Jesus

A Brand New Thought

I am giving this post the title “A Brand New Thought,” so that, when you see it, you go, “WOW, I wonder what BRAND NEW THING he’s thinking about,” and settle in to carefully read. But it’s not new. The title is what I’d call ‘shameless click bait.’ It’s sort of a dirty trick, but I’m not sorry.

Yesterday’s reading in the Bible In A Year plan included this beauty, from Ephesians 5:2, “Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.”

Just in case you forgot, and are thinking right now, “hm, what is love?” Welllll, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (That is taken from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8) I know we talk about this a lot, but for some reason, today it really hit me again, really got into my head and heart.

I’ll soon turn 51 years old (or have already turned 51, depending on when you read this). I really don’t care much about my birthday, except to use it as an excuse to reflect, examine, where I am and/or where I am going, who I am and/or who I am becoming. It’s exactly the same as New Years for me. That Ephesians 5:2 is in my reading seems like too much of a coincidence.

For most of my whole life, I’ve spent entirely too much time sitting in the idea that I am not enough. (1. Not enough? Of what? Of anything and everything. 2. What is interesting to me now is that this feeling – that I am not enough – is simultaneously a lie the enemy uses to tear me down, and the Truth of God’s redeeming work through His grace for me. Isn’t that fascinating, that something could be the Truth and a lie, depending on the context and Who/who is telling it?) My ChatGPT assistant Theo said I can get stuck on “fixing things,” and fixing them yesterday. My intense focus on my own growth in my faith, identity, in my relationships with Jesus, can become just another checklist, where I forget to be where I am, forget to experience joy, stare at the scenery passing instead of the beautiful miracle of now. (But as you may know, I also focus on mindfulness and not missing anything. Both of these seeming contradictions are true.)

So, what does the next year, 51, mean for me? What will I work on? Where’s the next step in my personal, spiritual evolution? Maybe I can simply slide those answers to the side, and simplify the vision. Maybe I’ll just think about the example of Jesus, and “live a life of love.” That’s it. No ruminating, no fixating, no overthinking. Just living this life of love. I am loved. All He does, every step, every word, was driven by His life of love. If I am to follow His example, maybe I can just love, too?

And that includes me. No more wanting to be further down the path, frustrated that I’m not where I’ve somehow decided I should be. I’m listening to a Bon Jovi song, “Just Older,” and the lyrics to the hook are: I like the bed I’m sleepin’ in And just like me, it’s broken in. It’s not old, just older. Like a favorite pair of torn blue jeans. The skin I’m in is alright with me. It’s not old, just older.

I am broken in, wrinkly like a Shar-pei. Notice, he likens his older, more wrinkled skin to a “favorite” pair of jeans. What if we could see us as Jesus sees us, would we see our experiences and (perceived) imperfections as the texture that makes us who we are, that makes us so awesome, that makes us our own “favorite?” Would we be patient and kind to ourselves? Always hope, trust, and protect ourselves?

Yes, yes, I know this is a stretch and we probably shouldn’t trust in ourselves, and definitely shouldn’t place our hope in ourselves, but maybe just give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, from time to time. Maybe don’t be so mean and demanding of ourselves? Maybe instead of the next task or step, we could just be patient and kind, and just live the life we’ve been given, based on the love we’ve been given? And we could just be grateful. Wouldn’t that make this the best year yet, the perfect illustration of the grace & freedom He (and only He) gives?

Like Stars

The Dallas Cowboys broke our hearts by losing to the hated New York Giants last night, and it made me think of that passage in Romans (why do I do the things I don’t want to do, and not do the things I want to do?). I would very much like to move on from the Dallas Cowboys, but I’m beginning to suspect I simply can’t, or won’t. What’s the difference between can’t & won’t, anyway, right? Probably nothing, that loss is devastating either way. Let’s move on.

I really want to continue to discuss the homework from Sunday. If we remember the Message translation of several verses in Matthew 5, “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!”

