Jesus

A Delusion

We talk an awful lot about a 2 Hands Theology, right? That just means the human experience is complex and complicated. Almost nothing is just 1 emotion. To look at one example: When you have a baby, it’s amazing, exciting, hopeful…AND… it’s terrifying, overwhelming. It’s also the end of that stage of your marriage, where you could pick up and go anywhere, anytime, without days and hours of planning and a packed diaper bag. It’s the best. And this monumental life change is also the loss of who you both were before. It’s a great change, but all change involves some sort of loss, and every loss must be mourned. To ignore either hand is to eliminate half of your life, it’s pretense, and it’s pretty unhealthy.

Now. Every day holds this same invitation into an authentic, engaged life. Your friends move, people pass away, relationships end, you’re promoted, your book comes out, the doctor calls, and on and on. It’s a BOTH/AND life that we lead, and we are wonderfully present.

But sometimes, it’s a lot, isn’t it? Sometimes, it feels like the hand that holds the pain, sadness, and overwhelm parts is heavier than the joy & celebration. Sometimes, it seems the scales tip, our shoulders slump, it feels like an anchor is attached to our hearts, dragging them underwater.

Most people run from this darkness, pretending that the clouds are not just lined with silver, but made of gold. We pretend that the sadness is a lack of faith, a dismissal of God’s goodness & sovereignty. It isn’t, it’s honest, overflowing with a faith in a Creator that would be big, awesome, and loving enough to take it all with us. In His mercy and grace, He weeps with us.

That’s what we often do, run from the suffering. And other times, we fall into the delusion that the dark side is winning, that the hand that holds the pain IS actually heavier. This isn’t true, either.

In much the same way that 1 negative comment can eclipse 15 positives, the pain is loud, intense, and obsessive. But that doesn’t mean the other hand has disappeared. And that isn’t natural or healthy. It’s a 2 Hands Theology, very very rarely only 1.

So, when it’s raining and feels like it’ll never be sunny and dry again, how do we reclaim our full perspective, that is faithful, beautiful, and authentic? The answer is the same as when we skip through the streets in a monsoon, pretending we’re not wet: we open our eyes, look up, look around. And in the opposite case, when it might be tempting to fall, we look to the other hand. Because simply because it seems that the scales have tipped and the anchor is permanently fastened to our soft, lovely hearts doesn’t make it true. The hand that holds the wonder of each other, the blooming flowers and blinding sunlight, the abundance of gifts and blessings, is still there, hasn’t gone anywhere. We just need to notice, and say thanks. Gratitude is the antidote to despair, it always was, and it always will be.

God doesn’t take us out of the rain, He holds us in it. But He also doesn’t say that it’ll never stop raining. The resurrection tells us that there’s a day coming when it won’t rain, when there will only be 1 hand (and it’ll be His.) But until then, He’s there with us, loving us, not for our myopia or our faking, but for everything we truly are.

Both Trash Collectors And Hoses

After service, a brilliant woman who I am thrilled to call my friend said to me, “we’re garbage collectors, picking up the trash on the road to Jesus, then becoming the hoses that wash it down.” How great is that??!!

Of course, this makes no sense, if you hadn’t been there. In the last few months, I’ve made 2 specific analogies. The first is that we are conduits for the love of God. He provides the love, filling us, transforming us, then we become hoses that His love flows through, getting all over everyone. The second, last week’s illustration, was of a path to a door. God has built the house, set the table for the feast, built the door, then paved the road to that door. We don’t do any of that, He does. But, as we’re studying in Paul’s letter to Titus, it is our job to partner with The Spirit to clear away the obstructions that we so often set on this path to Him. We set up this spiritual obstacle course, in so many ways, then we are tasked to remove them. I like my analogies, but the picture she painted, tying the 2, was so good, I badly wished I had made it.

