joshtmcc

2011-03-27T10:12:00.000-04:00

We’ve started in together on this idea that as huge as spiritual rebirth is, it is just a step in the journey. I point that out because too many times we can treat that "born again" experience as the only event in our spiritual lives that matters. Of course it’s huge, huge. But isn't it still only a piece of the practical journey? I mean, right now my wife Karen is very pregnant -- her due date is actually tomorrow even though it doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen. And God bless her for what’s to come, some of you have given me stories of 28-hour labor and all of that. But however rough, and real, and even looong her labor is, it's still probably only a tiny fraction of the rest of our baby's life. Hopefully.

I think maybe it's the same with spiritual rebirth. It's a singular, unique, awesome and only-by-God's-grace experience. But never forget it is a beginning.

A great illustration comes with the earthquake in Chile this past fall. 33 miners were stuck underground, a half-mile below the surface, if we can imagine the darkness down there. Reports tell us that right away after the cave-in, the foreman told the guys, essentially, “We may never see day again, but we’re gonna be about the business of staying alive.” So they split up tasks and tried to stay busy. They worked together and voted on group decisions. Experts say that's how they managed to survive for the 17 days that they had no contact from outside.

To paint the picture deeper, one survivor said of their supplies that they had some canned salmon and tuna, enough that one man’s ration was not quite a soda bottle cap-full. And all they had to drink was mine-water; plentiful but flavored like motor oil for all the mining gunk that got into it. The story goes, after day 17 they had contact, and then came rescuers drilling supply shafts and the start of a constant flow of water, food, and medicine that would sustain them for 69 days. Imagine it. And many of us saw the joy at their escape from the mine, it made worldwide news as an international effort, with a constant countdown as each man surfaced. Remember the extreme joy each time a guy walked out? The president of Chile said it well: “It’s like they’ve been born anew.” After all, they went through that dark labor time in the belly of the earth; they finally had their umbilical cord of supplies flowing to them from the outside. And the celebration of their arrival wasn't too distant from how we treat our newborns. Surely we can see our spiritual selves there, in our rebirth being delivered up from the pit out into the rejoicing of all heaven.

But I'm more interested right now in what was to follow. Remember, for the miners it was a beginning. Most importantly, it was the beginning of making transitions, adjustments, and really taking baby steps back into life. One transition made headlines: the Oakley sunglasses company jumped at the chance to furnish every survivor with custom-made shades. After months in the dark their eyes would have to gradually adjust to the light of day. A small transition. Another transition story, one survivor Johnny Barrios was greeted by a woman in his life, and that woman was his mistress. His time underground led she and his wife to find out about one another, and so his wife boycotted the moment of his emerging to safety. Needless to say Johnny's rescue was the start of adjusting to a new life. And most of all, as several agencies reported, what would it be like for these men when the day came for them to finally be released from the hospital after their emergency treatment? I mean, for months their lives had been nurtured by the resources of multiple, international governments; they had literally been kept alive by a constant flow of help. What would it be like to be finally discharged from the hospital and get back to everyday living? To fending for oneself? Adjustments. Baby steps.

I wonder if the same isn't true for us who consider ourselves born again in Christ. I wonder what follows. After all, at the moment of your first believing, of your spiritual rebirth, did you find yourself with severe amnesia? No. We remember our life before. At spiritual rebirth are we transported to a different planet? No. We go right back to everyday living. To a home, friends, family, work, fun, habits and patterns.

As powerful as rebirth is in our story, we'll have adjustments to make, baby steps to take, from there.

Just check out John 4:5-42, the story of "the woman at the well." It's the story of a Samaritan woman encountering Jesus and coming to believe. We probably witness her new birth in this story. But it also smacks of the adjustments that Jesus provokes in people who are following him.

For one, Jesus challenges the woman's way of life by talking to her, as a Jew to a Samaritan (let alone a Samaritan woman); he doesn't respect the man-made boundary that she and many others would've put up between them. And he goes right on to push the issue of her deep, dark romantic past, inviting her to open up about it. He challenges her basic understanding of worship by describing it as a spiritual act rather than just cultural/geographical/customary.

And maybe the biggest deal is that when she seems to realize who Jesus is, and to believe he is the Messiah, it provokes her to want to tell the whole town. What’s an adjustment about that? Well, we don’t know for sure but can we assume given her past that she might not have the most credibility with the townspeople? Particularly with moral/religious matters. It’s a pretty good growing process, I think, for her to be willing to head back and proclaim she may have found the Messiah. Baby steps, in a single afternoon with Jesus, from drawing water on a hot day, to believing in Christ, to the saving of an entire community.

And there are some other baby steps going on. With the disciples. From the beginning they seemed to write Samaria off as no part of the Messiah's mission. When they do stop by this town, are they focused on what God might do there, what wonders they might perform, how they might teach/preach? I don't think so -- all we hear about is their desire to find something to eat. It was just a rest stop. While in their hearts they secretly wonder what this Samaritan woman wants, and why on earth Jesus talks to her, all they manage to say is, "Hey, Jesus, eat something."

He invites them to grow by not letting the issue slide, by going on to preach to them to wake up to why they were there – to reap a harvest.

Taking a look at all of that, let’s make no mistake – spiritual rebirth and the moment of first believing is huge. The moment of realizing Jesus is the Messiah is HUGE. But after that, if we’re anything like these here, it’s time to follow him further, and much further. It’ll be time to reckon with our habits, with our assumptions, with our fears. With our deepest darkest past. It’ll be time to start to stretch and grow and mature. Because there’s a full-fledged spiritual person that we’re intended to be.

John Wesley basically said, sure we have everything we need right now to live solid spiritual lives. By our spiritual rebirth, we’re whole people. Like infants, we have all the vital parts, eyes, hands, legs, etc. But it’s only in time and practice that we grow into using their full potential, to actually being able to see, and work and move and speak. Because birth starts the story. So let's have a reckoning.

2011-03-13T11:05:00.015-04:00

Matthew 4:1-11 involves the story of Jesus heading into the wilderness after he's baptized, for 40 days of temptation and throw-down with the devil. We're getting into the season of Lent now, the 40 days that lead up to Easter when the Church wrestles with our own lives in preparation, so the season usually kicks off with this story from Jesus' life as a tone-setter.

The other reading for today, for the same reason, is from Genesis when we here about the first temptation, and fall, and our struggle with sinfulness starting with Adam and Eve. These are the roots of our understanding of why things aren't perfect, why many of us feel so inclined to wrongdoing, why the world is full of such junk sometimes, and also, what God is up to to redeem it all.

Bill Cosby cracks me up, so I wanted to share his version of Adam and Eve's story. Cosby says that in the midst of the task of creating Heaven and Earth, we know that God created Adam and Eve. And as God’s first two children, he found himself as the universe’s first parent. And the first thing he said to them was: “Don’t.”

So now Adam couldn’t help asking, “Don’t what?”

God: “Don’t eat the forbidden fruit.”

Adam: “…forbidden fruit, eh? …really? Where is it?”

“It’s over there,” said God, and he rather wondered why he hadn’t stopped after making the elephants. And wouldn’t you know, only minutes later, God saw the kids having a snack break of those forbidden apple slices, and God was angry.

“Didn’t I tell you not to eat that fruit?!” God asked.

Talking with his mouth full, Adam replied, “Uh huh.”

So God wondered, “Then why did you??”

And, shrugging, Adam simply answered, “I dunno.”

So, in the end, Bill Cosby says, God’s punishment was that Adam and Eve should have the experience of children of their own.

What we hear there is the way a lot of us treat Lent. A big “Don’t.” It’s that church season when people have traditionally given things up. And I want us to get at the heart of whether or not that’s enough, if that does Lent justice. The same old 40 days of: “Don’t eat chocolate, don’t gossip, don’t lose your temper,” etc. etc. Maybe there are other ways to do it. How about another way to start with the garden of Eden, and its events, and look at things differently?

How about this -- in the midst of God's creating, when it came time to form humans, we have this image that Adam was formed up out of the dust. Dirt. That earthy, physical side to us. So imagine us as a glass or clay vessel, this earthenware thing being fashioned out of the ground. And now we're told that God gave life to the dirt by breathing into it. So we have that spiritual side to us. So imagine that same glass or vessel filled up to the brim with crystal clear water, like God's spirit.

By nature, then, from our beginning point, humanity looks like it's designed to be filled. The pattern shows up in what God does with humans. God endows them with God's own likeness; God gives them purpose and direction (be good stewards of creation, be fruitful/multiply); God is deeply connected to them in relationship. They walk and talk together, they're blessed. Do you see our original human hearts as filled, if not overflowing?

But it all came under assault with temptation, and at the heart of the temptation were questions like, "Isn't there something better out there that you're missing out on? Can't you have even more? Who is God, anyway? "Isn't God just trying to keep you from living your fullest?" So humans tried to add just a little something. And giving into temptation was like a little drop of something no-good into our hearts, like this:

So it spread through our whole being, polluting every part. And for me, with Lent, if all we do is try to tackle some of the little junk that permeates us, it's like pouring outta that glass a little bit at a time. We feel our hearts filled with wrongdoing and we're trying to remove it.

We try to stop smoking and pour a little out. We stop cursing, and pour. We bottle up our anger or disappointment or jealousy or greed, trying to pour it out. And in the end, if all goes right and we reach the goal, we think we’ve poured out all the green oozey bad stuff. Mission accomplished!

But what are we left with then? Even if somehow we're able to remove all the junk (good luck with that, by the way). Then all that's there is an empty glass. And I wonder, is that gonna cut it for us with temptation? Truly? Is that the ultimate goal for us?

I think Jesus deals with those questions in Matthew 4, out in the wilds of the world. His experience starts by giving us insight into the inner-workings of being tempted. To get a feel for it, let's see if we can take a moment to sit intp his shoes a little bit, to try to imagine even a tiny bit how Satan was weaselling with his heart. There are three major temptations, so one at a time we can reflect --

1. How would it feel for Jesus to be challenged: "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread?"

What does that appeal to or strike against? Maybe...the idea that there's no reason for Jesus to suffer needlessly, over something so trivial as hunger? I mean, he's the Messiah, with important work to do, can he be troubled to worry about food all the time, and let that get in the way of his work? Surely God didn't send him to earth to starve in the desert, so it's time to take care of himself.

And don't forget the big "If" in there. Ultimately, Satan is questioning Jesus' true identity, and daring him to demonstrate his power to prove it.

2. How would it feel to Jesus to be challenged a second time: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down and God will save you."

