​​Thanksgiving has come and gone. Looking back, I think I forgot to say grace before I devoured the turkey. I hurried my way thru “Giving Tuesday without giving a second thought to any of the organizations that popped up in my in box. Christmas is on the horizon and I’ve spent most of my free time this week decorating the house and thinking about me. To add even more “humble pie” to my “Holiday Confessions,” I was looking over my journal this morning and re–read the New Year’s resolutions I made eleven months ago. It said, “I want to be more grateful and more generous in 2021!”
 
Jesus said, we will be far happier giving than receiving.  Jesus valued radical generosity. Like the generous widow--who gave all she had to live on—Jesus gave everything he had, including his very life, so others would know the super–abundant love of God. I want to follow the way of Jesus but the truth is, it’s difficult to emulate his radical generosity in a consumer–based­ culture that’s hyped–up and driven by what Walter Brueggemann calls the myth of scarcity—the false narrative that says there’s simple not enough to go around so we better hoard all we can for ourselves.
 
In my book, Think Red, I reflect on the radical generosity of Jesus and highlight a few things to consider if we want to resist the myth of scarcity and free ourselves to be more generous.
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First: realize generosity is on a continuum. At any time we can decide to take intentional steps towards the generous way of Jesus. Those steps begin with trusting in God’s super-abundant grace and being grateful for God’s good gifts.
 
Second: affirm the Imago Dei. All humanity is created in the image of a generous, self–giving God, which means our true nature is to give. I believe that’s why Jesus said we are far happier giving than receiving.
 
Third: be inspired by the generosity of others. Generosity is contagious. When we spend time with others who give abundantly and freely we will discover there is always more. More joy, more freedom, more grace is added to the one who gives with a cheerful heart.
 
Fourth: specific and simple plans for giving are always more effective than grandiose and general resolutions. “This year I’m going to be more generous!” is not as effective as saying, “Today I’m going to give the guy living under the viaduct a bottle of water and learn his name!” 
 
Finally: praying and asking for God’s help is always a good idea. The Spirit of God will help us cultivate a generous heart if we ask. Here’s a helpful prayer I discovered in Brueggemann’s book, Celebrating Abundance. 
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God, whose giving knows no end, make us glad recipients of your generosity. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to remember your abundance, that we might share it with the world.
​Amen.
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How do you express praise on Thanksgiving Day if you’re the turkey?
 
It’s easy to give thanks when your table is filled with an abundance of flavors and the seats around your table are occupied with family and friends; but when life unravels and you identify more with the turkey in the center of the table than the happy guest around the table, it’s a different matter. 
 
This year I approached Thanksgiving Day with a chip on my shoulder. Three days before Thanksgiving someone smashed the windshield of my truck and stole something of great value to me. Instead of being thankful I was angry and depressed; resentment overshadowed feelings of praise.
 
I checked my attitude when I read a Facebook post from one of my neighbors. Amanda was expressing praise in spite of the fact that someone stole an Amazon package from her front porch. Her security camera captured the whole episode. Minutes after the delivery guy dropped off her son’s Christmas present a familiar face showed up and made off with the package—a real live Grinch, caught in the act of stealing Christmas on her Ring Camera. 
 
Instead of holding resentments, pressing charges, or getting even, Amanda fixed a Thanksgiving dinner, boxed it up and went looking for the person who stole her son’s Christmas present. Under the viaduct, a few blocks from Amanda’s house, she served her homeless neighbor a homemade dinner and offered him her forgiveness. She empathized with his desperation and thanked God for the way Jesus had made a difference in her life. 
 
Here’s what I learned from Amanda’s story and the smashed window on my truck. Sometimes life sucks. When circumstances beyond our control try to steal our joy we still have a choice on how we respond. We can become consumed with bitterness and resentment. We can try to deny the grief and pretend to be happy campers, offering cheap words of praise from a sulking heart. Or, we can offer a Thanksgiving Lament. ​Here’s what I mean: 
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​When we practice an authentic lament, by processing these five steps, it creates a pathway in our heart to reaffirm the hope we have in Christ; it frees us to offer genuine words of praise and thanksgiving . . . praise that is honest and real.
 