I’m telling you this story for a few reasons. 1. Our small community has so many fantastic talents, it never ceases to surprise. This is a testament to the abundance of God’s blessing. The leap is not a huge one to assume that we all are overflowing with gifts, just sitting, waiting to be unlocked and taken out of the package and played with. That’s what I have always guessed – it’s nice to be affirmed in every interaction & conversation. 2. We are a nation, a world, a galaxy, a Church, of priests. I happen to have a position called ‘pastor,’ but I am absolutely not the only minister. All of us together, using our individual, unique interests, passions, gifts, skills to reach others IS the walking, talking, living Great Commission. I don’t, can’t reach all people – as you know, I am not for everyone. Maybe this woman isn’t, either. Or you. But all of us together… It’s like the outside of a Venn diagram, where a number of circles overlap in the middle, signaling a shaded area of similarity. All of our separate circles, millions of them overlapping in many places (sex, color, hometown, taste in music or pizza, etc) – the only big overlap, as The Church, is Jesus – create an enormous mosaic/flower-type shape that covers the entire human race.

I use movies and songs and dead lifts and baseball to connect us. This woman connects these concepts easily, using her wild creativity to make it easy and memorable. You should be me for a Sunday, and hear the incredible insight I do as people are leaving, sharing their thoughts with me. My sister gave me the analogy of going out past where the ocean water turns from light to dark, where you can’t see the bottom – can you even imagine how many to whom that will make the perfect sense that starts them on a journey that leads to that feast? A very good friend works with numbers, another with flowers, others use guitars, voices, dance, organization, fabric, my mom makes the greatest lemon meringue pie this world has ever tasted.

Sure, all of these celebrations make me appreciate and love you. I pray you know how great you are. It’s a great pleasure/privilege to notice them everywhere, in everyone. But it makes me appreciate and love this God of ours even more. I see His attention, care, and love in each of us (I can now even say, “including me”), my mouth hanging wide open in wonder and awe. I am grateful, 100%.

We simply need to open our boxes and play. To paraphrase everybody’s favorite singer, Morrissey: Trash Collectors and Hoses of the world, unite and take over!

The Security of Inadequacy

This is the 2nd post this week, and that’s fairly unusual, but so is the Bible passage I read this week. These posts are like the concept of tithing for me. Give 10%, but you can give more. It isn’t a ceiling, it’s more like a floor. I post once a week. I only have one entry on my to-do list that says “Bridge Post,” but that doesn’t mean the internet police will break down my door if I open this app for the 2nd time. (Actually, it’s quite the opposite, the internet – and especially this app – wants me to post EVERY DAY!!! We’ll call this a compromise.)

In 1 Chronicles 13, David tries to transport the Ark of the Covenant, in the way he figured was appropriate (but was not according to the specific laws of the Torah.) The Ark teeters, Uzzah reaches out to steady it, and is immediately struck dead. David is angry, and very afraid. Now what? In chapter 15, they transport it again, according to law, without incident. He even says, “we failed to ask God how to move it in the proper way.” No excuses, no blame. This was a natural consequence of transgression. There was punishment, but not from an unhinged, wrathful God, this punishment was meted out by the sin itself.

Sometimes, I eat lots of cake and, as I’m doubled over with a vicious belly ache, wonder why God is so mad at me.

When my boys were small, I’d say, “If you hit your brother again with that bat, you’ll lose it and have to have a timeout.” Inevitably, they’d lose the bat and have timeout and ask why I was so mad at them, why I wanted to punish them. It wasn’t really my decision, it was theirs, wasn’t it?

David is called a “man after God’s heart,” and that is always such an interesting conversation, because it’s not like he was perfect. The Scriptures are very clear about his shortcomings and poor decisions, and remain clear about his standing as a faithful follower/friend/person of God. We often think God is holding a clipboard in His arms, noting our missteps, looking for reasons to be mad at us, when the Bible seems to show a very different God; One who has destroyed the clipboard and is, instead, easily forgiving, and filling His arms with us.