The "If" is still there. Only this time he questions Jesus' identity as if to say, "God will take care of his Son, so why not just prove to everybody, including yourself, that he actually loves you." The question is: will God come through for you? Challenging God's character, too. And we hear this kind of thing preached a lot, that if we devote ourselves to God there's no reason he shouldn't keep us from any and all harm -- our paychecks and property will increase and we'll see all sorts of evidence like that, if God really loves us. It's dirty.

3. Last, how would it feel to be taken to look on all the world and and be told, "If you bow down and worship me, I'll give you all of it."

Ultimate power and ownership. Authority. The ability to rule and make things however Jesus would like. Lots of folks point to this and say it's no real temptation at all because these things all belonged to Jesus already. He was already King of kings and Lord of lords, so why bow to Satan?

It's true, but for how much of Jesus' life did he walk around virtually homeless, not wealthy, and pretty well unknown to his people? I doubt Jesus wanted to hit the lottery, but I bet he wished people would listen to him. Knowing that he held the way for them to eternal life, and to be with him forever; knowing that he came to redeem all things; knowing how much it took for God to come to earth in the flesh, how frustrating might it be for Jesus to still be mistreated by the Jewish rulers, disliked (or even hated) by his own people, and unable to convince so many to listen let alone believe???

Not only that, but God's method for Jesus to save things was for him to suffer and die. Here, it's like Satan offers him what is already rightly his, only an easier way. He can just grab the throne of the world without all that bloodshed. That's heavy stuff.

Think about the questions it might raise in him, and the ones that rise in us in deepest temptation: "Do you matter? Does God love you? Have you any power over anything? Why suffer or be uncomfortable? What are you worth?"

Letting those questions sink in, let's go back to our original picture: our hearts as the glass that we've tried to clean all the bad stuff out of. Do we think that an empty glass will stand up to assaults like these we see with Jesus?

Won't work for me. Not if we're made to be filled by something, something that gives us a sense of purpose, direction, relationship and value. That empty glass looks vulnerable. And I think we'll search for something to go in it. And i think most often it is always easier to just refill the glass with some of that same old green water. The very stuff we just poured out. It's just easy to dip right back into it...we're used to these things, they feel good or are familiar, we're even addicted. When life is tough or scary, and the itch starts to rise within us, or we have unanswered questions, that polluted green water is better than nothing. Fill'er up.

But clearly Jesus shows us an alternative. He was certainly filled differently. I guess by the most clear, fresh, satisfying water we could pour into a glass. The Spirit of God. Jesus' connection with the Spirit (I mean, geez, they're one in the same) is the ground he stood on to beat temptation.

Because he knew God's heart, Jesus was familiar enough with God's word to defy Satan (quoting the Old Testament in all three temptations). Because he knew God's heart, Jesus could correct the way Satan tried to trap him even using Scripture (quoting Psalm 91 to dare Jesus to throw himself down). Because he knew God's heart, because he is Christ Jesus and God's embodied Word, Jesus not only quoted Scripture, but he spoke a command: "Away from me, Satan!" And what did Satan do? He left. Because he had to. Because he has no power over Jesus' authority.

For all the malice and schemes of evil, Jesus is victorious because he is filled up, he is intimately connected to God's heart. The question for us for Lent might not be, “What do we give up?” or even “What good deed do we do?” I think the question is just, “Do we want to know God more?” Do we want to? Do we believe we can no God more? Is God the kind to reveal God’s self? Absolutely. Then what holds us back except our own desire?

These 40 days can be time to pursue God and be filled freshly with something new, and clean, and fulfilling, the way we were made to be.

2011-03-06T12:16:00.000-05:00

Sorry, that's not for the faint of heart I guess. Don't get whoozy. I don't have a clue what this guy's hand went through, and no, it's not mine. But it's the closest thing I could find to what happened to the pointer finger on my right hand a couple of years ago now. It all started one Friday afternoon, I try to consistently take Fridays off and it's become tradition to get up a game of touch football at Winthrop. So I was defending my man one play, and the quarterback drilled it in to him, so I stuck a hand in real quick to break up the pass.

Next thing I know my hand is numb and I can't move my finger, so I look down and things look not too different from that picture above -- my right pointer finger was jacked up at the knuckle, sticking almost straight up, yarrrgh. The guys run over, and we've always been taught to try to "pull out" a dislocated finger, so one dude grabbed my arm and another the finger and yanked on it some. No good. I'm feeling pretty funky by then, so another guy drove me to the doctor's office.

You can imagine the different feelings at that point. I'm getting the whole red-face, hot flashes, "every time I look at my finger I feel like puking" deal. The pain comes in waves. Weird. So the doctor proceeds to stick several needles into the knuckle (real weird to watch), and to try to jerk the finger back into place. No good. So we head to the orthopedic surgeon. And this guy knows that if he can't pull the finger back right, he'll be the one to do the surgery, so he's pretty motivated to yank it straight. And he wasn't a small guy. And my dad was there by then and said it looked like somebody trying to snap a chicken bone. When he gets done wailing on the finger, it's still no good, and about 45 minutes later the surgery has been done and all is well.

Good happy ending. But that's one of my better personal physical trauma stories. And some of you have been through physical trauma that blows that away, car crashes and military combat and injury and disease, and more. Still deeper, yes, many of us know other mental, emotional, spiritual trauma that blows some of that away. But I tell the story, and invite you to carefully consider your own, because I wonder if there's not a common message through all those experiences. There was a clear message from my body to me during the finger thing: whatever you do, if you can, you must try to avoid ever experiencing this again.

The nausea and all the rest made that clear. And it's just the way our bodies work, eh? I'm talking about that instinct that we all have towards self-preservation, keeping ourselves alive and well. Even in more minor ways, you see that force at work, when our bodies communicate to us to take care.

One huge example is just pain. Pain isn't something we generally enjoy. We don't want to repeat it. And it's a tool for our bodies to tell us things. Our workout/athletic people know that muscle soreness indicates progress, and it also signals time to rest; or deeper pain signals injury so that we have to let things heal up. Stomach aches, cramps, headaches often let us know something is up in our bodies that needs to be addressed. Sunburn screams, "Get me some aloe and 60 SPF!" Kids learn not to touch the live stove-top because it freakin' hurts.

Pain has its purpose. If we ignore it over and over, then some of those issues blow up into life-and-death situations. Pain is key to self-preservation. And it's a good instinct.

But can we agree that at some point the instinct can do us harm? At some point, I bet our desire to avoid trauma and preserve ourselves can limit our fullness of life. And by all means it can become a hindrance to our connection to God.

I think Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 6:24-34 this time. We have a passage that focuses on one big aspect of self-preservation -- worry. For those of us who, whether we say it out loud or not, hope that we can avoid all sorts of bad things and protect ourselves if we just cover all our bases, and make enough plans, and crank our brains every hour of the day. Worrying.

We can hear a challenge in Jesus' words. He challenges one of the biggest traumas we all spend time fretting over, death, pretty much saying that for all our worry over our basic life needs (food, shelter, clothing, etc.), do we add any time to our lives? Negative. And he challenges the next big "trauma" for most of us. Not just if we're going to stay alive, but how we are. Not just will I have enough to eat, but what am I going to eat. He talks like many of us treat discomfort like a great trauma. Like life just isn't living if we don't experience it just right. Those ideas aren't new for us, Americans spend a great deal of time confessing our love for comfort and all the ways we ought to do something about it. It's a common topic for Jesus, who goes as far as to say we can be like the wealthy who have so much in abundance they build huge barns, while their neighbors starve to death. That's strong language.

And it's strong here, too. Remember how Jesus started out? He said:

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

To frame things up, even with something as everyday as worrying, Jesus talks in terms of being mastered. And he compares it to the choice between masters. God and Money. What does that choice look like? Well, it's easier to see for me when we consider why the NIV capitalizes the word "Money" and why other translations use the word from the Greek, mammon. Because Mammon, translated as wealth or money, was often treated more like a person unto himself in those days. People could actually worship little idols and gods called "Mammon" in hopes their fortunes would change. And those who ran after wealth/security and held it above all else were said to bow to the altar of Mammon. To get a feel for this character, I did a Google image search, and here's some of how artists make it out (not for the faint of heart):

There's a theme in the pictures with Mammon. Yes, there's dollars and gold and Euros. There's excess, he's a swollen, disgusting thing. And there's also the sense that he is worshipped or exalted. Either he's lounging on a throne, or we even have images of people fawning all over him. Bowing at his feet, coming to him asking for security, safety, success, and above all the avoiding of trauma, even just the trauma of discomfort. Now these are just some artists' ideas, but Jesus talks in similar language. Strong language. As if this is the reality of the choice in front of us. That something as simple as worrying, something that we all deal with, that can seem a little harmless, is connected to choosing a master. Because Mammon will promise to ease our fears, satisfy our comforts, and help us avoid trauma, if we just let him rule our hearts.

We don't usually think of our choices that way, a choosing of masters. Most of us don't like thinking that way, many don't want to be mastered at all and insist we are the masters of our domain. Jesus paints the picture as a choice between something like that above, and the one, true, living God. Because we are going to set up systems in our lives to deal with discomfort, and fear, and the unknown. Which will it be?

And for those of us who already want to turn our backs on worry, the question might be, how? How do we turn it off? Seriously? Is it as simple as a choice? How do we override the underlying instinct that drives our worry? How do we become less obsessed with avoiding trauma and making sure we stay safe and comfortable?

I'd say every one of us already knows how. We do it all the time, we're good at it. Because when our bodies start to tell us to slow down, or take a break, or heal, do we all listen and stop immediately? At the first sign of pain or soreness or, heck, even sunburn, do we all do a very good job taking care of ourselves right away? NO. When we want something bad enough, we work on in spite of discomfort. When our bodies are saying, "Stop, you fool," we sometimes march right on and make them submit. We hear more drastic stories of mothers lifting cars off of babies, and people charging into burning buildings. Human beings are notorious for disregarding themselves when something more important is at stake.

So I hear Jesus putting that kind of choice to us. And not only putting it to us, but we see him take it up himself.

After all, this is God in the flesh. And is there any good reason that God should have ever had to know the trauma of pain? Any good reason God, the God of All Things, should have ever had to experience the trauma of death? No! Except that God saw our lives at stake, and his love moved him. Because some of us might believe that there are things worth enduring some trauma for. And all of us get a chance to choose, even to choose our master.

2011-02-27T15:52:00.002-05:00

That's right, Steven Seagal. He brings something to what Jesus is talking about this week in Matthew 5:38-48. Jesus is tackling a rule that most of us are pretty familiar with: "an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth." Seagal knows all about that. A majority of his films deal with some sort of vengeance, or the losing of teeth by his enemies, but that's not what I want him for here.

