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Sunday, November 28, 2010

My Dad said the other week he and my mom were at the mall window-shopping and I guess they passed a ladies' clothing store or whatever, because he paused there looking at the display and said, "You know, honey, that would look really good on you." So, good job, dad, right? Until he turns to his side and the woman standing there isn't my mom.

You know that feeling. When you're in your own little world, but not totally oblivious to your surroundings, you sense somebody at your periphery and maybe assume it's somebody you know...but oops. It's awkward, a little funny. Can be a little scary if, say, you were a little kid with the same experience -- wandering in the mall or grocery store and feel somebody at your side, assume it's still mom or dad standing there, but you turn and look up into a stranger's face. Not cool. But hang onto those feelings for a minute.

They may get at what's at stake in Matthew 24:36-44, where Jesus continues on in this little convo about the end of time. I think he's trying to answer people's questions about when/how he'll come back, and how we prepare. If you read it, he focuses on the idea that no one knows the when, not even him apparently (which is hard to deal with, umm, 'cause it's Jesus), or the angels. And he compares his coming to the days of the flood with Noah, where people went about life's normal tasks -- working, surviving, partying -- right up until the water swept them away.

So today the Sunday with the theme of Hope, wondering at Jesus coming back, his own words don't produce simple feelings of joy and rapture, rainbows and unicorns. We're looking towards Christmas, but where are the sugar-plum fairies and what-have-you?

Russell Rathbun has this to say: “Nothing raises my holiday spirits like the anticipated threat of Jesus kidnapping someone at work and then breaking into my house and robbing me. And the fun part is, it will all be a surprise! Yeah.”

Welcome to Advent. Welcome to Hope?

Alyce McKenzie wonders, where are the festive Christmas decorations that depict these sorts of scenes that Jesus offers us? Can you imagine a snow-globe of the Noah story? Not the cartoony one in kids' Bibles with animals hugging each other and Noah smiling on top of that big boat. Imagine a scene more like what we saw from Hurricane Katrina, with the earth rocked, muddy water churning around filled with debris, peoples' homes, and, above all, human bodies. Quite a snow-globe, eesh.

Or, my family likes to put jigsaw puzzles together around Christmas. Whenever you get bored you can go plunk a couple pieces down. And you know how they are, with the kind of pictures they create -- there's a whole Thomas Kinkade set with like little cottages covered in snow, that have warm light coming through the frosty windows, and chimney smoke puffing outta the chimney. There's a wreath on the door and you know people are inside drinking cocoa, with kittens curled up warm beside balls of yarn.

Okay, so take that picture, and throw in that Jesus is on the front porch creeping around trying to find a way to break in. The thief.


Yeah, that's an exaggerated image, but maybe it gets closer to the kind of tone that Jesus uses for the days when he'll return. Why? Why talk like this? Does he want us scared? Or, even more, paranoid? Are we to constantly, fearfully, full of anxiety, look over our shoulders for the day Jesus appears?

I can't think that, because he loves us. And because he loves us, he's being very real about the nature of the days when he returns. It's not exactly party time...God leaves us all to make choices about what we believe and how we live, and Jesus' advent will be a reckoning with that.

Jesus' instructions aren't: "be afraid, be very afraid." That's usually how we hear it, almost...be afraid if you get caught in what you shouldn't. Like, if you're in the middle of the wrong word or the wrong drink when Jesus pops back in on the world, oooh, it's bad news. I'm not so sure. I'm not calling that untrue, but just not deep enough. Because Jesus actually said: "be ready."

How to be ready? For me I think it means to stop trying to assert when there's no way Jesus is coming back. You know what I mean? Some of us spend time guessing at when Jesus will show back up, 2012 or whatever. I bet all of us, one time or another, guess at when Jesus will definitely NOT show up.

Not out loud. Not even consciously, probably. But we promise ourselves, "No way Jesus will interrupt this." Or at least we hope not. That's right, the most devout of the devout, there are times we are just wishing Jesus will leave things be.

Thanksgiving last week is a great example. It's a good time. Nationwide people gather, they fellowship, they try to get along (maybe). The central theme is giving thanks. In general, God probably pretty much likes Thanksgiving, yes? Many of us make preparations around Turkey Day, we're cooking and traveling, or eating and napping. It is the last time we'd expect Jesus to show up, and some of us would even say, "Nah, Jesus, not right now" if he chose to.

I'm saying, imagine that your table is set, the family has gathered and prayed, you've slaved for hours over pumpkin pie and the first bite of sweet turkey and gravy is on your fork. And Jesus rolls in on the clouds for judgment and justice and to set all things right. Our first reaction might be a little resentment, I'm just saying. Those times, those family times, those that we plan most for, where our idea of life is already good and occupied, that's when I'm usually assuming, "nah, Jesus ain't coming now, he's not interrupting this."

What's the danger in thinking that way? What's the big deal? There's not just a lack of readiness for the end of time... sometimes there's a lack of respect, understanding, connection or love for God. Sometimes when I'm surrounded by family, it's almost like I choose not to worry about God, speaking to God or hearing from God, because I'm doing something I think God must like and God should just leave me to it. Or when I'm doing something I've planned a lot for... God can just leave me alone for that. And so on.

There are huge chunks of my life when I just black out, or shut down, or take a quick break (or a looong break) from connecting with God. And when I let myself notice God again, it's almost a little awkward, less familiar, less intimate. I don't think God wants us to live that way, not day to day, and not on that ultimate day when we finally have a much more face-to-face meeting with God, either when Jesus returns or when we go to see him in death.