If you faked your way through Thanksgiving and feel bummed by the whole holiday scene, it might be helpful to practice a Thanksgiving Lament.
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Every year around this time, when the gold and red and brown leaves begin to sing, I hear an invitation: Come with me by yourself, to a quiet place and get some rest. These are the words Jesus spoke to his disciples after they spent a long season of serving food to hungry people, teaching them about the kingdom of heaven, meeting their needs, and healing their broken lives.
 
When I pause and savor the beauty of autumn, I usually begin humming the song Appalachian Melody, written by the late Mark Herd.
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​If you ran through the summer, on a mad dash of work and service; spending your energy meeting the needs of others, trying to make things that are wrong in the world go right, organizing people, striving for justice, chasing after a grand vision God planted in your heart, it may be time to pause and rest. Let the music of the autumn leaves invite you into a quite place. The beauty of creation will sing a song of restoration. Listen to the music with your eyes and let God’s rhythm of grace restore your soul.

What is better, old or new?
 
When it comes to wine people say old is better. For me, a bottle of two–dollar wine from Trader Joe’s is good enough. But it wasn’t for Jesus. When he changed water to wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee the “wedding planner” said the wine Jesus made was far better than the wine the groom served.
 
Later in the story, Jesus makes the case that you can’t have “good old wine” without first putting new wine into new wine skins. If you use worn out wine skins the stitches tear and you lose the wine. If our goal is to enjoy something that gets better with age we must favor the new in order to get the old. Which Jesus says is worth the effort: No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, the old is better.
 
It’s the same way with friendship; you can’t have “good old friends” if you don’t make “new friends” from time to time.
 
How about memories? You will never have fond memories of the past if you’re not willing to make new memories in the present.
 
Spiritual maturity is no different. If we want a vibrant spiritual life that flavors our community with righteousness, joy, and peace, we must leave behind old patterns of discipleship that hinder spiritual growth. When we discern false narratives that are used to justify self-serving idolatry and consumer-based religion we must expose and dismantle the old paradigm and create new models of beloved community.
 
In my book, Think Red, I look at the values of Jesus and compare his ways with the prominent values of the evangelical church. When I compare the two it becomes obvious that we need to rethink the way we do church in the twenty-first century. If we want to grow vibrant spiritual leaders who love justice, seek mercy and walk humbly with God we must re-evaluate how we do church, why we do it, and what narratives drive our efforts.
 
Or to say it metaphorically: If we want good old wine like Jesus made we need some new wine skins!
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In some Bibles the words of Jesus are printed in red font. I wanted a title that invited the reader—or better yet, dared the reader—to dream and reimagine what Church might look like if we made the “red letters” of Jesus the primary organizing principle for our communities of faith. The subtitle of the book explains what “thinking red” means to me: Imagine Your Community Living and Loving Like Jesus.
 
Here’s a snippet from the back cover that invites the reader to Think Red:
 
Have you ever wondered what the Church would look like if Christians began to take the words of Jesus seriously—the words some Bibles print in red? What if Jesus actually meant for us to do the things he said? What if those who “believe in Jesus” really did value the things he valued? Would the Church look different? Would your neighborhood stay the same?
 
In Think Red, Larry Stoess takes a close look at the values, the vision, and the mission of Jesus, and then holds up a mirror for us to see if our communities look anything like Jesus. If we dare look in the mirror we may be inspired to leave behind our obsession with consumer–based religion and follow the way of Jesus. Those who do will be set free to imagine creative and whimsical expressions of community.

It would be misleading to say Think Red is a love story but in a way that’s exactly what the book is about. It’s a story about love: God’s love for the world, the love Jesus expressed in the words he spoke and the way he loved people—especially those who were overlooked and pushed to the margins of society. It’s a story about God’s love for the poor and God’s passion for justice and mercy. I wrote the book hoping those of us who call ourselves Christians would fall in love with Jesus all over again and recommit ourselves to creating faith communities that actually love people the way he loves us.  