He brought us here to be light, put us on a light stand, on a hilltop, to bring out the God-colors of the world. We were never supposed to keep our identity or our faith private, keep God a great big secret, hiding under buckets. But you know what? I think we have been doing just that. Many of the light switches in my home have a small slider that dims the bulbs. I like to do that, because it can feel like I’m being interrogated. (I always think I’m hilarious when I say, either “Tell me what I want to know” or “I’ll never tell you anything,” depending on if I’m the one flipping the switch or not. Absolutely hilarious.) Sometimes, it’s better to have a nice soft glow in the evening. In fact, I think that’s the best thing for our circadian rhythms as we begin to wind down for bed.

However, we are not those light switches. The light inside us is never better as a nice soft glow. We are made to shine like stars. Of course, we might shine in different ways, but there isn’t one of us that doesn’t have it, that isn’t made to light up our surroundings. If we’re at work, shine. At home, school, the grocery store, gym, highway, shine. Always shine.

The next question is, what does shining look like?

Well, honestly, it looks like you.

There have been times where I want to say things, want to laugh out loud, want to give of myself, want to wrap my arms around another, want to cry, sing, dance, whatever… and I don’t because, what will they think? Maybe it’ll be taken wrong, misunderstood. Maybe they’ll get offended or judge me or something. And so I do the equivalent of wearing a bucket. I move that slider down, I dim the most authentic, coolest, most awesome version of me. I hide the man God has “wonderfully made,” the man God is forging, transforming, the man I am and am becoming.

You know, I can get pretty excitable on Sunday mornings. There were many weeks early on, as I was speaking, that a voice in my head started with the shame, trying to convince me that I was embarrassing myself. Tone it down, this is inappropriate in a church, that kind of thing. It was often loud and awfully convincing. This voice was also lying, holding a bucket and dimmer switch out for me.

After the Israelites reclaimed the Ark of the Covenant, when they were bringing it home, king David was dancing before it, through the streets, in front of everyone, and his wife Michal was horrified. She “despised him in her heart” for being so “undignified,” and tore him up when he got home. This was the voice in my head, Michal’s. David responded, “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.”

In other words, this man “after God’s own heart,” was going to shine, no matter what, no matter where, no matter when. In Matthew 5, Jesus gives us that same call. We’re called to live and love out loud, so let’s do that, all the time. (In Dallas Cowboys wins AND losses.) Let’s stop wondering what we’re supposed to look like, or how we should act, and just be exactly what He’s made us to be, and do exactly what He’s made us to do: Shine.

Now, What You Hear Is Not A Test

The Angel & I spent last weekend’s holiday at a Labor Day party/picnic/bocce ball tournament. The food and company were excellent, we lost both of our games badly, and I got to spend some time with my family. The soundtrack for this sacred time was a best of the ‘80’s playlist. During the Sugar Hill Gang’s classic hit “Rapper’s Delight,” I watched my cousins sitting next to each other across the yard. They weren’t talking, they were just moving individually, in perfect time (with the music and each other), and mouthing every word (which is really saying something, “Rapper’s Delight” is very, very long). This continued for quite a while, covering quite a few songs.

My family hasn’t always been this close, there was a too-many-year period where we were estranged. We used to live next door to each other, then we moved, things happened, grudges & resentments happened, distance happened, then another thing happened, that distance didn’t matter anymore and we were reconciled. As I watched them, I thought of all that. I thought of my sister, and the language that close relationships have that transcends language and time. I thought of us and how much we all missed, and how much we still miss, deciding some sort of thing or another was more important than this.

So, then, I started to think about the relationships we share, and the reasons they end (or are placed on pause). I wonder if we even remember the reasons. We remember the times we spent, the fun we had, the memories we made, together, but we usually have a much harder time remembering the nonsense that keeps us apart.

We’ve taken to reading the “love chapter” in 1st Corinthians 13 every Sunday. Love is patient and kind and doesn’t keep any record of wrongs and never fails. Do these characteristics describe each of our interactions & conversations, do they even describe our homes and/or marriages?? I said earlier that the holiday was a “sacred time,” and the worship music was “Rapper’s Delight,” and that was true. Every time love becomes the cause and the effect, the motivation and the result, of our lives, God is the main character, and we may as well call those spaces church. Every time our love asks us to lay our own interests, vanity, control, and need to win, down, and we respond by doing just that, it is absolutely church. When we hold each other, listen, laugh, play, cry, these things are all church, and wherever they happen is the temple of God.

