When I first started working with college students on vocation discernment, we were guided by Three Key Questions: What gives me joy? Am I good at it? Who needs me to do it? In my work and ministry since then, I have often talked more about joys and gifts than about needs. (There are some reasons for that, but those aren’t the point here.)

Yesterday, I had the honor of presenting the address at the Founders’ Day Convocation at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California. In addition to being just a really great day in many ways, the address turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to reflect more on “what the world needs” from individuals and institutions discerning their vocation for the sake of others–the ones Martin Luther called “neighbors.”

Our text was Matthew 5:13-16: You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. You can read the address here.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” That’s what many Christians heard yesterday on Ash Wednesday as their foreheads were marked with ash in the sign of the cross. Ever since I was very young, I have found this ritual powerfully encouraging. Yes, I know that ashes are a reminder of our mortality and a traditional sign of penitence, regret, and mourning. So…encouraging? Yes, and last night I think I may have gotten it: way back when Pastor Susan said to me, “Remember that you are dust,” what I heard was, “You belong here.”

I was primed for “getting it” by our church’s women’s retreat last weekend, where the topic was “Belonging to God, Others, and Ourselves.” On the retreat, we explored how often our weakness and brokenness—more than our strengths–enable us to connect with others. We looked at films such as Martian Child and How to Train Your Dragon, seeing how the people who are misfits themselves are enabled to reach out to other misfits. The left-out ones are the ones who let others in.

At worship on Ash Wednesday, anyone and everyone can get ashed with the cross. We all get marked in the same way, just as we are all marked by the world’s brokenness and suffering. When it comes to perfection or wholeness, none of us fit in.

The ways we are broken vary in their particulars, but from now until Easter (and beyond!), Christians proclaim that the way we are healed is the same: through God’s redeeming work in Jesus Christ, accomplished once and for all on the cross–and still being done, over and over, through the work of the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus’ living, healing, feeding, forgiving, dying, and rising from the dead, Christians say that he “saves” (a word that also means “makes whole”). In his saving, he gathers a community in which all the misfits—all us humans made from dusty earth, all of us who are “divinely-inspired dirt”—belong.

The annual women’s retreat is coming up at my church, and the theme this year is “Connections: Belonging to God, Others, and Ourselves.” So I have “belonging” on my mind, and maybe that’s why I recently noticed the “sorting hat” in the Harry Potter stories by J. K. Rowling in a new way: It’s such an attractive idea, to have something that just tells each person where they belong.

Here’s how the sorting hat works: Each new school year, when Harry and his friends arrive at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they witness the first-year students being assigned to one of the four “houses” that make up the school. These assignments are magically made by an ancient, talking (and singing) hat who says:

There’s nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can’t see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.

Each new student puts on the hat in turn, and based on what the hat discerns in the student, it declares the house to which the student belongs.

A “sorting-hat” idea of belonging tempts us to seek WHERE we belong. If something or someone else could just tell us, so much the better. But fixating on WHERE we belong takes our focus off HOW we belong. Continue reading →

One of the reasons I’m grateful to belong with Martin Luther’s spiritual heirs is the inheritance of his preaching about grace. I rely on his unshaking focus on what God has done in Jesus and does through the Holy Spirit, in my life as well as in my preaching. So, like others of his 21st-century heirs, I get a little antsy when called to address something besides grace.

Most of the time, I prefer preaching about grace and “what God does” as a counter-balance to a very human sense that it is all about us and “what we do.” But we can get off-balance in the church, too, if all we talk about is what God does, and say or imply that we don’t have to do anything. Serving others, responding to Jesus’ call, following God’s commands–sure, those are nice ideas if you have the time, but in the life of faith they’re more like extra credit–which, as our school experiences tell us, the majority of people don’t do. We need a more subtle and nuanced language for “have to,” and it’s a language that this Sunday’s reading from Micah (6:1-8) invites us to consider.

Micah asks a key question which makes us grace-people squirm: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Wait a minute–doesn’t grace mean there are no requirements? Can we blow this off as mere extra credit, or is there something to these “requirements”? Continue reading →

Sorry about the weeks of silence here, as the aftermath of Holy Week and Easter collided with the preparations for a trip to southern California and Washington, D.C. for a few book events. Now I’m fresh from the second of this week’s two events and still chewing on some of the discussions.

Last night, for example, I heard a common question: “But how do you know?” What can you actually look forward to here, if you do this work of discernment? Once you’ve paid attention to the best of your ability and journaled and relied on community support and confirmation, etc., how can you be sure you’re doing the right thing?

Aye, there’s the rub: you can’t. Continue reading →

As friends and church members hear that I’ve published a book, a few have been sending me articles and videos about book-writing, book-publishing, and book-selling. Here’s my all-time favorite for humor and authenticity: Book Launch 2.0 on YouTube

And no, Oprah hasn’t called me yet, either.

With so many people on summer vacations, ’tis the season for “away messages” on emails. Here’s my “away message” for this blog, for these days while my posts are fewer and further between:

“Thank you for visiting New Houses from Old Bricks. I am currently editing my book for publication, and since I have just enough energy to do that and work at my day-job, I’ve been taking a few weeks off from blogging. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and will post information about the book here very soon.

The working title/subtitle is The Treasure Hunt of Your Life: How the journey of seeking your calling becomes an adventure of encountering God and finding yourself. I check in periodically while away, so if you care to comment on the book title or an experience with editing/self-publishing a book, I’ll get the message. Thank you.”

See you soon…and in the meantime, Happy Bastille Day!