What made David so extraordinary is obvious in this Ark situation. His heart is contrite in his error, he’s humble, repentant, teachable. He offered no justification. Yes, he was angry, but he never pretends to be more than human. I wonder who/Who he was angry with, God or himself? Maybe even Uzzah. Anger’s best characteristic isn’t it’s logic. David was angry when he was angry, afraid when he was afraid, then did the next right thing. How do we move this Ark? Then, he did that.

The Angel and I used to have arguments, BIG arguments, and I’d forget the beautiful picture we were painting. I’d only be able to think of the piece in front of me. I couldn’t apologize, I had to win. I’d show her. You would not have used words like “humble, repentant, contrite, teachable.” You also wouldn’t have used careful, patient, or particularly loving. You wouldn’t have called me a man of God. You wouldn’t have called me a man, at all.

You WOULD have used stubborn, prideful, myopic, small.

So, we still have arguments, but we now aren’t so caught up in proving our right-ness, that we can’t write a chapter 15, “I’m sorry. I am/was wrong. We/I failed.” What a cool, free-ing place to be. Where we no longer have to build our résumé’s to defend our worth. Where we can simply rest in who we are, put it down, and take the next step, do the next right thing.

I heard a sermon once where the big phrase was, “you don’t have to live like that anymore.” We don’t have to live with the insecurity of inadequacy. The Bible (in this story of David, and countless others) testifies to the peaceful security of inadequacy. There is a bigger masterpiece at work. We don’t have to be right, or do it our way. We just have to move the Ark.

Opportunities

I am an excitable sort of man, running hot and cold. Like with most things, it’s both the best and worst thing about me. Over the years, I have learned to, first, reluctantly accept this characteristic, then drop the ‘reluctantly,’ and finally mostly loving those parts of me, even when they hurt or causs a great deal of tension or misunderstanding between us. Yesterday, even I was a little surprised how high my emotions were running.

I’m not sure I should have been surprised.

What I see all around us is division and incivility. Battle lines have been drawn, and, as Gandalf commands the Balrog in The Fellowship of The Ring, “You shall Not Pass” over these lines. Nuance and complex, complicated positions have been thrown out with manners, we point fingers, call names, and race to see who can dehumanize the other first. [I started to write, “Outside of the church it’s even worse.” I thought it was a clever twist, a way to shine a light on our own behavior, as we all assumed the characteristics were, of course, about them. But I realized I wasn’t clever, I was just wrong. It’s not worse outside of the church.]

In this environment, I can’t help but feel the crushing disappointment of our (as yet) squandered opportunity. In the Scriptures, the followers of God are commanded to be “set apart,” to think, look, and act differently. Different from who we were, but also different from the rest of the culture. We’re called to carry packs 2 miles, wash each other’s feet, and love our enemies. These examples are shocking behaviors, totally counter to the rest of the culture. They will know us by our love, right? But I’m more and more convinced they won’t know us at all.

Of course, I don’t agree with everybody. As a matter of fact, we might passionately disagree. I have strong, big opinions, principles, positions that I hold. Do you remember all of those conversations we had about the concept of “weight?” Not our bodies on bathroom scales, but the weight of priority. Essentially, we will surely reach a place where we have to choose between things, and the only criteria is the value we place on those things. Will I (1) rest on the Sabbath OR (2) rescue my donkey, which has fallen in a hole? Will I (1) stay up late tonight, sleep in tomorrow OR (2) go to bed so I can get to the gym early tomorrow morning? Do I (1) save my money OR (2) go out with my friends? And on and on, a million times a day.

So, let’s say you & I don’t agree. We could fight out loud, shake our fingers/fists, stop talking to each other, you stop coming to the Bridge (or wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you sit next to), and you can tell your other friends that I’m dumb, uneducated, and heartless. I’ll tell my other friends the same thing about you. That’s 1, and it’s the preferred method of our current situation. Corporately, we’ve decided it’s a good path. We like it.