I don't think Jesus would have his followers suddenly look up from what they're doing, glance up and find that they don't recognize this person at their side. I don't think Jesus wants us to be taken by surprise, or stricken dumb with fear, or even feel a little awkward. Let's have none of that stranger-at-the-mall feeling. I think Jesus wants us to be ready so that when he comes we can recognize him and love him. So we can recognize him like an oldest, closest friend returned. That is worth hoping for, for later at whatever time the reckoning comes, and for now.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Do you know that the Christian calendar year runs a little different from the every day? Church calendars consider this Sunday the last Sunday of the year - it's "Christ the King" or "Reign of Christ" Sunday - when we try to realize Jesus at his fullest. Over the course of the church year that starts over again next week, we've wondered at Jesus' arrival (Advent season), celebrated it (Christmas), journeyed up to the cross and resurrection at Easter, and on and on, all the way until THIS day. It's the Sunday to remember that by what we believe ultimate reality is this: God lived among us in Jesus, who charged into death to destroy it and save us, and right now he still sits at the right hand of God awaiting the day to return. Colossians 1:9-20 is an awesome picture of that fullness.

These are the points of Christian faith where many folks who are kind of fond of Jesus as a person or teacher have to bow out of going so far with him. Where Jesus is still 100% man, but also 100% God. Where he is still alive. Where he reigns over all. I can understand how that's a big leap for some folks...those ideas assume much about life, the universe, reality. And I think most of us are nervous about putting too much power and authority into any one person's hands. We get nervous about putting all our faith/outlook into the hands of any one set of ideals anyway...there's too much room for error if we end up mistaken, we've been let down too many times, or it's just too exclusive of others. Besides, there's no pressing need to make such a jump, to assume so much.

So for plenty of us it's hard to buy fully into "Reign of Christ" Sunday. Maybe there's some truth in it about Jesus, but it's long been embellished into legend. Maybe it explains some of the things around us...maybe it's just good and entertaining. Maybe exalting Jesus so much fills some need in us to have a hero figure to hope for or to try to be like.... Maybe it's a lot like most of our legends, even like our American Tall Tales?

Really -- we've got Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, John Henry, Johnny Appleseed, Dan'l Boone and Davy Crockett, Pecos Bill -- there are actually hundreds of such characters. And some are absolutely historical, or at least started out that way. Every one of them is interesting or entertaining or tries to explain things.

Did you know that Paul Bunyan was so big that even as a newborn, it took five storks to carry him to his parents? At one week old he could fit into his dad's clothing. His first infant giggle boomed so loud it shattered every window in the house. When he grew up, he was so big that whenever he went camping he'd have to light a huge fire to stay warm; and the next day to be sure the fire was out he always piled up stones on top like most of us do. Only, his piles became what we know as record-breaking peaks like Mt. McKinley and Mt. Hood. And the Grand Canyon? That's what happened one day when Paul got tired of lugging his axe over his shoulder, so he set to dragging it along the ground behind him.

Good stuff. Paul Bunyan and some of these tales are a little goofy, but what is it about them and our other hero characters that appeals to us?

Jimmy Dean gives us another good example...he doesn't just make sausage, as a singer/songwriter this song of his came on the radio this week while I was preparing, it's called "Big Bad John". Listen:


So another story that has some historic basis, about a "big, big man" but also a mysterious one, an intimidating guy no one knew much about. But a guy who leapt into action when things looked their worst. That's a legend. If you like it, why?

I like it because it stirs something in me that hopes for "big, big" help in my darkest hour, when all looks lost and no effort of mine will be enough. But that's exactly where some of us decide to try and back off of our hero legends or faith. We rationalize and say, "...but it's not true, and I better have more sense than to count on help like that. I don't have that kinda luck, it's not smart to bank on it, I need to take care of myself." I agree, really. It's not smart at all, but I'd still rather hope when all seems lost than just lay down and quit, or sit there and rationalize.

Truly, all the tall tales and hero stories can give us hope. Not in and of themselves (don't know many folks willing to stake their lives on Paul Bunyan and Babe coming to rescue). But only if they point to the one story that is true, and the one hero that is all-sufficient. Because indeed we will all experience something that for many of us seems dark and freaky, or at least totally uncertain -- death. No power of ours, no amount of will or strength or intellect, can put the tiniest dent in it. The only shot we have to hope for any survival with it, is the hope beyond all hope that One can come to our aid and handle it.

And I need a hero not just for death, but LIFE. We're every day dealing with parts of life that smack of death -- hate and violence that make no sense, things that strike at our hearts and those of the ones we love, things that enslave and destroy. EVEN MORE, it is often ME who contributes to those deadly things in myself and on others around me. So the greatest hope story would involve a hero that deals with death, but also with saving us daily from life, and even those deep parts of ourselves that need it.

The tallest of tales, that is. Would be absurd to hope for it. But I still need it, personally. I think the world does. After all, "Christ the King" Sunday wasn't a day ordered by Jesus, it's a really recent development. In the early 20th century, events around the world were taking such a toll that the church saw fit to institute this day of celebration. One major component was the events unfolding in Mexico -- in 1918 the nation had passed a constitution that made it pretty easy for folks to pressure and eventually persecute the church. Until the 1940s, for their faith Christians dealt with imprisonment, confiscation of property, torture and death (this was the 1940s!). And in front of the firing squad one young priest shouted out something that inspired the naming of this Sunday -- "Viva Cristo Rey!" It means, "Christ the King Lives!"

So since 1925 when it was first observed in response to those events, this is the Sunday when we assert the reality of the fullness of Christ Jesus exalted above all authority in heaven and on earth. Now, no, that's not to say that whatever our leaders and governments do is pleasing to God or sanctioned by him. For God always leaves it to us to choose for ourselves, and I'd say we jack that up most of the time. But it is to say that those authorities and rulers, and even our own authority over our own individual lives, is still ultimately subject to Jesus and will be held to account one day soon.

In the meantime, can we take a look at ours and the earth's situation, and maybe see that nothing but heroic intervention is going to succeed here? Maybe we can start to consider that kind of hope.