I’ve been in churches full of bitterness and unforgiveness and I’ve been in bars and gyms full of support, encouragement and capital L love. Monday, that yard was a temple, a monument to the God who made us and sustains us.

You know what else I thought? That we live in a world (comprised of millions of homes, streets, neighborhoods, communities, districts, states, countries, planets, and galaxies) in desperate need of the message of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the Gospel of Jesus. And we need to be the so-called (for lack of a better term) “brand ambassadors,” of the Gospel. We need to sing & dance along to this divine Story, over and over again, being living examples of possibility instead of clinging to our own little stories.

I realize that this, of course, doesn’t come easy (and spiritual attack is, sadly, very real), and can be quite painful, but that is also part of the Story we happen to be in. That’s why we simply can’t continue to miss the most beautiful, inspiring parts just because we’ve chosen to be somewhere else, divided by who cares what. These are our lives and we are our people, church is anywhere & everywhere, “Rapper’s Delight” is awesome, and I am truly grateful for (or in) all of it.

The Why

You know how much I love a great site prompt. (The website that hosts this page gives a daily topic to encourage more engagement from me. They figure the more I write, the more you click & read, the more business they get, right? I don’t write every day, and probably won’t, but if the site prompts would be like today’s, maybe I’d revisit that, but they are sometimes questions like, “What is your favorite e-commerce site?”) Today’s question is, “Why do you blog?” What a beautifully introspective avenue to examine.

Is it because I like the clicks, visits, likes, and comments? Do likes equate to worth: the more likes I get, the more valuable I am? Maybe it’s because my name attached to something online is a form of narcissism, or maybe the narcissism is thinking my thoughts on anything are somehow necessary to your lives. Do I want to be an influencer, internet-famous, parlaying this blog into a YouTube site where I produce videos of my family and the products of sponsors, where you can “smash the like button,” share, and subscribe, making me rich beyond my wildest dreams?

I don’t think it’s any of those. I say “I don’t think,” because it’s always possible, isn’t it? We can be pretty selfish, with remarkably well-honed powers of rationalization that clouds our judgment until we don’t even know why we do what we do anymore. But I truly don’t think it’s any of those. (I don’t get too many likes, hardly any comments, and I have yet to get a check in the mail from The Internet.) I don’t think it’s one of those, because I think I know exactly why I do what I do, blogging or otherwise.

Last week, a very good friend and I recorded a podcast (it’s called “A New Thing,” and you can find it here, on her YouTube page:  https://www.youtube.com/@DreamMythosStudios/podcasts I bet I’ll smash that like button and put it up everywhere, the second I figure out how to do that). It is the first in a conversation where we’ll take a spiritual/religious idea and discuss how it is still important today. I was going to say “if” it’s still important today, but I don’t ever wonder IF it is, I know it is, it just might take a moment of attention to see how. That’s the sort of thing we’re discussing. We’ll also get into popular songs, movies, art, whatever, everything, and see where and how that affects our beautiful spirits.

That podcast is a very recent perfect example of my Why. I happen to love Jesus and think He is The Answer. I think if we’d fall in love with Him, listen to & follow Him, our hearts would explode (grow 100 sizes in an instant), we’d all love each other and the entire world would change in a moment. He changed my whole life, and now, ideally, everything I say, do, or think would express that foundation. Every time you’d listen to that podcast, you’d know that I love Jesus, and that I love you. I would want to make you feel valued & safe, you’d know I think you’re awesome and important. I would listen and hug you a lot. I would try to explain the Ark of the Covenant (that was our 1st topic on the podcast) in a way that might help you see His love for you (for everyone, ourselves, our neighbors AND our enemies alike) and His pursuit. I try to do the same with the Bible on Sundays. I try to do this at the church, but I also want to do this at home afterwards, and at the grocery store on Mondays, and the gym everyday. I want to be a walking, talking, living illustration of The Gospel in every situation and space.

Of course, as you already know, I am not able to do that all the time (probably much, much less than I’d like). I can be an obstacle, I can fall, I can be a bad example of what love looks like, I’m not always patient and kind and I can really keep score – but even in that, it is my hope and intention that I can point to His grace, mercy, and forgiveness. In my failure, I can still express my foundation.