Or.

We could ask each other why we think what we do, and actually listen to each other (because we love each other), we can try to understand (we don’t even have to change our minds, just hear the other), continue to sit next to each other in front of the cross (because we love Jesus, and because we love each other), worship together (because we love each other), we won’t tell our other friends anything nasty about the other (because we are choosing to continue to love each other). That’s the 2nd.

I think if we choose the 2nd, cats and dogs living together under God, it would be so wildly new and radical, we would stand out like neon lights in a field of total darkness. We would draw others, like mosquitoes, who would seek our light, and then, we would point them to the only light we know, the source of the light we’ve seen & experienced, the only light that could bring something so new and wonderful, which is Jesus, who can (AND WILL) breath neon light into everybody. It’s a gigantic opportunity to change the story, to cut new paths. We can go a different direction, but it’s still the same old roads. We desperately need new roads.

Messy?

So, what I’m thinking, after several weeks of relational discord and the nagging sense that “things are not as they should be,” is that I might not agree any longer. Maybe things are exactly as they should be.

First, of course they aren’t. We have been made for eternity, made by a loving God for shalom in paradise, walking with Him, filled by Him. We are living in times bathed in tears, our own and everybody else’s. There’s war, hate, and on and on and on, we are covered by a general blanket of anxiety, rage, suffering, and unworthiness. The idea of sin simply means “missing the mark,” which implies that there is a mark, this is not it, and as long as we are missing it, everything cannot be “exactly as they should be.”

However. We have a trinitarian God, 3 in 1 – this God expresses Himself/Themselves in perfect community, a divine dance, selflessly giving and receiving, Each pointing to the Other; Father, Son, And Spirit. One of the most interesting implications of this wildly unfathomable Trinity is that, being made in His image, we are made to be in relationship. This is clear in the Garden, before the fall, when the man alone was called, “not good.” Eden is not Eden without relationship, without others.

But, then, given that fact, what do we do with the fact that other people are awful? We think that we could really follow Jesus, really give ourselves to Him, truly offer all of our mind, body, and soul to Him, without the mess of our neighbors. (We all know loving our enemies is almost impossible, it’s hard enough to love those who live in the same house!!!) It would be easier for you to maintain pure thoughts without my dumb jokes and bad decisions, wouldn’t it? (Imagine how hard it is to live with me.) If politics is just the science of the way we organize ourselves in a society, the absence of people would mean we have no need to organize a society… wouldn’t it be much more reasonable to be peaceful, patient, and disciplined without politicians? And we could all breathe like monks if there weren’t any other cars/drivers on the roads, right?

When the refrain of a social life is “messy,” it rings like a lament. Messy, messy, messy. Like milk spilled on the floor, out of order, disruption. But the more I see & experience of God, the more I see that a life without brothers & sisters or enemies or politics or getting cut off on the road, or even my dumb jokes, isn’t following Jesus at all. It’s just another way we “miss the mark.” [A full life is marked by periods of intentional solitude, rest, and communion with God – but a life built on solitude is absolutely contrary to this amazing creation. It’s not good to be alone.]

Withdrawal isn’t an option. We are made to be a blessing to a world in pain, even as we are a part of that world in pain. We are made to be agents of healing, even as we are sometimes the ones inflicting the wounds. This is all part of the human experience. Jesus asks us to be peacemakers, this implies that we will be living in a world that is not at peace. And sometimes, we are the ones who upset the shalom. All of this is true.

And if being human is inherently messy… If all of our relationships, even the best of them, are messy, at times… Maybe it’s ice to start looking at the mess not as something to be eliminated, but to see it as what it is, life. A full, beautiful, present life IS messy. It has always been. Maybe it was always supposed to be. Maybe it’s the primary vehicle for our sanctification. Or to put it another way, how do we learn patience if not for those who test our patience? How do we learn the loveliness of difference if not for the different?