Sunday, November 14, 2010



Some of us recognize the speech above. FDR's "Declaration of War" before Congress following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Listen to it. It's a good place to start this week because today is Veteran's Day, and it gives us something to wrestle with. Because it is a good speech, and powerful, and seemingly very timely. After all, of all wars, isn't World War II the one that Americans romanticize most -- it gives us the best movies and stories, it's connected to that "great generation", and above all it was a war that we weren't even trying to be involved with but were drawn into. Having been surprised by a dastardly attack on our soil, leaving our entire west coast vulnerable, we felt the need to defend ourselves and join our allies, fitting what many call "just war". And, and, we pushed through to overwhelming victory.

It's the war that many love. It's not one that many people doubt or question. But however confident we are even in WW2, can't we still admit its atrocity? I mean, if nothing else the weapons of warfare had grown specially terrible -- the first world war saw weapons like air combat, machine guns, and tanks, but these were all perfected in WW2. Jungle warfare that was renowned in Vietnam for its gruesome, face-to-face quality was rampant in the Pacific. After the fact we learned the extent of the Holocaust. Concluding the conflict we saw atomic weapons devastate civilians.

For me, even with our most romantic of conflicts, even those we exalt and celebrate, there cannot help but be mixed emotions. Veterans advocate that, probably better than any, that "war is hell." So to honor them, and to honor God, even on Veterans Day as Christians we have discernment to do with war. How far do we go with it? Do we go with it at all? We who uphold grace, forgiveness, unconditional love, and love for enemies....

In Jesus' life, we hear the disciples stir up a conversation that's pretty similar, one of mixed emotions that calls for deep discernment. In Luke 21:5-19, as he and a crowd walk around Jerusalem, somebody looks up at the Temple and can't help being awed by its beauty. Its stones, jewels, golden doors, and the idea that God dwells there with the people. And that little comment sparks Jesus here to get into a wild subject, "the end of days" when all that grand Temple would come down. If we're in that crowd with him, all of a sudden this is a big moment -- as Jews we'd know that to talk about the Temple's destruction is to start thinking about the end of the world, so the prophets had been saying for centuries. If we're in that crowd, our ears perk up at where the convo has gone...Jesus is gonna let us in on some of the big stuff, the end of the world stuff. So they jump into our usual questions, "What will happen? When? Wha? Wha?"

For me, what he describes smacks of deep discernment. Just look at the advice he gives:

First, in verses 8-9, "watch out that you are not deceived...." Jesus gives a warning for taking great care, being patient and wise, and not getting swept up in things when they start happening. He says, basically, "don't just run after everybody claiming this or that, because most of them won't be representative of me." Why this warning? In part, I think, because imagine the excitement of the people at the "end of days." As Jews who count themselves as God's people, and as disciples following Jesus around who have seen his power at work and are convinced he's the victorious Messiah, many folks thought the end would finally bring justice and judgment, and all their enemies would be dealt with, and they'd inherit the kingdom of God. A good hope, in a way. Some of that is what draws us towards armageddon movies and 2012 predictions, it's wild to think we will take part in the most famous days in history, the END. So Jesus warns his followers not to be taken in by all this, not to be just swept up into it, but to be cautious.

That idea seems so true for our discernment with war. Can we agree that combat should be entered into cautiously (if at all), that above all we shouldn't be swept up and drawn in by the excitement and go too far. I mean, what's too far? There's a popular country song that makes it more clear for me. It gets played a lot around Vets' Day, called "The Angry American" and here's the video (WARNING: THE LYRICS ARE FAIRLY EXPLICIT):



Watch it. Does it ever rub you wrong? Or only all right? At what point does it go too far? Again, as people of grace, called to love our enemies and even to die for them before we consider killing them, where do we stand so that we don't enter that kind of conflict lightly?

Like FDR's idea of "Righteous might"...I understand the emotions that fuelled his speech and our nation. Feelings of vulnerability, and really the fear along with it, of having our own soil harmed and under further threat. But I wonder if Jesus' disciples had similar feelings. It sounds like Jesus didn't want them overtaken with their fervor for justice/judgment. Righteous might, sure, but careful not to make it "self-righteous" might.

Then there's the second piece of advice from Jesus. In verses 10 and 11, he describes the gnarly side of the end of time, the nation versus nation, natural disasters, and mighty groanings all over the earth -- and it sounds to me like he's almost trying to scare them. But I don't think that's it, if I believe all this is to try to prepare them (and us) for the end. Do I think Jesus wanted his disciples to be ostriches with their heads in the sand, or cowards fleeing for their lives? Jesus does get dubbed a big "pansey" much of the time for all his nonviolence, his "turn the other cheek" door-mat kind of talk. Is that it here? Negative. I think he hopes the people realize what's coming so that they can hang on and endure.

It reminds of something I've heard said about people of faith, that connects to the September 11th attacks. On that day, as the buildings collapsed and the dust-clouds rolled out, hundreds of folks were all running in one direction: AWAY from the buildings. But hundreds of others in particular were heading in the opposite direction. Emergency personnel rushed directly into the darkness. That is exactly where we should find the people of God. Rushing even headlong into disaster, distress, and the greatest trouble holding the banner of our faith. When everybody else is running for it. So in death, in the scariest of times, in indecisive times, we can be fearless in Christ Jesus like no other people can.

I think Jesus gets at that here, preparing his followers so that they can endure in courage.

So in the face of two extremes: being swept up and charging too far versus fleeing away in fear, Jesus advises us on where to be in the mix. He says, "Stand firm"..."Stand firm, and you will win life." Because the last verses here are clear that however exciting the times, and however insanely scary, they will also be personal. Faith will divide families, Christians will be disowned, persecuted, tortured, and killed.

And when that comes, can we cling to God's righteous might without going too far on into vengeance and personal satisfaction? Can we resist aggression without turning to cowardice? Can we offer the other cheek, not as big pansies, but in defiance? Remember, Jesus who chose death for the sake of saving even those trying to kill him, he still stood defiantly as if to say, "You're going to take this life? Then I will raise it again."

Can we stand firm?

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Do you prefer being right to being wrong? I think most of us, yes. I mean, being proved right emphasizes that what we've always thought, or argued, or felt was accurate all along. It means our understanding of things is on track and unharmed. It means we've avoided the trauma of rethinking things, or feeling suddenly uncertain about ourselves and the universe. Being wrong does that, it makes us admit imperfection and rattles other things we think we're right about. Not to mention it usually means we have to admit somebody else was right, and that can chip away at our self-esteem or feelings of superiority. Ruh roh.

It's just easier to be right, for pete's sake. More fun, too. Forget being proved wrong, it's easier to be right than to have to talk about what's right and wrong. As in, healthy conflict, good debate, digging into what we believe is true/false is even harder than just assuming we've already got it right. It takes energy, creativity, patience, and perspective to be open to other ideas of rightness. Eesh.

Welcome to the world of the Sadducees (the Tsedukim), a Jewish order in the ancient world, like the Pharisees, that was very exclusive, influential, and chiefly concerned with being right. Their particular perspective was to take the Law (the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible) very literally at its word. They were totally strict in interpreting their faith that way. Part of that meant not believing in things that the Law didn't explicitly spell out, like much of the supernatural stuff -- angels and demons, heaven and hell, the resurrection and after-life. Didn't believe it. And they staked everything about themselves on that. Not just their faith, but their entire identities in society. Life's work, reputation, all that as Sadducees.

In some ways they sound very American...if what we believe is not verifiable, can't be proved, if it's supernatural, kick it out because it's silly. Like plenty of folks treat Jesus, "hey, the golden rule, love people, give to charity, I'm down with some of that Jesus...just not so much all that mystical junk, the dying on the cross, miracles, etc."

Jesus' interaction with the Sadducees sheds light on that attitude. It speaks to those of us who would treat Jesus as another spiritual/moral teacher in the crowd, but leave the Messiah business behind. It's summed up real well in a quote from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

I think that's reality. It confronted the Sadducees in Luke 20:27-38 when they set out to assert their rightness by asking Jesus a trick question about something they felt very sure about, the resurrection of the dead. They lay it out, this conundrum in the Law, where if a brother dies and leaves a widow with no children his brothers are to marry her to foster kids in his name; in their version there are seven brothers who go through this process, marrying this one woman as each one dies childless, and in the end they ask Jesus whose wife she'll be at the resurrection.

Yikes, good one, most of us wonder those things. What's heaven like, what happens when I'm there with my first love from grade school and my high school sweetheart and my wife? Trouble. Or will I be able to recognize people at all? Oh, man. Anyway, questions, questions, and this one is put to Jesus by the Sadducees not so much for an answer but to prove him wrong. I think they expected him to be dumbfounded. But nope.

He responds, he talks about that life being a good deal different from this, and more. Read it. And his response does two things to the Sadducees, I think.

1) It offers them a sobering possibility. Because Jesus speaks with authority, like one who knows personally firsthand, and here the Sadducees know they only talk about ideas they've learned from other Sadducees. He speaks matter-of-fact about things they can only guess about. And in his answer he not only asserts that there is a resurrection, but it is connected to all these other ideas that are core to the Sadducees' disbelief -- angels, miraculous power, and more. So now if these scholars start to wonder, "What if he's right" then they're really opening themselves up to the possibility that everything they've been clinging to, everything they've built their identities on, could be false. Sobering possibility. Even more because Jesus uses a detail from the Law, their own tactic, to prove it, quoting from Exodus when God speaks from the burning bush using the present tense, "I AM", to describe his relationship to the dead. Ugh. Hard to ignore, Sadducees. What if he's right?

2) Now they also have, to me, a better possibility to deal with. I mean, Jesus makes the resurrection sound EXCELLENT. He talks as if this is what is, what was always meant to be, our perfect communion with God and each other. A new and different age, where all is right, and we're describe as God's own children. Sadducees can only argue that he's wrong, and that rather our lives are intended to end one place: a dirt nap, a game over, toes up, pushing daisies, worm food, in the fertilizer business, dead and only dead. But what if he is actually right?

These are the questions for all of us and the way we treat Jesus, and the way we treat our own rightness. Are we brave enough to let some things remain mysterious and consider the possibility that Jesus is right, that we can have resurrection? Can we be flexible with our own identity, whatever we've built it on, and weigh other potential ideas of true and false?

Because, after all, later in the story Jesus gives us a picture of resurrected life and what it might mean. After his resurrection he shows us that he's familiar but different, still human-like but not quite. Remember, he is touchable, bears his wounds, he eats, seems normal, but he can also appear in a locked room outta nowhere, isn't always recognizeable, and eventually flies off into the sky. Something is up. In The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey says it might speak to what our resurrected life looks like:

"I take hope in Jesus' scars. From the perspective of heaven, they represent the most horrible event that has ever happened in the history of the universe. Even that event, though - the crucifixion - Easter turned into a memory. Because of Easter, I can hope that the tears we shed, the blows we receive, the emotional pain, the heartache over lost friends and loved ones, all these will become memories, like Jesus' scars. Scars never completely go away, but neither do they hurt any longer. We will have re-created bodies, a re-created heaven and earth. We will have a new start, an Easter start."

What if Jesus is who he says he is? What if he's right?

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Can you name anything that appeals to you that is totally irrational? A like or a love or an expectation -- a favorite thing, story, or experience -- that really makes no sense? Other than God, Jesus, and all that, what other things?

How about pulling for the Gamecocks last Saturday? It was College Gameday, and #1 versus #18...why on earth should any of us logically expect Carolina to win? But we do, we hope against hope for it, and that's true for any underdog.

My sister is a campus minister. She and her students are very connected to a humanitarian agency in Nicaragua that especially tries to aid locals in owning and profiting from their own businesses. One huge undertaking is to establish a fair-trade organic clothing line, with Nicaraguans owning production from start to finish -- cotton growing, spinning, and sewing. Most recently, the already-bought-and-paid-for spinning equipment (hundreds of thousands of dollars) was denied them by shady dealings from their supplier, Coker International (in Greenville, SC). So my sister and three or four students jumped in to help however they could...by showing up at Coker to picket out front.


Now, that's the kind of story most of us love, David/Goliath and all that, a handful of not-exactly-powerful people trying to leverage the corrupt corporation with handmade signs and protest. The story hasn't panned out yet, but they made local news. Most of us consider ourselves "the little guy", so of course it'd be cool to know that if I were being screwed by a big company, "the little guy" would have a shot at getting some justice, yeah? No matter how unlikely or irrational that is.

The same is true for the long-shots. Every time somebody buys a lottery ticket, whether they're serious about it or not, even if you just find one on the sidewalk, what's that little twinkle in our eye at the fleeting thought that "this could be the one? And that's absolutely absurd.

The stories and fairytales we love are chock full of nonsense, and we love it. The true stories we love, "The Blind Side" and Chilean miners and Aron Ralston, have no rational business actually working out and succeeding. But we're human so we hope, and we hope our hope is confirmed.

Jesus knew that, I reckon, especially by telling the story of the widow before the judge in his parable from Luke 18:1-8. The scene kinda smacks of absurdity -- a widow, the lowest of the low in her society's eyes, is relentless to bring her case before a judge. And not just any judge, one with no particular regard for God or people -- no love. But he grants her request eventually because she won't quit and he doesn't wanna get tired hearing about it.

It's a huge long shot, "little gal" versus the judge. And it makes no sense. Rationally, in that culture why should any widow have thought so highly of herself to think she'd be heard, let alone so much so to come back repeatedly. Why should she have hoped to succeed against this judge, of all judges? And why should such a man have ever granted her desire? Shouldn't have. Shouldn't happen. But it did in Jesus' story.

So? So, Jesus in a way seems to confirm our irrationality, and he's speaking in the context of our approaching God. I hear him say, "When it comes to prayer, when it comes to talking to God and communing with God, don't just be so blasted rational all the time."

I mean, consider why we each personally bail out on talking to God, communing with God, or asking from God.... We rationalize. We decide that there's no reason God should hear, or care, or respond. We take it personal and say, "it must be about me, I've done too much wrong or just personally don't matter enough for God to hear." We give up on what we're hoping for and say, "It'll never happen, that would be too good to be true." And, mostly, we make conclusions about God, "God is just too busy, or too distant and uncaring, or too non-existent to hear from me or answer me."

How do we fight back against those feelings of hopelessness? Why not harness the power of human irrationality.

Like, romance. Our soap operas, love stories, and real life pursuits are full of nonsensical risks (and rewards). People go through insane relationships, rebounds, heartbreak...people can feel like they have nothing else to lose and even nothing left to offer...people can think themselves not-so-attractive, not-so-wealthy, not-so-intelligent, not-so-charming...and STILL throw all caution to the wind to pursue that special someone. Really.


I mean, have you ever met a couple and wondered, "Now, how on earth did he end up with her?" Or vice-versa. Maybe it worked because one or the other was willing to go for it, to pursue the other fervently, and to not relent, even if it didn't make any sense to the rest of the world. Well done.

We can harness the power of the irrational child. Do you know, or are you, or have you been a kid who knows how to ask for and get what he/she wants? Yeah. It can be sickening, manipulative, aggravating to heck, to deal with such. Kids can be shameless -- throwing themselves bodily on the floor, screaming, pulling out the dirty tricks like, "If you love me, you'll...." On the road trip, they never stop the "Are we there yet?" Child psychologists call it the "pit-bull mentality" because once they latch on to something there's no breaking free.

And that really makes no sense considering that kids in a family have little or no real authority to expect anything. That's a little old school, but they depend on others truly for everything. They can't overpower an adult and often can't fend for themselves. But they can win the battle of wills by never relenting in the pursuit of their desire.

If they can, with no hope in sight sometimes, why can't we? Not to endorse how some of our culture goes after romance, or how a spoiled kid gets his/her way...can we somehow take the irrationality that pervades humanity and apply it towards our greatest good, our pursuit of relationship with God?

I mean, Jesus paints that picture, a ridiculous, impossible picture, I think to contrast the reality of our true situation. We matter immensely more in God's eyes than a widow did in her society in Jesus' day -- God calls us children, brothers and sisters, heirs of the kingdom. And God is infinitely more loving and invested than this judge. So why should we pursue God any less than she pursued justice.

I mean, above all, here is God in the flesh in Jesus saying, essentially, "Please, please, don't stop trying to talk to me. Don't stop connecting to me. Never stop. Understand who you are. Understand who I am. Don't lose heart."

Sunday, September 19, 2010

This is "Homecoming" season for the two churches, and at the same time there's a revival going on with the theme "Beyond these Walls" getting at the whole "don't just stay cooped up in your pretty brick church" bit.

I see all that working together when it comes to a good, truly healthy idea of home. The most solid home we've had is my grandparents' house. It's home for all the good reasons -- there's a twin bedroom there that my brother and I call ours, and a bed that's mine; there are pictures and albums everywhere not just of me but my mom and other folks when they were growing up, that tell our story; and there's a good screeching swinging door at the back of the kitchen, a reminder of my grandparents' hospitality to always welcome everybody. That door always did a good job of swinging both ways -- not just to welcome but also to usher us all back into the world when we would head home, recharged and ready.

