Cascade Church Portland

Stand Sunday:: Orphans

People often use the words empathy and sympathy interchangeably. It's largely understood as the same concept, but empathy is just an improved version of sympathy. 

Sympathy is the ability to hear about someone else's pain or struggle and to care about their experiences. It's incredibly useful when you hear someone else in pain and you don't feel anything other than, "suck it up." You pause for a moment and try to see the experience through their eyes. 

This isn't an easy thing to do and many of us talk about sympathy like it's an easy thing to have or share. We usually mean that we understand they are saying something painful, but we've never actually done the work to understand what they are saying from their point of view. What we're feeling is most commonly understood as pity. Pity is the ability to recognize that someone else is suffering. While a vital step that moves us from being cold or indifferent, it's not much beyond that. 

Sympathy requires that I see the situation from your perspective and I actually care about your pain. I move from receiving information to caring about the information that I receive. 

Empathy is one step further to actually feel the suffering as if the experience was yours. It's probably best to visualize this so that you can see the progression between the 3. 

Pity  -------->          Sympathy ------------>          Empathy     
I see your pain       I care about your pain        I feel your pain

We overuse empathy without understanding what the word means and the time required to actually get to that place. We tell people we feel their pain when we actually just care about or see their pain. 

One of the great hopes in Christianity is its ability to move us towards empathy. To feel the pain of others is a byproduct of not seeing a separation between ourselves and others. We experience the whole of humanity as one creation of God and suffering in the world matters to me because it's my suffering too. Jesus came to heal the whole world and my healing is connected to other people's healing. 

While this can be an overwhelming idea, the hope is that identification with all people leads to an activated church that is working for the healing of all people.

Adulting::Growing in Maturity

The other day I walked into a Michael's looking for velcro. 

That's like walking into a Safeway and asking where they keep the food. 

There's not a section of the store that couldn't feature velcro and you have a lot of ground to cover. This overwhelming task could be made simple by asking one of the employees where they keep the velcro. That is what a reasonable human person who is familiar with how stores work would do. 

So, naturally I wandered around the store for 10-12 minutes searching high and low. Within the first few moments a concerned staff member saw the look of confusion on my face and asked if I needed help finding anything. 

"I'm all set, thanks!"

I found it eventually, but this experience exposes my deep and abiding inability to ask for help before the point of desperation. I think I have some ideas as to why I struggle in this area and I'm curious if you've ever felt similarly. 

1. I Don't Want To Be An Inconvenience - Almost every time I'm asked to help someone I feel honored instead of inconvenienced (which reminds me of this great bit from Nick Swardson). I assume that asking for help is a burden to others, so I won't say anything that could be perceived as a problem to someone else. 

2. I Don't Want To Appear Insufficient - Sometimes I think that asking for information that I don't have is a sign of weakness. The assumption is that I should be able have everything that I need in life to deal with every challenge that comes my way. 

3. I Don't Want To Depend On Others - Asking for help is to need another person. No longer do you feel in control and you certainly don't have the experience to back up that what you're being handed is trustworthy. 

Ultimately God gave us a whole world of people who have strengths where we are growing. Part of maturity isn't having everything already, but being aware of where we need to grow in maturity. The belief that we are complete already actually leads to greater amounts of confidently walking around in our own ignorance. There's a spiritual act in acknowledging what we don't have so we can receive what we need for our journey. 

Adulting::Maturity in Failure

Have you ever made a decision in a moment and immediately regretted it? 

There's this great trick where you can run up behind a person, place your hands on their shoulders while jumping and push yourself up and over the top of them. 

When executed correctly, it's the perfect marriage of low-level danger and basic acrobatics. 

One element that's really important in negotiating this maneuver is the awareness from the individual that is about to be jumped over that they are in fact part of this stunt. 

When I was in my young 20's I was hanging out with some dear friends walking around downtown Sacramento. We had just had a great meal, spirits were high and we felt like we could conquer the world. I was drunk on youth, community and exuberance.

