The Fear of Freedom

As I prep for my summer adventures in the Sierra, I started reading a book that Kendra gave me for Christmas. My First Summer in the Sierra.” Written by John Muir in 1869, it is a diary which chronicles Muir’s journey into the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

I have duplicated this same trip dozens of time in my own life, but Muir’s description of the animals, trees and the landscape are easy for me to reach from the memory banks of my mind. As I read along with his diary, I can picture myself traveling along with John Muir through his diary.

As I quickly got lost in this book, I was shocked to stumble upon this simple quote included in the image above. As Muir journeyed into the mountains he joined a company of travelers including a shepherd who was pushing his large flock of sheep out of the dry grass of central California to feast on the lush green meadows of the high Sierra for the summer. After camping in one location for several days, the sheep mowed down the majority of the green grass in camp and began to wander farther away for their meals.

Preparing to break camp, they realized they had lost over 100 of the sheep from the flock. The shepherd remained in camp with the existing sheep and instructed Muir and one of his hired hands to set out to track down the remaining lost sheep.

Muir details that he and his partner simply followed the dogs out of camp. Scurrying over one bluff and one valley they quickly found the sheep huddled close together. The flock was far enough away to be lost, but close enough to be found without much effort. The sheep had simply lost their way back to camp and were also too fearful to move forward. They had found the freedom to roam and graze at will, but as Muir reflects, “they seemed glad to get back into the old familiar bondage.”

Here is where my reading took a turn. This diary contains reflections made by John Muir. As a naturalist, Muir merely comments on the nature and behavior of sheep grazing in the hills and canyons of California. This reflection, however, sparked something in me that has little to do with Muir’s depiction of the Sierra and more to do with the behavior of people in the church.

To take this just a little deeper, whenever I hear about sheep, I think about all the sermons I have heard my entire life that compares sheep to the followers of Jesus. I could not help but see a simple connection here.

The statement about these lost sheep reminds me of Christians who taste the freedom that comes with salvation. The bible compares this to prisoners being set free from prison. In other places, we read about chains being dropped. The reference is always the same: freedom from sin. The good news (the gospel) is about a savior who doesn’t just free us from sin, but also from our own efforts and any work we attempt to save ourselves. Through faith (alone) by grace (alone) we can find salvation from God.

Yet, I seem to have met a lot of Christians who behave just like these sheep. Instead of living in the freedom of the gospel and celebrate the grace given to us by God, they choose instead to jump right back into the comfort of bondage. Given the freedom to roam and eat the green grass in front of them, these Christians seem glad to get back into the old familiar bondage of religion. Instead of living in freedom and trusting in Christ, they focus instead on their own effort, they depend on their own behavior and they rely upon their own hard work to not just save them, but to keep them in right relationship with God.

Again, the book is just a diary from John Muir. He shared only a few lines about these sheep. I recognize that I am pushing the similarities way more than Muir intended. Do you see it too? Can you relate? Let me know in the comments.

Quietly making noise,
Fletch

Gospel Suffering

My wife is the real writer in this family. She recently wrote about the topic of suffering and was very candid sharing the wave after wave of suffering we have navigated as a family. She nailed it and I wanted to share her words with readers of theMangoTimes.

You can read everything she says over at KendraFletcher.com, but this specific post can be found by clicking directly here:

When Suffering Comes Blow by Blow by Blow (and How to Help)

My favorite line in her post is this: “It is this suffering life to which we are called, but we cannot embrace its grace until we recognize that the Bible, Christ’s life, and ours in discipleship is a life called to pain and brokenness. God triumphs, though. This earth isn’t heaven.”

After the last few years of let downs, false starts, loss and pain, sometimes we need to learn to sit in that pain recognizing that God is still in sovereign control. We can kick and scream and yell all we want, but there is also a place of peace knowing that God knows, He cares and He’s got this. Anyhow, enough of my thoughts, go read her words.

Quietly making noise,
Fletch

Be Kind - Reboot!

