Confessions of a Latte Club Card: It Is Not Just Time That Heals All Wounds

I'm sipping on my iced cappuccino waiting for a youtube video of Donald Miller to load. A couple just walked in the door. The girl looks normal enough, the guy has hair that resembles a matted rat with dreadlocks. A woman in her fifties, who is trying to dress like she is thirty two, keeps cupping her hand to the window pane in the door looking for someone. A man who I assume is her husband, whom I also assume she is looking for, comes up behind her and taps her on the shoulder. She just about head buts the door in surprise, then laughs as she realizes it was him. Some music resembling Aretha Franklin drones in the background. Just another day at the Electric Brew. If your ever in Downtown Goshen, Indiana I recommend their chai, but only if Michelle is working. She makes a good chai.

There is a ragged tan business card in my wallet with little holes punched all along the side. I am one little coffee cup punch away from a free mixed drink of some sort. I've been working on this card for a while.

I need to start taking notes on my card, just a line or two. Something to record what happened with that cup of coffee. I really wish I would have thought of this from the beginning. This card has seen a lot.

Last night my card was present for something beautiful. Three friends, laughing at Leonard's house while watching Sabrina. It may never happen again, I don't know; but it was beautiful. I'm not really going to describe why other than this: It represented healing in something previously broken.

It takes a lot of punched holes in a Latte Club Card to bring healing. Some require tears, others anger, others forgiveness, most of them confusion, all of them prayer.

No friendship broken, no marriage hurting, no wound is beyond healing. If we find the humility. Many passionately pray for physical healing, but lack the fervor in praying for broken hearts or arthritic compassion that have plagued them and others for years. In some sense, physical healing is easier. Physical healing brings wholeness without me needing to confront my selfishness, or admit that I was wrong. Physical healing is easy to talk about "God healed my arthritis!" but to say the same about relational healing, even my rejoicing points out that I was dysfunctional.

C.S. Lewis said that no one can love in any form without being hurt. Because of death, because of selfishness, because of sin I will at some point be let down in some way by the ones I love. I know that someday if I marry, I or my spouse will day, causing pain, yet I invest in love.

Invest in Love today, even towards those who may now be your enemies, even though they may not respond to that love. Jesus said "as much as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Committed love may not always see the healing result, but without it there is no chance.

There is no greater representation of the heart of God than healed relationships. The more you experience them, the more you experience the heart of the Father.

When Jesus Shows up. Zombies and Little Brats.

Picture Jesus showing up. What would He do? In whatever situation, in whatever location, what does it mean for Jesus to show up? Most have their ideas that include anything from penance and prostration to barking and balling. In many cases there is an expectation for Jesus to validate what is already being done. Shame on us. When Jesus comes, things get turned upside down.

Matthew 21:12-17 gives a picture of what happens when Jesus shows up. It's both scary, and beautiful. Upon arriving at the temple Jesus flips tables and chases people out. Strangely enough these were the people who 'knew' how worship was to be done. They knew the number of doves, the right amount of grain, and what incense to burn; and incidentally they knew how much each one cost. It was worship -and business- as usual. The system was functioning fine. When Jesus showed up, the system was thrown out of the temple as it was cleansed. He called them theives. Imagine that, people using religion to make money.

Part deuce of the story: When Jesus shows up the system gets turned inside out. So about this time you have a whole bunch of venders and money changers fuming outside in the temple court. Meanwhile, the temple is filled with the lame and children. I'm sure to the Pharisees it seemed like a scene out of a zombie flick, with a bunch of lepers and such limping and moaning their way into the temple in order to desecrate it. So the 'system' is now on the porch, and the zombies and little brats (keep in mind children were seen as a nuisance [Matthew 19:13-15]) are running wild in the house. Strange, disturbing, beautiful.

"The church is the place for the weak" -Mike Yaconnelli

Right on Mike. I like to think of it this way: The church is the place where broken sinful people are somehow eqipped to live a righteous life they couldn't possibly live on their own. I guess a comparison would be a man with a broken leg running a marathon; or maybe Jesus doing a three legged marathon with our broken leg tied to his. NIKE!*

It would be ridiculous to say that the zombies and wild brats stayed that way. The lame were healed and the children shouted "Hosannna to the Son of David" Those who come into the kingdom are continually changed. God's love calls to us to enter his courts even as the leperous zombies we are, but He doesn't keep us that way. We leave the building joyfully leaping, calling the lame the poor and even little brats to come to God's house.

A blessing by Larry Hine (forgive me if the spelling on the last name is wrong)

May all your expectations be frustrated
May all your plans be thwarted
May all your desires be withered into nothingness
That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child
And sing and dance in the compassion of God
Who is Father, Son, and Spirit.

May Jesus turn our temple upside down.