Grapes grow in clusters, wild geese fly in flocks, fish swim in schools, and people live in community. An unseen vine draws us to one another, affirming and preserving life. Even those who choose to travel alone discover a deep-rooted need to connect with others in their solitude.
 
How absurd it is to realize we are created to live and flourish in community yet so many of us find ourselves alienated—lost and alone in a crowd of people. In Thomas Merton’s Midsummer Diary he writes, “As long as a single person is lost I am lost . . . The way one begins to make sense out of life is taking upon oneself the lostness of everyone.”  
 
Robert Hudson, in his biography on Merton, The Monk’s Record Player, draws a parallel between St. Paul’s command to “bear ye one another’s burdens,” and Merton’s call for us to bear each other’s alienation. Hudson writes, “One person’s alienation is everyone’s, and Merton saw our existential distance from God and each other as the result of humanity’s deep–seated inauthenticity: sin.”
 
In the Gospel of John, Jesus has an intimate conversation with his closest friends. Shortly before his execution—a time when Jesus most certainly felt the pangs of alienation and aloneness—he reminded his friends to abide in him, to stay connected to God, and to bear the fruit of love.
 
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit . . . As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love . . . My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

Jesus gave his life as an expression of God’s love for humanity. Through his sacrificial love, God made a way to overcome “humanity’s deep–seated inauthenticity.” Our hearts can now be reconciled to God and to one another. We are forgiven and free. We are free to live in community with the Triune God and to connect authentically with the people of God. If we respond to the invitation and abide with the lover of our souls we will produce much fruit and bear each other’s alienation.  

I have a friend (not the dude in the picture) who wears a tee shirt with the word Likewise written on the front. He says it’s the name of a coffee shop in Knoxville, Tennessee that does nice things for people who are down on their luck. Beyond doing nice things for folks, they take all the money they earn from selling coffee and support their ministry, Raising a Voice, which fights against human trafficking on a local and global platform. If we had a coffee shop like that in our neighborhood that’s where I would buy my coffee.
 
The folks at Likewise are thinking red! They took the words of Jesus seriously and created a whimsical expression of Christ like community. After all, Jesus is the one who told the story of the Good Samaritan. At the end of the story Jesus said, if you want to be a good neighbor and inherit eternal life . . . Go and do likewise.
 
I remember the first time I read the Good Samaritan story. I was a young Christian, still in that naive space of faith development where you take Jesus at his word rather than rationalizing your way out of doing what he said. When I read the words, Go and do likewise, I got up from the couch and went for a drive in my 1972 Ford Courier.  I went to look for someone in a ditch who needed help.
 
I traveled seven short miles from my living room couch and found a person in need. There on the side of the road, walking aimlessly with a cane was a little old lady. I’ll never forget the soft wrinkles in her face and the gray bun of hair tightly wrapped on top of her head. She wore a faded blue dress and black leather shoes that were left untied. Her knee-high stockings were sagging around her ankles. As she climbed into my pickup truck, she peeped over her horn-rimmed glasses and introduced herself.
 
“My name is Mrs. Tully; I’m walking to Crestwood,” (a twenty-minute drive in my truck or a three day journey walking at Mrs. Tully’s pace.)
 
As we traveled down the road Mrs. Tully filled me in on her life story. When we arrived at our destination I interrupted her story and asked, “Where do you want to go in Crestwood?” 
 
She responded, “Crestwood? I don’t want to go to Crestwood! I want to go home.”
 
“Where’s home?” I asked.
 
“I don’t know! You’re the one who picked me up!”
 
I wasn’t sure what to do next. I decided to drive back to the place we met and hope for the best. Sure enough, as we drove back into LaGrange she recalled where she lived and invited me in to help her with a “plumbing problem.”
 
The next thing I knew, we were standing side by side in the bathroom. Her tub was filled to the brim with gray water; brown suds were floating on top. Mrs. Tully had been doing her laundry. Floating beneath the brown bubbles was her dirty socks, stockings, slips and other undergarments I didn’t want to think about.
 
