Provocatively Unorthodox

Who are you? - Podcasted

2012-01-30T19:06:00.002-04:00

a sermon preached earlier this month. you can find the text below somewhere.

it's fixed too - this one has the full audio.

Poets and Prophets: Anis Mojgani

2012-01-27T18:01:00.002-04:00

poets and prophets: a new series looking at people who see that another world can be imagined and who call each of us into that dream to bring it into a reality. This week: Anis Mojgani, an Iranian poet from New Orleans. His poem 'Shake the Dust:'

Isaiah was a prophet.

Someone who called peopleto imagine a world beyond their wildest dreams -

one completely different from the one they experienced every day -

and to chase after it knowing that it was God's world and God would make it a reality.

Isaiah was doing doing this in a world where hope was almost laughable,

where remembering what God's world was like was difficult to do,

where things were so bad and painful that going back to a world of bricks occasionally seemed like a good idea.

Things had been going so well for them but now all that had changed.

Israel had been knocked down, beat up, and dragged away from their land - and land meant everything, especially for them as that was the land God brought them too, a land far away from the bricks they carried while in slavery in Egypt.

To drag them away from this land was like dragging them away from who they are as a people,

it was an unexpected twist in their story.

It wasn't supposed to go back to bricks.

It's never supposed to go back to bricks.

Yet back to bricks it was.

Maybe it was all just a lark, maybe these hands and backs were made for bricks after all.

We all know what its like to go back to bricks.

To return to those things that enslave us in one way or another.

We each have our bricks we carry.

Bricks.

Baggage.

Scars.

Fears.

Failures.

When we carry these things for so long it can be hard to imagine something different.

We all long to put them down, to stretch and wipe the dirt off our hands and walk away from these buildings we are making.

Israel longed for that too.

And Isaiah, knowing that a world of bricks is not the world that God intended nor would tolerate,

proclaimed to them saying:

"Shake yourself from the dust and rise up! Loose the bonds around your neck and rise up!

God says to each one of you: 'You were sold for nothing and you'll be redeemed for nothing. Now it's time that my people know who I am, what I'm made of—yes, that I have something to say.

I am here.' Shake the dust for God is here. God is on the move. You are not alone. There is hope.

God is watching over you. Shake the dust and arise!"

Isaiah was proclaiming hope. Isaiah was proclaiming redemption and new life.

That bricks and baggage do not define identity and worth because God is on the move and another world is breaking into this one.

To all who feared they could not escape a life of bricks the prophet proclaimed:

"Shake the dust and arise off the ground. Move forward knowing that you are not alone. Shake the dust and arise."

That's liberation. That's the gospel.

It's what Paul was talking about in his letter to the Romans.

That's what I hear in Anis Mojgani's poem.

We hear ourselves throughout it for we are the people he is speaking to,

the broken, the hurt, the forgotten, the struggling, the brick carriers.

And for each of us his message is the same.

Shake the dust.

Like the prophet before him, Mojgani speaks a message of hope to a world where bricks are far too prevalent, where bricks stop us from imagining another world is possible.

Like the prophet before him, Mojgani proclaims:

"Shake the dust. You are alive. These things cannot and will not beat you and hold you down.

Don't let them, because another world is possible and these things do not have power over you.

So shake off the dust of those bricks and rise up, opening up the door to a world without bricks."

To you who struggles with being the fat girl, with conquering your vices and temptations, with being unheard and forgotten ... there is good news for you: those things do not define you or hold you back from imagining and bringing forth a new world. Shake the dust.

Who Are You?

2012-01-17T21:56:00.003-04:00

There once was a rabbi named Kolev.
One evening, on the way home from the synagogue, it started to get dark and foggy
- so dark and foggy in fact that Kolev could hardly where he was going.
He walked straight past the road that would take him home
and ended up walking straight towards the Roman military barracks.
The guard who was up in the watchtower saw him coming and yelled down:
“Who are you?”
Kolev said: “eh?”
“Who are you?” He yelled.
Kolev looked at the guard, the guard looked at Kolev, and Kolev looked at the guard.
Kolev paused and responded: “How much are they paying you?”
The solider said: “eh?”
“How much are they paying you?” He yelled.
The guard looked at Kolev, and Kolev looked at the guard, and the guard looked at Kolev.
“I get paid 20 denari a week.”
Kolev responded: “I will double that if you come to my home each morning and ask me that exact same question.”

I was a pretty average kid.
That is to say I was not a prodigy at anything –
math remains one of my mortal enemies and despite my best attempts and my love for it, I’m a mediocre musician at best.

There was, one thing, however.
And it’s totally coincidental considering what I do today . . .
I was a theologically precocious.

I was theologically precocious because by the age of six I had church figured out.
I knew what Church was all about.
Church, in my mind, came down to three things.
They are, in a very specific order – you should probably write this down:
Corduroy Pants, Ladies with Hats, Cookies.

I knew that on Sunday morning my mom would make me put on my brown Corduroy pants
and then we’d all pile in the station wagon and head to church.
I hated wearing those pants.
They are the pants thieves and assassins hate to wear because that swish-swish-swish sound which makes it impossible to sneak around anywhere ...
and secretly, between us, I was scared of them, those pants freaked me out.
They freaked me out because I was scared that the lines in the pants would get stuck in each other and I'd fall down in front of the whole church.
"Oh," they'd say years later, "there goes the boy who fell down in church."
But I put them on anyway because I knew that everything Church was about hinged on me wearing brown corduroy pants.
I was not about to let my congregation down.

I knew that if I wore my brown corduroy pants
I would be irresistible to the Ladies with Hats
and we all know who they are -
they run the church.
And more importantly,
they run the fellowship time after church . . . coffee and conversation . . .
which invariably means of course,
they controlled the cookies!

I knew that if I could woo those ladies with my corduroy pants
who would then give me a cookie –
maybe even two if I showed off my macaroni Sunday school craft.

Church, in my six year old mind, was always about the cookies.
Can I get an Amen?

That is so ridiculous.

But really . . . what is Church about?
It’s a good question to ask, especially today.
Today we did a baptism.
When asked if we'd support them we stood up with those being baptized and said ‘We will, God being our helper.”
We did that because?
Ah yes, because its in the bulletin and that’s what you do in a baptism.

But this communal statement of ‘We will’ is so important because
it connects to a very central part of what Church is all about.

Church
– not the building, not what takes place on Sunday, but us, the community,
the New Humanity, the fans and followers of Jesus –
Church is about helping those who are baptized,
those who walk in our doors, and those around us,
Church is about helping ask and answer the question Kolev saw as so important:
'Who are you?'

We help them ask and answer ‘who am I?’ because the answer we give can't be found anywhere else. It is an answer that is tied directly to what Jesus is all about and what God is doing in this world.

So …
Who are you?

That is a big question isn’t it?
It’s not just asking what your name is either … it goes far deeper than that.
It’s a big question because it’s ultimately about identity and of worth.

Identity and worth . . . things we all crave and long for …
to be considered somebody, to be known and seen, to be valued . . . to be loved.

And this question of ‘who am I?’ can be so crippling too …
because all too often the right answer –
who we’re supposed to be -
is already given to us.
All too often we don’t really have a say in the matter of who we are,
because who we are is all predetermined by all sorts of
values, expectations, and norms that are totally out of our control.

All too often our worth and identity is predicated on:
- whether or not you look like the people in the magazines.
- whether or not you’re employed.
- whether or not you’re active and healthy.
- whether you have a family to go home to.
- whether or not you’re free of vices and a sketchy past.
- on how nice your house is, let alone if you have a place to live.
- on how many degrees you have and where you work.

We could go on couldn’t we?

If our identity and worth doesn’t match up with what is deemed good and valuable by the world around us then we feel like we’re nobodies,
not worth very much,
unimportant,
invisible.
maybe even unloveable.
Cause hey – if everyone thinks it then it’s got to be true.

My friend Rene knows this all too well.
She would be the first to say that she knows what its like to be a nobody, to be unwanted, to not be worth very much, to be unloveable.
Her mom was a meth addict, and her dad gave up on her mom long before he knew a baby was on the way.
At two years old she was told to go play at her neighbours and that was the last she saw of her mom;
her mom cared more about chasing after her next fix than chasing after her own daughter.

From there on out, all she remembers is one group home after another.
From the age of two until she was seventeen, from one house to the next,
continually passed along . . .
never becoming somebody to someon,
never really seen or touched,
never invested in,
never really loved,
just another girl in a room in a house full of girls in rooms.

Fourteen years of that and she began to believe that it was all true.
She was a nobody. She was kid nobody wants or even sees.

Rene’s story is a great one because, like all good stories, we can relate to it.
In someway we’ve all been there.
We’ve all struggled with who we are and what we’re worth ...
We’ve all struggled with the idea that maybe we’re just not important ...
maybe we’re just not worth very much.

It’s just too easy isn’t it? So easy to believe it …

"Well obviously if he keeps hitting me I must deserve it."
"Everyone makes fun of me at school so there must be something wrong with me."
"She keeps telling me Im a loser, maybe she’s got a point."

People keep saying it and we become smaller and smaller …
‘Who are you?’ they’ll ask. ‘Oh, Im just a nobody.’

Jesus’ day was no different when it comes to this struggle for identity and worth.
A lot like today, people’s identities and worth was predicated on stuff they had no control over – status, race, religion, gender.
So many people knew what it felt like to be seen as worthless,
a nobody, unseen, unwanted, unimportant.

It was this world, one a lot like our own, that God entered.

There’s this story in the Bible.
Jesus is up on the hillside in Galilee preaching the Gospel,
the good news of redemption and restoration,
the good news that God is moving in this world,
that things are beginning to change,
that the Kingdom of God is here,
that through him God is putting the world back to the way it was always meant to be –
a world of love, justice, peace and harmony.

And it’s on this hillside that Jesus gives what more than a few scholars say is the condensed version Jesus’ teachings.

The Sermon on the Mount.

And it’s right at the beginning of this sermon that we find all those ‘Blessed be’s’
– the Beatitudes.

Tom Long writes that if you want to know what God’s Kingdom looks like –
what the values and norms of it are -
then the Beatitudes are a good place to begin.
It’s there that we get a glimpse into just how
backwards, upside down and inside out God’s world will be.

And that, my friends, there’s hope in that – beautiful, profound hope.
It lets us know that God and God’s world is not conformed to ours.
It lets us know that God’s world is so radically different than anything we can imagine.

So there is Jesus, preaching how God’s world is here
and it is so different from this one,
and doing so to crowd of people who are told day after day that
if you don’t have wealth,
or if you don’t have religion,
or if you’re a woman,
or if youre a slave,
then you’re a nobody.

To all of them he says:
‘Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.’

I haven’t come across too many translations of verse that I think work ...
I dont think translating meek as humble really captures what Jesus is trying to get at. He’s speaking to a bunch of people who will never, ever, own or inherit land
and who therefore, will never, ever, be really seen as anyone important.

But I do love what the great philosopher Dallas Willard did with this verse.
He translate it as:

“Blessed are the zeros, the nobodies, and those always picked last, for God sees you as important, as somebody and will pick you first.”

“Blessed are the zeros, the nobodies, and those always picked last, for God sees you as important, as somebody and will pick you first.”

To all who feel like their identity and worth is predetermined,
to all who feel like their a zero, a nobody, someone who just doesn’t matter enough for someone to pay attention to, Jesus has some good news for them:
“In God’s world you get your land.
In God’s world you are someone.
In God’s world you are important.”

We see this throughout the New Testament,
Jesus helping people see that their identity and worth
is not dictated by the world around them
but that their identity and worth lies exclusively with God,
and that is a word, first and foremost, of love.

Rene was 17 or so and she was walking down the street one winter night,
not knowing really where to go as her group home was just as cold and lonely as the streets were.

She had been cutting herself for years now, wanting to feel something other than nothing, hoping that someone would see her scars and realize she needs someone to see her …

It was then that she heard some music, very soft, very subtle, floating over the drifting snow.

She followed it until it led her into a church.
A church a lot like this one.
Sitting in the back Rene first heard about this God who loves unconditionally
and how that love that, as Paul wrote, is more powerful and more definitive
than anything else that tries to define us.

That was the day that life began to change for Rene …
It changed because the guys in the worship band,
the people she sat beside, everyone within that church
saw her the way God does and helped her realize that
who she is and what she is worth is not tied to her past, looks, or abilities
but is rooted in God’s love.

It’s an amazing thing
- knowing who you are –
knowing that who you are defined by God's love.
Rene started to put down the knives,
stopped doubting herself,
stopped listening to the world around her call her nothing, a zero, a nobody.

Part of what we, the Church, are all about
is to a world struggling with who they are and what they are worth,
is passing on the gospel message that your identity and worth
is bound up in one thing and one thing alone: God’s love.
And that is something that nothing, nothing in all creation, can take away.
God's love and God's grace are simply too big for that to happen.

To those baptized and everyone else who comes through our door
we help them know – by living it out – that just like at Jesus’ own baptism
God stands over us and says:
‘You are marked by my love.’

We don't do it for the cookies,
we do it because we're the Church;
because we have found in that love new life and new purpose.
Let us remember our own baptism,
let us remember this love that God declared over us,
let us remember who we are within it and let us go from this place
showing the world that blessed are the zeros, the nobodies, those always picked
last for God sees you as someone, as important, and God will pick you first.

Go in peace.
Go in love.
Go and do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit be with you always and forever.
Amen.

It's Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T15:59:00.003-04:00

It's Christmas Eve.
Tomorrow's a pretty huge day.
Christmas is the day when we remember that very first Christmas, way back in the day,
when everything began to change because a baby was born.
A baby to change the world ...
It's ridiculous, so counter-intuitive and nonsensical, yet staggeringly beautiful.
Christmas is when God came into our world in the form of a little baby named Jesus,
bringing to us, in the most palpable and decisive way imaginable, such love, joy, peace and hope.
Just as the angel proclaimed back then, they proclaim to us tonight:
"Hey! Unto you a child is born!"
This child is a message for all of us. For you, me, us; for everyone from Attawapiskat to Syria, from the Philippines to the penthouses of Yorkville.
It is a message that God is with us, that we are not alone, that the darkness does not win, that we are all loved and wanted, that there is more grace than we can know what to do with, that things are never going to be the same.
They wont be the same because that baby started something that can never be changed, something that we can be a part of, and that something is God putting this world back to the way it was meant to be - a world where all can experience love, hope, joy and peace.
So ...
May you this Christmas hear that for you, wherever you are, a child is born,
may you in this child experience the love, hope, joy, peace of God,
and may you be so moved to tell the world around you: "Hey! Unto you a child is born!"

Good Friday

2011-04-22T20:17:00.003-03:00

A Good Friday tune from Mr.Cash as we gather around the cross waiting for Sunday, waiting for resurrection ...

Why Advent?

2010-11-29T11:56:00.007-04:00

It's Advent. That thing we know happens before Christmas but what's the deal with it? Why do we got through the motions of lighting those candles? As Rob Bell helps show, it's all about realizing that because of Jesus tomorrow doesn't have to be like today and Christmas is the beginning of God changing our todays to be like we dream and hope they can be:

Christmas is coming. It may seem like it’s way too soon to be talking about trees and lights and presents and eggnog and all that. But Christmas is the culmination of Advent, and Advent is about the church calender and the church calender is something we never stop talking about.

So that’s what I’m writing on here: Advent. But to talk about Advent, we need to talk about sound, and then time and then Spirit.

First, then, a bit about sound.

If you are quiet enough in your kitchen, you will hear a noise. It is a continuous sound, a long, droning noise with no particular beginning or ending. It has very little, if any, dynamic range. It may go up and down in volume, but those changes are rarely perceptible. It is the same flat noise, and it goes on and on and on, hour after hour, day after day. If it’s loud enough, it can grate on the nerves, but otherwise it’s simply there.

Making that sound, mostly unnoticed, there in the corner of your kitchen.

It is the buzzing of your refrigerator.

Now for another noise. I’m currently listening to the new Jónsi album (he of Sigur Rós fame), which I’ve had on repeat for a number of weeks now. From the first bleeps, squawks and chirps of the first song, the album is full of noises. Drums, voices, piano—the noises stop and start, come and go, they’re loud and quiet. Some notes sustain for a measure or two, others come and go within the second. The kick drum rumbles, the cymbals clang, the strings flutter. All those sounds work together to make something compelling, inspiring, beautiful, evocative, confrontative, urgent, hopeful, honest or peaceful—something that sounds stunning.