Yes, we are awful. And yes, we are the greatest. One day, this creation will be totally redeemed, no more tears, hate, or pain, but until then, instead of trying in futility to rid our yards of grass and dirt, maybe we could just lay down and roll around?

The Homework

Sunday morning was especially life-giving for me. We asked a million questions, and those sorts of messages are always my favorites. The idea that we will actually spend any time during the week to consider them is so hopeful, because it’s there, in the search & discovery, that our lives begin to take the shape they might become. The very best a church service can do is to send us into His presence. In the study, prayer, application, wrestling, praise, pain, relationship, and on and on through the beauty of The Church and the local church, there is the invitation into Who He is and who we are, in Him.

The verse in Titus that prompted the homework was this one: “To the pure, all things are pure,” and it’s opposite: to the impure, every one can be the vehicle for impurity. Vehicles like food, career, money, sex, desire, ambition, progress, study, knowledge can drive us to His feet, in worship and community, or down wide, smooth paths to the sad, lonely altars we’ve built to ourselves. Into His arms, or into temples for religions created for just 1, the high priest and only congregant is the same person: me. We drive these vehicles, they go where we steer them.

Where are we driving? That’s the choice before us. And like those road trips that require recalculation, u-turns, and backtracking over wrong turns, our lives are constantly asking for evaluation. Is this where we want to be? Is the destination still the same for us, or have we changed our minds and decided to go somewhere new? And my favorite question: NOW WHAT???

How do we chart a new course for these vehicles of ours? The simple truth is the same as most everything. We connect to Him. We ask, seek, knock. We hold His hand and follow where He leads. Yes, simple, but not at all easy. We’ll have to stop some things, start others. But it all starts with The Ask. Where have we allowed our vehicle to be driven by another, who might not have our best interests in mind, who wants to drive as fast as possible toward & into an inevitable crash?

So, we ask, and when we receive our answer, then there’s that next decision to make. Will we take the wheel back and give it to Him, so we can turn around, because as we do that, these things (food, career, etc) are recalibrated to see their inherent purity, and become, again, holy. We eat with purpose, with gratitude, and not mindlessly shovel down as much as we can while we’re driving to the next box to check. We work with character and integrity in beautiful service instead of to stack dollar bills, building bigger barns to store our ever-growing mountains of what some marketer has convinced us is the new solution for what ails us. When we ask, we get tingles and goose-bumps. That is possibility that we feel. We can take this world back, give it to the One Who made it, and us. All questions have the same answer, ultimately: Love. And in those 4 letters, there is eternity.

But it all starts with a question, on a Tuesday morning in February.

Super Soldier Serum

The site prompt is, “What would you do if you won the lottery?” And that makes me think of a line from the Marvel TV show The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. There’s a guy who is supposed to be the new Captain America, and he’s debating about whether or not he should take a super soldier serum (which sounds silly to write here, but it is a superhero show), and his buddy, Lamar, tells him, “power just makes you more of what you are.” That applies to money, too, obviously. I don’t necessarily ascribe to the theory that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The full quote (from Lord Acton, the 13th Marquess of Groppoli – full disclosure, I don’t have any idea what a Marquess is or what/where/who Groppoli is, but I love that I could use it in real life) is, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.” Power does tend to corrupt, but I can’t go with ‘absolute/always’ of the rest. But again, speaking of words, I’m using “superadd” immediately and often.

And this makes me think of Sunday morning, and our discussion on character and judgment. We could talk forever about these 2 topics, right?

Character is the x-factor that disproves the 13th Marquess of Groppoli, and reinforces Lamar’s comments. If a man has the kind of character traits Paul is listing to Titus, maybe that’s exactly the kind of person who should have power, who would use it in service, to help, to build, to defend, to give, to love. Maybe that’s exactly the kind of person who should take a super soldier serum.

But what if we don’t have that kind of character? You know I wanted to add, “…kind of character now, today?” That’s why judgment is so linked in my mind to character. Christ makes us new, so this very moment is the perfect opportunity to begin to superadd this kind of integrity.

