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“His brothers were jealous of him . . .”  – Genesis 37:11 

I’m sure you are familiar with the story.  If not from the Bible in the Book of Genesis certainly you’ve seen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s acclaimed musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”.  It begins with Jacob, father of twelve sons, who shows favoritism toward Joseph by giving him a special colorful coat.  Because of that the other brothers become jealous, kidnap Joseph and sell him into slavery to the Egyptians.  The rest of the story is about Joseph’s rollercoaster rise to power in Egypt as Pharaoh’s faithful right-hand man.  Eventually he is reunited with his estranged family when they show up in Egypt begging for food in the midst of a great famine in their home country of Canaan.  Joseph not only forgives his brothers for what they had done to him, but because of his powerful leadership position is able to save his family from starvation.

Have you ever found yourself in a favored position only to be scorned by others who are jealous of you?  Promoted over your peers?  Dated the prettiest girl, or the handsome star athlete?  Been victorious in a sporting event or contest?  Won an election?  Attained extraordinary financial success?  Or simply been someone’s favorite for no particular reason?  It happened to me in eighth grade.  We had this math teacher, Mr. Collins, who for some unexplainable reason seemed to favor me over almost all my classmates.  Mr. Collin had a habit of after assigning some classroom work would then leave the room for a period of time. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long until everything turned to chaos, that is until his return when everyone in the class would get punished except – you guessed it – yours truly.  Talk about being a victim of jealousy!!  It was embarrassing.

Others being jealous, unfortunately, is a price we pay for success and good fortune.  What we must guard against, however, is shying away from it for fear of the jealousy that will inevitably occur.  Rather, it should be our duty to use such successes, accomplishments, favored positions, and calls to leadership graciously and responsibly for the betterment of others.  Consider Joseph who set the example, not only rescuing his family from famine and using the opportunity to reconcile with them, but eventually impacting the entirety of the Hebrew people.  Yet in the beginning Joseph had to endure the same response to the favoritism we all experience; for “His brothers were jealous of him.”

“The kingdom of God is near.”  – Mark 1:15 

Have you ever had one of those experiences when it seemed as if time stood still?  I’m not talking about time slowing down like sitting in a traffic jam, rather one of those magical moments when time doesn’t seem to exist.  The first time I was ever aware of such a moment, or at least the one stuck in my memory, was a classmate’s birthday party when I was in seventh grade.  I suppose over the course of my childhood I attended dozens of such parties, and I don’t remember this one being any different than the others – except, there was something unexplainably magical about the evening that had me staring at the ceiling when I got in bed that night wondering what had happened, why it happened, and if anyone else had the same experience.  I still don’t know.

That was the first time I ever recall experiencing Kairos time, as opposed to Chronos time which is what most of us live by – or should I say controlled by – Chronos time being the chronological time we are so familiar with, that constant linear progression of seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years, time that is measured and quantifiable. Kairos time, on the other hand, is not bound by the constraints of a clock or calendar, instead is focused on the quality of the moment.  Simply put, if Chronos is quantity, Kairos is quality.

For most of my life I assumed Kairos moments were inherently rare, something that occurred every few years or even every few decades.  That had been my experience at least.  But as I age I find that Kairos moments occur way more often than that, probably every time the clock ticks if we happen to be paying attention.  As author Frederick Buechner once described they occur when “taking your children to school and kissing you wife goodbye.  Eating lunch with a friend.  Trying to do a decent day’s work.  Hearing the rain patter against the window.”  I would agree.

My New Year’s resolution is to pay more attention – to that precious time with my grandchildren, having breakfast each morning with my wife, enjoying time with friends – for Kairos is sacred time, revealing to us that “the kingdom of God is near.”  Buechner says, “there is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, [yet] always leaving you room to recognize him.”

“See that you also excel in this grace of giving.”  – 2 Corinthians 8:7 

Remember O. Henry’s famous classic short story, The Gift of the Magi?  Della and Jim were two lovebirds each determined to buy the other an extravagant gift for Christmas, but because of their meager income neither could afford it.  So, to raise the money Della cropped off a huge chunk of her gorgeous brown hair, her most prized possession, and sold it for a tidy sum.  Likewise, Jim hocked his precious gold watch, his most prized possession, an heirloom from his father and grandfather.  But in a twist of irony, Della had used the money from her cropped hair to purchase a platinum fob chain for the watch Jim now no longer owned, and Jim had spent his pawnshop money on a set of decorative combs for Della’s beautiful brown hair which no longer hung down her back.

