear Him speak, is truly an outrageous thing.  We cannot control what He might say, and we cannot pretend that we are okay without His Lordship in our lives.  But I cannot leave without lifting up the word of hope:  Christ always comes to us with truth spoken in love.  His love is tender and gentle, yet unrelenting in its intention to fall abundantly into the aching holes of our hearts.  His love is extravagant, personal, and the word of Truth He brings is always good news.  And so with you, I too am--

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Where are you walking?--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hey folks!

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!  Everyone needs a Valentine.  If you didn’t get one today, come by tonight!  We’ll be sure you have plenty before you walk out the door!  You need to know that you are loveable, and someone cares about what happens to you.  We care, so come by and let us show you.  Free food at 6:30pm, Valentine’s after that!

 

Oh and today we are taking orders for the Angel Food Ministry.  $70 worth of groceries for just $30!  Come by tonight and place your order!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

I was just facebooking a friend of mine, continuing a theological conversation on the meaning of life.  Do you ever hear yourself say something, and after you’ve heard it, think, “Wow!  Where did that come from?  It was profound!!!”  I think I just had one of those moments.  One of those times when I’m pretty sure it was God talking because I’m not smart enough to come up with something like that.  So here’s what I said:  “My worst day walking with Him is 100 times better than my best day walking away from Him.”  Gosh!  It staggers me by how true it is.

 

Lent is one of those seasons in the Christian year where we take time to observe our walk.  Kind of like on the movie “Miss Congeniality” where the pageant coach critiques Sandra Bullock’s regular “bull in a china shop” walk and then teaches her how to walk with style and grace.  In the same way Lent is a time to see how one’s faith-walk lives up to what Christ calls it to be.  Jesus says so many times in scripture, “Take up your cross and follow me.”  But how often do we actually do that?  We live in a culture, especially on a college campus, whose motto is “if it feels good, do it.”  And so we spend our days trying to live into the pleasure of the moment and completely avoid what is uncomfortable, or painful, or effortful, anything less than pleasurable. 

 

It always baffles me when I hear people say that Christianity is simply a crutch to help weak people, that it is the opiate of the masses.  Nothing has demanded more of me than my relationship with Jesus Christ.  And just when I begin to get comfortable, He is always asking me to go deeper, stretch further, and believe bigger than I ever thought was possible.  He even asks me to forgive what seems to be unforgivable.  It takes every ounce of courage I have to follow Him.  Because the road is NEVER easy.  Essentially Jesus asks His followers to die to themselves every day.  To totally defy the wisdom of the world and actually delay gratification, stretch beyond one’s comfort zone, think of someone besides oneself, care about people one has never met, give away one’s resources to those who lack them, pray for one’s enemies, to do the right thing in every situation without any guarantees that it will even end well, to be self-less in a world that glorifies selfishness.

 

At this point you may be asking, “how in the world can she say that walking with Jesus is so much better than walking away from Him?”  Especially if what I have said about what Jesus demands is true.  I guess it’s because of what is on the other side of that cross that He asks me to pick up.  Tony Compollo speaks of a sermon he heard an African American preacher give where all the preacher said was, “It’s Friday now but Sunday’s comin’!”  I have walked long enough with Jesus now to see with my own eyes that Sunday always follows Friday.  The promise for every cross is that there is resurrection on the other side, new and eternal life that cannot be defeated, demolished, or stolen.  The promise of the eternal and abundant life He gives is never empty.  The self-denial he calls us to initially always births a greater blessing than anything we can desire.  And it is always so much better than the emptiness we end up with when we do it the world’s way.  The only thing the world can offer is empty promises.  It can offer stuff, but all stuff is transient.  And stuff cannot bring joy, peace, or wholeness.  Only God can do that.