This post is a reboot. Originally posted in 2016 when I was introducing my readers to the Fletchifesto. Looking back, that was a different time all around. No one had been exposed to the Covid_19 pandemic, mask mandates, or quarantines. There had not yet been a Donald Trump presidency. Wildfires had not ravaged much of the Western US. This was before we experienced the regular and senseless deaths of George Floyd, Ahmad Arberry, Trayvon Martin, and Breonna Taylor.
This goes without saying, but this topic more than most on this blog deserves a 2022 reboot. Enjoy! - Fletch

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(Originally published 2016)
When I created my Fletchifesto, my goal was to help people focus on positivity. Hopefully you will notice that everything included in the Fletchifesto graphic is meant to encourage you or just focus on the brighter side of things. That was the goal. Infuse positivity into the people I contact.

View fullsize

With this phrase, I decided to be a little more blunt: BE KIND. It's simple. I just want people to learn to be friendly and generous with one another.

In all truthfulness, I stole this from a quote on one of Kendra's t-shirts. It just says: "BE KIND" across the front. It's highly possible that it grabs my attention based solely on the position and location as it is displayed across my wife's chest, but I am motivated by this phrase every time she wears the shirt.

It's simple. It's repeatable. It makes a very good mantra.

By definition, kindness includes aspects of friendliness, generosity and being considerate to other people, which are all great qualities. But, I often find kindness can be difficult to integrate throughout your life. It's hard to be kind to a child throwing a temper tantrum. It's hard to be kind to your spouse when they deeply offend. Driving behind someone slow in traffic or standing behind the person who doesn't understand "10 items or less" will quickly extinguish kindness. Personally, I find the biggest challenge to be kind when others are not acting kind. However, I don't think that is the point with kindness. 

I realized that I wanted to develop more kindness in my life, so I put myself to a test. For this year's 100 Day challenge, I completed a random act of kindness everyday. Being kind to family and friends is easy, so to stretch myself I tried to focus my efforts on complete strangers and society at large. Here is what I learned: the opportunity to be kind is in abundance. Once I got started, opportunities for kindness were EVERYWHERE. I just need to open my eyes and see the needs around me. It blew me away how many times I was avoiding kindness on my day to day existence on this planet. Also, I was amazed at how this developed a habit of kindness in me. It was almost as if my kindness muscles were out of shape.

How about you? How are you doing with kindness? Do you want to join me?

Quietly making noise,
Fletch

See You Later!

As we walked out to the car, Jeff paused twice. Once to catch his breath and once more to cough and tell me how difficult this simple task of walking to the driveway was for him. As Jeff entered the passenger side of the car, his wife sat down behind the steering wheel, each on their new side of the car.

This brief walking journey to the car came after we spent the afternoon celebrating a few family birthdays. While birthdays were the stated purpose for getting together, I was well aware that just under the surface of celebration was the the heavy reality that this was one of the final times I would spend with my brother-in-law while he was still alive.

Jeff had been living with cancer for about five years. We lived through the shock of the initial diagnosis, surgery and treatment. We lived through the multiple trips to Stanford and celebrated each time he shared a good report. We also grieved with Jeff each time new tumors were discovered or that a chemotherapy did not seem to be working.

However, when we found out two weeks prior to this family gathering that the doctors had exhausted all options for treatment and that cancer was now overwhelming his body, our time table for spending time with Jeff was shrinking.

There are many things I will remember from that last family gathering: I enjoyed watching Jeff cheer on his favorite San Francisco Giants as they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers again (see picture). I will remember smiling while the family was talking back and forth and Jeff shared a few quiet text messages with me from across the room. These short text messages were part of our daily behavior. One of us would celebrate finding a reminder of God’s love somewhere on Twitter or we would cringe together when we found an example where the church was struggling to show God’s love through racism, gender, or religion. In the middle of everything going on that day, Jeff continued to find/send me something he found that he knew I would appreciate. I will also remember the few moments I had to sit and just visit with him quietly and remind him that he had been a great example to me of what it meant to be a husband and father.

However, the one thing I cannot seem to shake from our time together that afternoon was what Jeff said after that long walk to the car. He sat down and caught his breath and in that awkward moment of saying goodbye looked up at me and said: “Love you brother. I’ll see you later.”

That’s a phrase we all say when we leave people who live in close community with us, right? Jeff and I are not distant relatives. In fact, I knew I’d probably hear from him on Twitter before I drove an hour up the highway to my house. We were in daily communication with one another. Yet we didn’t SEE each other EVERY day, so a parting comment like this was totally appropriate: I’ll see you later.