And so it is noise, it is the sound—but it is a particular, intentional arrangement of those noises and sounds that make it what we commonly refer to as music.

Two kinds of noise, two variations on sound—one we call music and the other we call refrigerator buzz.

Next, then, a bit about time, because time is a lot like sound. A song works because the noises and sounds and voices and drums are arranged with a precise awareness of time. Music divides time up into beats, giving time a shape, a flow, a pattern, a rhythm.

We’ve all experienced the low-grade despair that comes when our days blend into each other—wake up, eat breakfast, brush teeth, go to school or work or the office, change another diaper, do another load of laundry, write a check, fill a tank, cook a meal and then repeat it all over again the next day.

One day looks like the next, everything starts to feel the same, life starts to feel like the existential equivalent of refrigerator buzz.

And that, of course, takes us back to the Exodus. (Didn’t see that coming, did you?) The story of those Hebrew slaves being rescued from Pharaoh isn’t just a story about the God who rescues people from having to make bricks every day—it’s about the God who rescues people from other kinds of slavery as well. Namely, the one involving time.

Life in Egypt was comprised of making bricks for the Pharaoh every day, all day.

Bricks, bricks, bricks, eat, sleep, more bricks, bricks, bricks. Tomorrow will be just like today: bricks, bricks, bricks.

When the Israelites are rescued, however, God gives them commands, one of the most urgent being to take a Sabbath day a week, a day unlike the others. A day without bricks.

Six days you shall work, but on the seventh, don’t. Why is this so monumental? God gives them rhythm.

But not the rhythm of sound, the rhythm of time. Life before was an interminable succession of sevens. Seven, seven, seven.

But now, their time is broken up, measured, arranged with a beat: six and one, six and one, six and one.

God is the God of the groove.

We need rhythm in our time—it’s what makes one moment different from another. It gives shape and color and form to all of life.

The first Christians understood this—that time, like sound, is best when broken up, divided and arranged into patterns and rhythms. And so they created the church calender. A way to organize the year, a way to bring variance to our days, a way to find a song in the passing of time.

For example, Lent. For the seven weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday, we practice sober awareness of our frailty, sins and smallness. It starts on Ash Wednesday when those ashes are traced on our foreheads in the shape of the cross, a tactile reminder of our origins in the dust. From there we come, and to there we will go.

You want to really live, the kind of living that drains the marrow from every day? Then start by facing your death, your weakness, your smallness. We spend seven weeks facing our death and despair and doubt, entering into it with the fullness of our being—heart, mind, emotions—we leave nothing behind.

We do this for a number of reasons, chief among them the simple truth that Sunday comes after Friday.

Only when you’ve gotten through, not around “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” are you ready to throw the only kind of Resurrection party worthy of the occasion—that Sunday when we run huffing and puffing from the open tomb, beating our pots and pans in that clanging raucous outburst that begins with those three resounding words: “He is risen.”

That day when all the amps are turned up to “11.”

But that’s not the end—don’t let your pastor start a preaching series on tithing or marriage that next week—because Resurrection is just the beginning. On we go to the season of Pentecost—the celebration of the Spirit, the One who moves in mysterious ways. Jesus is not with us in body, He’s with us in Spirit.

He’s risen, but He’s also here, in ways that transcend language, and so reflect on this for a season, tuning your radar to the divine presence in every moment of every day.

And so we’re headed somewhere, we’re coming from somewhere else, and we’re doing it together, as a community of disciples, as a church.

Finally, then, a bit about Spirit. Because Spirit, it turns out, is a lot like sound and time.

The first thing Spirit does in creation is move. That tells us the deepest matters of the Spirit are constantly moving, shifting and morphing. The life of the spirit is a dynamic reality, taking us through a myriad of emotions, experiences and states of being.

Sometimes we’re exhausted, other times we’re overwhelmed with doubt. Sometimes we’re on top of the world and everything is going smoothly, other times we find ourselves standing in the midst of the wreckage, surrounded by smoldering flames, wondering how it all went so wrong.

What the church calender does is create space for Jesus to meet us in the full range of human experience, for God to speak to us across the spectrum, in the good and the bad, in the joy and in the tears.

This is the crime of only singing happy victory songs in church (we often ask sad people to sing happy songs)—half of the Psalms are laments.

The math should move us on that. The Bible is not a collection of war chants from victors—it’s an incredibly varied collection of writings reflecting an intensely diverse amount of postures, moods and perspectives.

A lot like how life is, actually. Sometimes you’re furious with God, other times you’re madly in love.

The issue then, as it is now, isn’t just getting us out of Egypt—it’s getting the Egypt out of us.

Rescuing us from sameness, dullness, flatlined routine, reminding us that however we’re feeling, whatever we’re experiencing, wherever we are in our heart—the Spirit waits to meet us there.

And that takes us to Advent. Advent, then, is a season. Lots of people know about holidays—one day a year set apart. The church calender is about seasons, whole periods of time we enter into with a specific cry, a particular intention, for a reason.

Advent is about anticipating the birth of Christ. It’s about longing, desire, that which is yet to come. That which isn’t here yet. And so we wait, expectantly. Together. With an ache. Because all is not right. Something is missing.

Why does Advent mean so much to me?

Because cynicism is the new religion of our world. Whatever it is, this religion teaches that it isn’t as good as it seems. It will let you down. It will betray you.

That institution? That church? That politician? That authority figure? They’ll all let you down.

Whatever you do, don’t get your hopes up. Whatever you think it is, whatever it appears to be, it will burn you, just give it time.

Advent confronts this corrosion of the heart with the insistence that God has not abandoned the world, hope is real and something is coming.

Advent charges into the temple of cynicism with a whip of hope, overturning the tables of despair, driving out the priests of that jaded cult, announcing there’s a new day and it’s not like the one that came before it.

“The not yet will be worth it,” Advent whispers in the dark.

Old man Simeon stands in the temple, holding the Christ child, rejoicing that now he can die because what he’d been waiting for actually arrived.

And so each December (though Advent starts the last Sunday of November this year), we enter into a season of waiting, expecting, longing. Spirit meets us in the ache.

We ask God to enter into the deepest places of cynicism, bitterness and hardness where we have stopped believing that tomorrow can be better than today.

We open up. We soften up. We turn our hearts in the direction of that day. That day when the baby cries His first cry and we, surrounded by shepherds and angels and everybody in between, celebrate that sound in time that brings our Spirits what we’ve been longing for.

Originally on Relevant Magazine

The Drunk and the Hypocrite - Jon Foreman

2010-11-11T12:09:00.001-04:00

I’ve played music in churches and bars all my life. In many ways, these two gatherings are very similar. Both sets of “regulars” are looking for meaning, carrying out a ritual of sorts—hoping to find purpose, something that makes sense of the pain.

At first glance, it might seem the Church is a better place to look for hope than the bottom of a bottle. Every day, alcoholism and drug abuse destroy families, ruin careers and wreck communities. On the other hand, theological beliefs and misunderstandings have been blamed for divisions, divorces and wars around the world. The trouble with each institution lies within us. True, alcohol feeds a different fire than pietism, but neither a drunk nor a hypocrite look very good in the daylight.

We carry our problems into the church the same way we carry them into a bar—they just react differently in each location. Unfortunately, the sins that exist within the walls of the Church are harder to spot.

Pride, for example, can hide incredibly well in the religious community. I rarely hear the words “I don’t know” uttered at church. And yet the triune Creator of time and space will always be wrapped in mystery and holiness. Why not start in the seat of humility? Surely all of us have gotten a few things wrong in our attempts at Christianity.

Isn’t it pride that causes divisions among us? When we begin to slander other believers in the name of God, we know we’ve gotten off course. Did our Master’s words fall on deaf ears? “Love each other as I have loved you.” “Let them be one, Father, even as we are one.” These are not optional thoughts on how things could be done, but rather prerequisites for entrance into Kingdom of Heaven life. Unity is serious business. The Church is called to be one even as the triune God is one. The comprehensive salvation of our planet is built on the final unity of the Church and her God: the bride and her Savior.

Unfortunately, unity within the ecclesial community is the exception, not the rule. It’s to our shame many folks looking for hope find more grace at the local bar than the local church. When we speak with a fire and anger that burns differently than the fresh air of the cross, we do the Gospel a disservice. We know deep down something is wrong. So we revolt against those fiery speeches. We say the method needs to change. We call the old model irrelevant. And yes! The fresh winds of the Spirit are ready to blow upon us, let us pray for new tongues of the same eternal flame.

And yet if I speak with the tongues of angels and of men but have not love, it profits me nothing. If I rise up against the cheesy Christian T-shirts but have not love, it helps no one. If I hate the legalistic hatred but have not love, it builds nothing. Has the enemy tricked us into a new form of legalism? Is not our judgment committing the same offense? Ah, we may have found a way, but it is not love.

Walking the line between the clubs and the Church, I’ve been misunderstood by both sides. I’m sure you’ve felt the same thing: people throw rocks at the things they don’t understand. But it hurts worst when it comes from well-intending brothers and sisters, the folks who are purportedly filled with the love of Christ. Our knee-jerk response is to retaliate, to fight back. And the cycle begins again. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. God will take care of the speck in my neighbor’s eye. The more faith I have in Him and His strong voice, the less I have to yell. The more faith I have in Him, the freer my hands become to serve those around me.

Washing feet is not extra credit. We are called to bear each other’s burdens. Unity is a miraculous achievement, but it’s intended for this side of the grave. Unity is the transforming work of the power of the cross in our lives. In the dark, blood-stained shadow of the cross, our boasting is laughable. Our differences are minute. Take another look at the cross. Look at how much He loves you. Look at His surrender, His sacrifice. Unity comes into focus only when we realize the magnificent grace of the Savior.

Let us acknowledge our neediness, our beautiful desperation. Yes, our unanswerable, aching, longing poverty is a prerequisite for the balm of salvation. We, the people—the failures, the losers, the outsiders—we have found our King. Christ, the King of the fools; the Lord of the sick, broken souls like us. Let us remain in continual awe of the love we have been shown. And let us love! Let us celebrate the reckless love of the one who risked all that we might be loved. And let us follow in the path of a God who loves us. The tax collectors and the rabbis. The prostitutes and the Sadducees. In the bars and in the churches. Yes, God even loves Christians.

Jon Foreman is the co-founder and lead singer of the band Switchfoot and lead singer of Fiction Family. You can follow him on Twitter @jonforeman. This article originally appeared in RELEVANT.

Shine

2010-08-19T22:51:00.008-03:00

Every day
my mom and my dad would come into my room
and say
“Rise and Shine.”
How were you woken up?
Maybe a knock on the door ...
Maybe an opening of the blinds, letting in the dawn ...
Maybe you had a paper route and were woken up by the sound of the truck dropping off the morning papers ...
Maybe your mom came in said “Im not driving you to school if you sleep in” and
then the classic dilemma ensues ... Which is worse: forcing yourself to get up now or having to walk to school?

I never liked the whole ‘Rise and Shine’ thing …
Having someone barge into your room as bright and chipper
as the first day of creation just wasn’t the right way to rouse a sleepy teenager out of bed.

Yet, every day mom and dad would say:
‘Rise and Shine.’

And if I did not rise out of my bed …
well, my dad, being the kind of guy who believes that every man should get up at 6am,
bake a loaf of fresh bread and enjoy it over fresh coffee and the morning paper and the CBC
he would come into my room and he’d wring a wet, cold, wash-cloth over my face.
He claims the experience ‘builds character.’

But maybe my folks were on to something …
maybe this whole ‘rise and shine’ thing makes sense.

It turns out that they aren’t they ones who say 'rise and shine.'

God’s saying it too.

When it comes to being a fan and a follower of Christ,
when it comes to being the church
God wants us to rise and shine
because it is when we shine
that the world realizes that something bigger is going on out there ...
something that is so different than anything else ...
something that is good, true, and so beautiful that it leaves you speechless.

Shining is what Church is all about.

There’s a story in the Bible.
We find it in the Gospel According to John and only in John’s Gospel.
John 11 if you want to follow along.

Jesus had just received news from Mary and Martha,
who we know from other stories throughout the Gospels,
that their brother Lazarus was sick.
‘The one you love is sick’ the message said.
And they don’t need to say anything else –
they don’t need to say with what, how serious it is, or that Jesus needs to come.
They don’t need to say any of that because that’s all a given –
They know Jesus
they know his love is strong
they know he’ll come.

And we’re not told, at all, what is wrong with Lazarus.
All we know is that the guy is someone Jesus loved, that he lives
with his two sisters, both of whom are unmarried, their world seems to revolve around him,
and at this moment Lazarus is particularly sick.

What is up with Lazarus?

What if ...

What if Lazarus is disabled.
That's why we dont hear much about or from him.
That's why he lives with his sisters.
That's why they are unmarried.
That's why their world seems to revolve around him.
And Jesus, right alongside Mary and Martha, cared for Lazarus;
he had bathed him,
he had fed him,
he had protected him.
It was that kind of love Jesus had for him;
one of profound care, investment, support and sacrifice.

While this little targum may emphasize a moot point in the grand scheme of things,
if you let it, it blows open just what kind of relationships Jesus had with these and other people.
Jesus is a rabbi, he is the Messiah, he is the Son of God but he's also something else.
Jesus is a friend;
he is someone you can count on, someone who walks with you, someone who experiences your life ...
Understanding that blows open the kind of love Jesus always demonstrates - real love.
Not the kind of love we mean when we say ‘I love my new car!' or 'I love this song!'
but the kind of love that flows from God – love that is strong, unwavering, sacrificial, abiding.
Its that kind of love Mary and Martha knew Jesus is and had for their brother when they sent that message;
a love which they had seen displayed again and again in Jesus’ relationship with Lazarus,
a love that nobody else would give their brother because clearly, being disabled,
in that day and age, he was perceived to be worth nothing, perceived as being punished by God,
and like a leper, cast out and never thought of again.
But to all that Jesus, in the love and time he gave to Lazarus said:
“No. He is important to me.
He is important to God.
He is worth just as much as anybody else and I love him.
He is my friend.”

Yet, despite all of that, Jesus upon hearing the news that Lazarus was sick,
does’t drop what he is doing and rush to Bethany where they live.

That’s weird.

That’s the opposite reaction we thought we’d see.
I mean, think about the other stories in the Bible ...
Jesus immediately went with the centurion’s son
and did the same when Jarius came to see him about his sick daughter.
He should, being Jesus, we’d expect, do something crazy like teleport and go save Lazarus.
But he doesn’t and that’s kind of out of character.

Its weird.

But if I’ve learned anything from reading about Jesus,
its that when he does something weird
its usually a good idea to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Jesus is always up to something.
He is sneaky like that.

Instead Jesus says ‘He’ll make it.’
And the next part should make us realize that he is up to something:
“God will be glorified - or God will be made known - through this illness.’
Jesus, it seems, is going to use his buddy Lazarus to show to the world what God is all about.

The suspense builds …

Finally, two whole days later, by which time Lazarus has passed away,
Jesus gathers his disciples,
who dont know that Lazarus is sick,
and says,
maybe with that twinkle in his eye,
a twinkle that seems vaguely familiar to the disciples but one they can’t place,
that he is going to go to Bethany and “wake up Lazarus.”

The disciples freak out, no surprise there,
because waking up Lazarus means going through Judea
where an entire town had just tried to kill Jesus.
Not wanting to risk the life of Jesus just to wake up a friend
they protest in confusion:
“Rabbi? He’s just sleeping and they just tried to kill you.
Are you nuts?” (A popular Jewish saying at the time).
But, Jesus, knowing their confusion
and knowing his love for Lazarus outweighs the risk of death,
tells them straight up: “Lazarus is dead.”

Stunned silence as the disciples struggle figure out what is going on …
Jesus watching them … still with that twinkle in his eye.

But Thomas, forever the most underrated disciple,
being, as it will turn out, a more visual learner,
remembers where he has seen that twinkle in Jesus’ eye.
He’d seen it at the feeding of the five thousand.
He saw it at the wedding feast.
He saw it when Jesus called to the children.
when Jesus told them about the Kingdom.
when Jesus healed the blind and the lame.
He remembers that twinkle,
he remembers what it means.
He knows that Jesus is going to do something crazy.
He knows what Jesus means by ‘waking up Lazarus.’
He knows that Jesus is going to go and glorify God
and because he knows he is the first to say ‘Let’s go.’
Thomas might just be the smartest guy in the whole group.