Judgment is making decisions about someone’s essence. For instance, to use our terms from the message, when that boy/girl that behaves violently, full of bitterness, with anger, rage and hatred, he/she IS, in the deepest parts of themselves, that kind of person, and worse, will always be that kind of person. We lock them in a box they can never escape. When Jesus says, “Do not judge,” I think He means to open that box. Whether they climb out of the box built from their own actions, or not, is up to them and Jesus Christ, certainly not me. I can hope & pray they do. And maybe that box involves the consequences of those actions or our boundaries. But we no longer hold the key to another’s cell.

And then Jesus brilliantly turns our spotlight into a mirror. “Take the plank out of your own eye.” So, we no longer have the key to another’s cell, but we do have the key to our own. We can leave. We can start anew, and write a beautiful new story. We can allow and encourage others to do the same. We can become the people who can take the super soldier serum or win the lottery and use it to bless everyone, everywhere.

Dreams

I have 2 website where I write. There’s this one, and there’s another where I choose to discuss movies and music and terrible referees or whatever catches my eye. The hosting site gives a prompt every day, I’ll sometimes use that. That blog is always about Jesus, too, because everything is always about Jesus. I just might not use Bible verses there. Every now and then, a post happens and it fits into both spaces. This is one of those.

I’ve been meaning to write about a verse in 1st Kings, I started it 2 weeks ago, and it’ll be cool, but I keep getting sidetracked by basketball points or snow days or, in this case, dreaming. I assure you, I will get to that one, just not today. So, anyway, here it is:

This site is asking me what my dream job is… 

There’s a story in the Bible I reference often. A blind man reaches out to Jesus, asking for help, and to this, Jesus responds, “What do you want me to do for you?” It sounds pretty simple and obvious, but I have found it’s anything but simple or easy. For an endless number of reasons, we don’t ask to see. We ask for a new can or sunglasses, or a better attitude to deal with the blindness, or enhanced hearing or taste. This man alongside the road understands the assignment, asks to see, and is immediately granted his sight. 

So, like the site, I sit down with people and ask, “What do you want?” How they answer that is always fascinating. But the saddest reply (for both of us) is, “I don’t know.” We’ve gotten so used to blindness. Or we’ve lowered our hopes & expectations to the point where sight is impossible. Or, in the case of the site’s question, we’ve stopped dreaming a long time ago.

I had a job for 16 years. It changed my life for the first 10, then quickly deteriorated for the last 6. You’d think I would pray for a new job, new opportunities, an imagination that could hope for a new path. Just something new and wonderful. But my prayer was to endure in a more positive fashion. The site question wouldn’t have made sense. The question from Jesus would’ve been met with silence. 

Probably, the most damage we can inflict on our children is to steal their imagination. The adults in the room talk about realistic expectations (which is just another way to open the door for them to join us in dark rooms of despair.) I want to be a superhero. Really? Why? To help people. Because I see injustice. To fix what is broken. Whatever the why, there are a million pathways for that. But I was told, over and over, that it was impossible, that I was wrong and had better craft a Plan B (or C or F) that was more reasonable. Go to college, make money, work in a nice office with a window and fancy title. Get a job and a new car. Wear a suit & tie. Pull your head out of the clouds and chain it to the plow of consumerism. Superheroes aren’t real life.

Except they are. I meet superheroes every day, I see people do extraordinary feats all around. It just takes eyes to see – maybe that’s the point of the interaction between that man and Jesus. We might have our sight, but we sure can’t see. They are (you are) ordinary men & women who haven’t had their dreams dashed on the rocks of ‘good sense,’ who still believe that we can make a difference and change the world, who still believe that every day is a chance to rewrite what is, and create what will be, who love without limit or abandon. Ordinary? No way, they are absolutely superheroes, they just don’t wear capes and cowls.

This is what I get to do. I get to ask those questions, re-frame the conversation, and try to inject some hope back into our lives. This is my dream job, and those grown-ups were wrong, I do get the chance to be a superhero.

1,000 Points

Maybe the least surprising thing to you is that I’m writing today, about this. Last night, my youngest son, named after the prophet Elisha, scored his 1,000th point as a basketball player. It was on a great move, where he was fouled, and the bucket counted, on what’s called an “and-1.” The game stopped, while we all stood and cheered this significant achievement. The Angel, my oldest son, and I were able to go on the court to hug him and take pictures. I told you I’d be the one with the watery eyes, and I was. I think we all were.

Then, less than 5 minutes later, he blocked a shot and, as he came down, rolled his ankle and missed the rest of the game and probably the rest of the week (at least). I may have mentioned (a time or 2 million) that an authentic, fully present life is held with 2 hands, in this case, great celebration and pain, minutes apart.

We all looooved last night, and we went to bed, aching with disappointment. 2 hands.

This young man, my son, and I prayed in the training room. I asked him what hurt more, his heart or his ankle, to which he replied, “same.” His concern was over their hopes at playoffs. Then, later, after the game (a loss), he composed himself and graciously received the accolades and congratulations from those who showed up to love him, thanking every one. In those moments, I could so clearly see my boy becoming the man he will be. Sunday night, I told him that we would be talking so much about his athletic performance, which is considerable, but our love for him has absolutely nothing to do with points or wins. And when I told him last night how proud of him I am, that also had nothing to do with a ball or a hoop.

But as far as a ball and hoop go, these points and this celebration, he earned them. Almost no one sees the hours and hours, the buckets of sweat, the study, the focus he invests. 1,000 points don’t just happen, they are the product of much, much more than 4 – 8 minute quarters. He’s gifted, of course, but he has worked to explore the depth of those gifts, to see what might be possible. An evening in January looks/feels far off on empty courts in June, but they do come.

I wrote a post yesterday about the intense hypocrisy of the adults from Friday’s game (who may have been from Lancaster Mennonite;). Before the game last night, the head coach of our opponents last night found me in the hallway and congratulated me, and asked many questions about my boy. His job was to beat our team, but he was one of those who cared for the boys on both teams. It’s no surprise his son (who I had the privilege/pleasure to know and coach) is so classy and kind. The juxtaposition between the 2 people could not have been more stark, and made Friday’s coach and program look that much worse. I relayed our conversation to my son, and he said how that coach (whose name may have been Chris George, and whose team may have been Northern Lebanon) also spoke with him, and expressed his genuine sadness with the injury. It was a wonderful illustration of the best part of sports.

Now. The real reason I opened my computer to write today was not on the court. The stands were packed full of people who love this beautiful young man. Friends drove hours to be there, made plans, gave up their own valuable time to sit in a gym on a frigid Monday night. You know, we fall in love with Jesus, we intentionally create these lives together, trying to step into our call every day, each moment, choosing our values, deciding who we’ll be and what we believe, and time passes, and we rarely get the opportunity to stand back and see the divine blessings that God has bestowed. Then, you happen to look up from your seat in the stands, and see the people of these lives filing in to love your son, and it is then that you can truly see the love and grace of God.

My post yesterday was, a little, about the dangers of tying Jesus to the actions of His followers. My post today is about the upside of that relationship. As we posed for pictures on the court, teary eyed and full, I looked up into the stands and I saw the faces of our lives, the answers to our prayers, our hope manifest. God may not always give a paved road, full of gobs of money, comfort and ease, but He gives us each other, and that is so much more than enough, so much better.

I am overwhelmed. I am grateful. He has a thousand and three points and I have a ba-zillion thank you’s that I’ll try to give to Him, and to you, with my life.

