by John Lynch
Awakening: If you gain permission into my life I will allow you to stand with me to challenge the lies I tell myself.
It’s here where the real work of healing and freedom is proven, not in the moment I am about to act out.
To be given such permission … there is no higher calling. It breaks the self-entitlement I give myself to fail. It protects my wife … and everyone who crosses my path.
1993
This August evening I’m in the audience at a mission conference in town. I’ve been told the speaker is a very inspiring, gifted and influential luminary, being powerfully used all over the world. I’m told I’ll like him a lot—that we are a lot alike.
From the moment the guy starts speaking I want to walk up to him and punch him in the larynx … over and over, until he’s willing to stop speaking. He’s manipulating an audience with passionate, idealized stories, and cheap emotional appeals to be more for Jesus. It’s all filled with comparison, guilt, shame, and contrived sacrifice, couched in a pitiful manipulation of mangled verses. I’m scanning the audience, to see if others are ready to join me in harming him. Instead, I can quickly tell folks are mesmerized with him, hanging on his every oily word.
I shake myself and dive back in—asking God to calm me down and forgive my rush to judgment. But I’m not buying my own prayer. Why doesn’t someone stop him? I force myself to stay in my seat the entire talk, hoping the look of incredulity on my face will trip him up a bit. But he’s on a roll. I could light myself with a blowtorch and he’s going to finish.
After the talk, I’m pacing through the hotel like an angry ferret. Another pastor stops me, staring wide-eyed at me like he’s just heard Lincoln give the Gettysburg Address.
“Was that the most inspiring talk you’ve ever heard, or what!” I’m definitely thinking, “or what.”
The halls are buzzing with excitement and accolade.
I find a stall in a bathroom, far down the hall from everyone.
God, what was that? Are you with his message? Everyone here seems to be. These are leaders. I’m angry. I want this to stop. But his message is powerful. It’s what people want to hear. It appeals to their sense of wanting to be the most sold-out they can be. He’s yelling compellingly to everyone’s shame and ought. And like lemmings, they’re all buying it. I didn’t come to you for this! I feel all alone again, like I’m on the outside. Like there’s a Christianity I still don’t belong to. Do you want me to feel this way, or do you want me to go back inside and nod my head? I can’t fake it again. I won’t fake it again. Help me. I’m officially freaked out here.
From this moment I know, while I might have the same Jesus with most believers, God has been directing me into an entirely different way of living with him. For seven years I haven’t been aware how wide the gap was.
For the next twenty years I will battle to defend what I believe is the Original Good News. I will try to do this without being consumed by disdain for any human purporting a manmade sufficiency doctrine of the flesh. I will fail at this, too often. But I am now inexorably drawn to authors, speakers, and thinkers who are risking to see grace as far more than only justification.
1995
The set is now completely appointed for Cappenetti’s, our next production, set in a local bar. It’s magnificent! The warm wooden counter top, and overhead racks of wine glasses, framed by vintage looking columns, fill nearly the entire back of the stage. Neon beer signs hum, while diffused light from a series of ellipsoidal reflectors spills down through the rack slats. Every conceivable libation is backlit prominently from behind where the bartenders will pour. Taverns in big-city gaslight districts wish they were this place.
We open in two nights. “We” are a theater troupe named Sharkey Productions. We have been painstakingly learning how to write and perform faith-based stories for the city that don’t offend sensibilities by bad writing and religious right turns. It might be an easier endeavor for monkeys to type out The Old Man and the Sea.
We’ve written a number of fairly mediocre plays our first several years, but recently we’re starting to find our footing.
The several dozen of us committed to this dream are having the time of our lives. For the first time, I’m discovering close up an intimate place where I am known, enjoyed, and needed. We laugh more than we rehearse, and we rehearse a lot. It’s an immensely safe place to create and risk and fail and create again. We love being together and are starting to learn to protect each other. This is one the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done.
Several years from now we will be performing at the downtown prestigious Herberger Theater. But now we are performing out of our church. We’ve remodeled the auditorium to look like a cool retro theater.
The crisis doesn’t dawn on me until the Sunday before we open. I’m sitting at church thinking, “Five days from now this stage will transform into a neighborhood tavern.” This would be a marvelous thought when we only staged the plays for one weekend. But for the first time we are running two weekends. The set, complete with every imaginable alcohol and blaring beer sign will be the decoration for our church services the following Sunday.
I know it’s no big deal anymore. But at the time it was. Knowing what I know now about how this community sees community, faith, and buildings, I wouldn’t have panicked. But I was still testing it all out, to see if it could be real. I’d now been on staff for nearly five years. But this project is my deal. I’d tried to not give anyone reason to have issue with what we were doing. Now I’m asking first-time visitors and alcoholics to show up and take communion in front of a fully functioning bar!
Sitting there, my issues with authority flood back in: all the doubt, all the waiting rebellion. I’m certain we’ll have to tear it down and reconstruct it. I could ask if we could drape it with canvas. No, that’s stupid and weird.
