Mystic Cords of Nonsense

Being a youth pastor and a PhD student in Church History is often a peculiar combination.

This past week I've been reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's 700+ page book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It's a good book. I recommend it.

The problem is, it has absolutely nothing to do with the activity night I had planned for my seventh through tenth graders last night.

Or so I thought.

One of the games we were playing last night involved each person writing a small paragraph about themselves in as vague a way possible. I then read each paragraph back to them and we tried to guess who was who. For a little added wackiness, I has us all make up a funny fact about Abraham Lincoln to add to our paragraphs.

Among other things, we learned:

1.) Abraham Lincoln was secretly a crazy ninja that starred in movies such as Kung Fu Hustle.

2.) Abraham Lincoln had a big bump on the top of his head. That's why he wore that hat.

3.) Abraham Lincoln was so cool he taught Superman how to fly.

and my personal favorite....

4.) Abraham Lincoln had a pet leprechaun.

Every now and then, being a youth pastor makes history fun...and makes me realize that my life isn't quite as divided as I sometimes think.

Which is good, because I hear that houses divided against themselves don't do a good job standing...

More of Gravy

For a long time I've thought about including the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in a sermon. If for nothing else,there's a lot in it that "will preach." Greed, sin, redemption, love, forgiveness. It's all there.

While these are each important themes, I think the idea that most fascinates me about Scrooge is that it's likely he never set out to be a bad man. That he never intended to be the lonely old bachelor he is when we meet him on Christmas Eve.

Here, of course, I'm thinking of the flashback to his past. No matter which movie version you've seen, you know the picture: he's young and in love and engaged a wonderful young woman.

Yet in the midst of this, something happens.

Consider the possibility. Scrooge, it seems, wants to focus his attention on his work. On getting ahead. On being able to be financially secure in order to provide for his wife-to-be. No doubt this was in his mind the noblest of goals. But as he pursues it, that for which he was working the most slowly slipped away.

Like us, Scrooge never imagined himself a person whose name would be synonymous with wrongdoing. He was simply trying to do the smart thing. To do what he needed in life. After all, making money is not in itself an evil thing. It is just a thing.

But failing to do what is needed because our attention is too tightly focused on one area of our lives? Letting love and beauty slip away because we can't see the forest for the trees? Sure, it happens. But that's rough.

You see, a lot of times we think that the Church is telling people they're just plain evil and need to stop. And ya, sometimes that's true.

But sometimes...well, sometimes it is just trying to help us all see how misplaced our focus is. How mixed up our priorities are--so much so that we might not even realize.

How, in spite of all our wisdom and plans and seeming sureties, we--like Scrooge--are lost in the truest sense.

Once More

There's a couple of lines from the song "Square One" on Coldplay's most recent album that grab me in a particular way:

From the top of the first page/

To the end of the last day

The words make me think about the last day. The end. Whether our own or the universe's...in a certain sense I'm not sure if it matters.

I sit and I think and I wonder what the last day will be like. What my life and what all our lives will be like. If we'll know that day will be our last.

I have further to ask what I would do were I to know today was my last. Indeed, what any of us would do armed with that fatal information.

Would we, I wonder, do anything different?

Now, of course, the old sermon illustration is that we should live our lives in such a way that every day would be a fitting last day. That each day's journey is taken to the utmost.

While I track with that idealism quite well, I know all the same how messy life is...and how much we let slip through each of our fingers every moment of every day. How many regrets and missed opportunities can haunt us long after their time has passed.

So what, then? What would we do differently if today was our last day? What chances would we take? What lost loves would we track down? What relationships would we try to mend? What parts of our life would we reflect on and hope to recapture as we gazed back over the long course of our life's race?

In short, who would we be on that day?

It might seem morbid to talk of last days. All the same, sitting here thinking about them makes me a little keener on the journey of life, a little happier for the experiences I've had so far and, Lord willing, that I don't have to fit my hopes, dreams, and regrets into the fleeting hours of April 19th. If I did, well...that would be something.

All the same, it's worth considering:

If today's was the last sunset, what would I do? What would you?

My Dear Watson

"This is a great mystery, and I take it to mean Christ and the Church."

Ephesians 5:32

Thinking back to my teenage years, I can honestly credit my home church for helping make me the person I am today. And I'm not even sure if they knew they were doing it.

Now, did I always want to go? Sit through another sermon? Pray yet again? Well, no. And even when I did go, my motives weren't always the most pious.

You see, there was a pretty girl. There were good friends. There were fun youth group activities.

And yet.

Even though I didn't know what was happening, I was growing. Becoming older. Learning from God. Learning about relationships--with God, with my peers, with pastors and older people who I might have never otherwise come into contact with.

God was doing His work in those days. Molding me into something. Protecting me from myself and the dangers that surrounded me. Showing me what the true Church was really all about. And it wasn't something that anyone forced. It was God.