Sometimes, like here, today, I am very explicit in my belief. I am quite religious and will use religious examples to connect. But other times, I use Marvel movies, books, and pop songs. I am honest, to a fault, and anytime there’s anything to share, I over-share. I am grateful. I will love you and everybody else with no agenda. This isn’t to amass “like” smashes or paychecks, I love just because I do. Just because that’s how I’ve been created.

So, love. That’s why I write. But it’s more, it’s why I do anything.

1st Day

Today is the first day of school in my little circle. 3rd-5th grade children returned to the school where The Angel works, and classes began at Lycoming College for my youngest son. My oldest son is studying for his next new responsibility at work. And here I am, alone at home, writing, listening to the punk band Rise Against as loud as my speaker will comfortably go.

Life moves in rhythms. We soar along the clouds, plunge into the valleys, and take slow, sometimes boring steps in the flat straightaways. In the Church calendar, these are called sacred and ordinary times, and it has come to imply that some times are more charged with the Divine than others, that some Tuesdays are deeper than others, and that all Sundays are more spiritual than those Tuesdays. I disagree. Not with the idea that there are rhythms to life, it seems pretty silly to argue about that, but instead, with the assumption that there are places, spaces and times where God is not, or at least, where He is less.

Is the opening of classes today common, ordinary time? Or is this the sacred & holy? Was our wedding day more sacred than this Monday morning, 25+ years in, standing on our porch, me taking her 1st day picture, before we walked to her car and shared a soft smooch? Was last Friday moving my son into the dorm charged with big, heavy meaning and significance, or was it the day before when we all ate dinner together, played Pictionary, and went disc golfing?

I’m more and more certain that “ordinary” time is simply the moments and days, seasons or years, where we fall asleep or lose our vision.

If my oldest son can’t see the hand of God on his work, or even more importantly, on his life, then it truly is common. However, I can, and they are anything but common. They are miracles, he is a miracle. What about the kids that come into that elementary school today, terrified and alone, who find The Angel’s luminous smile that can stop a clock and her arms that will bring safety and solace to those storms raging in those little hearts? Does that sound ordinary? Do you think it’s ordinary to those kids?

We just forget to see.

I am here, alone in my chair, with this computer and these words. The song currently playing is called “Historia Calamitatum,” and here are the lyrics to the hook: “When it rains it pours Like summer storms, the skies as grey as leaves. The rivers flood the banks and spill into the streets. But the people laughed and swore that they’d restore The city piece by piece. And then the clouds gave way as if to agree. When it rains it pours.” If you heard it, you might let it play and miss that devastating poetry. That would be heartbreaking. But even if we do hear this song, how many songs do we miss?

There is nowhere God isn’t, nowhere there is less of Him.

Even in our sadness and tragedy. Even in our pain. Even in the news and on Facebook. Jesus says, “Whoever has ears, let them hear,” and I don’t think He was only talking about His parables. I think, maybe, He was referring to baseball games, punk rock songs, tv shows, sunsets, mangoes, Tuesdays AND Wednesdays (and all other days), wedding days, 1st days and every days. I think He was probably referring to everything He has made, trees, streams, red-eared slider turtles, families, neighbors and even enemies.

Ordinary time is likely intended as a way to protect against our tendency to want (or expect) every day to be fireworks and movie scenes, to want every song to be “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.” And it is probably supposed to point us to the presence of God even in the “ordinary.” But I think we went too far, lost that point, believed the opposite, and went to sleep.

The revolution of His Kingdom begins when we start to wake up to the Divine, sacred, holy reality all around us.

4 Steps To A Great New Life!!!!!

[Before we get to our 4 Steps To A Great New Life – or maybe it it simply part of building a great new life – I want to share what I’m noticing in our Bible In A Year passages in Ezra. Over and over, like the chorus of a song, he writes, “the gracious hand of God was upon us.” Things happen because of this “gracious hand of God.” I love the lenses through which he sees the world. He isn’t making anything happen, not making blessings or manufacturing miracles, the Source of everything is God and His “gracious hand(s).” We could all probably use more of that sort of perspective. Now, the 4 STEPS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!]

[…Well, not yet. I am using this title and putting it in a caps lock because I, generally, have a giant suspicion towards the entire library of this type of self-help industry. 4 (or 7 or 105) steps won’t change your life, there’s no magic pill, no cast iron formula for transformation. I use these words mostly as satire…but, only mostly. There is some truth in practice. Sometimes, we can find universal characteristics that help to point us in a certain direction. Eating dinner together as a family isn’t always going to lead to connection and foster beautiful close-knit relationships, but there’s a very good chance it will. So, in Sunday’s message, we discussed 4 ways we can cultivate an environment in which we can grow closer to (or, to use the word from the 2 Corinthians passage: know) God. Now, we’re ready to jump into these 4 STEPS THAT WILL…you get the point.]

STEP 1, Read your Bible. Through His Word, we can begin to discover the Story, the character of God, Who He is, and who we are in Him. We see this is a divine chase: He made us, we ran (and run) away, and He pursues. He loves. He is graceful, the “gracious hand of God” is upon us, no matter what kind or size of mess we can make. This is information, data, facts, head knowledge, as foundation. If we stop here, maybe our lives don’t change, but that leaves us to the 2nd BIG AWESOME STEP: Contemplate.

We read, pray, ask The Spirit to show us, to connect the dots, tie the clouds together. In our reading, we learn about Abraham, Elijah, Jonah, John the Baptizer, the man on the cross next to Jesus, Judas, and Thomas. And in the contemplative space, with the Spirit’s guidance, we learn that we are each of them. We get frustrated at the Israelites living the same tired loops, and have our eyes opened to our own loops that we live. The Story jumps to life and we can more and more easily see that these words, written thousands of years ago, are our words, too. The Spirit teaches, removes the scales from our eyes and hearts, as we see our place in this Creation.

STEP 3 (easy to disregard in our arrogant independence) is Community. We were never meant to be alone, even before the Fall, it is “not good,” so we are given the beautiful gift of each other, of The Church. We reach out, care for and are cared for, and in this, we begin to see the image of God in each of us. The us/them fallacy is exposed as pure, utter nonsense rooted in fear. There is only just us. And in STEPS 1 & 2, we have seen that God’s favorite method to bless us, to show His amazing, limitless love, IS us. We get to practice kindness, forgiveness, goodness, peace, joy, love every moment. In other words, in relationship, we get to practice living in His Kingdom.

The last STEP TO A GREAT NEW LIFE!!!!! is Mindful Awareness. In other words, this world is crackling with the energy of the God of the Universe, of His Universe, if we only have the eyes, ears and hearts to see, hear & experience it. Soooo, we need to pay attention! We have to notice His Kingdom all around us. If you are walking, totally distracted, you might not realize that I’m walking beside you. But if you do, you can hold my hand and we can walk through this life together.

That’s 4 STEPS!!! I wrote earlier that there’s no cast iron formula for transformation, but if there was, it might be this one. I guess it depends how you define a GREAT NEW LIFE, but a new perspective on our own lives, the world around us, and The One Who holds it all together, a terrific group of people to walk with, all of us finally awake, sounds like one to me.

What Brings You Joy?

“Describe one habit that brings you joy.” That’s the hosting website’s writing prompt for today, and I wanted to pass it along to you. What is one for you? What brings you joy? What brought you joy today?

[I opened my computer to write about something else entirely. (Maybe it’s not so different, we’ll see.) Yesterday, as an aside, to illustrate the “requirements” of falling in love with & following Jesus, and the relationship between salvation & sanctification, I asked my oldest son what he’d do if I bought him a Lego set. He said, “Thank you, and build it.” Our response to His gifts are just like that, we are grateful, say “Thank You,” and we live full lives of love, joy and peace. Those are the “requirements.” The Angel wasn’t in the service, and when I told her that our son absolutely preached, it was more and more simple and profound. And I wanted to talk about it again, here. But now we have a new question to consider…]

We are often confronted with some variation of this question: Where do we find joy? It reminds me of the feeling I have when I read the story where Jesus comes upon a blind man who is calling out to Him. He stops, asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Now, in this story, the man asks for his sight, so Jesus gives it to him.

I don’t think we’d do the same, necessarily. Faced with Jesus, I think we’d be afraid to ask for anything, hedge our prayers, feel some kind of way asking for something so personal, and instead ask for a new cane or sunglasses to better deal with our blindness. Or, worse yet, if Jesus asked us what we want, what He can do for us, and we couldn’t answer Him because we didn’t know. I get to ask this question to quite a few people, in vulnerable places, and it is crushing when they can’t answer. They usually answer after a long pause through watery eyes.

What brought you joy today? Anything? Or everything? (Maybe that’s a lot to ask. Work on a Monday morning might not be the most joyous experience.) What if we don’t know? What if there hasn’t been any joy today? What if there hasn’t for days and days? Weeks? Years?? Then what?

[Now, as I suspected, these 2 thoughts aren’t unrelated at all.]

Are we spending so much time obsessing about what we have to do, about the “requirements,” that we’ve forgotten what we get to do? And what if they’re the same thing, with the only difference being our perspective? We often don’t know what we need, and we often become so blind to the shine on His gifts that we lose the joy of the simple, beautiful response: gratitude and building.

Maybe that guy’s response to Jesus is ours, too, because usually, the only difference between joy and emptiness is our ability to see. Maybe He can give us our sight, so then we can finally see what (and Who) has been there all along.

It’s In The Bible

I am following the Bible-In-A-Year reading plan. Each day, there’s a section of the Old Testament, a section of the New Testament, a section of the Psalms, and a few verses from Proverbs. I like it a lot, and am mostly very faithful. When I am not, I never have an excuse. I missed yesterday. What was I doing? Nothing. I ate pizza, took a nap, watched the finale of a show called Extracted, and 2 game 7’s in the NBA playoffs. You can see how easy it was to forget, with all of this terribly important stuff going on. So, today I read 2 days worth, May 3 and May 4.

[Incidentally, today is May the 4th, which has been ridiculously christened Star Wars Day. I know this because 1. I love Star Wars, and 2. Because the man monitoring the self-check at my supermarket gave the super special greeting, “May the 4th be with you.”]

Yesterday’s Old Testament reading was from Judges, chapters 17 & 18, and was awfully strange…

A man named Micah stole a substantial amount of money from his mom. She didn’t know this, so she put a curse on whoever did it. When he became aware of this curse, he confessed and returned the money. She was happy, and, as you do, she took the money and had it cast into an idol (“in honor of [her] son” – it’s not stated what it looked like, but in my head, it was a silver bust of Micah. That sounds appropriate.) that Micah kept in his house. Then, a Levite (the Israelites tribe of priests) happened to be traveling by, and Micah asked him to live with him and become his personal priest, which he did. So, then, a group of Israelites from the tribe of Dan sent some scouts (who ended up at Micah’s house), who noticed the town of Laish (a fertile land inhabited by “peaceful and secure” people.) The Dan-ites took the advice of the scouts and decided to take that town. As they went, they passed by Micah’s house. These scouts told the rest of the idol & other valuable items, so they went into Micah’s house and took them. They also convinced the Levite to come with them and be their priest. The tribe of Dan took Laish with swords, burned the town to the ground, and renamed it Dan, where they set up Micahs idol to worship.

And there’s no more, chapter 19 just moves on to the next story. This is the entire story of Micah, Micah’s mom, their idol, Dan’s theft and subsequent destruction of “peaceful” Laish. I think there is value in every word of the Bible, even when we can’t immediately see it, that there’s layer after layer of wisdom to be discovered. I believe there is not a wasted word and nothing is in the Scriptures by accident or without purpose.

So, what about Judges 17 & 18? I think something should have gone wrong for Micah, who stole from his mother. But nothing did In fact, the opposite happened, there was blessing. They fashioned an idol? Why? Have you ever fashioned an idol? And, then something BIG and significant should have gone wrong for the Levite who monetized his priestly call to be someone’s personal priest, worshiping some random image, right? It should’ve gone wrong again, when the priest sold Micah out and moved on with the people who looted his house. But it sure didn’t. And Dan, one tribe of the 12 of God’s chosen people, who stole what may as well have been a golden calf, then destroyed a whole town of “peaceful” people, who didn’t do anything wrong except be peaceful – why wasn’t there consequence for them? This story isn’t supposed to end “happily ever after.”

This all makes me think of something my old pastor said. She asked the age-old question, if a tree falls in the forest and I’m not there to hear it, does it make a sound? “Of course it does!” The world doesn’t revolve around me, it continues to operate and trees continue to crash even if I’m not involved. She thought it was a terrific analogy to illustrate our limitless arrogance.

Does this passage truly not make sense simply because I can’t find sense in it? Of course not. Why would I get to decide what should be, or how things are supposed to go? Just because I’m selfish?

I really cannot find any meaning or purpose in it. It sounds all wrong to me. But I think I’m seeing what 1 word I’m missing: now. I can’t find meaning…now. It sounds wrong…now. How many passages and verses didn’t make sense to me the first time I read them? How many didn’t the 300th time? Jesus’ teaching on the “pearls to pigs” in the sermon on the mount is a perfect example. I thought it was impenetrable and silly, but it just turns out that I was. Now it’s thick with meaning and informs much of my behavior in relationships.

Maybe this story about Micah and his mom will be the same way. Or maybe it won’t. But today I had my eyes opened by this passage, and I didn’t so much like what I saw. I guess Micah isn’t the only one who struggles with idolatry.

Every week is the same. We show up for Sunday service, turn on the equipment (lights, sound board, speakers, microphones) and sit down to connect & pray until people begin to show up. We do what we do first, just in case there happens to be a problem, which is usually battery related. Last week’s problem was not battery related. We had a worship leader with a mask and an illness. We also had a projector that wouldn’t work.

[The end, so it’s on no one’s mind: It seems likely that the projector issue is an HDMI cord issue, which should be a very easy fix.]

This is certainly not the first headache with the equipment. Technology is awesome until it’s not. Our first Christmas Eve, I remember walking down the hill through the graveyard trying to remember to pray, but instead mostly talking to myself. Really? We have a big night, new people, and now this?!?!? Christmas Eve is like a super bowl for a local church. We sometimes have only one chance to make an impression, and that impression is less than great without sound for the music or the sermon. Once, we inexplicably lost power to the whole building for one day – the next time we turned on the lights, everything was as usual. A car tire rolled down our parking lot and crashed through our front doors, destroying them. In the middle of one message, a strange Russian man walked through our door and right down the aisle and started to preach and hand out tracts. Most winters I lose a lot of my voice for a week or 2. I could go on and on.

Much of the planning concerns removing any foreseeable obstacles. It’s difficult to connect when you’re cold or hot, when it’s noisy, when the speaker is unprepared and unclear, under or over dressed, the piano is out of tune, anything could happen, really. We’re very simple, not too many dogs or ponies in our show, but we still get hiccups. We control what we can and open our hands to allow the Spirit to work (or anything strange and surprising) inside of our careful preparation.

Sunday it was the projection and a sickness, and I do concede that it’s not ideal. It’s easy to become distracted and focus on what has gone wrong. But that morning, I just happened to be thinking about the many things we put before God (in other words, idolatry). And projection is just another one. We think we neeeeed projection and fancy light shows and microphones and snacks, but we don’t. All we need is the Gospel. Those other things can and do help us connect and communicate, but they are not the message. Not even close. When we allow them to cloud our vision, when they become the point, we have lost our way. And weeks like this provide the opportunity to remember.

This is true in our personal lives, just as well as in our community. We can put any number of relationships, possessions, opinions, beliefs, details and circumstances in a category we call essential, and before we are even aware, those things usurp the throne of our lives. Our partners, car, party, football team, or job title become the primary force that drive every step & decision. The water gets muddy as God is quickly downgraded, simply serving other neeeeeds. But once they are stripped away, once they fail, we can hopefully see the truth – there is only One need, only One essential, and He never fails.

[That’s the end, but I do want to tell you a funny story. We began the service with a similar message to this post – I encouraged us to not confuse the medium for the message, and remember that Jesus is our 1 and Only. As I walked out and the music started, I met someone new in our narthex. She lamented about how she was looking for a faith community, but so many were only the show. Some didn’t even mention the Name of Jesus, but their performance was on point, practiced and trendy. She was looking for Jesus and His Word. I laughed, said we didn’t even have any projection, but that she sure would hear about Jesus. Funny how things happen how and when they do.]