So Jesus finally arrives in Bethany
his friend having been dead for 4 days,
and tells the distraught Martha:
“Your brother will rise again.”

And we don’t really know how Martha reacted to that.
“Your brother will rise again” could very well have seemed like some cheesy version of a Hallmark consolation card
because it was a popular belief in that period that there would be sometime in the future’s future a mass resurrection and all would rise into God’s world.
Jesus, in saying that, could have been heard to be saying:
“Don’t be sad. He'll rise again someday.”
Needless to say, Martha isn’t exactly comforted.

But that’s not what Jesus meant.

Jesus keeps on talking:
“I am the resurrection and the life.
Those who believe in me, even though they are dead, will live
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Here we catch a glimpse into what Jesus is all about.
He is the means of that resurrection.
He is the means of entering into God’s future world.
People can enter into that world now by following him, by giving everything they are over to him.
Here he lets Martha know that he is the Son of God, the Messiah,
and that resurrection everyone spoke about would happen through and in him.
“I am the resurrection and the life.
Those who believe in me, even though they are dead, will live
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Those are comforting words.

Jesus then meets Mary who falls to the ground and weeps
her tears falling on his feet …. foreshadowing …
and then we have the shortest sentence in the Bible:
“When Jesus saw her weeping, and her friends and family weeping around her,
he was greatly moved. Jesus wept.”
‘Jesus wept.’

He’s not just crying, he’s not just pouting, he is weeping.
The word used here is the same for a horse snorting -
His body is shaking, snot is everywhere, tears are flowing from his eyes, he is gasping for air between sobs as he weeps with Mary and her family.
His heart is broken.

We have in that short sentence an image of just what the incarnation means,
of why God-becoming-human is so revolutionary and so extraordinarily important.
When Jesus weeps, it means God weeps.
When Jesus’ heart breaks, it means God’s heart breaks.
In this tiny sentence is a huge message that only the Church offers.

Because God became a human and lived among us
he knows what being human is like.
God knows what it means to suffer, how painful loss is, what its like to feel alone ...
He has wept, he has had his heart broken …
Because God became human,
he ceases to a God far away and out of touch with the our reality ...
Because God became human
he can look at us when we are down in the dirt,
experiencing all the frailty human life has to offer
and as we struggle with addictions, divorce, depression, loss, pain, hunger and stress,
he kneel down, look us in the eye and say:
‘Me too.'
'I know how you feel.’
'I understand.'

'Me too.' ... in those words is such comfort, such solidarity, such hope.

This story of Jesus weeping reminds us why we have a cross as our symbol.
The cross reminds us that the crucifixion
was God hanging, bloody and thirsty on the cross, suffering.
A God who is not somewhere else, remote, detached, distant
but a God who is among us,
feeling what we feel,
aching how we ache,
suffering like us.
We wear the cross because it says:
‘God is with us. God knows how we feel. We am not alone.’

Jesus then goes to where Lazarus was laid, removes the stone,
ignores the smell coming from within the tomb,
and prays that what he is about to do will glorify God
and he says with a twinkle in his eye:
“Lazarus, Rise and Shine!”
And out comes his friend.
Wrapped up in strips of cloth, alive and well.
Jesus has woken up Lazarus.
Lazarus is risen.

If you’re in church today there’s a good chance you know what being risen is like.
The Church are those who have been woken up by Jesus,
who, just like Lazarus, have heard him say ‘Rise and Shine,’
and who, through God’s grace and love, have risen into new life.
The story of Lazarus
reminds us of that –
it reminds us that we are the
we are the forgiven,
the free,
the loved,
the risen.

A friend of mine just got married.
A nice little country wedding up near Collingwood –
home to the world’s largest Elvis Impersonators Festival ...
For the bachelor party we rented a cottage
and as we sat on the deck that night we saw a sight you don’t often see in Toronto,
thousands upon thousands of stars.
As I looked up at the stars
for the first time in my life
I didn’t have much to say.
I was left speechless.

Beauty can do that ….
Whether its the sun shining down a rockface, drawing out the colours of the trees and water ...
whether its the colours of the morning sky breaking over the horizon ....
whether its a beautiful girl walking by ...
when we encounter beauty we are left speechless.

Stars are amazing things eh?
We look at the them and we can tell stories through the constellations.
We look at the stars and through their light and the positions they take in the sky
we can navigate across the oceans and find our way home safely.
We look at the shining stars and encounter beauty leaving us speechless.

Paul, the apostle, knew the power of the stars …
Paul knew their power to tell stories and to guide people home, knew of their ability to leave us speechless,
and that’s why he wrote that the church must shine like stars.

He knew that when we rise up we start to get transformed from the inside out …
we start to become more and more like the way God made us ...
we start to experience life the way God intended it to be ...
and as we live into that new life by following Jesus
we start to shine like stars.
It's through shining,
being, like Jesus said, the light of the world,
that the church shares the story of what God is doing through Jesus
and guides people towards Jesus and God’s world.

We shine by telling our story, a story we all know well because we are all part of it.
A story of a God whose love is strong
who can look us in the eye and say ‘Me too. I know how you feel,’
and of a God who is putting this world back to the way it was in the beginning.
It’s through telling this story that we shine,
giving the world hope and the good news that God is moving and is not finished with us yet.

We shine by living our story out;
its through our justice-making, our love, our work and our message that we guide people towards
being pulled into God's world.
Its through living out our story that people meet Jesus.
Its through living out our story that the world hears that love wins and we are not alone.
Its through living the story that we shine like stars showing people the way back to a world that feels like home.

We shine because we are the risen.
We shine because we are the forgiven.
We shine because we are saturated in love.
We shine because we are the light of the world.

So may you rise and shine.
May you know you loved and forgiven, may you live like you are loved and forgiven
and may you, in everything you do, shine like stars.
Go in peace. Go in love. Go and do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always and forever.
Amen.

(Sermon notes from a message preached Aug 15th.)

Pulled

2010-07-05T17:53:00.004-03:00

When I was a kid,

probably about six years old or so,

I thought I had this whole church thing figured out.

I knew that God was part of it. I knew that from the felt boards and the crafts

but I knew that Church was really about 3 things:

Corduroy pants

Ladies with hats.

Cookies.

I knew that on Sunday morning my mom would make me put on my brown Corduroy pants

and then we’d all pile in the station wagon and head to church.

I hated wearing those pants.

They made that swish-swish-swish sound

and secretly I was scared that the lines that stuck out would get caught in the lines that don’t

and my legs would get stuck together.

I put them on anyway because I knew that everything Church was about hinged on me wearing brown corduroy pants.

I knew that if I wore my brown corduroy pants

I would be irresistible to the ladies with hats

and we all know who they are -

they run the church.

And more importantly,

they run the fellowship time after church

which invariably means ...

they controlled the cookies!

Yes, it all makes sense now doesn't it?

I knew that if I could woo those ladies with my corduroy pants

then I would get to have an extra cookie.

Corduroy pants + Ladies with hats = Cookies.

It was simple.

It was hailed as revolutionary in Sunday School class of 1989.

At least it was that simple until I started going to seminary …

There’s a story in the Bible …

The very first one actually.

God is busy creating the Heavens and the Earth,

making sea and the sky and the plants and all the animals

and then God created humanity in his image and his likeness.

This little phrase, 'in our image and likeness' is huge.

This little phrase tells us that humanity is special.

It means that God created people to be like him.

Humanity is creative, they are relational, they have freedom, they can love ...

God, creating humanity in his image and likeness,

wanted them to be partners with him in this world he had begun to make.

God’s basically saying: “I want to build this world with you.

It’s going to be a world of love, honesty, community and justice and peace.

Let’s do it together.”

With God’s blueprints of love, justice and peace guiding the way,

humanity would help God finish the world he began to create.

God was happy with what he was doing, with what he had created and he called it ... 'good.'

The Hebrew for this is ‘To-vv.’

It doesn’t mean ‘good’ like we use it today.

The way we use ‘good’ is too small –

we use it to mean ‘its okay’ or ‘its sufficient.’

But ‘To-vv’ is a big word.

To-vv means ‘right’ ‘beautiful,’ it means ‘as it was meant to be.’

When God called this world ‘good,’ he meant ‘To-vv.’

This world was ‘right’

This world was ‘beautiful’

This world was ‘as it was meant to be.’

This world was on track to being the way God wanted it to be.

Everything was in sync with God’s creational intent.

Things were going perfectly.

A world saturated with God’s presence.

Kind of sounds a bit like Heaven.

Genesis 1 and 2 are describing the beginnings of God’s perfect world.

We find here the idea that this garden would turn into the city we read about at the end of the Bible

and Heaven and Earth would become the same place.

God and humanity would turn that garden into a city where God and humanity would live together

in a world of love, honesty, community, justice and peace.

Heaven isn’t some world not far away in the clouds
nor is it some spiritual realm ...

its this world according to the way God made it …

this world gone according to plan …

a world which God calls ‘To-vv.’

A world Jesus called the Kingdom of God.

But then something happens. Something goes outta whack.

We see in Genesis 3 how this world starts to lose its to-vv.

Adam and Eve eat the fruit.

Cain kills Abel.

Humanity ignores God.

Humanity ignores God's prophets.

Because Humanity decided to use their own blueprints this world kept losing its to-vv.

The world was going the opposite way from Heaven
until it got to the point where humanity forgot about the way it was in the beginning,
forgot about what they were made for,

and began to believe that Heaven must be some far away place because this world ...

this is a world nothing like the one God made.

This is a world where no matter how hard some people try they always fail …

a world where people go through life believing that they aren’t good enough …

a world where people get swallowed up by their addictions ...

a world where people just can't seem to get along ...

a world where it seems like evil has the last word …

a world where pain and suffering always seem to win …

This is a world where people get swallowed up by the darkness and can’t seem to escape.

This is a world that can kind of sound a lot like Hell.

A world spiraling out of control.

A world where love, honesty, community, peace and justice are so hard to find.

My friend Rene knows what we’re talking about.

For the longest time, long before I knew her, Rene hated herself.

She didn’t like the way she looked.

She didn’t like the way she sounded.

Her mom was a meth-addict.

Her dad gave up on her mom long before he knew a baby was on the way.

Rene knew nothing of a world like the one God made.

She knew only a darkness and depression so deep, so strong, so penetrating that

wanting to feel something instead of nothing Rene began cutting herself.

Scratches at first.

Then as she became more and more convinced that this world was a living hell

the cuts got deeper and scars only reminded her of how bad things were.

It was a cold winter night as she walked around town alone,

that she heard some music drifting on top of the snow that was blowing around her.

It got louder and louder until it pulled her into a small church.

Inside were a bunch of people listening to a band singing songs about a guy named Jesus, God and of this world where love always won.

She had never heard of anything like this before so she stuck around, curious …

At the end of the service she got to talk to those guys in the band

and talking about their music and why they played

she heard more and more about this guy named Jesus,

about this God who loved everyone,

about this Kingdom that was coming, restoring this world to the way that God made it.

Slowly, as she became friends with the guys in the band

and saw the impact Jesus was making on their lives,

how they were experiencing this coming Kingdom, this Heaven, already

it was then that she began to believe that was more to the darkness.

She describes it as a pulling sensation …

She began to feel Jesus pulling her into God’s world.

Pulling her out of the darkness, the pain, and hurt, the depression …

Pulling her out of a world of cutting …

Pulling her into a world where suffering and pain do not have the last word.

A world, like Paul said to the Romans, where love always wins.

The more she began to embrace Jesus

the more she felt like she was being pulled out of hell and

into a world that was becoming like Heaven.

Maybe you know someone like Rene.

Maybe you know someone who is experiencing hell.

Maybe you’ve had a similar experience.

But maybe you’ve met that guy named Jesus

and have been pulled out of a hell and into a world where Heaven is coming and love always wins.

And if you have, you know that’s why we follow Jesus.

That is what Jesus is all about.

Jesus is about more than forgiveness.

Jesus is all about pulling this world back into the one God made.

Jesus is all about giving back this world every ounce of its ‘to-vv.’

Jesus is all about showing us who God is and what God is all about.

Jesus pulls us out of our hells and into a world that God is making his own.

It’s through Jesus we get to experience God’s world.

It’s through him that we head back towards Eden.

Towards the Kingdom.

Towards Heaven.

That's where the Church comes in.
Church is more than corduroy pants, ladies with hats and cookies.
Church is about joining God in his work of restoring this world.

Church is about being a community of people who have been pulled by Jesus

so the rest of the world can see the good news that Heaven is coming.

The Church is about going into the places we live, work and play

and being a people who has been pulled into God’s world.

Its about practicing our redemption because

its when people see how God has invaded our lives ...

its when people see the hope and peace that comes with knowing we are loved and God is on the move ...

its then they start to believe maybe they can experience that too and they dare to believe.

Its then that Jesus comes, kneels down, looks them in the eye, takes their hand, says ‘Follow me’

and pulls them into God’s world.

That’s what Church is all about.

Its simple.

Jesus even tells us how to do it.

What's he tell the disciples?

He gets them to say: ‘Peace. The Kingdom is here.”

He gets them to go out into the world and practice their redemption.

And when Jesus uses the word ‘Peace’ here he’s not talking any peace.

Jesus is talking about Shalom.

He is talking about God’s peace.

A peace that is so deep, so wide, so penetrating that is encompasses all aspects of life.

A peace that is rooted in God’s grace and love.

A peace that flowed through creation in the beginning.

It is this peace the Church is called to proclaim to a world that has forgotten
what Shalom feels like.
To those who are tormented by the deafening silence of loneliness
the church says: 'shalom.'
To those who begin to believe the insults hurled at them day after day
the church says: ‘shalom.’

To those who struggle to figure out whether to pay the rent or pay for food

the church says: ‘shalom.’

The Church says 'Peace. It will be okay. Miracles do happen. God is on the move.'

The Church is called to be a voice to a world struggling to have hope.

A voice that says ‘Peace’

A voice that says ‘God's world is coming.’

A voice that says ‘There’s this guy, his name is Jesus, he’s the answer you’ve been looking for. He understands. ’

A community that exists to go out into this world and introduce it to Jesus,

a man who will take them by the hand and lead them out of hell

and into the presence of God.

The Church goes out into the world

and practices its redemption, it lives out its experience of God.

We do this so that when people meet us they’ll see something different,

something true,

something they too would like to have,

something that resonates with them so deeply they’ll be compelled to

check out this guy named Jesus.

And we all know what happens when someone meets Jesus.

They get pulled into love.

They get pulled into hope.

They get pulled into God.

They get to experience a world being remade.

A world that God intended.

A world full of ‘to-vv.’

May you experience the fullness of God's world.

May you continue to be pulled more and more into a world becoming like Heaven.

May you go from here and be fans and followers of Christ.

Go in peace. Go in love. Go and do it loudly.

(Sermon based off Luke 10:1-11, 17-20)

Resurrection! Amen.

2010-04-04T07:59:00.002-03:00

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

An Easter Letter to Jesus ... from the Devil.

2010-03-25T13:23:00.026-03:00

Dear Jesus,

How goes it? I know, I know, probably didn't expect to get a letter from me this morning.
So ... Heaven is good? I mean besides the whole perfection thing? No angels givin' you trouble? Send them down here and I’ll be sure to straighten them out.
And hey, let me know if you ever change your mind about letting me visit you; I don't know if I could handle the whole singing 24-7 though ... I gave up on that a long time ago, a little too choir-boyish if you ask me ... but it would be nice to have a change of scenery for a while. I promise not to steal any harps. Hell is ok; hot as usual. Things are kind of slow though … and that's really the reason why I am writing you.
I always think of you this time of year.
I can’t help but remember when it all went down that Friday morning and to be honest ... ha! 'honesty,' not something you'd expect from me but lately Ive been trying a new thing my therapist recommended to help me deal with my feelings ... I don’t think I like it ... but ok, here goes ...

Jesus ... ugh ... that gives me chills ...
Ummm Christ ... You ruined my life!
YOU RUINED MY LIFE!

Oh, that feels good to get that out! I've been holding that in for two thousand years!!

My life was so good before you showed up and Easter happened.
I was okay with the whole being kicked out of Heaven thing;
at least I still had my hopes and dreams of taking over the world, of thwarting your Dad at every turn. Heck, he should thank me for making things more exciting on earth! A little drama here, a little hatred there … who doesn't like a good super-villain?!
Things were going so well. People were scared of me, I had groupies ...
and you know what that's like! Those humans hanging on to your every word. Whoooo empowering!
I had just started to come up with the best distractions too!
The blueprints for the future of Facebook and reality television where there ... on the tip of my tongue ... oh the plans I had!!! Things were about to get exciting!
Life was so good! And then ... ugh ... you showed up!