Because the point of Jesus' teaching is clearly that the old rule of retribution isn't good enough, isn't fitting for his kingdom. So he says famous things here like, "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies." He tells us to "go the extra mile" when somebody asks us to go one, and so on. But it's a hard idea to deal with for different reasons. When it sounds like Jesus just wants us to give in to everybody, all the time, no matter how evil, most of just don't want to do it. Then, some of us want to but don't think we can, we don't know how to love those who harm us. And then, plenty of us want to, and maybe even can do it, but we're not sure if it's right or not. After all, elsewhere Jesus seems like he's good at drawing boundaries, and not being walked over...and he seems to teach us likewise. But, here, not so much.

What's Jesus after? Some will say he's really just teaching his followers a silent defiance. We turn the other cheek as if to say, "Is that all you got?" We go the extra mile to say, "Puh, I can do a marathon, you can't hurt me." As if the goal is to "kill with kindness," to be passive-aggressive almost, to get our revenge by putting up with people's junk. It's a style of Christian jujitsu, I've heard. Jujitsu being the martial arts that focus on turning your opponent's speed, strength, and momentum against him/her. The worse the attack, the better you can turn the tables and get the upper hand. Much like Mr. Seagal, with his arms flying around and kicks and hip-tosses. Take a look:

I'm down with that a little bit, because it seems nearer to the silent strength that Jesus exuded. His way to defy evil and oppression without lifting a finger, and to turn people's accusations on their heads. But "killing with kindness" just for the sake of getting the upperhand or stealthily besting our opponents still seems vengeful, and might still overwhelm the ultimate goal of loving the persecutor, right?

I mean, think about it and to me the "eye for an eye" idea is pretty innate to most of us. Somebody knocks you down, you knock them down (or maybe you don't but you want to). It's the most natural thing in the world. And why is that? A friend of mine says maybe it's just been a long-standing guideline for humanity since near the beginning. At some point very early on, somebody decided this would be a ground-rule: you hurt me, I hurt you. And not in a malicious way, but as a teaching tool. After all, how do you teach a kid who bites all the other kids not to bite anymore? Usually somebody bites that kid good to say, "hey, this is what biting feels like," in hopes it sinks in and the kid learns. So, if someone steals or kills, they would receive it right back to experience things firsthand and maybe learn to empathize and stop doing it. Or where empathy didn't work, an eye for an eye provided a consequence, the threat of punishment to prevent the behavior out of fear or retribution. It makes some sense, I guess.

Because think what the world would look like without empathy or the fear of retribution. How would humans fare? Lives would be on the line. That sounds scary to some of us, and it's probably part of why Jesus' words against "an eye for an eye" can be freaky. Because if we followed Jesus' teaching far enough here, it becomes a life-and-death thing: if we let everybody who ever just felt like slapping us in the face get away with it, anytime they wanted, eventually we'll be beaten to death; if we let people take from us whatever they want whenever they want, even our basic necessities, we're putting ourselves in harm's way; if we let others order our lives for us any way they want, and we bend to their every whim, we risk mortal danger. Jesus' teaching flies in the face of "an eye for an eye" because it contradicts self-preservation, that instinct for us to try to stay alive and well.

And rightly so, since an eye for an eye falls so short of actually preserving us or keeping us safe. It gives us retribution, but can we ever get back some things that have been taken from us? Can we on our own ever heal some hurts, or undo some experiences? By no means! An eye for an eye doesn't begin to deal with the heart-damage that comes with the evil that befalls us. And it doesn't satisfy, we know that when we see the cycles of violence around the world, and the escalation that usually comes with conflict. Like, "You took my eye? Well it was so valuable to me, I'm taking your two arms." And so the story goes. No wonder Jesus teaches another way, one that is totally contrary to simple retribution.

So what exactly does Jesus teach, and how are we to be about it? He says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect." Now, does perfect here mean be perfectionists? Like we should constantly fret over whether or not we're doing everything right? Negative. In the Greek, this perfect gives us a sense of a goal, an endpoint, an ultimate wholeness or fulfillment. Like the way Eugene Peterson translates Jesus (v. 48): "In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."

It sounds to me that what enables our ability to forgive and love those who strike us is realizing that our deep value and perspective should be shaped by the kingdom of heaven, and Christ Jesus' love for us -- a love that cannot be broken or unmade or assailed by any force, ever. We can pipe up and say, "Okay, Jesus, but that's easier said than done...sure, I'll just be perfect all of a sudden." To that I say, don't forget that it's God himself in person, in front of the people, saying this to them. And he journeyed with the people to show them what that perfection looked like. And he entered into death, and rendered sin powerless, to lead them and us through to the other side safely.

It's like Jesus giving the invitation, "Be like me, follow me where I go, I'll show you how. Come on. Into your deepest, fullest self."

2011-02-20T14:16:00.000-05:00

Ever taken something too far? Yep. For me one of the best examples is with pranks. My motto for many a year was that if somebody pranked me, they better know I'd respond swiftly and terribly, the idea being that then they'd learn never to do it again. In college fellowship at Clemson Wesley we got into quite a prank war over the course of time, in traditional "boys vs. girls" fashion. There were several retreats a year, and it started innocent enough, little jokes and gags to pick at each other and flirt or whatever else. But things escalated like they always do, I don't even know who took it too far to start with, but it came to a head at our year-end retreat to a local camp.

A friend, Ryan, and I were making our way into the middle of nowhere to the camp, and we realized the ball was in our court on the pranks, but we'd forgotten to plan or buy anything. Lo and behold we came upon the only retailer for some 30 miles, a corner country store in the hamlet of Cleveland, SC. There wasn't much in the way of prank supplies, until we came to the hunting/fishing section where there were aerosol spray cans of catfish stink bait. *Ka-ching* And then we spotted a product that I didn't know existed: bottled fox urine (for deer luring or something). So we had our supplies, and a code-name for the prank mission: Red Fox.

That night when everybody headed to dinner, we doubled back and ransacked the girls' cabin, spraying these substances everywhere, even into the heating unit on the wall. To give you an idea of the power of the stuff, the trigger-finger that I used on the catfish spray stunk for about 10 days (it's pretty waterproof). It was heinous. We were ecstatic.

Until later that night when our fellowship/worship time really sunk in. It was a spiritual retreat, and the speaker was solid, we shared Communion, and things were going really well. So well that Ryan and I were feeling ridiculous because we didn't want the excellent tone of the retreat to be overwhelmed by our pranking. So before we headed back up to the cabins, we let the girls know we'd done something, went ahead and apologized, and vowed not to prank again.

All of that is to say that what started innocent enough, and was meant to be playful and fun anyway, turned pretty sour in the hands of the two of us because we took it way too far. Don't knock us for what we did. You've done it, too. In some context. Geez, think about sports fans and how warped that kind of devotion can be. How about the recent story of the poisoning of hundred-year oaks at Toomer's Corner? A 62-year-old Alabama football fan came and sprayed plant killer on the roots of these two majestic oaks where Auburn fans celebrate victories. Because Auburn beat Alabama this year. Egad.

And, speaking of devotees that go way too far, how about the religious ones that get such a bad wrap? Well that's a part of who we're dealing with today. In Matthew 5, we've heard Jesus preaching from the mountainside to the crowds. For the past few weeks it's been pretty good news, the blessings for the common folk, calling the people the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world." Jesus, speaking with the authority of Heaven, is building up these folks, one and all. We might say, where's the down side? Why's Jesus just buttering them up?

Well we gotta remember the landscape of religious belief in that day. Then we'll see that he's not buttering them up, he's just offering them some relief. In a lot of ways, to be one of God's average, everyday followers at the time was horrendous. For decades, a fistful of elites and the intensely-educated claimed to be the only gate-keepers to God. The Pharisees, teachers of the Law, chief priests -- they were often the few skilled to read or interpret Scripture, they ruled over the Temple and worship, and their words were pretty binding. If we're among the people, our access to God comes through them.

And to give you an idea of their attitude, they prized the Law of Moses above all. They'd had it for thousands of years before Jesus lived, so they had plenty of time to dig into what they thought it meant. Some of us are familiar with parts of the Law, particularly, say, the Ten Commandments, right? To take one as an example, think about #4: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." I've asked folks today what that means to us, and we interpret it differently. For some it means we have a special time of worship on the Sabbath, on Sunday mornings. For others it means you're not allowed to mow the yard or do the laundry on Sunday, because it's Sabbath and you're supposed to "rest."

That's exactly what the Pharisees and rulers and teachers of the Law had done with Scripture for, again, thousands of years. There were huge traditions built around the simplest lines. For example, with commandment #4, resting on the Sabbath:

Somebody once said, "Well, if we're going to rest on the Sabbath...how do we define rest?" And it was decided that rest meant not working, duh.

But somebody else asked, "So what counts as work?" Ugh. It was decided that all sorts of things counted as work like, for instance, carrying a burden.

Somebody else asked, "What actually counts as a burden?" So others came up with extensive lists to define different burdens.

For instance, how much milk can be carried on the Sabbath before it is a burden, and work, and breaking the Sabbath? It was decided. A gallon? No. A mouthful. Yikes. And how much wine would be considered a burden (it didn't come in boxes back then)? A gobletful. And so on.

How much writing could I do before it was considered work and breaking the Sabbath? A couple of emails? Negative. No more than two letters of the alphabet. I wouldn't be able to write my name.

Volumes and volumes of this stuff was recorded and enforced. Breaking Sabbath meant separation from God, and worship, and the people. If anybody ever took anything too far, the Pharisees and other Law-rulers did. They lost a view for the heart of things.

So Jesus' word to the whole crowd, not just those special leaders, was blowing the hinges off of things. He was telling the meek, humble, poor, and beat-down that they were blessed in the kingdom of God, that they were made with purpose and value. And he wasn't using any Pharisee middle-man to transmit the message. The good news was offering them some relief. And with it was a warning to all others against polluting true devotion into religious nonsense. Plenty of us struggle with taking things to that extreme. We emphasize what our faith looks like. We think it's enough to have perfect attendance on Sunday, smuggle Bibles into dangerous countries, sing choir solos, protest civil war abroad, protest domestic injustice, preach every Sunday, etc. etc., fill-in-the-blank. But all those things without a heart attuned to God turns our devotion into manipulation, control, self-glory, and utter selfishness.

Continuing in Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus draws us away from just what we do towards what goes on in our hearts.

And in doing so he warns everybody not to go too far to the other extreme of faith: not being devoted at all. He makes clear that all this standing up to the teachers of the Law isn't to destroy the Law. It isn't to say, do nothing. But do it right. Live into the Law as it was meant to be lived, which is to do far better than the Pharisees who call themselves so holy.

Plenty of us struggle with that opposite extreme. Have we ever been so scared that we might turn into a Pharisee, or zealot, or crusader (or our parents), that we choose a devotion to nothing? Have we feared choosing the wrong devotion, or a devotion that excludes too many others? Whatever the case, Jesus dares us to consider that there could be a true way somewhere in there, a deeper, truer, right devotion. And that, however rare it might be, is what God desires. And that is what we were made for. And that is by far the most difficult option.

It is just easier to be an extremist and twist faith into whatever self-glorifying thing we want. It is just easier to choose no faith at all. It is drastically more difficult to pursue true obedience, daily. Jesus seems to say that our connection to the kingdom of heaven is what's at stake.

2011-02-06T11:42:00.000-05:00

So my laptop is a pretty excellent machine, and it's become pretty vital to a lot of what I do. Starting maybe eight months ago the screen would flicker from time to time, like every other week at first, but gradually it got worse until most recently any tiny vibration would set it off -- every step somebody took through the house or office, every time I started typing, etc. It was unusable. It was also out of warranty by like two months (thank you, HP), and Best Buy told me that replacing the screen would cost more than the machine overall. What to do but take it apart and have a look (mind you, I have no experience with such).

But I did what my brother always says, I "asked the internet" what to do and found some ideas on fixing it. Pretty soon, this is what I had:

Not a real sterile or professional work environment, but it would do. I followed the directions, kept track of 37 tiny screws, jiggled and wiggled a couple of plugs that went to the screen, and hoped that did something to help. In another half hour it was back together, and by gah it powered back on (success number one). And, what's more (success number two), the screen didn't flicker anymore.

I was on top of the world, ready to start my own laptop business, super glad not to have to spend the money to replace this thing. But then I went on to read some of the tiny print at the bottom of the internet repair instructions: "Static electricity can kill your laptop. I recommend wearing an anti-static wrist strap while working with internal parts of your laptop." I looked into this and, apparently, professionals use special wristbands or floor-mats to stay electrically grounded because even a tiny static charge, the kind you don't even see or feel, can zap the computer. And then it'd be worth as much as one of these:

Yes. A brick. Because static charge "bricks" laptops. As in, for all its complexity, value, usefulness, etc., the computer would be no better than a paper-weight, a several-hundred-dollar brick, a waste of space.

That's a more current illustration to go with the idea Jesus gives us in Matthew 5:13-20. He compares the people to salt and light. He gets into the idea that when salt isn't real salty, it isn't treated as salt but as gravel-dirt for the road; he points out how silly it is to cover a light up so that it doesn't shine. Jesus uses images of something that is intended for a specific purpose, and holds certain value, because of its very essence; and also something that, when it no longer holds its essence, really ceases to be itself at all. Salt. Light. Us.

Now, right away, let's take a break to realize what Jesus is most definitely not saying. Be careful. He does not look on the crowd and say, "Y'all are a bunch of bricks, wastes of space, aren't you? Have you been living up to your potential? No. Where's your worth, your value? You're tasteless. Gravel for the road. Lightless."

We can hear that, yes. We can certainly agree that most of us don't always feel like we fulfill God's purpose/potential for us. We know what it is to feel far from any kind of personal meaning. Or satisfaction. Far from any feeling of being salty, vibrant, or alive. We've felt hints of that brick kind of life. And here is certainly a warning that things can go that way with us. But Jesus does not call us those names, or conclude our worthlessness. Listen carefully to his words, let me quote:

"You are the salt of the earth.

You are the light of the world."

Present tense, "You ARE," the truth from the One who knows more clearly than anyone. We have a warning that we can live bricked if we so choose, but it's not truly who we are or what we're intended for. And just like last week, Jesus doesn't speak like one exactly trying to persuade us one way or another. He speaks out of what he knows as reality, and ultimate reality, and leaves us to do the reckoning.

So maybe parting questions are: why do we choose bricked life sometimes, and in what ways? Why choose tastelessness as opposed to flavor? Darkness instead of light? How does that play out in us?

2011-01-30T16:13:00.001-05:00

So many ways to consider what we mean by being “blessed.” Some of us have been blessed out before. Or tried to receive a father’s blessing to propose to our future bride. We bless sneezes. We have more substantial blessing, with prayer and anointing, crossing ourselves or having hands laid on us.

In the south we’ve been blessed every kind of insincere way. You might here somebody say, “She’s dumber than a bag of hammers, bless her heart.” Or, “Bless his heart, he can’t help being ugly, but he could’ve stayed home.” So what’s it worth?

A good place to start wondering about blessing is to ask yourself if you feel blessed, truly? When we try to answer that most of us by habit jump into listing the stuff we’re thankful for, we “count our blessings.” But, really, take a minute and think about what makes you consider yourself blessed or not.

Our blessings are all different, some will list things: water, food, clothing, a home, a car, an income. Others will list relationships: family, friends, God. Or maybe experiences/ideas: love, forgiveness, general safety, a “free country”, life in general.

I ask because we’ll all answer so differently, we reckon blessings so differently. I mean, take two people whose lists above are identical, with virtually the same life situation, and they’re probably going to feel differently about how blessed they are (or even if they think they’re blessed). So it’s hard to wonder what blessing means.

This isn’t something new. People in Jesus’ day probably wondered the same. And the word they used for being blessed, makarios in the Greek, has a range of meaning that proves the point. It can teach us something, I bet.

For one thing, makarios, blessed, was originally a word used to describe only the gods. The Greek gods were the blessed ones, and that makes sense, according to their beliefs these gods were in a state of happiness and contentment that was beyond all cares, labors, and even death. They were beings who lived in some other world far away from the problems of ordinary people. The blessed ones.

So it makes more sense that in day to day life, there was another group that was also eventually known as “blessed”. The elite, the upper crust of society, the wealthiest and most powerful. Because, like the gods, their riches and power put them above the normal issues and worries of ordinary people.

Even sometimes among those who believed in God, the One true God, this same idea of being blessed was reserved for those who were rewarded for their right living. Remember, some felt like if you lived righteously then even earthly success would come your way -- a good husband/wife, many children, abundant crops, etc.

I bring that up because I bet it sheds light on why an idea of blessing is hard to nail down even today. Because our culture, just like back then, throws around the language of blessing in an assortment of circumstances.

So, like, I couldn’t help but notice a Tweet from CJ Spiller recently that mentioned something about his “feeling so blessed.” I’ve heard him talk that way before and most of us wouldn’t disagree. I mean, quite right, this outstanding high school athlete who came from humble beginnings and made it on to an awesome college football career, and now further to the big time in the NFL. And not just in the events of his life’s story, but in his natural talent – insane speed and agility on the field – it’s easy to grant him that title, “blessed.”

Or for our Oprah fans, she’ll often use this language of being blessed – this woman who is literally one of the most wealthy and influential in the world, again having come from humble beginnings and through life’s traumas to the top. Blessed? It’s easy to say so. And I’m not knocking their use of that language, they’re also both faithful people and they certainly do good things with what they’ve been given, and we can give God glory for that.

But I think it’s too easy for some of us, and even probably them and other folks in positions like them, to think certainly these folks are blessed. Why should any of us be quicker to use blessing language with CJ or Oprah, than with ourselves or others we know?

I think it’s no wonder this same word is sometimes translated as “happy.” Happy. Which, in English, is connected to “luck.” As in, when you leave things to “happenstance”, you treat life like a shot in the dark. Whatever happens, happens. A “hapless” person is somebody who’s just unlucky. But the lucky person, who has things going his/her way, we can call “happy.” Somebody with good fortune.

As in, being blessed is for those who are above the ordinary things, safe and secure and successful, like the gods, the “happy” ones who just seemed to have been born under a lucky star. Maybe that sounds silly to you, but lots of these feelings mess with our understanding of blessing. Let that sink in.

And now we’ll hear from Jesus’ words to a crowd that certainly wrestled with the same feelings. Famous words. Here at the beginning of his preaching and ministry, with the first crowds gathering together, made up of every kind of person, Jesus went up and sat on a mountainside to speak to them (hence, “the sermon on the mount”). And he started with words about blessing. It’s in Matthew 5:1-12 if you’ll read it

How does Jesus speak to being blessed? Up and against most of what culture told the people back then, and what it tells us, Jesus offered up another option, and he spoke matter-of-factly of what is and what will be. In the face of everything that makes sense in what we think of as the real world, Jesus offers a different reality. Where blessing might mean something very different.

If the world defines blessing in terms of being “god-like”, above the ordinary, luckily “happy”, then I think Jesus paints a picture that is, overall, Christ-like…blessedness that he describes as in touch with his way and his kingdom.

So taking the cue from Jesus, we can answer some basic questions about life from both perspectives: the cultural/wordly “god-like” mentality and the “Christ-like” view. Then we can see which reality rings truer to our hearts.

1. Who are those that will find true comfort?

god-like: Those who do so much good God essentially owes it to them. The best-behaved, most holy and devoted among us.

Christ-like: The poor in spirit. Like some say, maybe particularly those who see their own brokenness and their need for being saved.

2. Who are those that will find true comfort?

god-like: They who take comfort in their material wealth/security and possessions. The ones who fill the void themselves with something else, who comfort themselves.

Christ-like: Those who grieve and will be comforted in a deep way, by the presence of the One who swallows up death for us. And by the Spirit of God, the comforter who lives in us.

3. Who are those who will take possession of the earth?

god-like: The ones with the biggest weapons, who are most aggressive, conniving and cut-throat. The wealthiest who can buy it all. The most cunning who can acquire it from the unwary.

Christ-like: Those humble to the God to whom it truly belongs. Those who receive an inheritance from the God who created it.

And you can go on down the list from Matthew 5 and consider the depth of how Jesus’ answers here to some of life’s basic questions can drastically redefine “blessing.” Having considered it, which reality do you feel more kinship to? Which one do we each try to live into and propagate on the face of the earth, consciously and unconsciously? What kind of blessedness do we want to be connected to?

Because to me Jesus' tone on that mountainside wasn't one of persuasion. It wasn't one of being talked blindly into something new. It was and is a challenge to the status quo of our life's reality. And where we go from there is in our hands.

2011-01-16T11:02:00.003-05:00

Ever tried God's shoes on? Even the simplest of ways. Have you ever wished for a fleeting second that the temperature would stay a constant 70 degrees year-round? Ever wonder "why" with the mosquitoes, snakes, spiders, fill in the blank?

With a baby on the way, we were talking to some friends who're in the same boat, about what it is to try to be prepared for the kid. We've registered at Babies R Us and seen eight different types of baby bottle and all that. So many options, so many choices potentially gone wrong. So, why oh why, God, not just have babies pop out as three-year-olds, potty-trained and talking?

These are wonderings, questions, towards God or whoever/whatever you might think is responsible for the order of things: why is it this way? How else could all this have gone? I like asking those questions of God like right now during "Epiphany" season when we spend a lot of time considering God as a man in Jesus. Talk about, "how else could this have gone?" It's a wild time in earth's history, for God to do what God does here. Particularly in John 1:29-42, right after Jesus is baptized. Read it if you will.

And look at the scene, as we watch the absolute starting point of this whole movement that would follow Jesus. And, I say, wonder how else this could have gone. Because it's honestly a little strange, a little willy-nilly. Here John the Baptist, Jesus' own cousin who was the special man sent to prepare the way for the Messiah, who has a following of his own, has just baptized Jesus and now realizes just who Jesus is. And to me it almost sounds like he is overwhelmed with the excitement of it, the surprise even -- during these couple of days after the baptism, John and his followers are hanging around, and whenever Jesus comes by John just bursts out like he can't hold it in, "LOOK, THE LAMB OF GOD!" And if he was so surprised, if he's just finding all this out, him who should be Jesus' right-hand man, what a strange way for God to operate.

Then, even more, when some of John's disciples hear who Jesus is and decide to go follow him at a distance, curious about where he's staying, Jesus turns to face them. And he doesn't exactly sound cordial, does he? I mean, you can read it as almost rudeness. Here his first disciples ever are starting to feel him out and follow, and he turns around to ask, "What do you want?" We can wonder how this whole thing even panned out, eh? What's God up to? Why not do it differently, like, to ensure a little better that this Jesus thing would stick.

So let's take a minute to consider how else this could've gone. To do that, we're stepping into God's shoes a little bit, temporarily. Call it sacrilegious, but if you will, take a minute and really settle into pretending that you and I are God (it's not real hard, we do it all the time). And we have all power and know-how at our disposal. And the universe actually does revolve around us:

So...what do we desire here by the Jordan with John and Jesus and these disciples?

Well, that'll take some review. As God, how'd we get ourselves to this point? Real quick, let's think back. We just got done, moments ago, finishing making everything. Creating the universe, right? Finishing our masterpiece creature, the humans. Then resting. And it was all "good." Remember that? Okay.

And the very next thing, right after our humans jacked everything all up...we decided to save them. And to save everything. But how to do it...? Well we let the cat out of the bag over the years, through the prophets and lots of other things, that through the Jews in particular, and through one man, the Messiah, we would save things. And, truly, that Messiah is God, God in the flesh.

And what would we do in the flesh? What's the Messiah up to? If we're honest then, frankly, we sent him to die. We know that, and so does he. He knows that he came to earth to give up his life at the hands of evil men, so that he could enter into death, charge straight in, and destroy it once-and-for-all. He knows his mission.

But there's more to the mission than just him dying. If that was all then we could just wait until he hit a ripe old age and let him pass painlessly in his sleep. We didn't just send him to die, but to live. Because we need for people to get to know him, to believe in him, and to choose him as their Messiah to be saved. Otherwise his death would seem in vain.

Alright, so here we are on this day. Look at him, Jesus, he's here on earth. He's a good-looking young man (at least we think so). Maybe in his 20's, just baptized, and it is GO time. I mean, he has a short time here while he's still alive to teach, and do some discipling, and start a movement so he leaves some believers in his wake. Because, oooh, if we do a really good job the people won't just believe and be saved, but even after Jesus leaves the earth, they'll carry on without him. Think what that could mean! The movement won't be limited by time - generations after generations can believe and be saved. And distance, geography, or culture won't limit this thing - we'll go way past just the Jews or Jerusalem, but to the ends of the earth. All that, we can redeem everything and bring it all back to us, if his followers are devoted enough and filled by our Spirit.

What an idea. That's what we want. We want to bring them all back. And we'll need serious enough followers that this movement will work and keep working and survive the wild/terrible days to come. After all, as God everything we've ever done in creation will depend on this. How to find true disciples...followers...how?

That's the question we're stepping into God's shoes to answer. Forgetting how the story really went, standing here by the Jordan, how else would you or I go about starting this movement? How will we take this 20-something unknown named Jesus, who has no real credentials as far as we know, and have him generate a following that will last? There's too much at stake here to mess around, we should be looking for a sure thing. So, how?

I'll give you a hint, a starting point: think about the movements around us, in history and our culture, that are really strong. That have withstood time, or swept us up into them and have strong influence over us. Where do you see strong followings? Here are some that I think of, or that others offered up:

1) KISS fans. That's right, my friends. The rock band. But think of other music groups, too. Do you know those devoted concert-followers? Whatever genre of music, there are some die-hard fans. Why? Maybe it's the gimmick, the marketing. Throw on some face-paint and costumes, this whole image that KISS portrays, and maybe add to it the "sex, drugs, and rock & roll" deal. They invite their fans to share a wild experience.

So why not harness that kind of movement for Jesus. Here by the Jordan, let's have him costume up, set off some pyrotechnics, stick out the long tongue, and invite the crowds into a rocker following? Promise them that lifestyle? It's an option.

2) Football fans. Another type of fan, because we're trying for Jesus to draw some devoted "fanatics." So what about sports fans? Why do some of us go so hardcore for our team? My dad said, "Being raised right" is what produces Gamecock fans. Okay, so indoctrination, even as children. We connect a team to childhood and family and happy memories (or unhappy) and it shapes us for life. We see the same effect gone way too far with child soldiers in conflicts like that in Uganda, where young children are forced to kill and see/do dreadful things to desensitize them. It warps them into killers, ruthless soldiers.

If we're God looking for a sure thing to produce loyal disciples, why not turn to this kind of method? Indoctrination, desensitization. That leads us to another useful option...

3) Use of force. Like child soldiers, gangs, and so much more, why not go with outright coercion? Playing on fear, there are ways to threaten people into following. A gun to the head, "get in line or die." If that doesn't work, we could always take people's loved ones hostage and threaten their lives. Now that's persuasion.

Here by the Jordan River why not move King Herod to drum up the army and force people to bow down to Jesus?

4) Addiction. Think about the drug dealer's trick: give somebody a free little taste of the product, and you've got a client hooked for life.

Jesus could set up as the number one crack dealer in Israel, or whatever else. Could slowly get us all hooked and - suckas - you're stuck following him for life. Can't do without him then, can ya?

5) Debt. Okay, we can establish Jesus as the head loan shark in Palestine, and sooner or later everybody will owe him and he can own them all for life.

6) Bribery. Maybe easiest of all, we can just try to "reward" everybody. Say, give them all a salary for life and a beautiful pension if they follow Jesus. Ooh, if not wealth then status. We could set Jesus up as some famous playboy cruising the Gaza coast in his yacht. Make him one to be desired that way, a trend-setter, the elite. That throws in an air of this movement being exclusive, too. Only the few get past the velvet rope. That's a powerful following.

The list can go on and on. Mighty influences around us, and there are plenty of other versions. The worst part is that so much of how we the Church approaches Jesus' movement looks like some of these. Because some of these methods are just easy, they tap into deep human needs, and they can be about as close to a "sure thing" as we can get. If we're God trying to create a solid movement, which do we choose? Think on it.

And compare now to what actually happens in John 1, and now today. Does God work any of these ways?

No.

Why?

It won't last. God wants us to choose. Jesus will never force himself on anyone. Ever.

And above all, God is love. Do we see any love in that list up there? Any goodness? Maybe a little here and there (music and sports, come on!). But not a whole lot, and I think none if anything on that list dominates our devotion and consumes all our following.

God is love and wouldn't resort to schemes that would ruin the very creation God set out to save, just to hang onto it. So think carefully then about how God really worked (and works). All of those other options were at God's disposal, but he loves us so much that he works this way in John 1.

It looks like a terrible long shot. There's no good reason that John the Baptist, this raving lunatic in the wild, should've really attracted folks like he did. No promise of reward there. No coercion. But people started to follow. Why? Because something about his message rang true in the hearts of the people. They felt the truth and love of God in him. And because he was trusted, because of the credibility that the truth had given him with the people, when he vouches for Jesus it's the beginning of something. He passes his credibility to Jesus, some of John's own disciples believe it and start following Jesus instead. Those would-be disciples creep up from a distance, scoping out where Jesus is going. When Jesus stops to ask, "What do you want?" I don't think it was rude. But he was clearly asking for the followers' intentions. The disciples beat around the bush... "Where are you staying?" they ask. And Jesus replies: "Come and see."

A wide open invitation from the King of all kings, from God in the flesh, to come and spend his time together. And the passage says, "they spent the day together until late in the afternoon." By that time, the would-be disciples are full-fledged and on board. Followers for life. That was it. And lastly, they go off to their loved ones, Andrew goes to his brother Peter, and now they vouch for Jesus. And because of their intimate connection, their personal credibility together, Peter believes Andrew and comes to meet Jesus for himself. The cycle starts over again.

He didn't pick any of the options on our man-made list of disciple-making techniques. Instead, they and we receive a chance to choose, an open invitation to follow or not. It's a choice that takes intention ("What do you want?") but that also leads to ultimate life in intimate connection to the One, True, Living God.

2011-01-09T12:29:00.003-05:00

So it seems pretty standard that people bond over common experiences, eh? Fraternities think of it maybe as the "pledge class" effect, wherein you lump together any odd mix of dudes and force them to undergo all sorts of anguish and/or triumph together to cement the "brotherhood" bond. As in, "Hey, they just made me eat dirt and do pushups all day in the pouring rain, and they did the same thing to you. We're brothers now." Then you hug it out.

That pattern shows up all over the place. If you and me share an experience, it can be the common ground that breaks the ice, or lets down our personal defenses some, or builds trust and credibility. I think it's what goes on with CBS' Undercover Boss. Watch the clip:

So, CEO's and presidents and owners of huge corporations take time to head down into the daily trenches of the company. The owner of 7-Eleven stores does a graveyard shift as a stockboy, or the the CEO of 1-800-Flowers sweeps up flower clippings, etc. They get an idea of the what makes their business great or terrible at the ground level; and in the end, the employees probably lend their boss some more credibility. Because they can say, "He/she, the big cheese, knows what I do every day." There's value there.

I wondered this week if it's the same thing with Jesus being baptized. Every year this Sunday comes around, and we consider that Jesus, God in the flesh, came to the Jordan just like everybody else to be baptized by John (in Matthew 3:13-17). In part, on the surface, I appreciate Jesus' baptism because, yes, it's the biggest of big cheeses, the owner/operator of all things, coming to do what the average person does. Rubbing elbows with the common folk. I think that's some of the meaning. But surely not everything, because unlike the TV show, Jesus came to stay through to his death...it wasn't a temporary experience before he jumped right back to the CEO's ivory tower penthouse.

And we have some clues that this is a really significant event, maybe not just Jesus doing it 'cause everybody else was and this would be their shared common experience. What clues? Well, God is present in a particular way, the voice speaks from heaven and the Spirit appears like a dove -- a one-of-a-kind event. And another clue for me is that John the Baptist seems not to even expect this move. John, Jesus' cousin, the special one chosen to preach and prepare the way for the Messiah, maybe should be the single person most in touch with Jesus' mission -- and he seems clueless, even almost upset, trying initially to prevent Jesus from doing it. Something is afoot here. So...what? Look around the scene there, and ask questions.

A couple more clues are below the surface, found in the deep story of God's people over time. For one we go back to one of the most famous ancestors in their history, Moshe (sounds like "Moe-Shay"). He was given that name because as a child in ancient Egypt the Pharaoh set out to kill little Hebrew boys like him, his parents floated him in a basket in the river so he might survive, and he was drawn out of the water to safety. Moshe, or Moses. And when he grew up he served as the voice/hand of God to deliver the people from slavery. And then a second time he and all the people were rescued by being drawn through water, the sea.

As the story continues, through decades of wandering through desert, fighting and hard work, as God's people drew close to the land they had always been striving towards, that God had promised them, they hit a river. The Jordan River. And it might as well have been named the "It's go-time" river because the people on the other side were fortified in the land, hostile to God, and the biggest battles were waiting there. There was another leader there, not Moses now but Joshua. His name, Yeshua, meant something special, too, "The Lord saves." And to cross the river he sent the Ark of God ahead and the rushing water parted for the people to cross into new territory.

So if we were in the crowd the day Jesus was baptized, maybe these things click a little, from somewhere deep inside. The Jordan River has significance. The story of our people is one that has been marked by God's rescuing us through water, and then plunging on into a new adventure. And the biggest theme there is that when those things happen, God is there personally present to do it. Working wonders through Moses and the others, present in the whirlwind of fire and pillar of cloud, in the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, and so on. Journeying all along with us, and never abandoning us.

When the big wonders had been done before Pharaoh and the people were set free, God didn’t say, “Well, I got you started here, good luck, see you later. SEE YA!” No.

When Joshua and those met the Jordan, God didn’t say, “Got you this far, opened the way across the river, now head in and see if you survive on your own. SEE YA!” No.

And when Jesus shows up to be baptized, he didn’t say, “Okay, John, I’ll take this baptizing thing…(baptize, baptize, baptize)…alright now y’all go start this Christian movement thing… SEE YA!” No.

He chose to be baptized. And like had happened in God's story before, it's the beginning of something that he is personally present with. Like God saying, "I'm here on the ground with you in a special way, and we've got a journey to make." A journey of salvation marked by water, a journey into newness. It was no accident that Jesus' own name was quite special, reminiscent of Joshua's, meaning "The Lord saves." And in Jesus it's very much as if God says, "And as I go with you, don't doubt how truly here I really am. I'll feel your hurts and joys, I'll be tempted just like you, and come under attack just like you."

So it seems like through the ages God had been, and is, trying to teach God's people about the nature of God's character. Not just that there's some little shared experience to bond us together before God goes back to heaven to leave things to us; not that we have some half-true "pledge" bond of brotherhood. But that God is here, has been and will be.

Even when it seems absolutely not the case, God has gone nowhere, for Jesus and this story teach us that God never abandons. So we are invited into the same baptism, the same mark of God's grace, the same sign of being rescued, and the same beginning to an adventure story.

2011-01-02T11:21:00.001-05:00

In the third or fourth grade there was a teacher in our school named Mrs. Rapp. And by most of the ways that kids judge a favorite teacher, Mrs. Rapp didn't do real well. RARE to even crack a smile, never tolerated misbehavior of any kind, quick to reprimand and punish, always in control of the entire classroom, authoritative and heavy-fisted. There's probably a little exaggeration in there, and I'm not trying to knock her as a person, but through 8-year-old eyes she was pretty tough. If you know how big a deal it was in the 3rd grade to be sentenced to "silent lunch", when a teacher could call for the entire lunchroom to sit and eat without a word to each other, then know that Mrs. Rapp would declare silent lunch at the drop of a hat, and we all knew it was for real.

So guess whose number came up when it came time to be drafted into her classroom in the 3rd grade? No, not mine. My brother's. And where I was always absolutely sheepish and shy, especially in the face of authority, my brother was more sure of himself, and bold, creative, energetic, and too smart for his own good (maybe making him hard to motivate/entertain in class). So needless to say sometimes I think he and Mrs. Rapp had their clashes.

One of the ultimate means of punishment at our school was "the wall". The long brick wall of the school-building directly adjacent to the playground. Right there close enough to the action that it was torture to be stuck with your back to it at recess, watching but unable to even talk to your friends. I hated the wall and spent maybe a collective ten minutes on it all my years a the school. Sometimes it seemed like my brother had a permanent membership card. Now, he was a good kid like I said, and mostly I think just talkative, but with Mrs. Rapp that was trouble. At the time I was scared for his life, but looking back I like it a lot. I appreciate the way he did, because looking back it's how most of us felt and wished we'd done -- he stuck it to the "woman", he wouldn't take her junk sometimes, her tyranny. He stood up for himself, the "little guy." Well done.

Because I, and most all of us, know what some of that feels like, the desire to stand up for ourselves and not be controlled, or kept quiet or held down. Seriously, does anybody like those feelings? Do you like backseat drivers, or people looking over your shoulder or being harshly critiqued? Do we like being babied against our will? Or told you can't do so-and-so, or just don't do it. Do we like having our choices made for us?

No. No. No. We hate it.

However.

For all of us there are those times when we do want something akin to all that. I bet you. What about when we have a ridiculous decision to make, and all the options sound equally good or bad, and we just don't know what to do? Do we ever wish even slightly that somebody would just step in and choose for us and let it be done with?

What about when we face something we don't feel prepared for or equipped to succeed at? Do we ever wish somebody would swoop in and do it for us, or at least get it started? Okay, back to the third-grade mindset, what about something like a science project? "Aww, Mom! I don't know where to start, you do it." That's not usually a cool feeling to me, to be ready to ask that, besides our parents weren't ever much to do that sort of thing for us -- but have you ever known the wish for that kind of crisis-intervention?

And what about when we just don't know what the future holds, and there's big stuff on the line? Do we ever wish somebody could step in and assure us of the road ahead, or map out how it's going to go?

Okay. Then as much as we say sometimes, "Let me be me! Don't tell me what to do or how to do it. Don't control me." The next breath, under certain circumstances, can be, "Why didn't somebody step in and stop me? Or stop them or that from happening? Why didn't somebody warn me? Why did I have to choose? Why wasn't I given all the info ahead of time!?" And so on.

Does it sound very fair? Particularly when I bet that most of us put responsibility for all that on God's shoulders, one way or another. I mean, think about it, I bet some of the times we get maddest at God, the times when our relationship with God is most in danger, are those when God doesn't step in and take the reins the way we demand it. If our relationship with God is going to begin in a deep way, or even just survive over time -- if we're not going to totally resent God -- maybe foremost it will take FLEXIBILITY.

We see that at work in Matthew 2:13-21. The basic Christmas story has kinda wrapped up, the part we put into pageant form. We're at a point when things are supposed to finally just be fine for Mary, Joseph and their newborn Jesus. They weathered the scandal in Nazareth, survived the trek to Bethlehem, have met the shepherds, heard about angels, been visited by strange wise ones who followed a star -- altogether they've had, literally, that "halleleujah" moment. Because Mary and Joseph's crazy faith/hope have finally been confirmed. Things have come true and the great work is done -- the baby is here now. Mission accomplished. But the very next thing we hear, immediately after the wise men left, Mary and Joseph receive another message, because of the danger posed by King Herod: "GET UP AND GO."

We can relate, some of us. Do you ever work for carrots? As in, don't many of us work towards something that we dangle out in front of ourselves as motivation to get through the work day or week? What are they? Our pay, our salary. Weekends, vacations, happy hour. Personal satisfaction maybe. A certain meal or certain comfort or certain person at the end of the day? So imagine that at the end of the 14-hour day from hell, with the perfect bubble bath already warm and drawn, candles lit, music playing, and afterwards the perfect meal with the special someone waiting, just as your toes hit the water, the phone rings and you gotta go back in. After all the preparation, just about to enjoy the reward...time to get up and go again. Hello, Mary and Joseph.

Can you imagine the conversation between Joseph and God? It's the middle of the night in Bethlehem after all these wonderful events, and God speaks through the angel:

God:Get up and go, they're coming to kill you.
Joseph:Wha?! What?
God:Get up and GO.
Joseph:Now?
God:Now.
Joseph:Go where?
God:Egypt.
Joseph:But what will I do? How will we survive, will they need carpenters? How do we know Herod won't catch us on the way? ... Wait, wait. ... Why not send those angels right back? ... They can take care of Herod. And we can go ahead and set Jesus on his throne now, and it'll all be already done... The Messiah's rule can begin... Aww, I bet this is what you had planned all along--
God:Get up and go. Now.
Joseph:How long will we stay in Egypt?
God:I'll let you know.

Would any of us struggle with that? Maybe some of our very calendar-keeping people... "How long do we stay in Egypt?" "I'll let you know, so pay attention to your dreams." Whaaat? Flexibility is the word.

And now the bigger deal, what's huge here, is that it's not just Mary and Joseph whose lives are on the line in this moment...but also Jesus'.

And with Jesus in danger, so is the fate of humanity, and of all creation, that Jesus came to save. Everything God had ever done in all creation, everything prepared since the beginning, hung on Jesus' life. And STILL God entrusted it to the decisions Mary and Joseph were making, because God's not a "take the reins" kind of God, as much as they might have wished it.

He is severely invested in our freedom, and leaves it to us. Think what that means for us, and our relationship, for God to put that much at stake in the hands of this carpenter and wife, to hear the dream, actually listen, get up and go. Now think what's entrusted to you. And realize that God loves you and me enough to never force us to do anything. God has never forced anybody to do anything.

So we also see the danger in Herod of an abuse of our freedom to choose. He decided, "I'm not on board with what God's doing here, I'd rather hang onto this kingdom for myself." And his choices produced great suffering for many, many of the innocent. That's the weight of our freedom.

But ultimately we also see the great gift of obedience in Mary and Joseph and later in Jesus. That to get up and go, to follow, even to the death, is where we find our fullest, most abundant life.

2010-11-28T15:50:00.001-05:00

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.

2010-11-21T11:45:00.001-05:00

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.

2010-11-14T14:41:00.001-05:00

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?

2010-11-07T13:29:00.001-05:00

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?

2010-10-17T11:17:00.001-04:00

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."

2010-09-19T15:33:00.001-04:00

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.

2010-05-12T09:30:00.001-04:00

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?