Finally, I went to Bill.
“Yea,” he said. “I was thinking the same thing today. You won’t be offended if I don’t preach from behind the counter, will you?”
“What?”
“Look, this is a building. On Sundays many of us who show up are probably God followers. On Fridays and Saturday many might not be. God is happy to host both. It’s a building. We don’t violate anything by doing both. If sometimes the décor blurs together, I think folks will understand. If not, maybe we can help teach them or thank them for their time here. You’re not covering that majestic set. We’re so proud of you all. You’re us. You represent us. I can’t wait for opening night. I can’t wait for the following Sunday. With our crowd, your biggest concern is people trying to sneak off with a shot of the good scotch after the service.”
In those words, something ends in me. From this day on, I am never again waiting for the other shoe to drop. The sense I don’t belong. That who I am won’t fit in any church. It goes away. In that moment, I know when I fail, I won’t be asked to leave. I know I will not have to eventually run. Ten thousand questions are answered with one response.
Awakening: We grow up wanting to be known, and terrified we will be.
1995
I’m sitting in one of many repurposed military huts at the Gasinci Refugee Camp in northern Bosnia. It’s a sticky June afternoon. Two brothers and their wives are slowly and quietly recounting for us the particular atrocities of the hell which has fallen upon Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia these last half-dozen years. None of them make any noticeable facial expressions. They speak in monotone. It is an eerie and heartbreaking experience to hear the one brother tell, without any emotion, of their third brother having his throat slit.
Everyone has walked with a suitcase or grocery bag many miles, through and around enemy checkpoints, to end up in this camp. We are the latest in a steady stream of well-intentioned caregivers to these war-displaced families. Every person we meet can tell of a family member killed, tortured, or raped in this hideous ethnic genocide. No government is innocent, but most of these refugees are. They didn’t want this war or cause this war. And n
ow their own neighbors, with whom they have loved and done life, suddenly are enemies—burning homes and torturing old friends. A sick appeal to religious differences, national unity, and ethnic cleansing has demanded such.
I am worn down. This is our third day in the camp. Every story blends together. We’re here to offer the hope of Jesus. But they are so wounded, so devastated, so full of shock and thinly buried rage, the offer of Jesus must sound like the promise of free accordion lessons.
“What you are offering might be nice in some other world, but right now we are waiting news of how many family members are still alive and if we will be allowed to stay here another day.”
I feel cheap. Listening to these couples, I realize I have come here with exceedingly wrong motives. I wanted to do something relevant and big for God. I wanted to go where there was the greatest need. I wanted to be in the center of the action. I wanted to have stories to tell of walking among the wounded in a war-torn country. I wanted to be the hip pastor who would go into harm’s way. I wanted to come back home to our church with a report of the dozens who trusted Jesus.
Yesterday I listened to a man who had watched his entire family cruelly killed, back home in Banja Luka. After listening to his story for awhile, I tried to offer him the hope of Jesus. He shook his head slowly, back and forth. Through an interpreter, he said these words:
“What do you want from me? I have lost my family. Where is God? And who is this new God you are trying to sell me? I don’t want a God who would allow what I have seen. What do you want me to do? Would you like me to pray a prayer, so you can check off a list back home? I will do that. I did it for the last group. If I do it, would you then please leave me alone?”
I was embarrassed for the interpreter. I was embarrassed for me. I excused myself and walked out of his barrack.
God, I want to go back home. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t like who I have tried to be—the great American caring Christian. Help me. I don’t know what to do. I have no relief gifts to offer. And you apparently are not what they are looking for at this moment. I don’t know how to help. I feel trite and useless. Nothing seems strong or supernatural. It’s like you aren’t here. I hate this feeling. I’m so sorry to write these words. I know you are here, but I have never felt oppression and darkness like I have these days. Help me fill the hours and get through this until we get on the bus taking us to the airport on Friday. I’m sorry I came here. I’m sorry I can’t do anything. I’m sorry I’m misrepresenting you.
I wander around the camp until early evening, when we all get into the van, back to the seminary in Osijek, Croatia, where we sleep. Others are loudly recounting stories of hope and spiritual openness. I have nothing.
It is now Thursday morning. We make the drive back to the camp. I am making the rounds to yet unvisited refugees, with others, keeping a low profile. But it is too much to take.
I break from the group again to go outside and wander the camp. I notice down in low-lying areas some even worse conditions. Apparently, even in refugee camps there are the haves and have-nots. I am informed this is where the “Roma” stay. The Roma are the present-day Gypsies who still live throughout Europe and the Balkans. I watch a deeply wrinkled older man making impressive, intricate wooden spoons and vials. I offer to buy some. He is so appreciative. Eventually I am asked into his family’s “home.” It is a stagnant, hot, dark room with no windows. The air is thick and full of sickness. A large hunk of indefinable meat sits on a table, flies devouring it. I so do not want to get sick. I want to excuse myself. But a man, perhaps in his late thirties calls out to me. He is seated across the room, cross-legged, on the dirt floor.