I'll give you props too kid. I didn't expect you to ruin my life.
I really didn't think this kid from Galilee would be the end of me.
Heck, I even thought I had you beat. I thought that your old man was,
you know, starting to let himself go. I mean a BABY to save the world? Please!!

But there you were! Growing up, learning ... twelve years old and I could not get you interested and distracted with girls or anything else kids that age SHOULD be interested in. You were a weird kid, Jesus!

And after that you just had to go preach your message of love and grace!
You just had to go around healing lepers and making the blind see!
And I’ll be honest with you;
at first I was a little upset as you walked around with your little group of fishermen ... and that’s another thing I didn’t see coming! You used average people to do your work! And there I was using all my distractions and lies on the religious elite!
Anyway, I was kind of upset that all my hard work was getting ruined.
Ugh, I wanted to just, I don’t know ... smite you with something!!
How did you NOT give into my offers in the desert?? I don’t get it!!!
I thought of everything!!
But convincing ol' Judas to take you down? Oh! That was a stroke of genius! Absolutely brilliant! You should have heard the cheers down here, it was breathtaking!
I even cracked a cold one when they strung you up on that tree.
I thought I had you beat.
Devil: 1, God: Nuthin. ZERO! ZERO!!!
I thought I had taken down the Son of God!
My dreams and my hopes were all within my reach!
Life was soooooo good!
It was like nothing was in my way of taking over the world.
I could taste it … and it was insatiable! Oh, I wanted it so much!
Nothing could stop me from bringing pain, suffering, loneliness and despair upon the world. Nothing stood in my way of world domination!
I could just see myself on top of the world ...
"Lucifer the warrior king and Lord of suffering" ... rolls of your tongue doesn’t it?!

But that Sunday ... Oh, you and your Sabbath ... I should have known!
But I didn't see it coming ... talk about left field! How did I NOT see it?? What the heck was I doing?? I knew it said stuff in the that book your Dad helped write about the suffering servant and the third day but that was you?!?! UGH!
I HATE EASTER!
You just couldn't stay dead now could you?
You just couldn’t give me that kind of victory Could you?! King of the Jews … Ha!
I HATE Easter!!

But 2000 years can bring lots of perspective ...
It’s amazing what difference a day can make eh?
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and we’re having the biggest party down here ever!!
Sunday morning I wake up to choirs of angels singing "Love wins! Love wins!"
Worst thing EVER for a splitting headache.
NO.
NO ...
NO!!! It was NOT supposed to happen that way! Dont you GET IT??
I was supposed to have control over the world!
There wasn’t supposed to be any hope!
There wasn’t supposed to be any love!
Humanity wasn’t supposed to belong to God! They were supposed to be MINE!! MINE!!
That Kingdom was supposed to be a myth!
Everything turned out BACKWARDS!
I was supposed to be King, not you!!

All my work down the drain ...
All my plans down the drain ...
my hopes and my dreams ... all destroyed by you and your resurrection!!
It’s not even like I have a chance now either!
You didn’t even let there be any doubt about the fate of the world!
The last chapter is written! Things are decided! I don't even have a chance!!
I Thought you were all about fair play! That’s not playing fair now is it?!

All I can do now is lie to humanity and try to convince them that God didn’t win.
All I can do is lie to people and say
‘You’re not good enough!’
‘God doesn’t love you’
‘There is no hope!’
But because of you that's not true now is it?!
All I can really do is just pray that they don’t find out what really happened on Easter!
Just hope that they never realize that that’s EXACTLY what Easter did!
That Easter is when God said 'You're good enough and I love you and there is always hope" ... Ugh! It makes me so sick!!

I HATE EASTER!!

*sigh*

Don’t get me wrong … don’t take this a letter of forgiveness!
I don’t forgive you. HA! Did you really think that?!
I’m the Prince of Darkness, I don’t stoop to that level.
But ugh, it feels good to let you know this cause I know you’re all about love
and compassion ... Yah, that’s right Mr. Perfect, you better feel bad about ruining my life! You think Easter saved EVERYBODY’S life … you are soooo wrong!
IT RUINED MINE!

Hope you enjoy the weekend! Ha!

Yours,
The Devil.

PS: You really should come visit. I’ll let you listen to that Metallica album you like so much.

(huge shout-out to Carmen B. for her part in making this message happen)

seeds

2010-02-25T11:14:00.008-04:00

Something came in the mail a while back.

I have no idea who it was from.

It was half of a head.
More like a third of a head, really.

Not like a third of a head you see on the floor after zombies tear through your house leaving pieces of their lunch behind;
that would be kind of gross …
yet oddly intriguing in the sense of ‘who on earth would send that?!’

It was a photograph.
A torn photograph of a woman's face.
A black and white photograph with this blue hue.
A photograph of a woman's face from the tip of her nose to the top of her head.

I have no idea who she is.
Not sure if I want to know.
She's young.
And despite it being a third of her head, you can tell she's smiling.
And despite it being a photograph her eyes twinkle and dance.

There was the letter too.
A short, handwritten letter on a piece of paper folded three times
with big loopy writing in blue ink on the centre of the page between the folds:

"This is for you.
Like this woman, may you continue to seek the mercy, grace, and love of our God.
And may what you find pour out on others even in times of frustration, hurt and guilt.
Shine His light! Always, always!"

That's all it said.
That's all there was.
That little note and a photograph was all that was there.

It might be the best thing I have ever received in the mail.
Something encouraging. Something loving. Something hopeful.
Something that reminded me God is real and moving today.

It was just third of a head and a letter,
but it was enough.

There's a story in the Bible, in the book of Mark.
It tells how on one busy day at the temple there were crowds everywhere getting
ready to put their offering into the treasury.
It was busy.
It was chaotic.
But there, amidst all the well dressed and important men,
through the busyness and chaos,
was a woman.

A woman slowly making her way through the crowd.
A woman manoeuvring her way between the people.
A woman inching closer and closer to the treasury.

She's not an important woman by their standards; Mark thinks she’s a widow.
Her clothes are by no means expensive, it's clear she is poor.

And as she makes her way to the treasury,
through the busyness and the chaos,
her right hand is clenched
as if she's holding on to something precious,
something she is determined not to lose.

Finally arriving at the treasury
she unfurls her small clenched fist revealing two small coins.
Pennies.
Spare change.
Something we’d consider insignificant.
With great care she places them one by one in the offering box
then turns and inches her way out of the story.

The whole time Jesus has been watching her.
This whole time he's been watching this scene unfold.
He's noticed the woman weave in and weave out of the crowds.
He’s noticed how her right hand is holding on to something tightly.
He’s noticed, even with so much going on,
even with all the busyness and the chaos,
even with all the distractions and all the noise,
he’s noticed her carefully give away what she clearly cannot afford.

Jesus has this way of being able to see beauty in things others cannot.
Probably something to do with him being God, but anyway …
he is just blown away by what he sees.
He calls his disciples around him and points to the woman.

His friends don’t have that ability Jesus has.
They strain to see this small woman through the busyness and chaos.
They strain to see the beauty that Jesus sees.
Despite Jesus’ eyes following the woman’s every move,
and despite Jesus’ pointing finger following her every move,
they struggle to see the small woman inch her away out of the story.

After she is gone Jesus turns to his disciples and says:
"The truth is, that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they'll never miss; she gave what she couldn't afford. She gave her all."

Two small coins.
Pennies.
But it was enough.
A third of a head and a letter.
But it was enough.

Small things.
But they are enough.

We do this thing called ‘Drops’ at my church during worship.
Sometimes we forget that God moves in small and quiet ways,
we miss out on those small movements while looking for the miracles we always hear about.
Those small blessings are a lot like rain drops;
you don’t really notice them at first but once you notice one,
you see another,
then another,
and then another.
Those drops keep adding up until you are swimming in an ocean of God’s grace and love.
I love hearing about people’s drops
because it reminds me that small things add up.
It reminds me that small things go a long way.
It reminds me that despite the size of God’s blessings,
despite them being just like small drops of rain,
they do change lives.
They point to God and remind us that there is still love and hope.

Small things are enough.
Jesus knew this.
He had seen a few fish and loaves feed 5000 people.
He had seen 12 people begin to change the world.
He had seen marks made in the dirt save a life.
He knew that small things,
when done from the heart,
when done by putting someone else before yourself,
when done with the God’s world and love in mind,
he knew that those things would be enough to begin to change a life.
He knew that those things pointed to something greater.
He knew that those drops would grow into something big and beautiful.

Ever see a mustard seed?
Mustard seeds are these tiny little seeds but when they are planted they grow into these crazy bushes that take over whole gardens.
Mustard seeds are small things that go a long, long way.

Jesus uses this kind of image because he knows the beauty of small things.
He knows how subversive and powerful they are.
He knows that when we do small things for the sake of others,
out of love, compassion, justice and hope,
he knows that those small things, those drops, are like mustard seeds.
They’ll be planted.
They’ll grow and grow and grow and grow.
Those small acts will grow into something that changes the world.
A garden that points to God.
A garden that says there is something bigger to this world we’re in.
Something of love and hope.
Something of justice and peace.

Seeds.
Gardens.
Eden.
Restoration.
Kingdom.

So like that boy who gave the fish …
So like that woman who gave the coins …
So like the person who wrote the letter …

Small things.
But small things are enough.

So.
May you be a drop, a seed, a small thing.
May you give to others what God has given to you
so that God’s garden grows again so all may see and know
that God is alive and moving today.

Jon Foreman - What's in a Word?

2010-02-04T11:30:00.001-04:00

Jon Foreman - What's in a Word?

(Huffington Post - Jan. 25, 2010).

Communication is a pregnancy of sorts. In a speaker's mind, a thought is conceived, then spoken, heard, and then ultimately gives birth to new thought in the listener's mental landscape. For example, when I say "tree," a picture builds in your imagination, a new life-form within your mind; a platonic idea of oak or maple appears out of nothing within your thoughts. This mental icon represents your understanding of the word. (Incidentally, this apprehension is independent of the speaker's intentions).

In many ways, words are metaphors pointing to the objects they represent. The word "tree" is not a tree; it is simply a placeholder for the real thing. Our understanding of the world is built upon a deeper set of presuppositions. Meaning demands meaning. Reason demands reason: 1+1=2, only when we agree upon the meaning of these symbols. The same is true for words. Words are our framework of meaning. Every one is a metaphor reaching to something beyond it's simple spelling and articulation.

Words have incredible power. Words create worlds. The words we use define ourselves and the world around us. They shape our reality. Our words determine our ideologies.

In India there is a group of people who have been oppressed for over 3000 years. They are called the Dalit. They are relegated to the worst jobs, cleaning sewers and removing the bodies of dead animals from the roads. Even the cows, whose bodies they clean from the side of the road, are treated with far more respect. Over the coarse of time, the identity of the Dalit people group, (also called the "untouchables"), has been stripped of all dignity. "They have been oppressed not just economically or even physically, but also ideologically," states Jean- Luc Racine and Josiane Racine, who goes on to say that ultimate freedom will come when the Dalit's define themselves in a new way. According to the Racines the question becomes, "Which new identity will sustain the emancipation process?"¹

Words are the keepers of history. If the Dalit's handle of "untouchability" feels too foreign to our American ears, let us examine a few race-driven words within our own borders. These are words that I feel uncomfortable even putting into print. Nigger. Wetback. Red Neck. Cracker. Chinks. Spicks. These words are pregnant with incredible potency. These words do not have a history of tolerance, of acceptance, or compassion. No, these words tell the story of oppression -- of an American landscape of racism and mistrust. Without our past, these words have no negative connotations. Yet within our historical landscape of slavery and shame, these words have powerful implications.

Words are the foundation upon which we build our lives. This holds true even for wonderful words like Love, Light, Justice, Honor, Truth, Joy, Peace, Redemption, Happiness, or Beauty. These are beautiful words, yet they are words we know only in part.

We've seen glimpses of these entities on our planet, but only for a moment. How can we know the full meaning of justice on a planet where cruel power has the final say? How can we know peace against the backdrop of increasingly sophisticated war machines?

Today, thousands of six-year-olds around the world are hungry, wondering how they will get their next meal. Tragedy. Right now, thousands of innocent girls are being forced into prostitution. Tragedy. This very hour, millions of people are dying because of a lack of access to clean water. Tragedy.

Tragedy. Tragedy. Tragedy. And yet, if these are the simple facts, how can we call it tragic?

Hans Urs von Balthasar says that tragedy is dependent upon a belief system. "The meeting of these two words,'tragedy' and 'faith' is deeply significant, for what is broken in the tragic presupposes a faith in the unbroken totality."² Hope is believing in a world that does not exist yet, a concession towards the kingdom of the heavens. To hope is to believe that life could be better. It is ultimately our belief in this "unbroken totality" that allows for the potential of tragedy. For without this hope, tragedy is no longer tragedy -- it's simply expected. Without a belief that allows for a better world, the tragic is fact.

So we are given a choice at the edge of these two worlds. The choice between despair or hope. To be in despair is to deny that tragedy is tragedy. To be in despair is to disbelieve in the tragic and redefine it as acceptable, immutable, unchangeable. To hope is to call injustices and corruptions exactly what they are: tragic. Against all odds, against all that we know about this world, we could choose to hope for a better one -- to hope for love, for peace, for a form of contentment and solace that we have never fully realized. We choose to speak these worlds into being.

To create is to cosign the Maker's checks. In the Abrahamic beliefs, (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) the Maker speaks things into existence. Light, darkness, day, night, water, land, plants and animals... these are spoken into being. In the Hindu scriptures, there is a similar creation story, in which the verbal command comes from Vishnu, "Create the world." In all of these belief systems, the Word has tremendous power. The Christian account of the creation makes virtually no distinction between God and Word in the beginning. John 1:1 states, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The artist is a bridge between despair and hope. The artist, more than anyone else is responsible for the re-creation, re-definition and re-thinking the world around us. Every poem, every song, every painting has tremendous possibility. Each of these creations could be a letter of resignation to The World That Is or a window into The World That Is Not. Each poem/painting/song could be a vehicle to a new reality, one in which the artist plays a part no matter how small. The artist paints a world into existence. The canvas, the paint, the brush--these known quantities of existence and reality are tools for stepping into the unknown. The notes of the song are a bridge from what is to what is not yet.

I don't write songs when I'm happy. When I'm content, I take my wife out to dinner, I go surfing. I hang out with my friends and play ridiculous cover tunes when I'm happy. But when I'm depressed, I turn to look for something beyond this life. When I'm lonely and nothing makes sense and the world has lost it's flavor I search for notes and words that usher in a transcendence that soars high above the tragedy. I look for to song to understand the present tragedy in the context of a hope for a better world. I look for words that remind me of a bigger story, for songs that acknowledge the tragedy and move beyond it. I look to artists who give me windows, words that provide for a new life to be birthed within me.

Is it escape? Is it a coping mechanism? Maybe a bit, but I feel that it is much more than that. The song becomes a hopeful defiance. A declaration that the injustices and absurdities of our postmodern existence are not the final downbeat. Music becomes a confession of disbelief in the world that surrounds me. A refusal to believe that these tragedies and horrors are the ultimate end. A refusal to accept the oppression of the Dalit's as anything other than tragic. A nonacceptance that the starving six year old is anything other than tragic. The song is written in defense of a world beyond this one, in defense of Truths that seldom make it to the front page of the newspaper. Words create worlds.

¹ Dalit Identities and The Dialectics of Oppression and Emancipation in a Changing India: The Tamil Case and Beyond -Jean-Luc Racine & Josiane Racine
² The von Bathasar reader p. 92

The Ending of All Endings

2009-11-23T16:40:00.013-04:00

(This was a talk given a few weeks ago for Christ the King Sunday which, in the Christian liturgical calendar, acts as the New Years Eve where Advent begins and we look forward in hope and anticipation to God's coming to earth in Jesus to show us the way back home. Thanks to Rob and Drops Like Stars for the launch pad).

There’s a story in the Bible.
It’s about a Father and his two sons.
One day one of the sons goes to his dad and says,
“Dad, I want my half of the inheritance.”
Obviously the father is still alive and well so this is pretty much the same as asking,
“Dad, could you hurry up and die? I want my money.”