 

So maybe it is time in this season of Lent to do a little soul searching and faith-walk observing.  Maybe the best thing to give up for Lent isn’t necessarily a soda as much as an addiction to immediate gratification.  Maybe even an addiction to the noise that distracts us from the invitation of eternal life.  Maybe Lent is really about turning around and simply taking steps toward the Lord of Life instead of constantly walking away because it feels good for the moment.  Maybe Lent is more about hope than we think.  Because the path ultimately leads to life that is real life.

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Fleshing Out the Role God Plays--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

Hope everyone came through the storms from last night okay.  There was a slumber party at the Wesley Foundation for those who had no basement to run to.  I love how a time of good, clean fun can happen anytime for any reason. 

 

Tomorrow night we meet for dinner at 6:30pm and program afterwards.  If you want to see us do something in particular this semester, this is a great time to come.  We will be planning some of our events for the Spring.

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

When I was in seminary I got a role in the musical “Godspell.”  Originally produced in the 70’s, each character was portrayed as a clown.  In updating the production for our community though, the director asked each of us to come up with a stereotype of different kinds of personalities that young people have.  Everyone decided I should represent the “alternative” crowd.  And so for the first time in my life I donned all black clothing, black lipstick, black fingernail polish, and a “who gives a ___________” attitude.  I stepped out of myself in some amazing ways that semester and discovered God’s grace deep in the places of me that were longing to rebel against my own and everyone else’s expectations.

 

I love that in the incarnation, God steps out of Himself in some amazing ways that blow our expectations of Him out of the water.  During Advent and Christmas we discovered that the God who becomes flesh dwells among us, not as a king surrounded by luxury, but as a baby swaddled in a feeding trough.  How humbly and gently He comes.  This is what we learn from Advent and Christmas.  And during Lent and Easter, we learn something else. 

 

I am astounded that in the incarnation, God chooses to become flesh by being a simple carpenter, who becomes a traveling teacher, who continuously shakes up the status quo, who embraces the outcasts, who calls to repentance the righteous, and who follows a path that leads to the shame and destruction of a cross.  It is as if the roles that God rejected in becoming incarnate reveal as much about the Divine character as who Jesus revealed Him to be through His life and death on earth.  How easily we cast God in the role of judge.  And yet God incarnate chose not to be Pilot.  How easily we cast God in the role of accuser.  And yet God incarnate chose not to be the Sanhedrin.  How easily we cast God in the role of punisher.  And yet God incarnate chose not to be the Roman soldier.

 

In revealing the Divine nature to humanity through His Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God chooses to be the lamb who was slain.  God chooses to make flesh the words of Isaiah’s description of the Suffering Servant:

 

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. . . .  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.  By a perversion of justice he was taken away.  Who could have imagined his future?  For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.  They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.  Isaiah 53:2-9

 

It staggers me to consider what exactly it is that God chooses to identify with in the human experience.  He chooses those raw places in the human experience that we’d rather not remember.  He chooses to identify with us when we are despised, rejected, suffering, infirm, treated as if we were of no account, oppressed and afflicted.  The human response to such feelings is to deny them, forget them, discount them, and destroy them.  We render them meaningless in a world that exalts and glorifies prestige, power, and position.  How unbelievable it is then when God incarnate not only honors such experiences by having them, but then transforms them through the power of the cross.  How powerfully God validates the worst kind of suffering any human being could ever go through.  And in our heart of hearts, isn’t that what we are crying out for?  Someone to notice?  Someone to care?  Someone to really see how badly we hurt and how terribly that hurt makes us fear?  What an intimate place of love that God chooses to become real to us, joining us in our very deepest suffering when He as God never had to suffer at all.  And that is the true gift of Lent and Easter.  We serve a God loves so much that He suffers because of it, and the only thing that relieves His own suffering is joining us in ours and lifting us out of it.  Oh my Gosh.  This is so powerful.

 

So today on Ash Wednesday let us wear the ashes that remind us of our own vulnerability, ashes that tell us we are dust and to dust we will return.  And let us celebrate as well the God whose love called Him to become dust with us, and to share also the dust of our own vulnerability.  Thanks be to God.

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu