Bible

Everything & Everyone

On Sunday, we ended with verses that seemed fairly innocuous on the surface. But it sometimes goes like that, doesn’t it? When we’re reading the Bible and think the book or passage isn’t for us, or worse, if it’s for someone else instead (like, “I sure wish _____ was here to hear this! She needs it!”), it’s scalding hot water when we open our eyes to the truth. “Slaves, obey your masters…and masters, treat your slaves…” Not only does it have nothing to do with us, it’s pretty offensive. Why is the Bible giving us instruction on how to properly own other people or be owned people? This sounds like evidence for those that believe the Bible is outdated, at best, and horribly problematic, at worst.

(It’s not either of those, but we’re not going to get into that here, today.)

So, we all mostly checked out until the directive to do everything as if we were doing it for the Lord. I say “we” because, when I see some particular verses we’re studying for the first time, I wonder how in the world they are going to find some way in to our lives. But then we do, and the surprise only adds to the weight of the sledgehammer. Whatever I’m doing – singing, working on my Avengers puzzle, talking on the phone, deadlifting, dancing, writing this, cooking dinner, watching tv…whether I’m at work, home, the gym or grocery store, do it all as if I’m doing it for the Lord.

What if I’m tired, or sick, or irritable, or the job seems pointless, or my back hurts, or or or??? Still, as if it was for Him.

Taken a small, obvious yet scary, step further, if the things we are doing are for Him… Well, the rest of the passage is about how we treat each other, is it possible that… No, that can’t be possible.

Can it?

Jesus tells a parable where the sheep that got others a drink were getting Him a drink, and the goats that didn’t get others a drink were not getting one for Him. Taken together, are we to also treat everyone as if He/She were the Lord??? Everything & Everyone?

Tomorrow is Election Day in our country. What happens if we take these passages seriously, and do it as if we were doing it for the Lord? And (gasp!) treat everyone as if it were the Lord? If our Facebook posts and explicit flags/stickers had the beautiful Name of Jesus in the place of the people we hate most? What if we stopped thinking the monsters on the other side were stupid and uneducated and godless, and instead considered them made in the image of God, loved, accepted, holy? Would it become harder to treat others with our tongues dripping with venom if we woke up to the harsh truth that that nasty condescension was actually directed at Our Savior? What if we took seriously the command to love each other?

Do you think it would make a difference?

Fall

My birthday has me reflecting on my own life, who and where I am, in a manner usually connected to New Years. Then, as I shared this with a very good friend, he said that he always gets pretty introspective in the fall. At the time, I didn’t see the obvious connection – of course, the fall is a natural time to turn our thoughts to transformation. Step outside and the evidence is all around us, every single thing is changing, the things that were one way now are becoming something new.

In my inbox today, I opened a corporate mass email that spoke about this very thing, called. “Falling Into Change: How to Embrace the Transformation of Seasons.” It read, “As we wave goodbye to summer and welcome the cool embrace of autumn, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the natural changes around us. The leaves aren’t the only things transforming—this season offers a chance to embrace personal growth and transformation, too…It’s a season that naturally invites reflection and renewal. While the trees shed their leaves, you can think of this time as shedding old habits, mindsets, or routines that no longer serve you…Fun Fact: Fall, also known as the autumnal equinox, marks a time of balance—equal daylight and night hours. This balance can inspire us to find equilibrium in our own lives. Maybe it’s time to balance work and play, or focus on both mental and physical wellness…Sometimes we have to let go of what was to make room for what will be. So, what can we learn from the trees?

1. Letting Go is Natural: Trees don’t cling to their leaves, they gracefully release them to make way for new growth. Take a page from nature’s book and release what’s holding you back—whether that’s fear, doubt, or even old habits. 2. Change Can Be Beautiful: Just like the vibrant fall foliage, transformation is beautiful. It’s easy to resist change, but when we allow ourselves to evolve, we often discover new and vibrant aspects of ourselves. 3. Growth Requires Patience: Just like nature doesn’t rush its transformation, you don’t have to either. Give yourself the grace to grow at your own pace this season.”

Now, some suggestions they give, which are quite helpful: “1. Set New Intentions: Fall is a perfect time for setting fresh goals. Whether it’s prioritizing your health, starting a new hobby, or simply adopting a more positive mindset, set small, achievable goals that align with the transformation you seek. 2. Declutter Your Space & Mind: Just as nature sheds, fall is a great time to declutter. Whether it’s your home, your schedule, or your mind, clearing out the unnecessary gives you space to grow. 3. Practice Gratitude: With Thanksgiving around the corner, gratitude is at the heart of the fall season. Reflect on what you’re thankful for and how those things have shaped your journey this year. 4. Embrace New Experiences: As the season changes, why not try something new? Whether it’s exploring a fall-themed activity like hiking, picking apples, or sipping on a new favorite warm drink, stepping out of your routine can ignite transformation.”

These are really great, right? These business blasts we mostly relegate to our “Junk” or “Spam” folder can be helpful, in the right context. I’m sharing them here for a few reasons. Transformation, Growth, Intention, and Gratitude clearly point to a Christian perspective. We check in to our own lives, show up with all of us, honestly, and evaluate where we are, what we’re doing and if those things are actually healthy and helping us. Then we seek Him, hold His hand as He leads us into a brand new life.

(Maybe next time, I’ll tell you about where my own journey, where the questions I’m asking, are leading me. Not today, though.)

We ask all of these questions on Sundays. The Bible asks these questions in nearly every verse, most often in the form of “Here’s the Truth, now what will you do with that????” Will we lean into our divine calling, or will we continue to hold with white knuckles to the lifestyle that may not serve us well anymore, maybe never has, or is actively destroying us?

All Truth is ours, we simply have to keep our minds and eyes open to see and claim it wherever we find it, even in our daily emails. There is a “however,” though. Not everything is Truth, not everyone is concerned with our finding life, and as we transform, we are learning to test what we encounter. This email is awesome, and it ends with, “Fall Into New Arrivals. Speaking of transformations, our Anniversary Collection is filled with fall-inspired designs to celebrate change in style. From natural earthstone bracelets to golden jewelry that shines as brightly as the autumn sun, our new arrivals are the perfect way to reflect the beauty of this season.”

There is Truth, but it is an advertisement, ultimately pointing to our cultural duty as consumers. That doesn’t mean it’s all meaningless, we don’t have to throw it all out with the bathwater because it’s got an agenda, it just means we need to learn to sift and sort. This makes me think of the Belt of Truth, which we are coincidentally discussing in our study of Ephesians. You can see, when our hearts, minds, and bodies are all awake and aware, we can (and probably will) find God weaving everything into the most beautiful tapestry of His grace for us.

What Will We Choose?

Sunday’s message was about one thing, but it certainly felt like a far bigger bridge to cross. We were talking about the words submission & love in the context of Ephesians 5, in a conversation about our marriage relationships, but so much of it felt like a message on the power of the tongue. The way we speak to each other has the power to build, and it also has the power to absolutely demolish.

Of course, this isn’t just the words we use. There’s a lot more to communication than what would be written on a transcript. There is our posture, non-verbal cues, expressions, body language. When I give these Sunday morning talks, it’s pretty easy to know what everybody thinks based simply on how they are sitting in the pews. A person leaning back with folded arms is having a very different experience than one who leans forward with wide, open eyes. And then, there are the ones who nod off – that’s something else altogether, with little to do with the content. Some scrunch up their faces, some smile, some physically turn their bodies away from me, some write (and it’s obvious if what they’re writing is about the message or funny notes to the one sitting next to them) and others are just patiently waiting for me to finish (and others not so patiently).

This hasn’t even touched on the heart postures we hold toward each other to affect the space between us. Brene Brown wrote a brilliant reference book, labeling & defining our emotions so we have the words to communicate what we are feeling effectively. Usually, we use 3 descriptions: happy, sad, mad. That’s it. But that isn’t nearly enough to adequately convey our current mental/emotional states.

She has a chapter called “Places we go when we feel wronged,” and lists “anger, contempt, disgust, dehumanization, hate, self-righteousness.” We know these are not the same feelings, but we’d often just say ‘mad.’ Contempt is not anger. Brown cites researchers that call contempt “perhaps the most corrosive force in a marriage,” and a “strong predictor of divorce.” My guess is that we didn’t need researchers to tell us that. We have seen the look of contempt, and when we see it in a relationship across the table, we know very well how far past the edge it has gotten and now can only helplessly wait for the official end.

Paul uses submission, respect, honor, and a million others in his letters, but they’re all really just love. These words are all choices. We choose to submit, respect…or to carry the wrecking ball of contempt. Like so much of the Bible, we are left with a BIG decision: What will we choose? Will we choose to heal or to cut further? Will we choose to set down the record of wrongs or put them under our pillows in bed? We have a lot more agency in this than we believe, we do have the power to write new chapters and create new worlds (we are made in the image of our God, and have His Spirit living in us, after all), if only we have the imagination to dream this new story.

Be Careful

I think the passage we discussed Sunday, from Ephesians 5, is a pretty perfect illustration of how cool – and vital – the Bible really is. Paul begins with an exhortation to “be careful” how we live, then writes about fools, the time, and drunkenness.

The fools he talks about are real people (of course, they are real people) in his culture who do the things they do as if there are no consequence to anything. They live wildly, as if everything is random and unconnected, and they are wrong. (And when I say “they,” we all know I mean “we.”)

They are wrong because of the idea he next gives: the time. This is not time, like clocks and appointments. This is time, like opportunity. We have time, and that’s short and fairly fixed. The time is big, awesome, malleable and able to be grabbed and held onto, OR, lost to insignificance. We all have 60 seconds/minute, 60 minutes/hour. We all have the time, as well, to see as we choose.

Then he moves, with 1 verse, to the word drunkenness. To be honest, it sticks out. This isn’t a word in the middle of a list of do’s and don’t’s. It’s just one isolated don’t in a passage about the time, and how we live. Yes, drunkenness is a part of how we live, but why would he choose only that one above all of the other ways we take wrecking balls to our own lives? Depending on the translation, drunkenness is “debauchery,” “dissipation,” or the one I just read and hadn’t heard before, “rebellion.” All of these fall mostly flat. The word he actually uses is “asotia.” Drunkenness is asotia. That means, in a sentence, when our behavior (obviously, this is bigger than simply having too much to drink, it can be anything) causes us to waste the opportunity, the time, we have.

And that can help us tie it all together. When our wild, maniacal, foolish behavior causes us to squander, or waste, the time we have, we are careless with our lives. (Funny, I mistyped that last word ‘lives’ as ‘loves,’ and I’m thinking it’s not so much of a mistake. How much has our asotia stolen from our loves – either the people we love, or the activities or beautiful things we love???)

I think Ephesians 4:1 is mostly all we need to know about behavior modification. “Live lives worthy of your calling.” Now I think Ephesians 5:15-20 is just as great, maybe even more apt to our current modern situation. If I were ever going to write another book, I bet it would be about this passage. I could have a whole Be Very Careful… series. (The last one was called Be Very Careful Who You Marry. This one could be called Be Very Careful Who You Are.)

But maybe I won’t write a book on it, maybe the next thing, the next right step, is to actually be careful with my life, stop squandering the time I have, and really live this gift. That would be the creative expression Paul’s looking for, not just another book nobody reads. (Though maybe I can do both and write that one anyway.)

Dancing Lessons

I had every intention to write about 31’s & 32’s and/or the rest of Sunday’s message. There was no shortage of topics to further discuss, or pools in which to dive deeper and deeper. The more we study the Bible, the more there is to study, to practice, and the more our lives can (and will) transform. Not just our lives, I’ve been dreaming about how the world around us would transform with more 32’s alive and engaged. Anyway, like I said, that’s what I was going to write about, but instead, we’ll talk about dancing.

The Angel & I are taking dancing lessons. We’ve learned the foxtrot, rumba, and swing – and when I say we’ve learned them, I mean we’re learning the most basic steps. Level zero. Our instructor shows us the positions, the steps, the beats, the building blocks, explains why, and hints at all of the possibilities with the higher levels (higher than zero;). It’s super fun, we like each other, laugh a lot, and I always love the way the Angel moves.

I am the leader – I recognize this is quite old-fashioned and so-not-2024, to have a man lead, but that’s how it goes. I decide where we’re going and what we’re doing, if she’ll turn or not, and if she does, under which arm she’ll go. And she’s supposed to follow.

You can see that this might present a problem. If you have ever had the pleasure of spending any time with the Angel, you know she is a born leader, an alpha, and she is the leader in nearly all of the spaces of her life. She does not like to be led, often for very good reason. (It took many years of our marriage until she was comfortable enough to trust me in any significant capacity…also for very good reason.)

So we’re dancing and our instructor, Artur, is encouraging my leadership and her following where I lead. It’s the only way it works, there can’t be 2 leaders, and even if I don’t exactly know the steps, I will, and it’s impossible for either of us to learn the dance without the basic structure intact. This week, he said to her, “You are not following, you are anticipating. You are going where you want to go, or where you think you should go. And when you do that, he cannot lead you.”

I became a much worse rumba leader, because that lesson was teaching much more than dancing, and my mind started to wander. I thought of my relationship with Jesus, and how He is the leader, only I fight Him because I think I know where we should go, what we’re supposed to do, I know what the steps are, not Him, and I’m actually trying to force Him to follow me. Right?!!!?? We’re dancing this life He’s given me, and instead of smooth graceful sweeping purposeful movements, it’s a power struggle. Well, it’s probably honestly not much of a struggle, if I need to drive this car into a ditch, He’ll probably let me. (Like that parable of the unforgiving debtor, the King forgives, but when the forgiven won’t, He says, ok, if that’s really what you want, I guess we’ll do it by your rules.) So our dance doesn’t look beautiful, it’s wooden, clumsy, and dis-jointed. It’s visual noise, and looks like neither of us know what’s going on and neither of us can hear the music.

These dancing lessons are great, we’re having a terrific time, and I’m wondering how my life would look and feel if I just stop fighting the flow and let Him finally lead.

Hit King

I watched a documentary called Charlie Hustle and the Matter of Pete Rose on Max, about baseball, gambling, justice, and punishment, all in the context of Pete Rose. He was a great baseball player in the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s, winning league and world series MVPs, and finally ending with more hits than anyone else in the history of baseball. Even with that gaudy resume, he is not in the Hall of Fame, because he was exiled from the sport for gambling on baseball games, including his own team’s games. Everyone has an opinion on this situation, everyone has an opinion on Pete Rose. Mine is that it’s pretty impossible to tell the story of baseball (which IS the purpose of the Hall of Fame museum, as far as I can tell) without Pete Rose. My opinion of the second is that Pete Rose is one of the most unlikeable athletes/celebrities that has ever existed. He has no interest in pretending to be kind or affable, he is a pathological liar, aggressively arrogant and takes great pride in being a jerk. (Of course, I don’t actually know him personally, so I hold these opinions loosely.) I spent the majority of the early part of my life loving everything baseball, and I never could manage to be a Pete Rose guy.

My opinion on some ballplayer is not important. But what I found very interesting about this documentary is the comments of Chad Lowe, C-list celebrity brother of A-list celebrity Rob Lowe, and unabashed Pete Rose guy, “Pete Rose won’t change, so maybe we need to change.” His argument is that Pete Rose is Pete Rose and doesn’t care about your standards or rules, he won’t bend to meet them, so since he doesn’t & won’t, the standards and rules must bend to him.

We’re studying Ephesians now, and happen to be in a section on righteousness. The passage is entirely about heart posture as it is displayed in our actions. This is what I used to call the endless “shall’s & shall not’s of the Bible.” What we do does matter (in relationships with God, others, and ourselves), so these are the things to do and not do.

Chad Lowe might say that, since we don’t (or won’t) always do them, what’s the difference? Let’s just change the lists. Lowe isn’t alone, many churches agree. Nobody drives the speed limit, so let’s raise it. They’re going to do it anyway, so why do we even try to stop them?

Rose was suspended for betting on games, because we were still pretending that we were horrified by gambling back then. But once the money started to find it’s way into the right pockets, those pockets agreed with Chad Lowe. “Everybody is doing it, they’re not going to change, so we have to change.”

But integrity & character are integrity & character, and we’d all probably be in quite the mess if we just erase all of those lines because we want to, or because some don’t care about integrity & character.

Maybe Chad Lowe is right about the Hall of Fame and Major League Baseball. Maybe it is the right position to take in a democratic society, especially one where the national religion is sports.

The first thing we are told to “put off” in Ephesians is falsehood, and it’s easy to see why. Yet we still deceive and spin any kind of fiction to avoid uncomfortability. Do we decide the Bible is outdated and excise those passages that deal with the danger of dishonesty? How about selfishness? Or gossip? Just because we do it doesn’t mean it’s ok. And if we don’t do it, does that make it optional? Chad Lowe is talking about relativism and popularity, but are sliding scales really what we want? It’s possible that we’re all really looking for solid ground, consistency, stability. Again, this has little to do with the Hall of Fame, but in real life, I’m not sure the answer is to keep moving, or lowering, the bar. What happens when it’s already lying on the ground and can’t go down any further?

One more thing. Chad Lowe loves Pete Rose, has idolized him since he was a small child, but his comments show a sad reality. Lowe has decided that Rose is incapable of anything more, that his lack of character is, and will always be. He says Rose is this person, we’ve given up hope for growth or any evolution of his character. It looks like acceptance, but instead, is an awfully offensive judgment to make.

Ephesians makes the divine assumption that we have been created in the image of a loving, almighty, beautiful, creative God. We’ve just lost our way, and our souls long to come home and live up to our calling, if only we knew the way. The creative part of our God, and of us, gives the imagination to dream something new, and the chance to live it with Him, together.

Inbetweeners

One of my least favorite parts of coaching baseball were game days with a threat of rain. Maybe it would drizzle. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the radar shows lots of activity right about the time we are scheduled to get to the field. Maybe it shows it at game time. I would check the hourly weather every 10 minutes, then check the hourly weather on all of the other sites, I’d call the other coaches to see what they thought, then I’d call them again, then I’d call my wife and grumble that it should either rain or not. I never liked the in between. I wanted God to make it easy for me, sunshine or pouring rain. Actually, that’s not true, I can’t say “easy,” because so many of our choices and the consequences aren’t easy, but I wanted to know the path to take. Even if it wasn’t the path I wanted, I wanted to know it was the path I was supposed to take.

Um, “supposed to?” Who decides what’s supposed to happen? Who we’re supposed to be? How it’s supposed to go? Is there ever a path we’re supposed to take? … Anyway.

We are in the midst of a building decision. I presented the paths several months ago and we’ve been praying ever since. The last 2 weeks, we began sharing our thoughts, answers, prompts. I hoped we’d all have the same conclusion. I hoped it would rain or not.

Of course, it was drizzly with colors possible on the future radar. 47% chance, which means it might rain. And it might not. Now, we’ve lived long enough, and if we’ve been even half-awake, we’ve experienced 0’s & 100’s that didn’t pan out. We don’t hold anything to be, as my son says, a “for sure-ski.” But we do like black and white, gray is uncomfortable. Gray also invites the Second Guessers, who are laying in giddy breathless anticipation to tell us we’re wrong and how could we possibly have made that decision???

So, is it going to rain or not? Then, we’re super spiritual and say, “if God is in it, we’ll know.” But is that really true? Probably not if we read and believe the Bible. When the Israelites were preparing to cross into the Promised Land, they were faced with a Jordan River at flood stage. The raging water could have been interpreted as God not being in it, right? If He was, He would certainly make it a shallow slow trickle, right? But instead, they were to send the priests with the Ark of the Covenant into the water. Do you think there was a chance they wondered if they misheard? Is that really what He said? Maybe He said “wait, and then send the priests in,” or maybe we were late to listen and He said “DON’T send the priests with the Ark into the water.”

Jesus got out of a boat in a storm and asked Peter to get out with Him. Maybe He’d save him. I wonder if Peter thought, John the Baptizer followed Jesus into the unknown and it ended…well, it didn’t end awesome for him. What if He’s going to say, again, “Blessed are those that don’t fall away because of Me,” after I drown?

We don’t usually get assurance for the next step. That’s what faith is, the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)” The Israelites didn’t know what the Jordan would do or how they’d cross – they hoped. But they didn’t know.

And add to that complexity and confusion, sometimes faith means to go and sometimes faith means to not go. Sometimes, we have a choice between 2 good paths. Do we follow the Law and leave our donkey in the hole or cross the street to avoid a dead/dying man, or do we get the donkey out and rescue the man and put him up at a nearby inn? All of those are good, they are all the right answers. Now what? And then, sometimes we do the right thing and it doesn’t turn out very great. Does that make it not the right thing, do the ends define the means?

We are inbetweeners. Maybe it will rain and maybe it won’t. Maybe we will grab our donkey, and maybe we’ll send the priests into the Jordan, but what I can say is that we probably won’t know if it’s the ‘right’ thing. Maybe there isn’t such a thing as one ‘right’ thing.

Maybe the point of all of this is a relationship WITH Our Creator, and if we hold His hand, trust Him with us and with the gifts He’s given, put (and keep) Him first, then every choice is the ‘right’ choice. And if we don’t, then none are. I guess we’ll see. Unless we don’t. Ha. I like this last choice, this last “maybe,” the one that doesn’t have us choosing a building or now, but instead, has us choosing only to be WITH Him. Yes, that’s the one, where we’re with Him in the gray, if it rains or not.

Spirituality & Righteousness

The site through which we create and operate our websites (both the Bridge and my Love With A Capital L) asks a prompt every day. The idea is that we gain engagement by posting a lot, as much as possible, like every day, even several times a day. Whether that’s true, I can’t say. It seems to me that an avalanche of content would dilute each one. They probably know better than I do. I’ll probably keep writing once/week. Anyway, today’s prompt is: How important is spirituality to you? And I think that’s funny, because spirituality is the glue that holds any- and everything together, gives meaning to routine, significance to each moment, weight to all of our relationships. How important? The question doesn’t make sense because nothing exists without spirit/Spirit, it’s like asking, how important is breathing to your workouts? There isn’t a workout without breath, there isn’t an us without the spiritual element (whether we acknowledge it or not).

But that’s not why I’m writing today.

We began a new series on the Breastplate of Righteousness yesterday, and anytime we discuss righteousness, or holiness, our senses heighten and our defenses rise. We simply don’t like to be told what to do, no matter who is doing the telling. And the slightest hint that what we’ve chosen is not particularly healthy is a code red to our fight-or-flight response. Maybe we dig in and argue, maybe we pack our bags and move on.

It’s as if we desperately need the freedom to ruin our lives. And that’s what this is about, a plea from our Creator to not ruin our lives, relationships, to not take a wrecking ball to our world. When He asks, without even thinking, we bristle indignantly and prepare for destruction. I always had such a problem with all of the “shall not’s” of the Bible. Thou shall not lie??? What?!!? How can a Loving God command something like this, how can He take my freedom away? I neeeed to be able to deceive and spend my anxiety-ridden moments afraid of being discovered and reaping the consequences of the lies. Good times.

Our definition of freedom is an interesting one.

I often use sexuality as examples, but that’s because the Bible so often does. I could use alcohol (I hate alcohol the most, by far, and it’s not close), gambling, laziness, anything. It could be any tool we use that might “miss the mark.” Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. The key is to bypass that initial automatic rebellious response, so that we can clearly consider our behavior without stirring up the rage of our pride. I wonder how we do that? Probably the same way we do anything – acknowledging that it’s there, without judgment or fear, and taking baby steps (with each other, with the Spirit) into an unknown future, with trust and hope.

I’m pretty sure we don’t have to viciously defend our self-destructive streak anymore. Maybe we could try on some new clothes, like a shiny new breastplate? And maybe we could do that the only way we’re designed, together?

The Pigs

There’s this story in the Bible: “And when He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men confronted Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. And they cried out, saying, “What business do You have with us, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” Now there was a herd of many pigs feeding at a distance from them. And the demons begged Him, saying, “If You are going tocast us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” And He said to them, “Go!” And they came out and went into the pigs; and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. And the herdsmen ran away, and went to the city and reported everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they pleaded with Him to leave their region. (Matt. 8)”

So, the first way I read this story was of the exorcism of the demons for these 2 men. Incidentally, in Luke’s version, there is just 1 man, who calls himself ‘Legion,’ because there are so many demons inside of him. And, we can get stuck when the stories don’t exactly line up. So about that… These aren’t textbooks. These are 2 men writing their accounts of events. Have you ever asked 2 of your friends who were at the same party how it was? After they answered, you probably wondered if they were actually at the same party, right? I think, sometimes, these men had different purposes other than precise historical accuracy. And I don’t think their differing accounts necessarily makes them unreliable, I think it makes them people who saw the party through different lenses, from different couches, different rooms. One man or two is a pretty minor detail, as far as I’m concerned, though I do wonder how their accounts could conflict about that.