Oh, nothing like the love of a child.

The father relents and the son goes off on a scandalous adventure of drunken
debauchery and what the Bible, leaving it to our imaginations, calls “wild living.”
Years later, though, he wakes up broken, destitute, and without a cent
and with nowhere else to go he crawls back to his father’s house
just hoping and praying that he would be welcomed back as maybe
a stable-boy or a dish-washer but certainly not as a son after he did.

But as the son rounds the corner towards his family's home,
he is seen by his father who is overwhelmed with joy and relief at the return of his long lost son
that he throws the biggest, craziest and most gluttonous party that that town had ever seen.
Tents go up, a fat calf is thrown onto the BBQ, cases of wine are opened and the town begins to dance to the band's music.
The son, hoping to be received as a nobody, was welcomed home as a son.
He was forgiven, loved and restored.

Remember the other son?
Well, he hears the music on his way home from working for his father and wonders
what the fuss could be about. A party that big must be about something important so
he stops someone on the road and asks a worker what is going on at his house.
The worker yells over the music:
“Oh your brother has returned! Your father is throwing a welcome home party!”
Upon hearing the news that his own brother is alive and home,
he doesn’t rush home in joy,
he doesn’t break down and cry in relief,
he doesn't do anything.
He just stands there.
Feeling furious,
betrayed,
jealous,
hurt.

His brother, who had wished his father dead and deserted them both,
was being treated far better than he ever had.
The father, wondering why his son won't come to the party, looks at him and asks:
"Son, why aren't you coming to the party?"
“But dad, you never did this for me! You never threw a party for me and my friends! How could you do this to me after I have stayed and worked so hard?! He left us!"
“My boy! Your brother is home. Can you not be happy?”

And there,
just like in the movies,
just as the father asks that question,
it's like the movie camera zooms out,
expanding the scene from that bitter and climatic argument,
to take in the whole party, the whole town, until finally the screen turns black and the story ends.

Fini.
The story is over.
Just as the climax happens,
just as everything hits the fan,
just as the point where the teaching moment should happen,
the story ends.
Unresolved. Unfinished.
The family is left with an elephant in the room.

Why does Jesus tell a story that has no ending?
Why would he tell us this and not let us know how it worked out?
Shouldn't there be a huge 'And I tell us this ...' right then? Where is it?
Did the disciples just not remember the ending?
What's the deal?

Perhaps,
as Rob Bell would say,
Jesus doesn’t end the story because the story itself simply doesn’t finish.
There is no ending because there no endng.
There is no resolution because there is no resolution.
The camera fads with the story unfinished.

Jesus left the story unfinished because he knew that
sometimes things in our lives just don’t get resolved.
Jesus knew that sometimes events, conversations, and relationships
simply get left unfinished and unresolved as we helplessly move
on to the next chapter and the next story in our lives.
Jesus knew that we have lots of unfinished stories we all wish we could end.

We live, as Rob Bell says, in the hallways –
inbetween endings and the beginnings.
Sometimes when we leave the rooms we've been in, the doors stay open,
the noise filters out reminding us of the conflict that took place there;
but unable to do anything,
we move on with that baggage,
loaded down with our pasts as we move down the
hallway opening up more doors and starting new stories.

Life is full of unended stories isnt it?
We go about wondering if they'll ever get finished.
We go about wondering if we can ever find an ending ...

Today is a special day in the Christian calendar!
Know what it is? It's kind of huge.
It is … Christ the King Sunday!
Christ the King Sunday.
Christ the King Sunday …
Christ the King Sunday?

What does that even mean?

It almost seems like one of those random holidays,
where we kind of know what its about but the relevance of it is just so far beyond us
that we just carry on without ever knowing what’s what.
It's kind of like … Victoria Day.
It’s kind of like Labour Day.

It’s almost like the guys who came up with the Christian calendar
needed an extra holiday so they made this one up.
“Alright men, so we need one more day in the Christian calendar.
We’ve covered all the basics and we need something that fills the gaps between Easter and Christmas. Something that sounds important but is vague enough as not to take away from Easter or Xmas.”
Hours of debate and discussion ensues and then finally …
“How about Christ the King Sunday?!”
The others at the table exclaim: “By Golly Ashfield! I think you’ve done it again!”
And now a thousand years later we gather and go:
“Hey! It’s Christ the King Sunday!
Let’s go celebrate that Christ is our king.”

Christ is our King?

It can be a confusing title for Christ, let alone a date on the calendar.
We use it all the time but perhaps never really think too much about it.
Kings are hard to make sense of these days.
With images of King Agamendmon and medieval tyrants,
the notion that Jesus is our King can be nonsensical,
especially since 'Christ the Prime-Minister' certainly doesn’t have the same ring to it.
So is this some random title or does it actually mean something?

But it's not just random and it does mean something
so today I hope we can catch just a glimpse of one reason why Christ is our King.
We could easily talk for an hour about this stuff but I'll keep it short
because this is one aspect of why we call Jesus 'King' is so important and beautiful.

The passage we read from the Bible today,
the whole story from the moment Jesus gets arrested to the moment he's taken off the cross,
it is, in one very particular way, a lot like that story we heard about the father and son.

How is it similar?

It doesn’t end either.

The story ends with the body of Jesus being taken away by his friends Joesph and Nicodemus.
Now, just for a moment, let's put ourselves in the sandals of Jesus' friends and followers,
let's pretend we don't know what happens three days later.
The followers and fans of Jesus believed that he was the Messiah, the Son of God,
the man who would be their king and who would triumph over the Romans.
Some of them believed that Jesus was this King, this warrior King.

Disappointment might not be a good enough word for what they felt that day.
They saw their story get cut short.

Instead of getting a warrior King,
they got a man who gets
beaten,
mocked,
humiliated,
crucified,
killed.
As they waited for the angels to swoop down and smite the Romans,
the heard Jesus say 'It's finished,' they saw him stabbed, they saw him taken away
just like a normal person, certainly not like a warrior King.
The camera zoomed back as Nicodemus and Joesph took the body of their King away,
leaving them still a conquered people,
leaving them to move on without seeing their hopes fulfilled.
The story is left unresolved, unfinished, unended.

But … but … but ...
what does our faith tell us?
We know from our faith,
we know that this story is not actually unfinished,
it’s just has another chapter.

What happens three days later?
Resurrection!
What a beautiful word.
Resurrection. Hope. Redemption.

What happens is An Ending for All Unendings.

Three days later
Jesus rose from the dead.
Three days later
the story continued.
Three days later
God declared that another world has begun,
a new world for a new people.
Upon the resurrection of Jesus
we don’t only find the ending to the story we heard,
we don’t just get an ending to the story of Jesus,
we get an ending for all the unended stories in our lives.

On that day a new world and a new story began.
Because we have faith in Jesus,
because we are his fans and his followers,
because we sit at his table and eat his meal together,
we don't only get to hear about what he has done,
we get to participate in it.
We get to be apart of that new life and that new story.

In that new life we get an ending to every single story in our lives
that has just stopped in its tracks left unresolved, unfinished, unended.
In that new life we get to hear all the doors left open in that hallway get slam shut.
In that new life we get to leave our baggage behind and walk with Jesus free and feeling alive.

When Jesus rose from the dead
God began a new chapter and invited us into the story.
It is through Jesus that we find a story that envelopes all of our unfinished stories,
a story whose beginning gives them an ending.

Jesus is the Ending of all Endings.
Jesus is new life,
new beginnings,
life without baggage,
life with only one ending, an ending of love never-ending and hope over-flowing.
That is why we call Jesus our King.
He is our King because he wrote the story and invited us in.
That is why we call Christ our King.
He is the resolution.
The End of life with baggage, the Beginning of life with God.

We pledge allegiance to Jesus as our King
because he is the author of the greatest story ever told
and it is a story of love, forgiveness, hope and new beginnings.
Christ is our King because we want to be a part of that story.
Christ is our King because we have fallen in love with that story,
because we have pledge allegiance to it
because we know it is true and it is good.

Jesus is our resolution.
Our God.
Our hope.
Our king.

We celebrate Christ the King Sunday by thinking about how our lives began again upon being taken up into his story..
We celebrate by remembering how we were able to finish our unended stories by being caught up in the ending of all endings.
We celebrate it because we are part of it.
We celebrate it because we believe it.
We celebrate it because no other story is worth living by.

May you see that Christ is King.
May you get find new life in his story; a story of love, hope and forgiveness.
May you live it out knowing that all your unended stories are now closed.
Go in peace, go in love and go and do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit be with you always and forever.

Love

2009-11-02T19:24:00.009-04:00

Goodness Precedes Greatness

2009-10-26T14:23:00.003-03:00

"Goodness Precedes Greatmess" by Jon Foreman

Huffinton Post October 19, 2009.

I write songs for a living, which is to say that writing songs helps me to live. The song becomes a place where melody and tempo can cover some truly volatile topics. God, women, politics, sex, hatred, disillusionment- a song or a story can be a deeper vessel and more forgiving than most conversations. Poetry can get under the skin without your permission, and music can offer perspective or hope that might have been hidden before. And so the song becomes a vehicle to cover some serious ground.

These days I have a hard time writing a song that feels bright or hopeful. The unemployment rate is edging up even further and spending is down. Foreclosures are way up and stocks are down. Our headlines are full of war, natural disaster, and corruption. So I go looking for songs of hope and stories that remind me of the incredible privilege of living another day. I suppose I'm looking for a hero of sorts. Someone who rises above the situation and does something incredible.

Remember the guy who threw himself on top of the passenger who had suffered a seizure in the New York Subway? As the train was approaching he jumps down onto the tracks and risks his life to save the life of a complete stranger whose convulsions had thrown him into the path of an oncoming train. Incredible. Have you seen Team Hoyt, the dad who pushes his disabled son through all the marathons? They've even done the Iron Man competitions together as father and son, which makes me tear up. Or the story of Mother Teresa, a woman who gave her life to the less fortunate day after day after day. These are the stories that I want to sing about. These are stories of hope.

Such sacrifice, such patience and such goodness is rare and rightly called heroic. But these are not the heroes of our times. Wesley Autrey is not a household name and neither is Team Hoyt. If you want to know the heroes of our society, follow the money, look at the posters on the wall. We pay them seven digit salaries, we put their songs on our playlists, and follow them on Twitter. These are the heroes we emulate.

Let's face it. Mother Teresa doesn't look that good in a negligee. And Team Hoyt won't sell beer commercials to the networks. But when the ball players and the supermodels end up in rehab, we end up asking esoteric questions about what makes a hero. In the movies the good looking actor who gets the girl is easy to point to. But after he gets the girl, then the house, and then a few kids and then a divorce and then another girl. Then what? After all of the special effects are gone, we're left with an aging mortal who looks a bit awkward on the talk shows. Perhaps we've set our goals too low. Or perhaps we've got it backwards.

I would like to suggest that the best parts of our human nature can be seen in sacrifice or surrender. A mother sacrificing her time for her child, a teacher devoting her afternoons to help students off-the-clock. These are truly our most incredible moments as a species: moments of unmerited kindness. Goodness. Virtue. Nobility. Grace. Morality. These are the truly remarkable moments. Perhaps our current economic climate of debt needs a fresh perspective on worth and value. Maybe our monetary crisis indicates a broader loss of perspective.

We live in the land of plenty, the land of milk and honey, where the lottery of birth has given us the advantage of education, of wealth, and of opportunity. Ammon Hennessy puts it this way, "You came into the world armed to the teeth with... the weapons of privilege." A trip south of the border can be an incredible reminder. We are living in the land of entitlement, one of the wealthiest nations in the history of mankind. And yet, money cannot buy us the true wealth of happiness, or peace, or of a deeper form of a meaningful life.

Perhaps the current climate of uncertainty would be the appropriate time to ask the question: what are we aiming for? Our technological achievements as a species are impressive. Our cities, our advancements in flight and our iPhones are all fairly remarkable. But there is nothing heroic about my cell phone. There is nothing sacrificial about it. Where is the song that's worth singing? What is our measure of success? Renown psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl says that "success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as a byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself."

Maybe the fix is not the money. Maybe two and a half hours in a theatre isn't enough time for a hero to be born. Maybe it takes a lifetime- a lifetime like John M. Perkins. John Perkins is a man who devoted his life to those around him in simple and profound ways. He was quick to forgive, quick to utilize resources to help those in need. He has been a tireless civil rights worker who has endured beatings, harassments, and even prison for what he believes. With the help of his wife, Vera Mae, and a few others, he founded a health center, leadership development program, thrift store, low-income housing development and training center in his hometown of Mendenhall, Mississippi. His is a story of reconciliation, of forgiveness, of patience. He endured the suffering, holding on to a cause greater than himself.

John Perkins is a song I want to sing. A song of a great man, the story of a legend. How do you replicate this goodness? Do you monetize it? Do you subsidize it? No. It's bigger than Washington, it's bigger than Wall Street. And it looks better than Hollywood. His is the story of a hero, a song of hope. His is a story that reminds me of a goodness beneath the system. Though Perkins was a devout Christian, he was quick to point out that this goodness is bigger than stale religion. Mr. Perkins once said that "many congregations do nothing but outsource justice." John Perkins said it right- you can't outsource justice. You can't farm out goodness to someone else. Your life is yours alone. Those decisions are yours to make.

I am the system. You are the system. We, the system of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, choose goodness. Yes, the system is flawed. Yes, the church is flawed. Yes, Wall Street and Hollywood Boulevard are all fatally flawed. Yes, there will always be those who take the easy way out. But that ain't your game. Your choice is yours alone. Goodness precedes greatness. Maybe the mother will always have more power than the atomic bomb. Maybe under the skin there is a song of hope and meaning waiting to break free. Or maybe not. It's our story. You and I decide with our actions. It can be as small as simple courtesy. Or get involved in your hometown. Find out what the local food bank looks like. Look up the local Habitat for Humanity. What is the world you want? You choose it with every breath.

In our current climate of fear and debt I am reminded of what I hold most valuable in this life: the human souls closest to me. We need each other. Human beings will always be the most valuable natural resource on the planet. The human story is still unfolding. We are telling it as we speak. The human song is still weaving its way towards a chorus, through the suffering, through the fear. We need each other. We need heroes. Let your life be a beautiful song. We need hope. Tell a good story with the way you live. What is the world you want?

A Swift Kick in My Pants

2009-09-24T18:11:00.016-03:00

My best friend has a shirt that says "Slacker" across it.
For some reason it's hilarious.
By no means is he a slacker, maybe that's why I think its funny.

We all love to slack off eh?
It just feels so good to throw aside our work and take some time for ourselves.
Who doesn't love breaking out the video games
or watching the television
when home-work and relationships just seem to be too much of effort at that moment.

Heck, by the time I actually finish writing this little article I'll have probably have turned on and off the t.v., opened and closed the fridge without taking anything out of it at least six times, and checked facebook probably while doing all of the above. Heck, I should be reading for school right now instead of doing this!

But there's something about slacking off that's different different from relaxing or rewarding yourself after a job well-done.
Slacking off is a means of avoidance.
We do it full-well-knowing that we should be doing something more important but ... we'd really just rather not.

If you were to open up a Bible to the very beginning you'd see the Book of Genesis (it's there on the left).
Without going too Biblical on you, what's important to see here is that
from the very very very very beginning God wanted humanity,
that's me and you,
to be involved in what He was doing.
God totally could have just waved his huge hands and created a finished world where everything was as it was supposed to be, a world that was fixed and never changing.
But that's not how it went down is it?
God wanted to work with us.
God wanted to let the best thing he ever made play a part in creating.
God wanted to let humans take the lead in helping to build a world of love, peace, justice and hope;
a world that would grow out of that image of God that is inside each one of us.

And of course we all know what happened.

Adam and Eve lived until they were old and grey in the Garden of Eden.
Cain and Abel were as best of friends as any parent could hope.
Everyone was happy and life was good.
War was never known.
Heck, war wasn't even a word because people were too busy being happy and peaceful.
Yup, the rest of the Bible is full of nice and happy stories.
God's world was going just like He planned it.

...
....
.....

Adam and Eve tried to make it on their own and hid from God.
Cain killed Abel.
Life was pretty crappy.
War was an all too familiar word, known and felt across the world.
Nope, just like we read throughout the rest of the Bible, God's world was going the opposite direction than He planned.

Humanity dropped the ball.
God was pointing one way and humanity was going another.