2010-02-17T09:53:00.002-05:00

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?

2010-01-27T12:50:00.001-05:00

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?

2010-01-27T11:04:00.001-05:00

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?

2010-01-02T09:30:00.001-05:00

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?

2009-12-10T11:05:00.001-05:00

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Sorry for the month's absence.

This Sunday we'll hear from another prophet, Zephaniah and we light the "Joy" candle in the wreath. So in Advent we're still carrying the images from the past few weeks: Christ the King, hope and peace; and now we're moving on to joy and then love.

Here are some questions to weigh-in on:

What is joy like? We've been doing these short advent skits that relate to the day's theme, and hope/peace didn't seem so hard, but how do you act out joy? Just be happy? Big smiles? What kind of feeling is joy, deep in our insides? As an adult, and lately a busy, sometimes highly-stressed adult, I can have an almost non-existent feeling about what joy even is. I definitely have a feeling for what joy isn't. So maybe start there with this question, start with those feelings that are anti-joy, or joyless.

When is joy sincere? I think that first question for me draws on pictures of kids coming down the stairs on Xmas morning and seeing what Santa brought, or at least that sort of thing - the emotion, excitement, etc. But does that kind of material satisfaction get anywhere near God's desire for joy? Maybe?

I bust on Christians all the time for thinking we gotta walk around and smile like goobers and say "have a nice day" wherever we go; insincere sugary junk doesn't jive with my understanding of faith. But as Jesus-followers we're still expected, even sometimes ordered, to rejoice. So what's the real deal? What is joy like on occasions where it just doesn't seem right to be happy-go-lucky?

Read Zephaniah. Think about this vague word, "joy". And we're going to take a look at some of our favorite movie/story "happy-endings" to see if we know how to rejoice anymore...

2009-11-10T17:42:00.001-05:00

Ruth 3:1-15

Continuing in the story of Ruth. And after seeing Donald Miller a few weeks ago (he's a writer), I remembered his whole take on Bible stories. He pointed out how whack it is for us to hear these stories, that we believe are a part of the greater epic of God & us, and always try to boil them down to some lesson or life application on Sundays. Don made the point of how rude that is.

It's like what if a good friend came up and said they had some important jive to tell us, to talk about, and all we did was look at our watch and say "get to the part that affects me, that changes my life; give me the three concise points of your story and tell me why I should care"?

Obviously the Bible applies to us, or so we say/hope, but isn't there power in a good story? The book named "Ruth" is a good story. Just read Ruth 1 and 2 and then 3:1-15 to see where we are at this point for Sunday. Maybe read it several times to really get up in there and experience it. See what it makes you wonder...

I've been wondering about: the whole idea of a "kinsman-redeemer", what that meant in the old school days, and how does it compare to what Jesus does? Also, wouldn't it have been hard for anybody to care much for Ruth, her being from Moab, and Israel having been at war with Moab for years and years at that time. Were people mean to her, what was it like for her and Naomi to come home that way? What did people say about them? How is Boaz such a righteous dude to her (I also wonder how old he is, it makes him sound old...)? Getting to the end of the book of Ruth, what did this story mean to Jews who kept it, wrote it down, and cherished it? Do we take it to heart, and/or what does it mean to Christians?

2009-11-04T11:30:00.001-05:00

Ruth 2:1-12

Part 2 in the Ruth story. Naomi and Ruth have no idea how this thing will pan out, but some things start taking shape right away. While Naomi is in the pit of her sorrow, Ruth gets on with caring for the two of them. These two women, two widows (Ruth a foreign Moabite), are struggling at the bottom of the social structure. Ruth can only go work in the fields, vulnerable to who-knows-what as an unaccompanied woman among the harvest workers. And while Ruth tries to gather the leftovers of the barley harvest, she happens to find herself in the field of one of Naomi's extended family, Boaz. And Boaz happens to have heard of these two women, and happens to greatly respect their plight.

Ruth 2 starts to see some turnaround for Ruth and Naomi, and a lot of coincidence (providence?) in the process. Naomi will have her hope again, and Ruth a future. Why? Because 1) Ruth headed down the road with Naomi, and 2) she never quit.

Where do we find ourselves in the story?

2009-11-04T10:36:00.001-05:00

Ruth 1:1-18

It's All-Saints' Sunday, our church holiday to celebrate those faithful we've known and loved who aren't alive on earth anymore. All Saints or "All Hallows" is part of where we get Halloween (the night before "All Hallows" = All Hallows Eve = Hallows e'en = Halloween).

To me I think Halloween draws out mixed feelings in people. Some love it, some not so much. On one hand it can just be fellowship time, parties, fall colors, candy and costumes and maybe an innocent scare. On the other hand, all of the above can definitely be taken to a not-so-healthy extreme. And some folks definitely make use of the day to try to tap into some truly dark things. At the heart of the multiple personalities of Halloween, to me, is the conglomeration of how cultures over time have dealt with the major topics of this time of year: death, the other-worldly and the spiritual.

Practically every human culture has found ways to cope with grief, loss, death, and the utter fear/unknown that can accompany all of that. So much of what we do ties back to Celtic/Gaelic, Roman and Asian tradition. For instance, at this time of year ancient Europeans found themselves at the time of the grain harvest (and butchering of livestock) in preparation for winter. The days were transitioning from long and sunlit to shorter, darker, heading into the deadly cold-weather season; so, yes, death, grief and fear were maybe on the mind. This time of year, to many, was when the veil between the spiritual realm and the land of the living was at its thinnest. The result is a time when "ghosts" wandered abroad, so people dressed up like spiritual things in order to either blend in and not be harmed, or to scare off the paranormal. Remembering lost loved ones, and wondering about the year to come, divination became common as folks tried to speak to the dead.

What we have, then, is a picture of human beings trying to deal with the grief of life, and the uncertainty of a future where death was so common. Could be that Halloween practice became an expression of all of that fear, and an attempt at some control, or some comfort.

And up and against all of that came the church's teaching, and the perspective on death that comes with faith that Jesus is the Christ. In ancient days of the Church, we have an entirely different tone given to remembering the dead and looking ahead into the unknown future - one of celebration and hope. When early Christians were put to death for their faith, like John the Baptist, nearly every Apostle, Stephen and so many more, those who remained would take note of where/when they were martyred and celebrate that anniversary each year almost as a "birthday" feast for the saints. The believers saw death as the beginning of that new adventure that is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Eventually there were so many martyrs that every day of the year would've been swamped, such that eventually the church chose a single day to honor them, and that day was later expanded to celebrate all the faithful, on November 1st each year.

Celebration. Feast in the face of death, rather than grappling for control, or turning to some other coping mechanism. Faith in death as a starting point in the kingdom of God. It's another way to express ourselves at Halloween.

And it's the same idea in the story of Ruth that we begin on Sunday. The story of famine and the death of Naomi's husband and sons (Ruth's husband) in a foreign land. Ruth is given the choice in the midst of that grief to cash out and go home. But instead she clings to Naomi and Naomi's people, and Naomi's God. And they head down an uncertain road together.

And the universe would never be the same.

2009-10-23T09:00:00.001-04:00

Well, it's homecoming Sunday at Bethel, so Ernie Nivens is preaching. At Philadelphia we're going to get into 1 John 5:1-4. Read it. I hear in it a lot of talk about connection. First, love for Christ is connected to new birth, which is connected to having a new family. Loving our fellow children of God is connected to obedience:

"This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands."

So, our ability to love people is tied to our faith/action? But what about all those ways I can love people that seem to have nothing to do with my beliefs? There are thousands of NGOs and non-profits that offer Americans the chance to try to love their fellow man, regardless of religion, right?

What about all those ways I disobey or disregard God that only affect me? It's a personal decision, isn't it, between me and God?

Maybe, maybe, 1 John 5 says otherwise. Maybe there are connections in our midst that are real and influential.

There's a group of folks who work in this field of interpersonal connection, it's called "small world theory," and it gets into complicated math or other ways to track how humans interact all over the globe. One way for the math to boil down into easier terms is to just look at somebody's KB#. Or, their "Kevin Bacon Number". That's right.

Somebody's Kevin Bacon Number is the number of people it takes to link them back to Kevin Bacon (usually just for actors through movies that they co-starred in with Mr. Bacon). It comes from this idea that there are no more than "six degrees of separation" between Kevin Bacon and every other actor alive or dead. For instance, let's try actor Val Kilmer. Val was in Top Gun with Tom Cruise, and Tom Cruise was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon. That gives Val Kilmer a Kevin Bacon number of 2.

KB#'s are an image of our connectedness, and the idea carries over to all of us, that roughly no more than six people separate us all. Picture every human on earth and start drawing lines that connect us, and it's a huge spiderweb that is very connected.

That being said, keeping that spiderweb picture in our minds, imagine how good and evil flows along those connections from me to you, and you to me, and everywhere. Love and hate, mercy and judgment, giving and greed, justice and oppression, etc. etc. Imagine how our words and deeds travel all over the earth. It's kinda like the idea in the movie Pay it Forward.

That's where 1 John makes more sense to me, seeing that so much of us is so connected to so much of everybody else, it matters how we define our love for other people, it matters what guides our words/thoughts/deeds when it comes to loving people, it matters what we believe and how that shapes how we connect to others. Because maybe only six people separate us from the entire globe.

2009-10-22T09:50:00.001-04:00

Job 38:1-10

We wrap up with a final look at Job. Tragedy has struck, his friends have come and flapped their gums and Job has responded. Here in Job 38, God finally responds and speaks. Right away, like some scholars point out, we see that God is NOT answering the questions we've brought up in worship the past two weeks. God doesn't tell Job "why" it's all happened and we don't really hear "where" God's been all this time. Instead, God makes it a "who" question...like "Job, who do you think you are?" and "Who do you think I am?"

We should've known that suffering oughta be a "who" question, but don't we always find ways to treat other people, and God, and personal things as impersonal? Like, on Saturday night I was watching the South Carolina-Alabama game, and to me football is definitely one of those "people treating people impersonally" kinda things.

What I mean is, players on the field can't help but treat their opponents as slightly impersonal - if I'm a linebacker and my job is to destroy such-and-such running back, then do you think I'll spend my time before the snap considering what a lovely personality said halfback has? Will I daydream about his relationship with his mother, or his second-grade nickname, or how he might feel when I tackle him? Negative. All that personal nonsense might take some of my edge off, it gets in the way of what's running through my head - "DESTROY #25 WHEN HE TOUCHES THE BALL." It's similar for the fans, there has to be some suspension of personal humanity to really yell at the other team for no good reason over a football game. But it's nothing personal.