“You are from America, yes? So, why are you here?” He is clearly the leader of this family.
“Well, we’re here to, um, offer comfort and, um, spiritual help to the people who have been through so much sadness.”
“You’re here to talk about Jesus, aren’t you?”
“Well, um, yes. But we want to be sensitive to those who are not, um …”
“Tell me about this Jesus. Would you to be so kind?”
For the next hour we both talk and question and answer, and ask some more. The room begins to fill. They are leaning in and listening intently. I am suddenly willing to contract whatever is in this room. For the first time on this trip I feel like Christ in John, being me. I am falling in love with humans from another continent.
When it’s over, he asks if he too can be a Christian. He asks me what he must do. I lead him through a rough, clumsy talk he could have with God about trusting what Jesus did at the cross and the resurrection. He prays it out loud in front of everyone. Then he gets up and hugs me.
He is smiling and so kind. … He offers me the meat on the table. He sees my hesitancy, and we all laugh. Others hug me. Jesus is fully here. He was here the other days. I couldn’t see him, in the middle of my straining to prove myself.
“Why was this so different?” I asked myself on the ride home. Maybe it was this:
Who I am, Christ in me, wants most to love. More than anything else. That’s the real me.
Awakening: I am a lover on my worst day and misplace it only when I pretend I have what I’m not sure I do.
I heard later he was baptized by someone in the group following us.
… Someday, at a wedding feast, in a land far away, we will meet again. And he will not be living in the bad part of town. He will be right in the middle of the city lit with the glory of God himself.
1997
In most of my preaching, I don’t usually give anyone anything specific to do with it.
Others can do it skillfully and naturally, but I usually feel manipulative or hokey. I guess I’ve always thought God could direct people to do whatever he wanted them to do with what they were being taught. It’s a nice-sounding theory, but in practice it’s a bit ridiculous. All areas of learning involve and include practical application. Jesus did it with his own teaching. I haven’t known how to do it without coming off like a motivational speaker, selling soap in an ill-fitting shirt.
One Sunday I am speaking on 1 Peter 5:6–7: “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”
“Casting your anxiety” has the idea of throwing a saddle over a horse, or hurling something with all your might. So I asked each family or individual to later try my clever little action step.
“Find a pillow case and gather your family around your dirty-clothes basket. Have each of them think of something that creates anxiety or frightens them. Have them pull out an item of dirty clothing to represent that anxiety. Spend some time teaching how God is able and longing to take it away if they cast it onto him. Give each person a chance to tell their particular anxiety. Then let each person stuff their dirty clothes item into the pillow case. Tie off the top and take your whole group out into your front or back yard. Take turns casting the pillowcase. Come back in to express what it was like throwing your scary thing into God’s care.”
… My seminary preaching professor would have been so proud of me.
By the time the morning messages have been delivered, I’ve lost interest in the whole exercise. But people will be expecting some kind of report about our family time the following Sunday. So I have to try it out at home. I have three children to try it out on. Carly is four, Amy nine, and Caleb eleven.
Late one afternoon, I gather us around the dirty-clothes basket in our bedroom. I have to admit, it goes really well and it’s a lot of fun. We’re all into it. We laugh and talk about our fears, and pray together. But, at the end of the day, I’m mostly going through the motions, trying to host a God moment for my kids.
I’d forgotten all about it by the time I went in to lie down with Carly before bed. Twenty minutes later I kiss her goodnight. Before I step out of her room, my little girl calls out:
“Dad?”
“Yeah?” “They’re gone.”
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“What do you mean? Who’s gone?”
“The monsters. The ones who lived under my bed. The dirty clothes I put in that bag for Jesus to help me with. They’re gone, Dad.”
I’m overcome in the doorway of her room. “Carly, that’s incredible.”
The hall light streaming into her darkened room allows her to see only my silhouette. She can’t see my expression. I’m wrecked. I’m witnessing God interacting with the trust of a human. My little girl has not yet learned to not trust God. She believed he would do something, sometime. She believed he had her back. He did. I know not everything plays out like this. But it shook me. Trust in his power, his rightness, his ability, his love, his control over every moment of my life—it’s not an option for us. Not at the start of the journey or any day after.
Carly spoke of the monsters often before that day. She never speaks of them again.
In this moment, I am compelled to believe again what I’ve forgotten. Somehow, in all the perfect, sovereign plan of God, some experience the magic of God because they trust him to be able to do it. It freaks me out, but it’s what he appears to promise. On this day, preacher man misses it, but his four-year-old daughter gets it. She still gets it.
John, you can get information or knowledge from anyone, without almost anything on your part. But to receive wisdom, insight, discernment, or truth—ah, that will take trust. One can come simply through the brain. The other demands the heart’s buy-in. To the extent you come under my words, trust my way of seeing, you will become wise. All around you are intelligent and knowledgeable people imagining they are wise. But they are only educated with what can prove them more right than someone else. They lack humility to trust another.