The writers of the Old Testament see this happening.
They are always talking about how humanity is moving 'east' away from Eden.
God's pointing west back to Eden but humanity's running off another way, taking the world with it.
God's world wasn't going where He planned.
Hatred.
Violence.
Injustice.
Despair.

Humanity slacked off.
Humanity was on Facebook.

So instead of starting all over again God tried something else.
He put into effect The Super Great Final Restorative Rescue Plan for the World.

It's a mouthful to keep saying over and over again
so we can just just shorten it to 'Jesus' instead.

It was in Jesus that God showed us what being human is supposed to be like.
God was basically saying 'This is what being human is supposed to be like! Be more like him!'
That's one of the beautiful things about what we call the Incarnation:
that God came down to us as a person so he could show us the way home.
That's why we say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus is the way back to God's world of love, justice, peace and hope.
Jesus tells it the way it is, showing us what life is all abot.
Jesus lives that way out and invites us into it, to share it with him.

When we call ourselves followers and fans of Jesus it's not because we think he's pretty rad.
It means so much more than that.
When we call ourselves Christians it means that we've pledged allegiance to the world
that God wants to make happen and we will do it by the best way possible - being like Jesus.
And being like Jesus means going the second mile and giving our whole lives if we have to.

We'll love the people nobody else does.
We'll swallow our pride and do the dirty work.
We'll go out of our way to give hope and practice justice.
We'll step up to the plate.
We'll live the life Jesus did
We'll do what we were supposed to be doing all along - helping to build God's world.
We'll get out of God's way.

What's it called when we get in God's way?
When we run the opposite direction than where God's going?
There's a word that can sum up what we can call this.

That word is 'sin.'

Sin is what happens when we slack off from doing God's work.

When we slack off as Christians we do so much more than simply give Christianity a bad name.
We sin.
That's not good.
By saying that we're saying that we're becoming less like what God wants us to be like.
Slacking off as Christians is sin because
God is out there calling 'Hey! Let's go make something happen!'
and we look up,
we sigh,
we think 'maybe tomorrow. Starting tomorrow I'll make it happen.'
We turn on the tv, we pick up the novel, we walk past the homeless, we put ourselves first.

We avoid God's call when we say:
'Maybe tomorrow.'
'But I'm on vacation.'
'Im tired.'

God's world is too important to wait til tomorrow, to wait until you're back from vacation, to wait until you feel up to it.
No matter what we do for a living when it comes to following Jesus, slacking off is simply not an option.
Too much depends on it.
People depend on it.
Paul even writes about how creation itself - the rocks and trees! - depend on it.

Sounds like a lot of work huh?
To be on the ball all the time is hard work
but fortunately we're not alone.
We've got a whole whack of people trying to pull the impossible and change this world.
We've got a God saying 'Keep going. I will help you out. Let's make this world my world.'
Trust in that.
Hope in that.
Live in that.

Facebook can wait.
Go do something.
Live like Jesus.

May you have the strength to answer God's call.
May you experience the transforming power that working for the Kingdom of God can bring.
May you grow in that image of God within you.
Go in peace.
Go in love.
Go and do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit be with you always and forever.

It Begins with a Boat - Podcasted!

2009-08-09T21:21:00.003-03:00

Dont you love hearing your own voice?!
This talk was given to a church in Toronto August 9th.
Basically the same as the post below but with sound!
Not the greatest sermon of my life but oh well.

it begins with a boat

2009-08-08T13:28:00.008-03:00

73. 23. 1. 0.

It begins with a boat.

Now boats are one of those inventions,

airplanes are another,

that cause some of us to stop for a second and think:

“If God, being the thoughtful kind of God he is,

ever wanted us to be out in the water

or flying around in the air,

then he would have given us gills or wings.”

But instead, we wound up with arms and cheeks

which, if we ever find ourselves in the middle of the ocean

or falling from the sky,

tend to be pretty useless.

This, of course, begs the question:

‘why would someone even bother with a boat or a plane?’

Going out in the water can be scary and intimidating.

When you’re in a boat

and the sky grows dark and winds begin to howl,

you feel a knot form in your stomach,

your heart beats faster

and cold sweat trickles down your back,

because you know,

that with just your hands and feet to work with,

that you are totally out of your element

and your numbers are completely stacked against you.

73. 23. 1. 0.

It begins with a boat.

The boat’s full of disciples.

We find the story in Mark 4.

The disciples just had spent the day doing their thing,

helping Jesus spread the news that the Kingdom of Heaven had arrived

and that he, Jesus, is the way back to God.

But after trying to figure out all those parables

the disciples were tired and hungry

so they and Jesus got in a boat and went across the lake to rest.

Now,

depending on which translation of the Bible you use,

it could say they crossed a ‘lake’ or ‘sea.’

What they were actually crossing was the Sea of Galilee, which is really a massive fresh-water lake.

But, all we really need to know, is that this lake was famous for the storms that would randomly appear, even on the most beautiful of days.

So we assume that was the case here;

the day was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky

but once the disciples and Jesus got half way across the lake, that all changed.

Boat meets storm.

As if being in a boat is not uncomfortable enough,

being in a boat in the middle of a storm

well, it has the same affect as when,

one night, on the way home late from work

you suddenly remember its your wife’s birthday

and you are going home empty-handed:

Your eyes widen,

you swear under your breath,

you begin to panic

and you flinch because you can already feel,

almost by some primal male intuition,

the fury you are about to experience.

And you know there is not a thing you can do to make the situation better.

Storms and boats are never a great mix.

Every summer back in New Brunswick. my friend Rich and I go camping.

The first time we went was more of a spontaneous decision,

and that’s really just a polite way of saying

that we put next to no effort or thought into planning the trip.

So, off we went with our ourselves, tent, gear, guitar, Coleman stove, water, food, case of beer, two dogs and our eleven foot canoe.

Now, this trip is a perfect case for why our parents told us thought and planning are important things.

For those of you who know something about canoeing,

what happens when you put more than 500 pounds in an 11 foot canoe?

Yup, what you’re all thinking is pretty much exactly what happens.

The brim of your canoe is just about flush with the water.

That’s almost okay unless you happen to run into a storm.

So the day is gorgeous as we set out to the other side of the lake.

Not 200 yards from shore a storm hits.

Waves are crashing,

winds are blowing,

dogs are flipping out,

Rich is paddling,

I’m scooping water out while trying to save the case of beer and keep the guitar from getting wet,

and we fight for our lives.

The canoe, already too low in the water,

sinks lower and lower as more and more water flow into it …

to the point where just as we make it to safety

most of our stuff can be seen floating in the water leaving a nice little trail back to the dock.

The story is something we love to tell

but right there, in the thick of it,

all that we could think about was how helpless we were.

All we saw were the numbers stacked against us.

So, I, and perhaps you too,

can relate to how the disciples felt as the rain, wind and waves were crashing into their boat. We can relate to the sense of helplessness they felt.

We can imagine what was going on …

As the disciples began to lose hope and rejection set in,

they, no doubt, began reminiscing with each other:

“Well boys, it was good while it lasted! We had a good run!”

“Matthew, you’re actually a pretty good guy for a tax collector.”

Andrew yells to Peter:

“Dad was right! We never should have left his fishing company to follow this guy.

At least Dad knew how to predict if a storm was coming.”

Nathaniel hugs Thomas, saying:

“Thomas! We should have listened to you! You told us from the beginning getting in this boat wasn’t a good idea!”

And as the storm grew worse and worse

they became more terrified and convinced that this storm would send them and Jesus to their deaths.

Jesus?

We can get so caught up in the story that we can forget that he was in the boat too.

Where was Jesus in all of this?

Helping Philip steer the boat? No.

Trying to comfort Bartholomew and get him to bail water? No.

In the middle of this raging storm Jesus was asleep.

Jesus is fast asleep in the back of the boat.

Now let’s stop for a second and ask the obvious:

Why would Jesus be sleeping in the middle of a storm?!

The disciples, at least half of whom are fisherman and used to being in a boat,

are freaking out, and Jesus, a carpenter, who may have only made boats,

is catching a few winks in the back.

Why was Jesus sleeping?

The disciples wondered the same thing as they finally cried out:

"Jesus! Teacher! Don’t you care that we’re about to die?!”

73. 23. 1. 0.

Those are my numbers.

Those are the numbers stacked against me.

73 resumes. 23 online applications. 1 interview. 0 job.

The past five months have been for myself

and for a lot of others

a time of suspense and rejection.

When I was looking for work

there would be that initial period of suspense.

I would be full of hope that something, anything, would turn up.

Hope has, built into it, a sense of anticipation -

an anxious and expectant waiting and yearning.

You hope that special someone will finally clue in that you like them as you wait for some sort of clue that they feel the same way.

You hope that you will finally hear from your son or daughter after years of silence and waiting by the phone.

You hope your doctor will finally figure out what your body is fighting against as you wait and wait, growing weaker and weaker by the day.

The days pass on by as you stare at the phone waiting for good news …

wondering if the reason the phone hasn’t rang yet

is that something’s wrong with it

so you keep picking it up to see it’s working

and then wonder

if in the time you picked it up to see if its working

you missed the call you’ve waiting for

and you end up driving yourself into such a state of despair and depression that you have no idea what to do next.

After all that waiting …

hope starts to seem a bit silly.

We feel rejected. We feel disappointed. Letdown. Hopeless. Pathetic.

After all that suspense we finally realize that what we were hoping for is just not going to happen.

And that hurts!

Five months of suspense and rejection,

let alone a year or two,

of having your hopes deferred,

is enough to drop anyone to their knees

and make them feel like they are in a boat in the middle of a storm they will not survive.

Just like the disciples, it’s enough to make us cry out:

‘Jesus! Teacher! Don’t you care that we are about to die?!’

All of us,

at some point in our lives, will feel the sting of rejection.

All of us,

will feel like we are fighting a battle we can’t win

and will look up to the sky and tell God off

because our pain, misery and hopelessness is so unbearable and so unfair

that God, we will say, if he is any kind of God at all,

should have stepped in long ago to make things better.

When our numbers are stacked against us

hope for something else, anything else,

becomes too hard to have.

All we can see is the storm around us

and just like the disciples

we cry out:

“Jesus! Teacher! Don’t you care I’m about to die?!”

If we’re honest,

we can all say that we’ve shouted out those questions before.

They are good questions too; that needs to be understood.

We should never feel bad for arguing or being angry with God.

because God doesn’t want relationships of formality,

where we dress up and pretend to be somebody else or that we have it all together.

That’s not relationship.

Relationships are not based on fiction.

It’s not a relationship when we try to convince the other person that we’re something we’re not or when we hide our true feelings from them.

Relationship only comes out of honesty, love and acceptance;

it only happens when we come to each other just as we are and say:

“This is who I am and this is how I’m doing today.”

God wants a real relationship with us.

That’s why God became human.

He wants us just as we are because he loves just as we are.

Dressing up or pretending to have it all together defeats the point of the incarnation.

Having a relationship with God means that we are honest with him about who we are

and what we are feeling.

Being able to be ourselves, even when all we want to do is rage against and wrestle with God, is exactly what God wants.

And it also shows us how merciful and beautiful God is.

It shows us that God isn’t someone to be avoided in fear of retaliation,

or someone we must win over,

or someone we can’t ask those questions of.

It shows that God is someone to go to with our hearts on our sleeves and face full of tears. Just like a perfect parent, God loves us and wants to be with us even in our brokenness and anger.

All that to say, asking those questions is okay and coming to God with them is good.

But we also need to know that those questions are not unanswerable.

What we will see is that those questions will take us to a place where

we will look back on the storms that brought them on and say:

“I really had nothing to worry about.”

So to take us to that place, let’s go back to our first question:

Why is Jesus asleep in the boat?

A good friend of mine asked this question before.

She decided that the answer is in the question itself.

Jesus is asleep because he’s Jesus.

Being the Son of God has a few perks to it,

one being that storms don’t tend to bother you that much.

With the power to silence the winds and the rain,

that uneasiness we sometimes feel just doesn’t happen.

Jesus is God and those worries don’t really register; falling asleep in a boat,

even in a boat in the middle of a storm, isn’t as crazy an idea as we first thought.

So, if we know that Jesus is sleeping because he has power over the wind and rain

and would do something if things got too out of hand;

and if we also know the disciples knew that Jesus was God and could do those things,

then we no longer have to ask why Jesus was sleeping.

Our question changes. It’s no longer about Jesus.

Instead, our question gets turned back to the disciples:

“Why are they stressing out?”

Since we are share the same spot as the disciples here,

the question also gets thrown back at us.

If we know that God loves us and is in control,

or, in other words,

God can calm the storms in our lives,

then “why are we stressing out?”

We know the answer to those questions because Jesus tells us.

Beginning half way through verse 38:

The disciples were bailing water and yelling for Jesus to wake up and help.

Jesus opened his eyes, rose, stretched out his arms and said

"Peace. Be still."

The wind stopped blowing,

the waves stopped crashing

and peace swept across the lake.

They were safe, alive, and a rainbow spread across the sky.

Jesus then looked down at them and asked:

“Why are you stressing out? Have you no faith?”

Have you no faith?

Faith is what this story is all about.

Faith is the answer to all our question.

No matter how we define it,

to have faith means to trust and have hope regardless of the circumstances.

It’s about living like you believe God’s Spirit moves among us.

It’s about knowing that if you cry out, you will be answered.

As church,

faith is at the core of who we are and what we’re about.

It’s faith that makes us different,

that brings us together,

that transforms us,

that drives us forward.

Its faith that gives us the audacity to

chase after Christ and live like we’re forgiven.

And I say ‘audacity’ because faith is not dictated by human norms and conventions.

Faith is not dictated by what science or logic or common sense say is possible.

Faith is rooted in something else all together.

Faith is rooted in the fact that we believe in and follow the God of the Impossible.

God of the Impossible.

The title doesn’t appear in the Bible but there’s a good theological basis for it.

God is a God of the Impossible because he breaks down our limitations,

works in completely nonsensical ways,

and continuously makes new and impossible things happen.

God looks at the situations we’ve deemed a lost cause

and says “Hmm … I can do something with this.”

Faith, then, is an audacious act.

It’s a radical way of living with the hope that the impossible will and does happen.

And faith, while we sometimes say it’s something we have,

really is more of a way of being or living.

It transforms us from the inside out,

it transforms us, Church,

from a people of limitations and boundaries to a people of hope and audacity.

When we live by faith we no longer fear with the same hopelessness

those storms and numbers because we know that despite everything at hand, God can still make something happen.

It’s our faith that assures us that when we feel like we’re alone in a boat about to get swallowed up by the sea that we are not alone

but God is with us, listening to our cries and saying:

“I will hold you until this is over. I am here and this is not the end. Trust me.”

It is faith that lets us defy the odds and not be beaten down by our numbers.

Even when the boat sinks

it’s faith that lets us walk on water.

Walking on water captures the idea of what it means to live in faith.

For this we turn back to Matthew 14.

Again, it begins with a boat.

The disciples,

having been stuck out at sea all night because of some strong winds,

wake up in the morning to see a man walking towards them on the water.

Now, even back then, someone walking on water wasn’t something you’d see everyday. So understandably, the disciples began to freak out.

They cried ‘It’s a ghost!”

But that ghost answered back: “It’s me, Jesus. Don’t be afraid!”

The disciples, though, were not convinced. All except for Peter.

Peter, in one of his rare moments of being on the ball,

shows us what it means to live in faith.

Peter yelled across water: ‘Jesus, if that’s you, tell me to come to you.”

We should all take note from this because Peter’s faith here is stunning.

He’s not an idiot; he knows perfectly well where he is and where Jesus is;

he knows that between him and Jesus is whole lot of ocean.

But he also knows that Jesus is God and can make the impossible happen.

Peter believes that if Jesus tells him to do something,

no matter how ridiculous and crazy it sounds, he will be able to do it.

Peter trusts Jesus.

So when Jesus said, “Come,” Peter gave it no second thought.

He stepped out of the boat and began to walk towards him … one foot in front of the next … walking on water.

Peter walked on water! He did the impossible!

That’s like saying he flew or blew up a building with his eyes.

But Peter isn’t Super-man.

Peter is just a believer; a man who lives in faith.

What we see in Peter is a radical contrast to normalcy and faithlessness,

to letting the world control what we think is possible,

to being trapped within our small imaginations.

Peter’s actions are an example of the kind of faith that Jesus was looking for in the other story.

A faith that remembers who Jesus is

and a faith that doesn’t quit when the writing on the wall says otherwise.