This time it was different though. There was an acute awareness for both of us that this might be the last time I was going to see him or the last time we were both going to sit and talk together. His cancer was moving fast and his body was being overtaken. Jeff was preparing for his departure. He was having last conversations. He was wrapping up what was important to him on this side of death. When he said, “I’ll see you later.” He and I both knew the full impact of what he was saying with this “double statement.”

Truthfully, this was a perfect thing for him to say to me, because it was true in the fullest sense. I did in fact get to see Jeff later, but even if I didn’t, I am going to get to see Jeff later. That is the beautiful part of everything Jeff and I love about our Christian faith. This life we live here with one another is brief. It is temporary. The Christian life is so much more. It is forever.

For the C.S. Lewis Narnia fans, this is what he describes in his book, The Last Battle. In this book there is a section where he talks about old Narnia (earth) and the new Narnia (heaven).

“It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried:

I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!””

— C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle"

I did get to see Jeff a few more times and I received dozens of texts and tweets from him. He had much more to say and much more to share. I personally love that my final text I received from Jeff was just a few days before he died. He was acknowledging that I was celebrating Talk Like A Pirate Day. More than anyone in Kendra’s family, Jeff understood that I could be both fun and serious.

Here is the hard part of this blog post. I have always said that I write theMangoTimes for only three people. Jeff was one of those people, so I’ve lost 1/3 of my focused audience. I’ve decided I will still write and podcast with those three people in mind. Although Jeff won’t read what I write (or send me my grammar corrections), what I think about and what I choose to include in theMangoTimes will always have him in mind as he continues to press higher up and further in.

Love you brother, I’ll see you later.

Quietly making noise,
Fletch

A Thin Veneer of the Gospel

theMangoTimes blog has been dead silent for more than a year. There were many things I wanted to write about during 2020, but it seemed like everyone was blogging and podcasting on the same subjects. I did not want to add another voice into the conversation about pandemics, sheltering in place, politics, racism, or why we should or should not be wearing masks. Lately though, I have not been able to shake a few thoughts and theMangoTimes always seems like a good place to write some things down and see how they land.  

So, what would bring Fletch out of his blogging hiatus? The same as always: the gospel. It’s been over 10 years since I woke up from what I refer to as “gospel amnesia.” I know it sounds crazy from a guy who loves the gospel, but for a large chunk of my life I had done the unthinkable and forgotten the gospel. I got wrapped up with a group of people who thought and taught more about behaving than believing. Those years of pursuing religion through better behavior were some of the most fruitless years in my faith and I have no desire to return. 

That's why theMangoTimes will continue to be a trumpet for gospel-centered promotion (and I hope discussion). It is also why I choose to surround myself with people who will regularly speak the gospel into my life. I appreciate the reminder to believe better because on my own I quickly return to focusing again on how to behave better.

This leads me to a trend I have seen this year. As 2020 blends into 2021, the virus and the politics surrounding the virus have continued to surge at a feverish rate. The desire for normalcy has led many in our community to a point of frustration and feistiness. The epitome of frustration can be seen in what the internet refers to as “Karens” or “Kevins” exploding in the local Trader Joes. What I find interesting is that this angst remains almost indistinguishable within the virtual walls of the church. Sure, it doesn’t represent itself in shared viral videos, but it remains suppressed within the minds and hearts of many in the church.

Our American culture has created a spirit of entitlement. In public we see this erupt in angry displays by people who will not “let their rights” be violated. In the church, I find it much more subtle.  “Gospel amnesia” lives quietly under the surface and spreads quickly because many of us live with a very thin veneer of the gospel over our faith.

“The gospel becomes a banner we live under that says: You have been saved by faith. You are being saved by faith. You will ultimately be saved by faith. Period. ”

If we are being honest, the church has been hit by the perfect storm. For the past year, we have been forced to face a lingering pandemic, unavoidable issues of justice, and a front-row seat to one of our most contentious political seasons in history (Note: I am quick to be corrected by my father who loves to describe the similarities to the election of 1864).

For gospel loving Christians, we should be thriving in this environment. Who better than us to articulate the good news that God loves us and that His love is most clearly demonstrated in the redemptive work of Jesus on our behalf? Pushing this theology a little deeper, my favorite 16th-century monk, Martin Luther, would remind us that this happens only by God's grace. Jesus and only Jesus can do the work that saves us. We bring nothing to the table for negotiation of our salvation or our sanctification. 