For several years I accompanied my friend Tommy on short term mission trips to Central America where we would do construction work to help improve some particular impoverished area.  Each year at the end of the last day I noticed Tommy would take off his shoes, then meticulously clean them with a towel before quietly gifting them to one of the men he had befriended who happened to wear his size.  The irony is that Tommy had the means, if he had chosen to do so, to purchase a whole truckload of brand new shoes and have them shipped into that village providing shoes for everyone.  Yet, he chose to give a man his own shoes, a gift that might touch his heart as well as protect his feet.

When I think about Della’s and Jim’s extravagant gifts to each other, or Tommy departing that Honduran worksite barefoot so another man could have some shoes, I am reminded of the irony of God sending Jesus to earth in the form of a tiny infant born in a smelly sheep pen to a small town unwed teenage girl, when He could have sent him instead mounted on a white stallion as General Jesus leading legions of heavily armed angels who could have quickly straightened out that whole Roman empire mess.

So, how does one excel in the grace of giving?  We can find the answer in O. Henry’s story, or Tommy’s humility in the way he gave away his shoes, but certainly in what Jesus taught and demonstrated during his time on earth; for money, power, and might only go so far, but it is love and sacrifice that changes hearts, and changed hearts change the world.  Wishing you a Merry Christmas, and may God bless you in the New Year.

“. . . unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”  – John 12:24 

Ah, the annual autumn battle with the oak leaves!  We do love the eight large gorgeous oak trees that surround our home, especially the beautiful fall colors they produce – that is, until they begin raining down into big piles all over the yard.  And that’s where we are now as leaf raking is soon to become a daily chore in desperate attempt to keep our yard looking nice, a seemingly endless battle as the overnight breezes blow more leaves out of the trees.  Yet, not far away the wooded trails where we often walk and bike the leaves remain unviolated by rakes and leaf blowers creating a thick carpet over the ground where during the course of winter they are left to slowly decay, enriching the soil and providing nourishment for the new vegetation in the forthcoming spring.  It is nature’s way of demonstrating how death becomes life-giving.  Mind you, it is only the foliage that dies, not the entire tree.

We humans are like that.  When a part of our self-centered nature dies it becomes life-giving. When we surrender our addictions and other things we think we can’t live without, we position ourselves to nourish, restore and replenish others, to offer them new life.  There is no better example of this than what occurs in Alcoholics Anonymous which is comprised of people who have surrendered their addictions to God (some say a higher power) through the support of fellow human beings who have walked the same path.  It is a beautiful thing how one who has surrendered – that is, died to part of oneself – is able to in turn “sponsor” another through his or her surrender, a dying that becomes life-giving.  Lives are recovered, relationships restored, and new ones formed.  AA works because one person’s death to a life of addiction becomes life-giving to another.

Each of us is like a grain of wheat, and until we die to ourselves, we remain just a grain of wheat; but if we die, we produce much fruit; our death becomes life-giving, filling our lives and those of others with abundance, meaning, and purpose.

Autumn is such a beautiful time, my favorite season of the year.  It is a time when part of nature dies, yet from that death new life is nourished – just like what we do when part of us dies.

“A man’s wisdom gives him patience.”  – Proverbs 19:11 

What is the greatest distance you have ever walked?  What is the longest book you ever read?  What is the biggest meal you ever ate?  And finally, what do you think these three questions have in common?  In case you haven’t already figured it out, the answer is this: Whatever distance you walked you did so one step at a time, you read the book one page at a time, and you ate the meal one bite at a time.  In other words, these are all projects that are completed in small stages.

When I came across this riddle recently it struck me how it was a lesson I had to learn the hard way, for as a younger person I had little patience with small steps.  I wanted to get from A to B as quickly as possible.  Why walk when I could get there faster in a car?  Why waste time reading long books when I could read the Cliff Notes version and move on?  And food was to devour, not linger over.  Then there was college which was a place to graduate from instead of an opportunity for learning.  And forget graduate school which would only cause delay in the meteoric rise in my career that was sure to come.

Until one day I looked around and realized I had been stuck in the same position while many of my peers had leapfrogged ahead.  They were the ones, of course, who studied harder and took time for graduate school.  Only when I started reading thick books, getting up early and going for long walks and runs and bike rides, and taking the time to enjoy the company of family and friends over a nice meal did I begin to catch up.

I was in such a hurry back then, yet as I learned the hard way, it was the one thing that was holding me back.  Only when I discovered that by eating smaller bites, reading longer books, and going greater distances one step at a time that life and work and relationships began to take shape in the ways I had always dreamed.

Funny how in my twenties and thirties I had all those years ahead of me, yet I was so impatient.  And now that my years have grown more limited it seems so natural and peaceful to live one day at a time, taking one step at a time.  I suppose the old Proverb is correct, “a man’s wisdom gives him patience.”