A faith that knows God can do the impossible.

A faith that makes you walk upon the water.

But …

I can hear them asking now:

“Now, I have to stop you there.

I’m with you so far but don’t you know what happens at the end of this story?”

Ok, let's go there.

What does happen to Peter at the end of the story?

He sinks and gets asked, again, why he has no faith.

However, this doesn’t take away from Peter’s example of faith

and, if anything, it highlights something even more important.

Back to verse 30.

“As Peter was walking towards Jesus … “

so he’s looking straight at him,

“he noticed the strong wind,

became frightened and began to sink.”

So what happened here?

Peter began to sink as soon as he took his eyes off Jesus!

He let doubt get his way and he forgot that Jesus was there with him.

But what happened next is amazing.

“Peter became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out: ‘Jesus, Save me!’

Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.”

Jesus saved him the moment Peter cried out for help.

Jesus immediately caught him.

Here we’re reminded that when we cry out to God for help,

He will catch us.

We will be saved.

The end of the story is pretty interesting too.

When Jesus catches Peter he doesn’t put him right back in the boat.

That happens later.

When Jesus catches Peter he simply holds him.

They’re still standing on the water!

This is really important because it goes against what’s popular in a lot of Christianity:

the idea that God will make your life problem-free or that God will whisk you away to the moment something bad starts to happen.

Everyone single one of us knows that’s just not true. Our lives are proof.

Being rescued or held by God doesn’t always mean the trouble is over.

Sometimes all it takes to get through a storm is the comfort of a strong hand to hold.

The trouble doesn’t go away but we know that we are going to be okay because we’ve got something to hold on.

Jon Foreman, one of my favourite poets calls this a beautiful letdown:

that even in the middle of our letdowns and darkest days there is something beautiful,

a hand to hold on to.

Even in the middle of our storms God is still there reaching out to catch us and hold us tightly until the sun shines again.

Peter knew about beautiful letdowns and had faith God was with him.

We must have the same kind of faith as Peter.

We must be water-walkers.

We are the gathered,

we are the faithful,

those who step out in faith despite the circumstances

and despite the numbers

because we have the audacity to say that through Christ anything is possible.

By our faith and conviction that there is a better way,

we walk,

or as the Psalmist wrote,

we dance, we dance with faith.

We are those who, by faith, dance upon injustice because we know there is a better way.

We are those who dance upon despair because we know there is hope.

We are those who dance upon loneliness because we know there is love.

We are those who dance upon guilt and shame because we know there is forgiveness.

We are those who point to the rainbow because we know there is trust.

We are those who, by faith, walk upon the water.

Even if our boat tips or that phone call never comes

we will be carry on

because Jesus will be there holding our hand and He can do the impossible.

It may begin with a boat.

The numbers may be 73. 23. 1. 0.

But it always ends with Jesus.

It always ends with Jesus.

So when you’re on that boat

and you’re on your knees bailing water as fast as your little arms can

look out to the sea and see that someone is right there walking towards you with his arms wide open.

His name is Jesus.

He will understand.

He is the answer that you’ve been waiting for.

Walk in faith with him.

Live in faith.

Jesus is Annoying (the sermon)

2009-08-01T17:37:00.001-03:00

I love Jesus. I think he’s pretty awesome.
But sometimes,
sometimes, I find
he can be, kind of, annoying.

It’s just that he won’t stop challenging me to step out of my comfort zone,
or telling me he wants more than just a ‘safe faith.’
He calls me out on having one foot in his camp
and one foot in mine
… day after day of that …
I mean, ‘Jesus, really? What more could you possibly want?!’

Maybe some of you have had similar experiences and
have asked that question a few times in your life.

The answer,
as we hear in John 12 and see in Mark 10,
is that the Annoying Jesus has a point.
Safe faith and a life of ‘lazy Christianity’ is not what God wants.
God does call for more, a lot more,
and wants both our feet in his camp
because it’s when we’re fully committed to him that
we are given something beautiful - life.

The passage in John is a difficult one; not only is there a lot going on but the messages aren’t easy either.

When we finally do understand what Jesus is saying we find the passage makes us uncomfortable and even offended.
So maybe we skip over it and jump ahead to something less demanding.
But as a professor of mine always says,
‘if you read the Bible and aren’t offended and made uncomfortable, you’re not really reading it.’

When we join Jesus in here
he is not too far off from enacting the climax of God’s rescue plan for the world.
It would be soon that he is crucified,
transforming a Roman symbol of oppression and death into the Christian symbol of liberation and life.
I am, of course, talking about what? The cross.
And it’s here in this passage that Jesus,
once again,
offers the challenge of what it really means to really follow him and carry that cross.

“Listen carefully,” Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat.
If it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.”

Now, Jesus had many titles but Farmer-Jesus was not one of them.
With Jesus dispensing gardening advice it’s no wonder people
then, and today, get a little confused about this passage.
But some horticultural history can help shed some light on where Farmer-Jesus is going with this.

Back in the 1st century it was thought that a seed, when buried, actually dies.
It’s by dying that the seed changes into a plant.
We need to understand that idea because ‘dying into new life’
is central to what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus continued …

“In the same way,
(So Jesus is talking about people now)
anyone who holds on to life just as it is
destroys that life.
But if you let it go you'll have it forever, real and eternal.”

In other words, like that seed, people had to ‘let go’ of their lives,
they had to die to an older way of being
and make room for the ways of Jesus.
It’s then, in that transformation, they would experience true life.

We get another glimpse of this in the passage we read from Mark’s Gospel.
The rich man,
having been told that a moral and good life is actually not what Jesus wants,
is annoyed and frustrated when Jesus tells him to go and sell all his possessions.
Wealth is equated with possessions,
and what Jesus is essentially telling him is that your identity and your life
cannot be about your money or having nice things;
instead, your life must be about following me.
Jesus is telling him “Get rid of all that stuff so that can happen. Those things are getting in the way of you giving yourself to me.”

Is it then any wonder we’re told later in both John and Mark
that the people were offended and confused?!
Jesus had just told them that in order to receive this new and full life
they had to step out of their comfort zones.
He said that to be in God’s camp, they had to let go of their lives and leave them behind.
It’s only then,
when God’s Word guides their lives,
that they embody and follow Jesus,
that they’ll experience new life, a life in its absolute fullness.

To live,
to truly live then,
was not just to be alive,
but is to be in Christ.
Anything else is a pale imitation.

This is crazy revolutionary because Jesus had just thrown out the idea that faith
is based on ancestry and race as the Jewish tradition held. He had just said that faith,
and thereby redemption,
is about a matter of belief.

But as if that was not annoying enough,
what Jesus was doing was reiterating his call to kenosis –
an intentional willingness to put aside one’s own ambitions and desires –
one’s own life –
a letting go,
and emptying of self –
to make room for God.

That’s a huge challenge and the people, in both accounts we see, were having a hard time hearing it.
It was uncomfortable, it was annoying.

In that kenotic challenge, they heard the Annoying Jesus
because they weren’t ready to step up and follow him like that.
They were not ready to leave behind themselves and put both feet in God’s camp.
Maybe drag a foot behind them but that new life Jesus offered just seemed too much.

And you can follow someone you find annoying for only so far.
We have that problem too, I think.

Nobody, regardless of historical time or place or age is good at kenosis,
at leaving their own lives behind for the sake of something else.
Humans, it seems, are not very good at following someone else’s lead,
especially God’s.

A quick look throughout the Old Testament can show this …
Whenever God would send a prophet to tell humanity to smarten up and fly right,
well, that prophet usually wound up dead.

We are simply wired …
or perhaps it is better if I said we are ‘accustomed’ …
we are simply used to doing things our own way.
When someone tells us their way is best,
or that we are kind of missing the point,
their words don’t come across as wisdom or a good idea -
they come across as annoying.

When I was a boy,
one of my things my father would do with my brothers and me was take us out fishing.
What I remember more than anything,
was that I was arch and bitter enemies
with my life-jacket.

I hated that life jacket.
Not just because as the fashion-conscious six-year old I was,
I knew wearing the jacket was far less cool than going bare-chested;
but mostly because
by wearing that life-jacket I was saying that I couldn’t do it on my own.
Wearing that life jacket was annoying
because it implied I could not save myself.
It said I needed help, and that what I thought I could do easily, I really needed help with.

Jesus is like that life-jacket.
We struggle to follow, to wear, Christ,
the way God wants us to.
It’s too big, too bulky, the wrong colour …
He’s too annoying, too demanding, too scary, too complicated, too constrictive.
Just like the people around Jesus who complained and just like that rich man,
we too find reasons to not follow Jesus fully.

Instead of giving ourselves completely over,
we leave our wearing of Christ un-fastened or stuffed under the seat.
Despite the constant invitations from Jesus to zip-up and follow him,
we find life much easier this way with Jesus half off or almost hidden from view.

But … And ‘but’ is one of the greatest words that can be said in a sermon because it shows that no matter what the topic, no matter what trouble or predicament we get ourselves into, God always has something to say to help us out.
No wonder Jesus was fond of saying ‘But, I tell you this …”

But … as these passages show,
when we do get over ourselves and empty ourselves in order to fill up with Jesus,
our lives are opened up to a whole new world of beauty and meaning.
We find, as the scripture said, life abundant and eternal.

Life – real, full, abundant, amazing.
It’s in giving life over to Jesus,
it’s in the pursuit of being a fan and follower of him,
it’s in the act of letting go of our own agendas and own desires
that we experience life in such a way that we simply cannot if we simply hold on to ourselves.
It’s there, in that giving over to Christ, that act of faith, that one finds restoration into a life of grace and love and hope.
For what kind of life is worth living without grace, love and hope?

That’s one of the things that really really really needs to be heard from these passages.
That through Jesus, God offers new life, life as He intended it to be like.

This is not a life of mediocrity but a life restored, a life of purpose, fullness and love.

It is in Jesus, John wrote,
that we could awaken to the way that God is transforming the world to be.
A way we know is true because God raised it from the dead.

God offered in Jesus, a chance to experience life in ways people could not on their own. The world had simply got too used to doing things their own way,
of dismissing God’s callings from the prophets as too hard and too annoying,
The world became so used to doing things its own way and living for itself that those callings from God became fainter, and fainter until it was a mere whisper.

But …
through Jesus,
in an act that is so bewilderingly beautiful,
God became human so that call could hear his voice.
Jesus made it possible that the world could be given new life,
a life out of the shadows sin casts,
a life within the light of God, the one John calls ‘The Father of Light.’

Jesus, on his way to the cross,
was inviting them into that life
and today that invitation remains open for me and for you.

God wants you too.
God doesn’t want you to be content with mediocrity and annoyance.
God loves you and wants all of you, both feet, to experience that life of fullness;
a life of overcoming sin, a life without guilt, and no fear of death.
A life with Jesus, forgiven, restored, loved and free.
Through the scars and cross of Jesus we have been given true life, with all its benefits and fullness.

It was thinking about the scars of Christ that reminded me of a girl some good friends of mine met a few years back.

Her name was Rene.
And when Rene was a teenager, 17 or so, she confessed that he had lost all interest in living.
Rene would say she never knew what love or hope felt like.
Numbness she all too well but wanting to feel anything other than the lack of it,
she saw pain as the only way to make her feel human again.
Rene began cutting.
Cutting her arms just enough to feel the pain,
until the cuts got deeper and living began to make less and less sense.

It was in this dark year that as she walked home, heard some music, and stumbled into a church. It was there that she met some guys who played in the worship band
and first heard, first really heard, about this guy named Jesus.

At first she struggled with Jesus.
She found those constant calls to follow him just too hard and too annoying so she kept her distance.
But slowly, Rene began to see what Jesus was all about.
She began to believe who he said he was, to follow his teachings and give herself over to him.
It was then, when she first have herself over to Jesus that Rene first felt love.
That is super cool. Think about that …
How overwhelmingly beautiful would it be to have love be the first thing to break through your numbness.
With that love and hope growing within her heart, Rene began to put away the knives.
The more she felt the love and embrace of Jesus,
the more alive and full she felt.

Jesus was Rene’s lifejacket.

Rene knows what it’s like to struggle with the Annoying Jesus
but she also knows how walking with Jesus can write Love over her scars.

Life in Jesus is not easy.
But what is important to know is that by turning to Jesus
and giving ourselves to him,
by emptying ourselves and growing into new life with God,
we are able to keep our heads above the waters and live,
with both feet,
in the place where Heaven and Earth meet.
It’s there,
in Christ,
that life, real and eternal is found and given freely.
It’s there that our pale imitations becomes coloured in with all the colours of God’s love and mercy.

And that is a life worth having.

Answer that annoying call of Jesus.
Zip up and wear Christ.
Experience the life given to you.
Go in peace, go love, do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always.

Castrated Men Ask Good Questions

2009-04-22T22:06:00.002-03:00

"Would you spend eternity in hell to save your neighbour?"

Origen, a theologian from back in the early days of Christianity, asked that once.

It’s a crazy question, of course, but Origen was a little crazy himself.
In a really weird, and considering the effort that would have gone into it, admirable display of devotion to God Origen castrated himself.

Ouch.

"Would you spend eternity in hell to save your neighbour?"

The point of his question is so radically in touch with what Jesus taught and embodied that our only answer can be ‘yes.’

Scary.

Jesus was once hanging out with some Pharisees, think the church elite/debate team of the day, when they asked him: "What is the most important commandment?"
Now understand that this question was a big deal because the Jewish faith was centred around following the laws and teachings their tradition held because they believed that by doing so they would find relationship with God. So, this question is a big deal because they were essentially asking which law reveals the most about who God is and what God is like and how one is to be in relationship with Him. (Matt 22.34-40).

Deep.

Jesus answered their question: "Love your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength."

The Pharisees couldn't argue with that, a pretty solid answer by any means.
But, as was his annoying tendency, Jesus then does something they didn't expect … he keeps talking.

Don’t you hate how he does that? It even happens to us today. Just after we read something that makes us go a little too crazy with our highlighters or run to the computer to write some inspired Facebook message Jesus goes ‘Um, excuse me but actually …’ and then proceeds to completely shatter what we thought was a good and wholesome Jesus teaching.

Frig.

That Annoying Jesus is so important to keeping our faith focussed on the thing Jesus was pointing to himself, the Kingdom, because it constantly calls us on our B.S; it makes sure we are not content with moralistic living and simplistic theological lives but beckons us to a life of self-emptying and real worship. Jesus is doing this very thing with the Pharisees. He’s about to blow their minds by expanding the very nature of what God’s people are supposed to be like.

Jesus kept talking … "And another is like it; love your neighbour."
Jesus adds another commandment! Jesus isn’t simply being cheeky but showing that one cannot answer the Pharisees’ question with one commandment; the single most important commandment of loving God with all your heart, soul and strength needs to be guided, and even displayed, by a second commandment of loving your neighbour.

Boosh (minds being blown … hard to verbalize such a sound).

The Pharisees were blown away because Jesus just did something that to them messed with their sacred tradition and to us, in faithful hindsight, reveals the very heart of what being a believer in God and a follower of Jesus really calls for.

Our devotion or worship is not contingent on being pure in mind and body as a righteous living offering to God as upholding only that first commandment alone can suggest.
While that is indeed important, it misses the overall point of what that first commandment is all about. Devotion and worship are contingent on living missionally because it is through the interactions we have with the world around us that God is revealed, God’s mission is continued, and God’s world is restored.

Jesus made sure we saw that loving our neighbour is fundamentally and intimately linked with being a follower of him.
If we believe God’s way of life is the way to finding fullness of life and that way of being is truly human, we cannot ignore our neighbours. To do so would bare the rebuke of Isaiah in Isaiah 58 and Jesus in Matthew 25.31-46. Those also give great examples of who ‘neighbour’ actually is – humanity, creation, the lowest of the low and not those within simple geographic proximity.

We’re now back to answering the question from our castrated friend.

“Would you spend eternity in hell to save your neighbour?”

Yes.

We have to say yes.

It of course is not meant to be taken as a literal question but it still must be taken seriously for it challenges us on how much we live for ourselves and how much we live for God. If we are to seriously answer that we are followers of Jesus and it is in him that we live, we move and have our existence then we must be prepared to live as radically and revolutionary as Jesus calls us to do.

If we are to follow Jesus, the one we claim to be God incarnate, with all of ourselves, we must be willing to go the distance, that second mile, for our neighbours because it is there that God’s love is revealed and our actions become beautiful songs of worship.