When I think today about the young people I pastor, I want God to shelter them and help them grow in the same way. I want us all to be bound to each other...not because we would have become friends anyway, but because God holds each of us tight in His arms, binding us together for His purposes.

Perhaps through this we will all begin to realize what "church" is supposed to be.

It's not a building...but it happens there. It's not a pastor preaching a sermon...but God does speak there. It's not a bunch of people spending time together...but it is God at work in the midst of gathered individuals, helping them become a community seeking to spread God's message of love to a world whose experience of relationships is often hollow and disjointed.

Without God working through the fragile fellowship of my own home church, I would not be where I am today. I know this. So tight were the bonds He formed in our midst that I still have friends from those days and will always credit those years as foundational for everything that came after. And I know that God's work in the Church is not done yet.

How does it happen? I can only point to God.

Sure, it's a mystery...but I'd be lost without it.

What Is Truth?

People hate hypocrites. They do. In many ways, they are seen as one of the lowest forms of life...things that are not worthy of attention, much less any positive regard.

In the eyes of so many, the Church is seen as the ultimate repository of people who can be classified as nothing other than "hypocrite." Smug and santimonious souls who sit back demanding that others follow the rules when they themselves transgress in so many ways.

And this is no urban myth. It does happen. It happens because we often think we are righteous in our own eyes. We like to convince ourselves of wished-for realities that have never been a part of our own lives. We lie to ourselves about our powers and quash our doubts by forcing rules on others. We go on like this for a long time, demanding perfection and never admitting our own woeful failures.

I desperately desire to avoid hypocrisy. It is destructive...it is damaging...and it is a lie. Yet as a minister, I know that people will come to me for moral direction. For spiritual guidance. To them I am a role model and in some sense am called upon to be as perfect as possible. And whether or not I have always followed the advice I must give them, I know I must give it because I believe and know its true.

The problem is that I'm not perfect. Far from it.

So does giving firm direction and/or telling others they are wrong in areas where one has faltered oneself make a person a hypocrite? It's a good question.

Yes, if I do so as if I was perfect. As if the wrong choice that a person might make is so obvious and easy that only the most ignorant or depraved would choose it. And believe me, the urge to treat someone like that can sometimes be a temptation.

No, if I can be honest about my own mistakes. If I can admit that wrong choices are sometimes easiest. If I can use my own experiences to help others understand wiser courses and better roads. If both of us can seek God's truth by the power of His grace.

For in the end, I would hope that guiding someone away from the mistakes one has made is not hypocrisy at all, but love.

An Easter Prayer

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it produces only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
John 12:23-24

“Where O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
I Corinthians 15:55

We have come this morning to rejoice in the strangest of facts. The oddest of events. In a deep inconceivability that transcends us all…yet binds us each together.

We have come, O God, to rejoice in your resurrection—a victory over death that we little understand but for which we cannot offer enough of our thanks.

We exalt you this morning with ever increasing joy for this victory over the world’s fiercest foe, knowing full well that this accomplishment was not simply a one time trick of magic, not a performance to be applauded, but the end of Death itself. It means that our lives need no longer be bound by sin, by failure, by death. That the doubts and fears and pains of life have been met in you and done away with.

Though our lives have been dry and empty, like water spilled in the midst of the vast desert that is this cruel world, your power has gathered it all back together and made us whole.

Your first creation, though marred by our mistakes—sins that continue in each our lives to this very day—has again been restored to its rightful place. Death has been turned backwards, life springs anew, and our lives have been saved from the pit of their own ruin.

Though our weeks and days and months have been cold, we seek to do nothing but bask now in the warmth of your Holy Son, the one slain from the foundations of the world to bring us freedom. A freedom announced so boldly this morning by the sign of an empty tomb.

God, do not let us this day pass over these facts too lightly. Bind them deep in our hearts. Keep them ever in our minds. Let both your love and power at work on our behalf ever encourage and lighten our steps as we join together one with another in praise to you and walk into a world that needs your new life now as it has from time immemorial.

Raise us up from our death, O God. Raise us up from our sin. Raise us up to serve you, to live in new life filled with love. Let us live with the hope we know is true. The hope of this Easter and the hope of all Easters.

The hope of Jesus Christ.

This we humbly and thankfully pray in the matchless and gracious name of our Lord.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A Hard Day's Night

Someone has asked me what God actually did on that Cross. It's a good question.

Amongst theologians, answers to that question are called "theories of atonement."

But then I don't really like theologians.

The short answer is that it is impossible to know. Sure, we acknowledge the effect--our salvation and deliverance from sin and darkness--but does that really explain what happened?

Well, not exactly.

All can I tell you is what I know about myself. You see, I know that I struggle through life. I know that I mess up. Sometimes this is because I accidentally stumble into something. Sometimes it's because my heart and focus are in the wrong place. Whatever the case, I just can't deny how much I fail and invite the spirit that kills into the center of my soul.

And I have tried to fix my own shortcomings, repair the destruction I have wrought...tried to resuscitate those parts of me, those relationships, those situations that are dead because of me. Most of the time, I haven't been able to. Even if I am, they promise never to be the same.