Hypocrisy

In this documentary I’m  in the process of watching, a girl named Natalia Grace is living with a family where the husband/father is a bishop in a denominational local church. As he was introduced, I said to the Angel, “Oh no, I hope he’s not the worst, and doesn’t do anything awful.” Maybe he will, but there was a scene where he got into an argument that nearly turned physical with Natalia Grace’s previous adoptive father. It began with the bishop’s stern scolding for this guy to watch his language, and that was enough. The scolded person raged like a child, tearing off his microphone and leaving. The bishop and the guy’s lawyer faced off, taking this all into the street, where they were nose to nose, all peacocks trying to assert their dominance in typical neanderthal behavior. Sigh.

And I thought of Paul’s letters.

Then, last week, we had a basketball game at a Christian high school (which may have been Lancaster Mennonite). Over the last many years, we have found religious schools to be at the bottom in terms of behavior and sportsmanship, this school (which may have been Lancaster Mennonite) consistently being the very most depressing.

As a matter of fact, I wrote my one and only heartbroken email to a school website after a particularly gross display. I almost wrote my second last week.

We had quite a few friends and family members there to watch my son’s game, some of whom aren’t Jesus followers, for the same reason most aren’t. If you ask people on any street to describe Christians, the first response isn’t usually “loving,” “kind,” or “patient,” it’s not sin or mistakes or anything related to what we actually do, it’s “hypocritical.” And if our call is the Great Commission, hypocrisy is the major obstacle. I am more and more convinced that it’s very nearly impossible to meet the real Jesus, and read the real Bible, and not fall in love with Him. But we don’t, and instead, we decide who He is, and what the Scriptures say, based on the people who follow Him and sit in pews on Sunday morning.

Now, we can recognize that we are all hypocritical sometimes, right? I am and you are, but we know each other, we have a close relationship with a lot of history and experience, so it’s fairly easy to accept each other’s flaws. It’s why it’s so much easier to call someone a monster from far away and rationalize the same actions in our home. BUT, if the first impression you had of me was me aggressively pretending to be one thing while I am clearly another, we might not have gotten to have that deep, rich history in our relationship.

The fact that this Christian school from last week (which may or may not have been Lancaster Mennonite) has chosen winning high school basketball games perhaps isn’t the main problem, it’s the corporate prayer over the loudspeaker before the game, and the circle of players at half court afterwards that is.

If you’re driving home today, and a monster truck, whose driver is yelling out the window, giving you 2 hands of birds, cuts you off, and as you’re veering from the road into the grass, you see that truck speeding away with a school of Jesus fish and Bible verse stickers papering the tailgate…well, I don’t imagine you’re going home looking for a local church to get to the bottom of that person’s faith.

Paul writes about tv documentary bishops and half court prayers in most of his letters, except he uses words & phrases like “live blameless lives,” “don’t drink so much, or “be faithful to your wife,” and lots of other timely examples. Not because if we’re not blameless or if we lie or want our neighbor’s donkey, God will be mad at us and rescind our rescue, revoke our salvation. After all, Paul also says, “everything is permissible,” and “I can do anything,” says that salvation (thankfully) isn’t based on our resume in the least. However, in the next breath, he says, “don’t do anything that causes another to fall.” So much of the list of behaviors are really about removing any obstacles that we build between ourselves and Jesus’ love. That’s our call and our mission. He knows if I am not faithful to my wife in my personal life while I am publicly teaching the texts that speak of honor and fidelity, it might be a bitter pill for you to swallow, and a pill that might push you far away. If I teach of purity, and you see me at a place I should not be, with people I should not be with, doing things I should not be doing, it could act as a wedge that keeps you away (whether that is fair or not.)

I’m writing this, not to disparage that bishop or that school (which may or may not be…you get the picture), but as a real life epistle from the Apostle Paul. The Bible happened, and it happens everyday since. The Great Commission is still our commission, just because we can doesn’t mean we should, and our call is, has always been, to build bridges. It is to get us to lower our arms so He can wrap His around us all. And sometimes prayers on the town square aren’t meant for Him at all.