Mrs. Tully looked at the bathtub with a long sad face and then she looked at me.  She didn’t say a word.
 
I looked at the underwear floating in the corner of the tub and then looked back at Mrs. Tully. I didn’t say a word.
 
She looked at me again, peeping over the top of her glasses, and then she looked back at the tub.
 
Silence filled the air. All I could hear in the back of my mind was, “Go and do likewise!”
 
After a long pause, I rolled up my sleeves and plunged my hands through the suds and unclogged the drain at the bottom of the tub. Mrs. Tully thanked me and offered me a piece of cake for my service. I took a pass on the cake. The plumbing project waned my appetite. However, I made a plan to return in a few weeks to share some cake and a few more stories.

Sometimes I wonder if we Christians make following the way Jesus more complicated than he intended for it to be. He didn’t make up a bunch of news rules. He basically had two: love God and love your neighbor. Nor did Jesus spend a lot of time debating theological and philosophical propositions; instead, he told stories about radical expressions of love like the story of the Good Samaritan and then he told us to go and do likewise.
 
Maybe following Jesus can be as simple as adding a new bottom line to a business enterprise; taking some of the money you make and using it to serve others in need.
 
Maybe it looks like drinking coffee at a place that does nice things for people and gives the money they make to help eliminate sex trafficking.
 
Maybe following Jesus is as simple as getting up off the couch and looking for someone who is lonely.
 
If you want to follow Jesus today, spend some time reflecting on the things he said and the way he lived and then go and do likewise.
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​The other day I had a sweet reminder of how good it is to have a friend like Jesus. The reminder came from three humming birds and a woodpecker. 
 
I was sipping on my morning coffee, watching humming birds buzz around the backyard. They would dart in close for a sip of juice from the jar hanging upside down by the fence and then zip over—faster than my eye could follow—to the flowerbed, bouncing back and forth between the red, yellow and purple zinnias.  The drone-sounding hum of their wings was interrupted by a metrical tapping sound from overhead.

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Tap, Tap, Tap, pause . . . 
 
Tap, Tap, pause . . .
 
Tap, Tap, Tap, pause . . .
 
Tap, Tap . . .
 

I began to reflect on the disparity between the privilege of the hummingbird and the fate of the woodpecker. If I had to live as one or the other I would definitely choose the life of the humming bird—floating through life, sucking sugar out of flowers is far better than banging your face against a tree and eating bugs. Who wouldn’t choose the life of a hummingbird over the life of a woodpecker?
 
The truth is, my life has been a mixture of the two. On some days everything goes right; with little effort I find myself flourishing in friendships, working side-by-side with my family and friends, using our gifts and talents to accomplish goals and add flavor to life. But on other days, nothing seems to go right. The harder I work, the further I get behind. On days like that bitterness can work its way into my imagination, robbing me of the joy I had when I set out to meet the day.  
 
Stringing one “woodpecker day” after another—banging your face against the wall and getting nothing but bugs for your effort—will eventually lead to fatigue and possibly burnout. If life has been an uphill battle for a while and you find yourself tired and weary this might be a good day to stop and hear the invitation your friend Jesus is speaking over you:
 
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

​Jesus knows life can be tough. He knows what you are going through today. Here are four things you can do to respond to his invitation.
 
First: Take a moment and name the fatigue. What is it that is wearing you out?
 
Second: Take the burden to Jesus in prayer. Remember, Jesus promised to be with you always, to never leave you or forsake you. Jesus is present with you in the chaos of life.
 
Third: Make an exchange. Jesus is inviting you to give him your burden and to receive his yoke in its place. When you are yoked with Jesus he will help you carry the load. It will be a great exchange because, his yoke is easy and his burden is light.
 
Fourth: Ask Jesus to help you hum a little today. Humming your way through the madness will help you taste and see the sweet parts of life in spite of the bug filled, rotten tree standing in front of you.