I think that's vital for good "home." Comfort, familiarity, roots to our story and identity, and MOSTLY an urging to on with living deeply, back out in the world. Maybe home stops being good when it entices us to stay forever and hide from life, hunker down and cling to its comfort far longer than might be best, or share it with only a select group (or with no one). Clearly that's also true for a church home. Especially when most, most, most of us don't have the personal experience of a good home, and we claim to believe that wherever followers of Jesus gather should be the homiest, best fellowship we can find on earth.

So how to deal with our church walls...? I say, start with the walls of our own hearts; because it's those, taken as a whole when a bunch of us gather, that add up to the collective walls of the church. So what kind of walls do we particularly struggle with?

Think about the different types...

One kind is the partition. For our sports fans, it's a good thing when you go to games and there's a divider or boundary all the way around the field, right? As in, without it sometimes a linebacker would be landing in your lap, or we wouldn't know what to call a home run and all that. Partition walls separate space, especially for different purposes, like to create different rooms ("kitchen" versus "bedroom"). They're important. Don't believe me? Consider the walls of bathroom stalls in a huge public restroom. Separation of space. It's important.

We do that with our hearts, maybe, and sometimes maybe it's okay. We wear different hats, feel/act differently in different situations and company. I can say, "this part of me is the spouse, and this part the parent, or sibling; this part of me is for work, that part is what shows when people are around, that part is for when nobody's watching, that part is me at church," and so on. We partition our hearts, it's multi-purpose space.


But we know the danger of isolating parts of our hearts, I think, or what it is to not feel whole, to put on too many different faces and not be in touch with our deepest, true heart. And the question becomes, what space do we allot to God? How big, what fraction of the whole? And the bigger joke and/or struggle is trying to keep God in that fraction. Some of us struggle most with partition walls of the heart.

Another kind of wall is the structural. As in, load-bearing, holding up floors and roof. Both churches where we worship have the sanctuary over large basement space, so thank goodness for structural walls, eh? These are what we use to build, they lean on each other to hold it all up.

And I wonder what we build in our hearts. I mean, like Ezekiel and the plumb-line a few weeks ago, we know that the slightest error in a coarse of brick can totally warp the rest of a building, so it takes good care. So we carefully build up hopes/dreams/fantasies, and our vision of who we are, who God is, and who others are. But what about the warping? What is informing what we build, and how sound is the finished structure? Like one Baltimore church with a huge sign reading in bold, "Trespassers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," signed The Sisters of Mercy. It's easy to whack things up. According to our gospel, particularly easy without being informed by the Holy Spirit who knows us best. Do we need to wrestle with what we're building in here?

The last kind of wall to deal with is one that's protective. Moats and ramparts and all that, ancient cities and towns new that to survive they needed protection -- to keep the bad stuff out. Or, to keep stuff in, not just in terms of prisons to protect us from others in our midst, but also for those without any sense to protect themselves -- like livestock in pens, barbed wire and all.

When we erect these walls in our hearts, though, do we wall things in our out? For our country music fans, there's a Toby Keith video for the song, "A Little Too Late" (see below). The lyrics are all about a couple's breakup, and how it's all over and it's too late to reconcile, and throughout the video Keith is slowly brick-walling up the basement space that holds the lady-friend to whom he's singing, his soon-to-be-ex. Problem for Toby is when the video wraps up, he realizes he's walled himself into the wrong side of the basement -- she has the side with the stairs to escape.



So, yes, sometimes when we think we're walling things out, we find ourselves concreted in, eh? Really, what is it we want to keep out, or keep locked up? Certain people, kinds of people, experiences...? Our secret and shameful things, the painful things deep in there?

All told, I think all three of those walls get at one question: "What are we so afraid of?" For instance, what is it we don't want anyone to know? What is it we don't want to feel? What is it that we don't want to get mixed up with God, that we want him to keep his grubby paws out of?

These are the things that keep us in and away and far from LIFE, life to the full. These are also the things that Scripture will challenge every single week we worship, or every day. Because the gospel, by nature, can consistently produce an occasion to be afraid and wall up. But it simultaneously challenges us to tear those things down, clip away the barbed wire, demolish what we've built so whack, and have hearts that are free. Always two roads: try to build on our own or work hand-in-hand with God.

What compels me to keep trying (failing, and trying again) to run with option #2 is that the walls I build just don't do much of a job. Do yours even do what you want them to do? Do they do the whole job, solve every problem, keep things in order, keep everything you want out or in? Puhhh. Mine fail. But our gospel, Scripture, meeting with God and other faithful ones, they consistently tell us that what we have in God is good, and will not fail.

Like today's reading Psalm 91.

Church home, like home-home, and I think ultimately like heaven, should be about dealing with these walls together. Not walling ourselves in as a group together, but doing well to have a screeching but easily-swinging back door that invites us to head back out into God's great earth for whatever adventure we might find there.

It's like a story I heard from a summer day at a beach near Jacksonville, FL. This particular day the wind and current were whacko out of control, and the lifeguard staff were totally vigilant, just going at it all day. They pulled 8 or 10 people out that day. One man couldn't believe it, watched most of the day, and set out that evening to give the lifeguards his gratitude for an awesome job. When he walked up and into the head guard shack, he saw written there in huge letters the motto responsible for the day: "If in doubt, GO!"

We gather as Christians knowing that this is pretty well the state of the world around us. Why, "GO!"? Because life is at stake. We need Christ alive in us. We need others in whom Christ is alive. The rest of the other needs those in whom Christ is alive. So let the walls come a-tumbling down.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Coming to the end of Easter season now. Seven weeks of wondering about resurrection, the longshot that things don't just come to an end for us or other people. The potential that this Chosen One, Jesus from Galilee, never found his end, and never will; that his story continues, he speaks from beyond the grave, he redeems and still calls out, "FOLLOW ME," and so our story continues.

Very quickly it's clear that this is a story for the telling, one that was immediately expanding and enveloping every kind of people on earth, everywhere, in every time. So Jesus said and urged. So his friends and followers believed, and started to bear witness to it by the leading of the very Spirit of God. And whoever the story touched, those who heard and believed, they became characters in it, each enhancing it in a way only he/she could. And so, in the Spirit they too bore the story with them, very much witnesses to the Resurrection.


That's where we've been, watching the witness-story unfold and stretch-out and grow.


And wondering how we fit into it. How to take part in it.


Christian "witness" is treated every kind of way, from people with sandwich-boards and bullhorns (cf. Rob Bell) to those who leap at a chance to tell their "testimony", to
those who want to silently serve and let their behavior speak for itself.

But so far the beginning of the story told in the book of "Acts" seems clear on something:
this story unfolds moment by unique moment, and having a powerful part in it comes from responding to the free-flowing, uncontrollable Spirit at work in and around us. The way I bear witness will adhere to no rules or guidelines, except that the story is God's and the Spirit guides the way.

This week in Acts 16:16-34 in particular, Paul and Silas do what they do best - get thrown into prison. Why? Because of their part in the story, and the result is that prison becomes part of the story, and also what happens there. Welcome to following Jesus' way. Who knows what's coming, where should we go, what should we do, how do we do it? Ride the wave.

Overall, it kinda reminds me of these guys, really:



Surfers are good at waiting and being in tune, in rhythm. There are lulls but then there are also overwhelmingly powerful times, and they enter in unafraid. There's no mistaking that it's the wave's power that fuels the ride, but it's up to the surfer to pursue the big sets and cooperate in the moment. What about bearing witness to the Resurrection in the Spirit?

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

1 Cor. 13

Valentine's Day and 1 Corinthians 13 at the same time? It's the perfect storm of love. Continuing with the theme of [culture + spiritual gifts] found in this part of the letter to the Christians in Corinth, we'll be looking a little at our culture's message of love. Yep, done that before, but this time we're listening to some well-known songs about love to get a feel for what we're hearing.

And we'll compare those cultural messages to what we learn in 1 Cor 13, especially in three major parts:

1) Verses 1-3: Our value, self-worth, status, etc. aren't decided by what we do, or which gifts we have, which spiritual powers we seem to wield. Remember last week's "body" - diverse parts working as one, no better or worse than one another. Vital together, and only together.

And really not just "together," Paul says, but also in love. The magnitude of the gifts, the power exerted, is worthless without love. It's not about how good we look, or how spiritual we seem, or how superior our faith/gifts appear to be - but how we love. To me, that's a shift from focusing on being loved by the rest of the body, to loving the rest of the body. A shift from having everyone adore and even envy me because of what I can do, to living to adore and exalt everyone else by what I can do.

Compare that to culture's message that love is ultra-conditional, that we're only as lovable as we deserve through our looks, abilities, experience, etc. Culture urges us to perform for the sake of others exalting/envying/desiring us. Haha, just listen to "Do you love me?" by The Contours.

2) Verses 4-7: Love is described in a totally specific way. English teacher would say that love is being "personified" here - Paul talks about "love" as if it were a human being, describing it as not easily angered, keeping no record of wrongs, always protecting, always trusting, etc. etc. It's a hard list to live up to, but think about the person that it's describing. Perfect love in human form. Jesus. The one we hope to be even a little bit like, the one whose body we're to form together. These verses give an idea of the body we're trying to live into by the power of the Spirit of God.

Compare that very specific, Christ-inspired list to our cultural message about how love looks. We get songs like "All you need is love" (Beatles), "One Love" (Bob Marley), "Up where we belong" (Cocker & Warnes), and while there's a great, broad idea that we all need love all the time, they don't get real close to a functional idea of the L-word. How we define love in those songs changes their meanings drastically. Is it some nebulous feeling? Is it univeralist spiritual gobbletygook? In the words of Haddaway, "What is love?"

3) Verses 8-13: Love is the part of our faith that is eternal. When we're in the personal presence of God one day, all those spiritual gifts will be obsolete. Who will need healing or prophecy anymore? But what persists is love, ultra-personal and specific. One-and-only true love. Knowing fully and fully known.

Compare to the cultural struggle with whether or not love can last. Between man and woman, or between friends and family, society wonders "Can love make it?" "Will this thing last?" "Do we have what it takes to make it the long haul?" "Will he/she leave me?" "Will he/she get tired of me?" "Will I get tired of him/her?" "Will you still love me tomorrow?" (The Shirelles).


Maybe you have a very different take on all that, but let's at least dig into the little hints of ideas and cultural influences that seep into our lives, to see where the truth really lies. Let's at least be more aware of those tiny assumptions that we gloss over sometimes. And then wonder, what is love?

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

So we've started in on the idea of cultural influence, looking at some ads and considering what "felt need" the companies wanted us to have to get us to buy their products. We saw some patterns, a central underlying message--

* the exalting of self: in nearly every ad there was a central character that we were intended to associate ourselves with. And the felt need focused on how such-and-such product would satisfy our lives, and bring order to disorder or meaning/adventure to boredom. The idea being that life is all about the next thing that I need for it to be satisfying to me.

* competitive/superhuman spirit: the characters we were to identify with were the kind that we should want to be like, perfect or exotic people. "The most interesting man in the world." Or, they were getting through life in an extraordinarily perfect, efficient way. Or, they were loved and adored. Or, they had something that no one else had, that gave them the edge on others. All in all, a message tapping into our desire to be perfect, or the lie that we can be everything, all the time, to everybody. And that we need no help from other people, or from any god.

* ideas on success/happiness: there are subtle pictures of what we should strive for. More comfort, more fun, less work. Bright, shiny things. Beauty and being desired. Noteworthy deeds and the envy of others.