The gospel becomes a banner we live under that says: You have been saved by faith. You are being saved by faith. You will ultimately be saved by faith. Period. This knowledge should then translate into a demonstration of a deep love for one another or, to follow my metaphor, we should have a thick layer of the gospel that remains difficult to penetrate. 

Has that been the case? I'm discovering something quite different. 2020 has revealed that because many of us have been living with a very thin veneer of the gospel, we are quick to forget these truths.

As I said above,, I’ve been working this out in my thoughts and with several in my community. I mentioned this recently as I walked with a friend who asked me to clarify what I meant. Think back over the last year with me. In conversations about politics, or our cultural/corporate behavior/response to Covid-19, or our response to justice, or any of the other challenging topics this year, have you witnessed a gospel response? I would argue that as soon as we begin scratching the surface in most conversations we will quickly find discussions and ultimately lives driven by "good or right" Christian behavior.

If the gospel reminds us how deeply loved we are by God, that should motivate us to "do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously." (Micah 6) Instead, 2020 revealed a church split over so many issues: From wearing masks to responding to issues of justice, citizenship, political candidates, to gathering in person for worship, to whatever. Instead of the gospel motivating and informing our response to instinctively care for others over ourselves, I found over and over this year that folks seemed to be driven by religious responses driven by self-focus and personal rights.

The solution for this seems so simple: Preach the gospel even more, right? It seems easy enough, but here's where things got real. In my little corner of the world, I began to hear statements like this: "Hey Fletch, you can't keep talking about the gospel. That's all you ever seem to want to talk about. Can we move beyond that topic? You clearly do not recognize the importance of holiness. I get the gospel. What we need to talk about is what it means to live out our faith in the fear of God."

“In other words, the gospel doesn’t just earn your salvation, but it maintains your salvation and secures your salvation. ”

This is exactly what I mean by a thin veneer of the gospel. This is represented in responses like this: The gospel is great, but only for getting our foot in the door. Once I am there, I am responsible for all of my behaviors, so thanks for the gospel mumbo-jumbo, but I need to hear and learn how to behave better. Oh yeah, by the way, I need to hear way more about the consequences of all my bad choices too. I can’t live on a diet of the unconditional love of God alone.

It reminds me of a life-changing conversation I had with a pastor who told me that the gospel is not just the “A, B, C's” of the Christian faith, but the “A to Z”.  In other words, the gospel doesn't just earn your salvation, but it maintains your salvation and secures your salvation. At no time do we move on from the gospel. At no time do we hit a place where our work is required to maintain our position before God or secure our salvation.

When we have a year like 2020, where our faith has been given multiple opportunities to be on display, where do we look for motivation?  In this season where we can choose to humbly serve our weaker brother or boldly stand for brothers and sisters who have been seen "lesser than" because of the color of their skin, their gender, their political beliefs, etc,  shouldn’t it be the gospel that motivates us? The gospel is the constant reminder that we have been reconciled to God by His grace alone that motivates us. It's never our behavior. It's never our good works. It's never our righteousness.

As I mentioned, these conversations based on a very shallow penetration of the gospel have become almost unavoidable. In fact, they have seemed to ramp up and I love when others say that they've heard enough of the gospel and want to move on and start focusing on their obedience or working out their salvation. For me, it's like pouring gasoline on the gospel bonfire. It motivates me to remind others that the gospel-centered life is a life where Christians experience a growing personal reliance on the gospel that protects them from depending on their own religious performance and being seduced and overwhelmed by idols.

“True faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself. Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!”

When you bump into others who have reached the point of frustration and feistiness, turning inward to the “quality of their faith” does not provide hope, rescue or relief. As a teacher once explained to me, when you meet a drowning man you don’t tell them to: “Paddle harder and kick faster.” We do not possess the internal power to get things right and unfortunately every effort within ourselves will only lead to further collapse.

In his book, The Christian Life, Sinclair Ferguson had an amazing quote: “True faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself. Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!”

Now it's your turn. How important is your behavior to your faith? What do you bring to your salvation? What do you bring to your sanctification? Does the gospel get you in the door or is it the fuel behind every step in your faith? Have the challenges of 2020 and 2021 pushed you one way or the other. Let me know in the comments or feel free to connect with me privately by email. I’d like to hear from you.

Quietly making noise,
Fletch