As I said, I speak only for myself. Maybe there are others who do not have such problems. Who don't mess up or when they do can always fix it. But that's not me. All I know is that I have been powerless to control such things and am incapable of stopping the forces of death my actions have unleashed.

What I need? Someone else to intervene, take the bullet. Use His power to absorb the mistakes that will certainly destroy me. For though they're mine to deal with, I can't do anything about them.

In a way, that is the divine nonsense that is the message of the Cross. It's God saying, "Josh, I know you're a putz. You're ruining yourself and have fallen so far under the power of death that I'm going to have to take your place. And don't argue with me about this. I'm doing this because it's the only way and you know it. I'm doing this because I love you."

Now why would someone do that? I don't know. But He did.

And that's a very good thing.

Not So Good

As a minister, there is one day a year that I want to ignore the gospel. Forget about resurrection. Turn a blind eye to grace.

That day is today.

Today marks the death of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. It marks the day that He died in order to carry the weighty sins of our darkened world.

That's no light matter. No light matter at all. Nevertheless we Christians love to talk about Easter and immediately jump to reborn life, saying everything is quite alright.

As if our sins had no consequences. As if there was no price. As if it is all simply a nice story with which we enjoy comforting ourselves. It's a dangerous position to hold, especially in light of all of us out there who know quite well the effect that evil has upon ourselves, our world, and the lives of those it comes into contact with.

Failing to really think about death in our everyday lives is bad enough. It blinds us to reality and gives us a woefully false sense of security.

But failing to think about death on this day? Well, that's a travesty and does a great dishonor to our God.

For it was on this day almost two thousand years ago that God Himself was beaten. Was bled dry. Was totally and utterly spent...and not so Mel Gibson could make a movie. It was on this day the Creator of the universe came face to face with the enemy of all life and had His own taken from Him. Though he drank of His own free will, the cup he took was still one of utter destruction.

You see, on this day God is dead.

Thoughts of Suppers Past

We remember today the final meal Jesus shared with His disciples before the Crucifixion. The last time he broke bread with them. The fleeting moment all twelve of them were together in just that way.

I've been thinking about other "last times" today. Among those, I've been trying to remember the last time I ever saw my grandfather.

I think it was when I was heading off to college for my sophomore year. Before we said goodbye, he made sure to slip me some spending money. He would often do things like that. I was thankful for the money, but honestly gave it little extra thought. I certainly didn't know it was the last time we'd ever look at each other.

Yet there it was.

Over two years later I remember saying goodbye to all of my friends from college in the few passing moments that followed commencement. Taking pictures, hugging one another, holding back tears. We all knew it would never be the same again.

And there we were.

So too I well remember watching someone I cared about drive off slowly down the road for the last time. Something was very final about it...and I knew it.

For me, the Last Supper seems similar. It intrigues me.

Why? Well, I suspect it has to do with my own predilection for remembrance of things past. The way in which I think about final moments and "last times." Like some of those, this meal seems like a perfect moment...without a doubt the last the disciples would have before the events of that terrible weekend.

I'm not certain if all the disciples knew what was going on. The severity of it. Matter of fact, I'll bet they didn't. Yet things came and events took place.

And as they looked back later in life, I'll bet they knew. This particular supper? Ya, it was the last.

Jesus would return in glory, yes...and the disciples had God-given missions ahead of them. But still...it would was the last time all of them who had spent some much time together following Jesus around--even Judas--were together in just that way.

If we think hard enough, we know exactly what those bittersweet moments are like. We've had them, they carry a uniqueness to them that remains deeply meaningful...and they're gone.

Still, we remember them forever.

Day After Day

Lear: "Dost thou call me fool, boy?"

Fool: "All thy other titles thou has given away; that thou wast born with."

King Lear I.iv. 96-97

I am not sure what to write. Musings about life, Scriptural thoughts, random observations...well, they all aren't really grabbing me today.

Because today I am sad. Sad for choices I have made. Sad for some of the things I've become. Sad for some of the ways I have treated others.

This week is known as "Holy Week." For Christians, it serves to mark the last days of Jesus' life. It comes at the end of the season of repentance and fasting known as Lent and culminates in Good Friday and Easter.

Much of today's sadness is connected to a certain mourning I have been in for nearly this entire Lenten season. A mourning for specific choices made and actions taken.

And despite the fact that the Resurrection is almost here, I'm not ready for it.

I know about grace and I know about forgiveness. I've preached about them and experienced them and shared them with others. But now it all seems too easy. Grace seems cheap.

Maybe all of this is meant in some small way to help me understand the weight of sin and death that was the Cross. That somehow Jesus managed to carry this too.

But why did he have too? Well, because of me. Because of you. Because of our woeful and damning disregard of ourselves and others. And if that doesn't give us pause for mourning in this Holiest of Weeks, I am not sure anything will.

All I know is that I am sad.

And frankly, a fool.