All in all, the ads tap into our selfishness and striving for self-fulfillment (through things). It's a cultural influence that can make it hard to really embrace what Paul describes for the church. I hear 1 Corinthians 12 focusing on two points: diversity and unity. How the gifts of the Spirit are all uniquely different, but how they still flow from the One source.

Seems like ad men would have us isolated in our homes in front of TVs, with phone in hand to order the next thing to try to be happy, with delivery people dropping it at the door so as not to interrupt the cycle of watching, buying and delivering. If that went as planned, we'd all have Electrolux appliances, Jameson Irish Whiskey in the cabinet (along with the Dos Equis), a Camry in the garage and Febreeze in the air. Every household. That's not a very diverse picture to me. That doesn't leave a lot of room for the unique expressions of who we are and the power of the Spirit living in us. Paul passes on a counter-message: everything you need, God has given and is giving you. All different. All for the sake of the community together. By the one Spirit.

One way to describe it all, the working of God's Spirit in the faith community, is comparing it to the human body. That's what we find in this passage.

So given the Corinthians' culture, and their ideas about body/spirit in the last post, why use the body image? What does it tell us about spiritual gifts now?
1 Corinthians 12:1-11

The start of a section in the letter to the Christians gathered in Corinth.

Lots of things intersected at Corinth. Money, people, power -- it was a business hub and a huge sea-faring town. And also ideas. The Greeks stand out in history for investing in thought, philosophy, education -- they had universities and forums and all that junk.

One huge part of Greek thought was that there is a strong difference between the body and mind/spirit (dualism). Some folks believed that anything that's physically real, matter, like our bodies, is more basic and essentially evil compared to the mind/spirit, and that the mind/spirit is pretty much pure and good.

This idea shows up all over the place nowadays, and seems to be present in Christianity - that the body has all these natural, animal desires that make us greedy and lustful and violent, while the spirit is that eternal part of us that is good, or some version of all that.

Anyway, maybe Greeks heard the gospel of Christ, heard about the Holy Spirit, and it made sense that humans are sinful (in body) and need to be ultimately set free. Some took this so far as to think that Christ had to die to be released from that evil body, and so after the resurrection he was just a "spirit-man" walking around. Weird, and the early church totally rejected this idea (because Christ came to redeem every bit of humanity, body, mind, spirit, 100%).

In Corinth, with these cultural ideas shaping their spirituality, it's easy to see where the struggles came from. One one hand, some new Christians said, "Well, my body is basically evil, and I'm trying to do better but it's just made that way. So why fight nature, I'll just satisfy my body's needs and commit my spirit to Jesus." They figured hungry people feed themselves, so horny people go see prostitutes, no big deal, and so on.

But then the other extreme group of people thought the gospel was a call to strictly control the body's evil desires. Maybe these were the folks that had sworn off their sexuality, isolated men from women in general, and even questioned the goodness of marriage (see all of 1 Corinthians 7).

So, overall, there was dispute in Corinth. And the dispute sprang out of the powerful influence of their culture over their spirituality. They struggled to understand and live a faith where body and spirit are united under Christ, and where the church body is completely diverse but also united in one Spirit.

How about us? How about the influence of culture? Just look at advertising, for one. Almost every ounce of media/information/idea that comes at us, all day every day, is powered by business. Even news programs that claim to strive just for unbiased news reporting, and shows that are most entertaining, only exist so that companies can advertise their products.
Sunday we'll take a look some ads like this one:



A teacher of mine has told me that every ad, every commercial, intends to raise a "felt need" in the viewer. As in, by the end of the ad we realize that we "need" whatever they're trying to sell - from cars to carpet cleaner - we never even knew we needed it, but we need to buy it. And usually that need is pictured as the one thing that will solve life's problems, and give us meaning, etc. etc. So, in the "Dos Equis" commercial above, with the "most interesting man in the world," how are they trying to make us need that particular beer?

And how does it influence us as people, and our lives, and our spirituality?

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Isaiah 60:1-6

Quick recap: advent came to a close at sundown on Xmas eve, and we started the 12-day Christmas season as the time to consider and pursue what it is that God became a person. We talked about Isaiah's prophecy (9:2-7) in terms of what it meant to Galileeans in his day and in Jesus' that a Messiah would come to their war-torn, ravaged border-land.

Last week we saw Jesus grow up to age 12 in Luke 2:41-52, and wondered at the idea that God-in-the-flesh was one to ask questions, and learn, and grow in body/mind. Jesus had this desire to know God, and his connection to God was what made him standout, not just "boy-wonder" powers.


And now for Epiphany Sunday. It's still Christmas until Jan. 6th (Wednesday), but at Epiphany we shift towards how God-in-the-flesh, Jesus, affected everything, everywhere. So our text this Sunday from Isaiah 60 makes clear that a light has dawned.

This is the Sunday we usually hear from the wise men, the magi, because their coming from a foreign land connects to how Christ is a gift to the whole world, not just Jews or those in Bethlehem or Galilee. Even more, the magi followed a star, or comet or whatever it was - it was some heavenly body, showing us that the Messiah's coming is a big deal not only on earth but in terms of ALL THINGS, the whole universe.

So read Isaiah 60, and maybe 59, too. You can see there some of the cycle that most prophets roll through - words of warning or judgment to urge the people to be faithful to God, followed by words of hope to get them through, followed by universal language where the effects of the prophecy go far beyond just that time or place. The prophets almost always remind of future hope, and it almost always really has to do with earth-changing, universe-altering action by God. There is where we are at Epiphany, trying to understand and exalt how Christ Jesus came to and for ALL.

So, answer these questions: did Jesus' coming have effects for you? What effects did his coming have on the person beside you, the person you live with, the person you see at random, the person you hate or who hates you?