 In this head space I decided to celebrate by executing the jump that I've discussed above. Now, my two friends walking ahead of me were very different heights. Erik is 6'3" and Carly is 5'5". I decided that jumping over Carly made a lot more sense and when the crowds in front of us cleared I broke into a jog ready to feel truly alive. 

As I reached about 5 feet behind Carly and was engaging my stutter step to transition into a leap I realized that I maybe I should have told her a bit of my plan. She turned slightly to learn more about the stampeding feet rushing behind her. 

What happened next could only be described by the people on the opposite side of the street as an awkward mugging from a disgruntled member of Cirque du Soleil's B-Team. 

The laughing and chatting was replaced by a strained silence as I helped Carly up from the ground that I had just shoved her into. Instead of using my momentum to launch over Carly, it was all channeled into shoving her down and forward. I had then only been able to piggy back her into the ground like cowboy lassoing and wrestling a calf. I was facing a lot of really logical questions that had no good answers. 

"What were you thinking?"
"Were you going to warn her beforehand?"
"Who are you?"
"You suck." ((Not a question, but a fair critique))

I had failed in that moment and all the joy was replaced by questions from others and from within me. I had always considered myself the kind of person who makes fun times even more fun, but what if I wasn't? What if I was selfish and valued my experience over the experiences of others? What if I had ruined the night and drove a wedge in between my friends and me? ((My friends were very gracious and understanding and this story quickly became a hilarious part of our lives together))

Failure, whether big or small, brings about questions of identity. It almost always causes us to mourn the death of a version of ourselves that we don't believe exists anymore. These might be tiny deaths or they can feel like the complete death of self. 

Adulting:: Maturity in Community

There are days when I feel fully mature. 

I feel like I know myself. I feel at peace. I have hope when I think of the future. I am aware of the world around me`and I embrace it all. 

And then I interact with another human being and it all goes out the window. 

There are these illusions of being grounded in God and seeing the world from a divine perspective that get shattered when we have to put them in practice in the real world. 

We're surrounded by people with different ways of engaging the world, from different backgrounds and different experiences. That's a recipe for confusion and division if we aren't intentional about engaging every person as a holy encounter. 

This week we're going to talk about the stress test of maturity. How do we practice maturity through our conversations with others in a diverse world? How do we celebrate the image of God in others and see that lifted high so that a reality where all people can peacefully thrive comes to earth?

Adulting:: Marks of Maturity

When I was a boy I couldn't WAIT to get older. 

It felt like adults got to do all the great stuff that I wanted to do. 

Grownups didn't seem to have limits on their candy intake, they got to watch whatever TV shows they wanted, they could drive cars and they made up their own bedtimes. 

While being an adult has it's benefits, the processing of becoming an adult is exhausting. There's a lot of increased responsibility to go along with all of that increased freedom. 

Last year a couple of friends and I came up with the idea of having a night completely themed around the dreams of being an adult we had as kids.
Buy a birthday cake at the grocery store and eat it all
Drink too much soda
Play video games all night 
Watch a rated R movie. 

I think one of the reasons we've never done it is because it sounds kinda terrible as an adult. I would definitely get sick from too much cake and soda and staying up all night sounds like punishment. Tom Hanks in "Big" is the only way to actually enjoy the kinds of adult experiences you dreamed of as a kid. You have to be transported into an adult's body with your kid brain. 

This is because we change and grow over time. We don't still hold the same beliefs we used to hold. While age and maturity don't always walk in step, there is a process of maturity that comes with age.

What we're hoping to explore this week and for the 3 weeks after that is the process of Christian maturity. What does it look like to become more mature? How do we keep growing, even when our bodies stop? How is Jesus inviting us to deeper levels of maturity that bring God's plan and purpose for living to bear? 

Power Dynamics:: So What?

The Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

It's a big phrase that can carry a lot of weight for people familiar with Christianity.

The origins of the word "Gospel" is a lot of fun to unpack. The earliest followers of Jesus took it from the more common usage of "The Gospel of Caesar". Whenever someone would come into power in Rome a story would develop to validate the power of the incoming caesar. Usually these stories would use divine powers, abilities or events that justified the Caesars ability to hold onto their position. 

There's a lot of parallels in our culture today. Almost every superhero movie has an origin story. It's the reason why you can trust their future actions. Spiderman needs the radioactive spider bite to be Spiderman. Superman needs to be an alien to be Superman. Batman needs tragedy and a billion dollars to be Batman. 

This extends to our politicians and business leaders. The Gospel of Apple involves Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in a garage in Los Altos, CA building incredible technology with limited resources. The Gospel of Donald Trump involves building a real estate empire from a 1 million dollar loan from his father. 

These stories are all meant to support the narrative of doing incredible things in the past to support the idea that they will continue to doing incredible things. 

What's really interesting about the gospel of Jesus Christ is how subversive the whole concept was. The parallels between the gospel of caesar and the gospel of Jesus was intentional to demonstrate the power of a better story. What if power wasn't used to hold and protect greater levels of power? What if the point of the origin story was to share a new kind of worldview where power was given to the powerless and a misuse of power is held accountable? 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a wink at the audience because it's using a format we've seen repeated for several thousand years to tell a very different story. It's a good news for all people, not just some of the people at the top. I hope you'll celebrate and join this good news that turns the lights on power dynamics in our world then and now. 

Power Dynamics:: Power in Race

When I'm hanging out with people I'm just getting to know I have a fear that conversations are going to veer into subjects where I have nothing to add. 

Have you ever had this happen to you when you're having dinner, hanging out at church or talking with co-workers? You try your best to participate, but you know nothing of the subject they're discussing. You stand or sit smiling and hoping that the conversation will head back into territory where you can find your footing once again. 

I think at least some of the fears that get exposed in these situations is that your lack of value is finally being laid bare.
You don't have any contributions.
You don't have any knowledge.
You don't have any reason to be there. 

I usually find that these spaces create so much anxiety that I'm not even able to be present. I'm so in my own head wrestling with thoughts of inadequacy that there's almost no part of me that can remain to learn about these subjects. I'm not able to learn because I've believed the voice in my head that says that having insightful comments is equivalent to having social value. 

So, I jump in when I think there's an opening and try and take the conversation somewhere I feel more informed in. I try to and use control to feel better about myself and the things I already know. This isn't usually a conscious decision, but something that happens naturally and without my control.  

I wonder over the years how much I've missed out on because I haven't allowed myself to be led and informed by others. I worry that my concern about appearing informed has kept me from truly ever becoming informed. It's hard work to stay present to a conversation you don't feel in charge of or well-informed about. 

Well, all of this is true for me, but I think that there are many of you reading this who have found yourself in this position all too often. You haven't felt that you had the ability to steer the conversation differently, so you listened and nodded your head and heard all about new things and ideas. Feeling like you can steer a conversation differently is a power. 

This Sunday we're going to have a conversation about power dynamics and race. This has proven to be a difficult conversation for people who make up the majority race in the United States, which is white people (76.6% of the US population identifies as "white"). Being a part of the majority race means that there are insights into power dynamics and race that are really hard to experience or see.

It can feel like being in a conversation where you don't have much to add. My prayer is that you're able to be present to the conversation this Sunday and hear the ways that Jesus is inviting us to have eyes to see and ears to hear. If seeing the Kingdom of God come to earth involves the valuing of all people, then staying present to the stories we may not see or hear is vital. God works powerfully in these spaces to move us ever forward. 

Power Dynamics:: Power in Gender

I have a verbal tic that I'm trying to break. 

When I walk in a room and see a big group of people hanging out I'll reflexively say, "Hey guys!"