Anyway. The exorcism is a fantastic miracle, and a great way to read it. But then, the phrase he (Legion)/they (the 2 men) use: “Son of God.” In the Scriptures, the only group never confused about who Jesus was are the demons. That’s an interesting note, isn’t it? The disciple named Thomas doubts, the demons don’t. The religious elite questions Jesus over and over about His identity, the demons don’t have to, they know who He is. I spent 20+ years in disbelief, demons don’t spend a second.

And then, now I always end up focused on that last sentence: “They pleaded with Him to leave their region.” And I wondered why. But the pigs represented food, as well as income. These pigs were their economy, careers, sustenance, comfort, identity, etc. These pigs illustrated a way of life. And they chose the pigs. When we are faced with the Son of God, and His life & teachings, they very often come into conflict with our accepted notions of ‘how life is’ or what we want/think we need, our identity, our priorities, our comfort, our rights…well, He very often comes into conflict with everything we accept as reality, too. And we can choose the pigs, too.

[A funny side note is that, when I opened my computer to write, the pigs of the title of this post were my Guinea Pigs, but then I thought about this story and these pigs, and intended to weave the two stories together, in the way I do. That won’t happen, I won’t get to my Guinea Pigs today.]

At the end of our series on forgiveness, yesterday, I said that in all of the ways we don’t choose peace or unity (like politics, religion, issues, rights, race, sex, style of dress, the way we wear our hair, and on and on), in the endless ways we choose division and chaos, we are really saying that the sacrifice of Jesus, His blood, His amazing love, simply aren’t enough. So, when we divide along party lines or condescend to another with a perspective other than our own, when we have to win, when we don’t forgive and hold on tightly to violence, resentment & bitterness, or exercise our rights at the expense of another, we choose to ignore Jesus, we choose to worship an idol, we choose another Gospel. We choose the pigs.

And that’s where I get stuck. Each step is stickier than the last. What are my pigs? Where do I choose other, inferior gospels? Where do I need to let my pigs run into the sea and drown? This could go forever, because there is never a shortage of cultural pigs to be examined.

I’m not ready for a new reading just yet. This one is deep enough.

[And next week, for sure, we’ll talk about my piggies and their breakfast carrots.]

Something Happened

So, a bad thing happened. One of us had a car accident, and that happens. It’s an expensive lesson, but it is a space where life teaches out loud, and maybe someday, we’ll be very thankful for the lesson and the cost will be very low.

Before the sermon yesterday, I read the account of Jacob & his dream, from Genesis. This is not unusual, I refer to it often. But sometimes, the message of “surely God was in this place and I was unaware (Gen 28:16),” or, as I paraphrase, “don’t miss your life and the people in it (Chad 24:365),” hits differently.

Everything valuable in that accident was ok. The most valuable to me got in our car & came home with the Angel & I. The other valuables had minor damage to their vehicles, but went home, as well. There are a million ways that day ends where everyone doesn’t come home. I am grateful, in ways I can’t express.

When I read that passage yesterday, I nearly began to weep, because “What if…” The beautiful gift of this life we’ve been given, the beautiful gift of each other, can be very fragile, and what if (one of those million inexplicably horrific ways that too many have to endure)? Our hearts don’t seem big and/or strong enough to hold all of this love. But they are – we’ve been made in the image of our God.

We keep loving, and keep loving, and keep loving. Of course, it can hurt like crazy, where it feels like the pain won’t ever stop. And we love anyway. The only way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to be alone, and that won’t do at all. Being made in the image of a triune God means being alone is “not good,” according to Genesis 1 & 2. Loving with a whole heart, mind, and soul requires living with the possibility of the dreaded “what ifs.” I hope the “what ifs” never, ever happen to anybody. But I certainly do hope we all know the love that makes the “what if” so vicious.

The tears are an offering poured out from a fully present, engaged, working, thankful heart. A heart that is created to keep loving and loving and loving.