Anyway, during the game, a Carolina player named Moe Brown caught a pass very close to the goal line and had his head/neck sandwiched between two players. He lay limp on the field, all the coaching staff ran out to him, got him on the backboard, and he gave the "thumbs up" heading off the field. And for a moment, the game became human/personal, people talked about who Moe Brown is as a senior captain, and both sides of players and fans cheered when he seemed okay (even though MOST were Alabama fans). All of that is to say, somewhere deep inside most of us I think it makes sense that suffering and hurt demands a personal, human response. In suffering we gotta consider each other's feelings, we need each other, we need real human support (and how about God?).

So, Job's friends failed as good friends because they failed to treat Job like a who. They didn't seem real concerned with Job's humanity, with his pain and feelings, with the actual suffering man, but just kept talking about Job's situation. It's like it was a case study for them. They pondered theology and regurgitated "wisdom". Job's friends didn't treat God like much of a who either - again, God was just an object of study here.

Satan's character in Job (Chs 1 and 2) points to the deep who questions of suffering, too. As the accuser/adversary, he points at God and humans and strikes at who we all are. Satan implies that God is a fool for thinking people could truly love him, saying that people are only obedient/good so that God will give them good things. And with Job, isn't Satan trying to wield suffering to get the man to doubt who God is, to call God evil and ultimatlely renounce his allegiance to Yahweh? It's a two-pronged attack striking at about the biggest deal in all Creation: the relationship between God and us.

But in the end, through all 38 chapters, Job hasn't renounced God. He's gotten close to blasphemy, for sure, but he never loses sight that God is a who. Job talks to God, pours out all his feeling to God, and won't quit. In the end, Job's friends are silent, Satan is nowhere to be found (so we can assume Job has survived the challenge), and God speaks back. Too many of us see God almost smacking Job down with strong language about how big God is and small Job is. But let's understand that God didn't have to speak to Job at all.

But God does, and it's a word that let's Job know that he doesn't have to try to be in charge, he doesn't need all the "why's" and "where's" and "how's" answered, as long as he holds onto the faith that's kept him alive so far - faith based on a personal God who hears and answers.

Maybe the overall question is, when suffering comes to us would we rather have a book of answers, and the background info, or would we rather just have a good, present, LIVING, loving God? Assuming we can't have both, which do we prefer?

2009-10-09T10:42:00.001-04:00

Job 23:1-17

After last week, all the tragedy striking Job's life but his staying faithful and not blaming God, Job's friends show up. And we skip to chapter 23. Why? Because those 20-some chapters are full of he and his friends talking about all kinds of nonsense. No, but for real, Job's friends present to him over and over what most religious experts, wise people, the "learned" would've told him - "just stop being sinful, Job, and God will hook things up for you again. God is good but we humans are so sinful that suffering is just God's way of giving you what you deserve. It must be that you have some hidden sin in your life, that's why your success is gone." Funny...I've heard that...before, somewhere....

Aaand, over and over Job lets these cats know that they're wrong. He doesn't claim to be perfect or totally "sinless" but he knows he's lived pretty righteously and loves God. And that never changed, but still *ka-blam* he had all this stuff happen to him. You can hear in Job's voice how aggravated these guys are making him. On top of his suffering, the "wisdom of the day" is accusing him of deserving it all...seems like his friends just bring more mental suffering.

In the face of that jive-talk, Job longs for God to come to his defense, let him know he's not crazy, and more. So, chapt. 23 is about Job's question, "where can I find God?" Isn't that a big part of how we react to evil/suffering on earth...do you ever wish you could just summon God, or go to his house and get an explanation? Or explain your own case, or seek his help/comfort? When we hurt why doesn't God always just show up?

It kinda, only kind of, reminds me of parents raising young kids...there comes that time when the kids are left to sleep in their own room. For the first time, alone, in the dark. In that child's world their need for comfort is sometimes very real, but many parents learn not to answer their baby's cries every time, or else baby will learn that mom/dad will always come a-runnin'. And the crying will continue. Let's face it, every child craves the presence of a good parent. But a good parent knows that their child can learn to face the dark on his/her own. 'Cause mom/dad can't be there every time, but that doesn't mean baby isn't somehow cared for or provided for.

In some ways that's a terrible analogy to our relationship with God, because the evil/suffering in the world is way more substantial than being afraid of the dark, and because, no, I don't think God wants us all to just "quit being babies" and grow up and stop calling for him and fend for ourselves. That is NOT the idea.

But parents teaching children about bedtime illustrates that the real thing at stake here is our need for God's love/presence. And it's hard because no matter how much we want it, we can't just make God appear. So now the question becomes, can we trust that God has reasons for not coming running every time? When God isn't where we want him to be, the way we want him, all the time, can we still believe that we're absolutely cared for?

2009-10-04T11:10:00.001-04:00

Job 2:1-10

Done with James, now we've got a few weeks in Job. So, like some of us know the book digs into what's up with God letting "bad things happen to good people"? Big question. We all ask it, right? And when we all witness heinous things on this earth, it's easy to start to draw a couple of conclusions:

1. There is no God.
2. If God exists his power must be limited (he's unable to stop bad things from happening).
3. If God exists and is all-powerful he must not be good (he can do anything but doesn't care enough to stop bad things).
4. God is all-powerful and good, but likes to put us through bad things to make us better people.
5. God is all-powerful and good, but no human is really "good", so we get bad things according to what we deserve.

I'm sure there are more options, but the idea is that what we experience on earth, especially of suffering and evil, can affect how we understand God. It can punch holes in whether or not we think God exists. It involves what we assume about humankind and what humans do/don't deserve.

That's where we're going to start together. As a young American I know I can stand to get a better grip on what I do/don't deserve. My standard of living and quality of life, marketing and the media, convince me every day that I deserve much. It's like the recent news story of the girl who tried to sue her college when she didn't get a job right away after graduation. It's this idea of entitlement. But on the other hand, plenty of us have a hard time feeling like we deserve any of the good we find. Have you ever struggled to let yourself be loved, or feel valuable?

So the question this first week with Job is, what are we really entitled to? Nothing? Everything? Do we deserve good or bad? What is God obligated to do or not do?

2009-09-21T10:51:00.002-04:00

James 5:13-20

Lots of folks think James is kinda random, disconnected. But we figure his major theme was addressing what he was seeing at work in the very early church, and helping Christians do a better job at being the church in Christ's name.

So we've heard about taking a long look at ourselves in the mirror of what God says, adjusting how we look at and judge each other, guarding our powerful tongues, and being mindful of the inner attitudes that shape us. It sounds, looking back, like James is interested in the whole body. Not just one or two people who gather together to follow Jesus, every member. And not just one or two aspects of each person's being, but the whole person, inside-out and in-between. And, oh snap, not just Christian people, but even how they spill over and affect the rest of the earth.

We hear a lot of this same kind of business nowadays when people talk about being holistic. "Mind, body and spirit" and yoga and acupuncture, yadda yadda yadda, right? But, really, apart from the extra meaning we add on to stuff that's "holistic", it's a good idea. It's just about being concerned with the whole, and that sounds an awful lot like much of what Jesus taught. And I think it's what we get through James: health, vitality, and LIFE depend on addressing the whole picture, especially in the Church.

So these last verses in the book talk about something very practical again, something we've hit on throughout the series - prayer. And James talks about prayer especially with regard to healing. Some of us can read this and be skeptical, as he talks about annointing and other methods for healing in the community - does James mean to give us step-by-step instructions that'll work like magic every time? Is he saying that the church will never again have to worry about the common cold, or broken bones, or cancer, so long as we pray just right for healing? Doubt it.

Instead, I think he paints a picture of holistic healing. Right away notice that he talks about more than just the physical, he also mentions confession of sin and salvation. I think it's a different idea of healing than just band-aids and instant cures. A deeper kind of healing. And it's tied to the whole body, how we in the fellowship interact together, and care for one another by God's Spirit living in us.

So what do James' closing words to the Church mean for us now? What kind of healing is there for us today? What does it mean for the fellowship, the body, the gathering of people calling themselves "Christians"?

2009-09-19T11:22:00.002-04:00

Remember, this letter is concerned for the heart of the church. So this week we look at the inner part of us, and how that shapes what we say/do. James hits this by talking about two kinds of wisdom and which one we buy into. The first is earthly wisdom, the kind that focuses on self, on “getting mine”. Nowadays some of us call that street smarts or whatever else – this idea that we gotta watch out for ourselves, ‘cause no one else will, we gotta survive, build our own destiny, etc. Anybody who knows anything knows that.

It’s a cut-throat way of life. Where does it come from? Why is it so common to humankind? To me, this wisdom of the world attitude is most present in people who'd say they've been through the school of "hard knocks." Just listen to little orphan Annie in the video, for instance:

Orphans know about hard knocks. Kids from the street know about learning quick, wising up, and taking care of themselves. But, really, isn't that all of us sometime? Maybe some more than others, but however we grew up or whatever circumstances we're in now, haven't we all taken some knocks? And isn't it easy to think, "it's time I start fending for myself"? Well maybe that’s the first kind of wisdom, the world's wisdom, and James says that when folks buy into it, it’s the root of most of our envy/ambition. And it causes strife in the fellowship when everybody's looking out for number one.

But the other kind is heavenly wisdom, Godly wisdom that puts self last and nurtures those around us. A way of life that trusts and hopes for better, that allows us to be vulnerable to God and each other. Maybe this kind of wisdom says, "however many knocks I've had, I still know God is good and God loves me and I can't be or do my best all on my own"? To James, the second kind of wisdom nurtures our faith, which nurtures our action, which then nurtures true wisdom even more...and so on.

So at any given moment, which brand of wisdom do we buy into? And do we even know it? Do we know what basic assumptions are shaping our thoughts, and then our actions, the lives of those right next to us, and even our faith?

2009-09-18T08:44:00.001-04:00

James 3:1-12.

There's a similar scene in at least two movies (A Christmas Story and Dumb & Dumber) where it's wintertime and a character decides to lick a frozen metal pole. Can't you just picture Jeff Daniels' character, "Harry", riding up the chair-lift at the ski slope, looking over at the pole and immediately deciding to lick it? No hesitation, no filter, just *BAM* and he's stuck.

James continues this week with more practical teaching, and nothing's more practical than NOT following that compulsion to lick the ice on the pole. James talks about what's on the line when we don't control our mouths. Just like Harry on the ski-lift, letting loose with our tongues affects our whole selves and those around us. Why? Maybe because the mouth, our words, are sometimes the first and sometimes the easiest way for us to be in action.

Think about it, ya don't have to break a sweat, you don't have to get off the couch, to use your tongue - for good or for evil. So once again as James teaches on having a faith that overflows into action, we see how vital our speech is - it's a primary place for us to act, but it may also be the thing we treat most carelessly.