What About Joshua?

We’re currently at the tail end of Joshua, following a Bible In A Year plan, and there are some things about this book that are surprising and others that are problematic. I wonder if everyone everywhere who has ever read the Scriptures have had these same immediate reactions, if they thought, “sheesh, there is an awful lot of killing, so much about totally destroying entire groups of people,” or “why do I care about the boundaries of each tribe’s land?” Probably.

We finished the earlier books, with all of the monotony of the sacrifices, measurements and laws, thought we were done, now we’re back into more super-specific details. What I think when I read it is not, “now, where exactly did Dan’s eastern border stretch?” Instead, it’s that there was a tribe that descended from Dan and it did stretch from one very concrete place to another. Sometimes, we can disconnect and think this all fell out of the sky. It’s easy to forget that this all happened, and it happened in this place at this time to these people. The fact that the book through which God chose to reveal Himself includes countless human beings is extraordinary, as if we’re the medium He chooses to create His masterpiece. So, now, I really like these loooong lists and details (honestly pretty meaningless in themselves, I don’t reference a map or anything, but heavy with significance at their inclusion at all.)

The genocide is another thing altogether. It hurts to read, especially to spend even an extra second in consideration. It’s a little like reading the story of Noah, not through the tiny prism of Noah & his family, but thinking of everyone else. All other people drowned. It’s a horrific story we tell to children. Or speaking of inappropriate kids’ stories, David separates Goliath’s body from his head at the end. I have a million more examples, and 1 question, in light of the last paragraph. If these are real people, in real places, at real times, then real flesh and blood people just like you and me are dying…I guess the question is: What??? If God created us all in His image, and loves us all, then what about the Amorites and Amalekites? What about Goliath?

I just Googled “Amalekites,” and here’s what it says: “The Amalekites were a nomadic, warlike tribe in the Negev desert who served as the first and most persistent enemies of Israel in the Bible. As descendants of Esau, they attacked the Israelites after the Exodus, leading to a divine mandate for their destruction. Amalekite symbolizes absolute evil in Jewish tradition, representing irrational hatred if the Jewish people.”

Ok. That sounds like the extermination of a group of people symbolizing absolute evil representing hatred of God’s chosen people by those chosen people is something we can understand, doesn’t it? It sounds reasonable, even.

Now, I don’t mean to be contrary, but there is a strange passage in chapter 5, before the battle of Jericho. Joshua meets a figure, and in his aggression, essentially asks, “are you with us or against us?” This figure, a “Commander of the army of the LORD” answers, “Neither.” Neither??Now what? What do we do with that? Also, a lot of scholars think this figure was a pre-incarnation appearance of Jesus, who would later famously say, “Love your enemies.” We can assume He meant “the first and most persistent enemies of Israel,” the Amalekites, too.

So now I’m wondering what part we don’t understand. It seems like we are very clear on the Old Testament narrative, we understand enemies and war. Good guys and bad guys, us vs them. We do understand and we honestly don’t seem to mind those parts. The complicated parts are the ones that are complicated by this Commander and Jesus Himself. Neither? Love your enemies? Their words bother us, not the book of Joshua.

And here’s what I’ll say to that: they should. We should be bothered, and we should stay bothered. The words and way of Jesus are revolutionary and radical, we have no frame of reference for the Kingdom of God. Unconditional love and grace is not what we do here, we do productivity and record-keeping. Vengeance above forgiveness.

It’s vital to stay bothered, to keep wrestling with these parts we don’t like, that confront us in the deepest parts of us. (Of course, we do have to be aware of what actually we’re wrestling with/about.) And hidden in the middle of this story is a command for how we’re called to interact with these parts. The Commander says “Neither,” then He says, “now take off your shoes because you’re on holy ground.” That’s so good. He reminds us that when we’re in relationship with Him, it’s all holy ground, and Joshua’s reaction is to fall facedown. When we read the Word, his is the only posture that will work, awe, reverence and total respect, trying to make our lives fit Him instead of twisting Him to fit us.

Joshua IS certainly a tough book, maybe not for the reasons we think it is, but we must not stop reading it.