Now, I know from having asked people to help me be more aware of when I say it, that this is often brushed off as no big deal. Men and women alike will say "Hey, guys!" in groups of people, group emails and at the start of their Instagram stories.
"I'm not talking about gender, it's just a helpful way to greet a large group.", they'll say. 

I can understand that. If you're in that camp I would encourage you to walk into a room of people and say, "Hey, Gals!"

People would likely be confused, and saddest of all, some would interpret it as a slight or a dig at the men in the room. 

When we normalize one gender over another we're describing where power is held. If it's no big deal to be referred to with masculine pronouns, but confusing or insulting to be referred to by feminine pronouns, you might be living in a patriarchy (I am preparing for my second career as the woke Jeff Foxworthy)

A patriarchy is simply a system where men hold a majority of the power. This would be shown, for instance, in a country where the highest level of leadership (the president) has only ever been held by males. 

This power dynamic can be invisible to men and women because it's always been true in their lifetime and likely many lifetimes before their own. We all feel the impact of gravity every single day, but we may not have the language to describe it and certainly not the awareness of it at all times. Patriarchy is like a gravity that impacts one gender more than another. You may not be able to see it, but it's there and it's impacting our interactions on a moment by moment basis. 

Jesus brought us a vision of humanity that holds differences among genders as equally necessary parts of the whole. We collectively need women to hold power as much as we need men to hold power.
Jesus featured the role of women in the resurrection story (Mary with her perfume, and the Mary's discovering the empty tomb) as much as any of the male disciples. This is the kind of reality that God is inviting us into and Christians get to be at the forefront of this story, instead of lagging far behind. 

Power Dynamics:: Power in Church

When I was growing up my image of God was intimately linked to the pastor of our church. 

This wasn't something that I could have articulated to you. If you had asked me if I thought my pastor was God, I would have said "no". Nobody needed to pull me aside and set straight a belief that this man was divine. 

But when I look back and consider the potential damage if my pastor had told me I was doomed to hell or if Jesus didn't love me (thankfully these things didn't happen), I can see that there were some real problems in their connection. I knew that my pastor wasn't a member of the Trinity, but being the voice of God and being God is so closely tied together that distinguishing between the two was just semantics. 

If you grew up in the church and can relate in any way to what I am saying, is it any wonder that we have church trauma in our world today? We need religious teachers in all their forms to be representatives of God or we can carry a deep dread that God is against us. 

Jesus knew this deeply and nothing drew out his anger like spiritual abuse. Our confusing systems of church blend too much power of people with the power that rightly belongs to God. In Matthew 21:13 Jesus condemns those selling the sacrificial doves as those who have turned a house of prayer into a den of thieves. Think about that reversal! They have taken something that God meant for relationship and grace and turned it into a mechanism for profit. 

And we are still in danger of these same kinds of abuses today. We're capable of them at Cascade. So how do we proceed as a church understanding the power dynamics at play and be on the side of relationship and grace? That's what we're trying to figure out, and we're so glad that you're along for the journey!

Power Dynamics:: How it All Works

Can you remember your first time in elementary school realizing that there are waaaaaaay more kids than teachers?

What a rush!

 It's a whole awakening experience to feel that kind of power. You're out at recess and the bell rings to come inside and you start playing the "what if?" game. What if we don't go back inside? They can't catch ALL of us, and we know some good hiding spots. 

It starts to fall apart when you consider the power the teachers have to contact your parents, keep you in for future recesses and give you additional homework. But if you banded together, you could create a whole day of absolute anarchy. 

This week we're going to start new message series all about Power Dynamics. It's the use of power between people or systems. It has huge implications for all of our relationships and how we move through the world. 

Jesus had a lot to say about power. Jesus taught us a lot about how we use power and how we respond to power in our world. It's going to be a great series that will impact how you look at the world and how you interact with people around you.