It is there that we find that answering that question with a ‘yes’ is a joyful thing for it means we are beginning to the beauty and grace of the cross.

May you have the audacity to say yes.
May your mind be habitually blown by the ridiculous love of Jesus.
Go in love, go in peace and do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you always.
Amen.

"You Don't Need to Live Like That"

2009-03-14T13:51:00.004-03:00

[About freakin' time, I know. Below is a sermon preached last month. I've been asked for copies and this is the easiest way. You can just imagine the pictures that accompanied it. So, Struggle and Enjoy. As always my prayer is God speaks to you through these inadeqate words.]

Ever hear of Post-Secret?

Post-Secret is a collaborative art project where nameless people mail in postcards with a secret written upon it. Some cards are quite simple while others quite creative and elaborate
but all reveal a secret or burden, something kept, by someone, for some reason, hidden from the world.

All kinds of secrets have been mailed in. There are books full of them.

From the at first amusing: “I can eat a dozen donuts in one sitting.”

To the silencing and resounding depths of: "Every time I drive under an overpass, I think of how simple it would be to turn the wheel every so slightly to the left, and find ever-lasting peace, at last."

We all have secrets and burdens.

We keep these events, desires, and feelings buried deep within us because we feel as though, if known, somehow, in some way, they would make us feel separated from the world and perhaps even from God.

However, we must understand that these secrets and these burdens we carry do not have the last word and, as Paul’s letter to the Romans shows, they cannot separate us from the love of God.

The people in the Roman church, the one Paul’s letter is addressed to, were all struggling because of doubts, anxiety and tensions and were struggling to find acceptance with each other and with God. We can imagine what was going through their heads ….

The slave woman who has the burden of the whip marks on her back wonders if, in the company of powerful people, God really cares to see her.

A rich man feels like a failure because another man’s wealth is greater than his and secretly thinks he is simply not good enough to be in God’s house.

A woman who has kept her sexuality a secret for many years doesn’t even bother to go into the church for she knows it would make her unwanted by the people, and if they don’t want her, surely God doesn’t either.

Some Jews don’t think the Gentiles should be allowed to worship God and some Gentiles, well, they begin wonder if the Jews might have a point.

What if they could write into Post-Secret? What would their Postcards say?

The burdens and secrets, carried by those Romans, continued to knock them down, saying ‘you are not good enough’ and ‘you don’t belong.’ The weight of that led the people of that church to feel isolated and defeated, living within the shadows, starting to believe that voice in their heads which said God could not love anyone like them.

Unfortunately, not much has changed.

So many people today live under that shadow, under that power of that small voice. These feelings control how we live,

and how we feel about ourselves;

they darken the light in our lives.

Think of the postcards we saw, about the weight of ending it all with turn of the wheel to find peace.

Or I think of someone I know . . .

Liz had a difficult life from the beginning. Her mother, a struggling drug addict, could not, try as she did, put her daughter before the crack and ended up, one night, leaving her 5 month old daughter, in a hallway. Liz got passed to her grand-parents, which worked well until their divorce when her grandmother turned violent and abusive, forcing child protection to take Liz into foster care. For the next 8 years she got passed from home to home and by the age of 17 drugs and alcohol consumed her life. Love and acceptance were not things she knew of – proven, she’d say, by the fact that even her own mother did not want her. And once, at a church service, upon hearing how God loves everyone, Liz thought:

“I must be the one exception.”

I must be the one exception … What a burden to have on your shoulders.

And unfortunately, stories such as these are not uncommon amongst the many faces we see on a daily basis. Many fall victim to the belief that their pain and struggle have won and they dismiss hope for anything different. The burdens end up controlling their lives.

But ... ‘but,’ such a great word here isn’t it? …

But, the statements that Paul puts forth within the 8th chapter of Romans are absolutely contrary to such a way of life – of letting our burdens dictate our lives. He knows of something far greater and far more powerful.

Paul’s text is one of the most beautiful and hope-filled proclamations found within the whole Bible. It is, if I may be so bold, a perfect statement of what the resurrection means: that nothing can separate you from the love and grace of Jesus.

Paul is speaking directly those Roman we heard about – the slave, the rich guy, the sick woman and those Jews and Gentiles – all the people who felt, for some reason or other, that they might not be worth anyone’s time, let alone God’s.

Paul is telling those Romans who felt as though their burdens and secrets are too strong to fight against that “no, there is something that is much, much stronger.”

The questions Paul asks in this passage betray the beauty of what he is trying to show them, for the fact that his questions have no answer is precisely his point.

Take a look: “If God is for us, who is against us?” “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”

The answers is silence.

“No one” is the answer.

Nothing can separate those Romans from God’s love. No one take them from His embrace.
Not their burdens, not their secrets, not anything.

Paul is telling those Romans who experience pain, suffering, and burden that nothing – “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come …” Nothing! can come between God and His people.

Paul refutes every excuse the Romans could throw at him – “Hardship?” No. “Distress?” No. “Nakedness? Peril? Sword?” No. No. No.

"Nothing," he tells them, “in all creation will be able to separate you from the Love of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul was telling them that they did not have to live like those things had the last word because they have been forgiven by God and His love is strong and everlasting.

God’s love, as Psalm 136 stated, endures forever and what was true for the Romans, is true for us today. God’s love for you is stronger than those things that bring you down. Those things cannot separate you from God’s love and grace.

To those of us with lives like Liz, who feel overwhelmed by your pasts, plagued by feelings of inadequacy and rejection, to you God says ‘You don’t have to live like that.’

To those of us who constantly worry about tomorrow and wonder if happiness or love will ever come your way, God says, ‘You don’t have to live like that.’

To those of us who live with doubt and anxiety because of what people say about you, God says, “You don’t have to live like that.”

We are the church; the broken, the lost, the hurt, the neglected, and the confused, the losers, the failures and the fools.

While this is a fact of life, my point, no, God's point, is simply this:
We do not have to let those things win and ruin our lives because in Jesus we have been restored; we have been found; we have been healed; we will find comfort, and we will find peace.

When Jesus died and rose, God’s love and forgiveness won and made us free from those things that bring us down.

It was there that God’s love told us: “I accept you for who you are.”
It was there God’s love told us: “I forgive you and I love you no matter what has happened or will happen.”
It was there, in that resurrection, that God’s love told us, “I am God. I created the heavens and the earth and guess what? I love you so so much.”

God – the person who made the world – loves us!
I don't have the vocabulary for how beautiful that is! It is just stunning.
It was there, in Jesus, that love and grace had the last word. They won.

Why live like they didn’t?

Life does hurt and life is a struggle but what we can do when life brings us down and tries to tell us that we’re not good enough, is proclaim:

“No. I will not let those things win for I know I am loved by God whose love is strong and everlasting. It is God’s love that tells me who I am and what I am worth.”

We don’t have to live under those burdens; we don’t have to live like that.

We don't need to live like that.
We don't need to live like that.
We don't need to live like that.

Nothing can separate us from God for God is with always with us and God’s love cannot be broken.

Find rest and fullness in the words of Jesus who calls out “come to me all you who are tired and burdened. I will give you such rest and such comfort that you will find ever-lasting peace.”

It is in an embrace from which nothing can take us.
That’s good news.

May you find life, renewed and restored, in Jesus whose love is strong.
May you have the audacity to live in that love and grace.
May you do so loudly, so all can hear.
May the love of God, the grace of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you, always and forever.
Amen.

[preached: Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 by Nicholas Coates. Text: Romans 8:31-39.]

Adding to the Noise . . .

2009-01-22T14:55:00.003-04:00

It’s hard to hear God sometimes.
In a world where there is always something going on there tends to be a lot of noise.
With work, school, kids, errands, television, music, stress, pain, hurt, hunger and loss all competing for our attention we often cry out: ‘God, why can’t I hear you?!”

Yet, perhaps what we should be asking is “God, am I really listening?”

We feel uncomfortable in silence, as if silence makes us vulnerable. So, in an attempt for comfort and safety, we keeping adding to the noise, filling in the all the little gaps with sound until we feel like nothing can get through.

With all that noise, though, with all that distraction and competition, is it any wonder we find God hard to hear?

God is always calling out to us and if we don’t stop to listen and become vulnerable to the silence, all we’ll hear is the noise around us. Learning the discipline of resting in God and listening for those murmurings of grace and love is a hard thing to do but when we do stop adding to the noise we will hear something beautiful and meaningful. We’ll end up wanting stop, to slow down and to press pause in order to hear the words and breath of our Creator speaking great and marvelous things.

So …
May you stop adding to the noise
and learn to stop, be silent, and listen
so you may you hear the God who is calling out your name.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you, always.

Imperfect Offerings

2008-12-31T14:00:00.001-04:00

It was a thing of beauty.

A perfect cross ice pass ...

The pass banked off the boards as goalie came out to play it but I sped up and beat him to the puck. Pulling it away and jumping over the goalie's stick, I let loose a wrist shot towards the wide open net. All the players stopped as we watched the puck sail through the air. Cheers were heard and arms raised ... as we all watched the puck fly past the net and bounce off the boards behind it.

Yup, just another normal day on the ice.

I'm not that great at hockey. I'll be the first to acknowledge that - although perhaps a bit reluctantly. The childhood dreams of hoisting the Stanley Cup or playing for Team Canada faded so fast it'd make your head swim. Playing hockey was not what I was destined to do. Apparently knowing how to play is important.

Regardless, I still love to play.

Is there something you love doing despite the fact you aren't perfect at it? A sport you love to play despite always being chosen last? A musical instrument your roommates would love to destroy? We all have something like that, maybe even more than one if we're lucky. And regardless of the lack of skill or intuition we still love to do it because we know that ultimately we just love to do it.

Following Jesus isn't really too different.

It's one of those things that is hard to do perfectly but yet when we remember why we love doing it the parts we're not so good at - the mistakes and failures we have along the way - don't end up ruining the experience.

Sometimes we get so hung up on our failures, mistakes and sins that the very reason why we follow Jesus is lost. We see our addictions as a reason to put down our crosses and shrug our shoulders saying 'Well, I gave it my best shot.' When we hit that stage we lose sight of the path beyond those glaring mistakes and hang-ups. We almost believe that the road ends there.

But, is that really how it is?

I am not belittling failures or mistakes but I am belittling when we think they are reason enough to ruin our experiences of God. Look at it this way: I could have let the fact that I am absolutely terrible at hockey ruin the fact that I simply love to play but I refuse to let that happen because the joy of playing is what counts and is why I do it. See, God has given us so much grace that we no longer need to be weighed down by those failures but can actually enjoy experiencing God in our lives; there is now, because of Jesus, an end beyond our mistakes. The road always continues onward.

When we remember that reason for why we 'play' - when we remember that grace and love - we begin to see that the joy of following Jesus overpowers and moves us beyond our hangups. That joy even gives us the desire and the strength to say 'Im going to get better because I love this so much.'

We may find that sometimes we're not that great at being a Christian, that we struggle with this and that so that it feels like we may as well just give up. But wait ... Remember ...

Remember the reason why it is you follow Jesus and remember that being perfect really isn't the point. The point is you try with all your strength, all your heart and all your mind; it's the fact that you play that is important. So, pick yourself up, dust off, and try again with those things in mind for the joy you will find there will be more than enough to get past those hang-ups and see the true reason why you loved this in the first place.

May you be an imperfect offering.
May you, at times, fail so you will remember the reasons for why you play.
May you find in that the strength and joy to go down the road that always continues onward.
May the love of God, the peace of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always.

Poking holes in Jesus

2008-12-28T00:44:00.019-04:00

Thomas was in that upper room the day Jesus showed up again. He'd been around since the beginning and had seen the crazy and ridiculous things Jesus had done. Yes, Jesus was incredibly real to Thomas. And yet, and yet, Thomas still had a hard time believing it was Jesus in that upper room. Thomas struggled with doubt.

I'd be a liar if I said I never doubted that God exists or that following Jesus might not be all its cracked up to be. These doubts come and go, of course, but they are like unwanted house-guests who pop in and out unexpectedly from time to time. Anything can set my doubts off: 'Why am I still single?' 'Why can't I find what I am supposed to do?' 'Why did today simply suck?' 'Why did my friends grandmother have to die?' Somehow these questions lead to God and its there that doubt enters the picture. It's interesting how I attach those questions to God isn't it? Like believing in God somehow should absolve me from a crappy day. Yup, even when you study God for a living doubt still arise.

Why do we get so bent out of shape over our doubts? Doubt sometimes seems to be equated with walking away from God. But that isn't really case for doubts are more a hesitation, a moment of pause, along our walk than a turning around. What we need to realize is that doubts are okay to have. You are no less a Christian than anyone else because you have them. We just need to know how to struggle with doubt so it remains a moment of hesitation.

So what do we do with doubt?

We could suppress it, but doubt will probably come back again so that does not work.
We could get all in a huff about it and think we're a bad Christian for doubting, but that doesn't work either because we're only human, something we need not forget.
We could also be complacent and pass them off as nothing, that's not a good idea either.
Neither of these really work; trust me, Ive tried them all.

Thomas, however, provides a good answer - poke holes in Jesus. Literally.

Poke holes in Jesus. Go back to what is real.

When Jesus came into that room after he had died Thomas doubted what he saw. Luke even tells us that many of the disciples doubted and were afraid! And this is what Jesus says to them: "Friends, look at my hands and my feet. Look at my scars! I am not a ghost! Feel my scars." And with that Thomas touches the scars of Jesus and knows that it is really him. His doubt turns to belief.

What happened that made Thomas believe? He went back to what was real for him in Jesus.

See, for a Jew like Thomas it was next to impossible to believe that Jesus could have risen from the dead. That just didn't happen outside a general resurrection of all. So like for many of us his doubt originated from something that just didn't make sense. So we can understand where Thomas is coming from. Yet, what Jesus does next here is beautiful; he gets Thomas to touch his scars. Those scars are real and by Thomas touching them Jesus draws him into the reality of the resurrection and moves Thomas forward past his doubts. By poking holes in Jesus Thomas turns his doubts into belief by going back to the reality of what Jesus is to him.

When doubt comes, we too must go back to what we first realized was real about God, to what was so irresistible about Jesus. What was it that first made you stop in your tracks and think 'this is real'? Was it the beauty of Jesus' life? The eloquence of the resurrection? The community of a church? The discovery of such grace and irrevocable love? Whatever it was, it is in the re-discovery of that reality that we must go when doubt enters our lives.

It is in that going back to what we know is real, the seeing through the darkness of doubt, that we can begin to remember and believe. So be like Thomas and go back into the reality you first experienced, poke Jesus, and get drawn into the truth and away from the doubt.

May you, when doubt arises, find the truth and beauty
that first brought you to your knees.
May you know that doubt can always arise but know that
God is far more permanent, and He is more powerful and beautiful than anything else.
May the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you always.

heading westward . . .

2008-12-26T17:47:00.013-04:00

The Bible is full of people on the move. Whether its the Israelites going to or from the Promised Land, Mary and Joseph heading to Bethlehem, or Jesus and the apostles walking around doing their thing, 'movement' is everywhere in the Book.

Not unlike today really.

We're always running around somewhere, doing something; whether it's short, permanent, long or temporary we're a people on the move too. We live, we grow, we move.

But here's the kicker . . .

The authors of Genesis wrote into the script a way, or compass if you will, for finding out if you're heading in the right direction.

Some background . . . In Genesis 4 we find God quite happy with one of the sons of Adam and Eve, Abel. Filled with envy his brother Cain spills Abel's blood in a field outside Eden. Eden, it's important to know, was a place where the actual order was in line with God's intended order. Cain is just like his mom and dad; for just as his parents thought they could do it on their own, Cain's fratricide was a further departure from Eden. Because of this sin Cain went east, leaving Eden behind. Civilization began there, east of Eden in the land of Nod, where we humans all began to start moving around. The reference to "moving east" is found throughout the First Testament when humanity diverges away from the ways of God. When people sin before God, when relationships and society become corrupt and broken they "move to the east" (ex: Gen 13.11-12; 25.5-6). It's all figurative of course but the point remains: east is not where we want to go.

Are we moving east? Do our actions and relationships, does our society diverge from the ways of God?

How do we get back west?

That's the question.

Christmas has come and gone and we have the privilege of knowing where the Jesus story goes; that what Jesus does, who he is, and that he rose points us westward in our movements and being. Our vision and way must be pointed west, back towards God's way. Practicing our redemption is not easy - it's like driving down the wrong side of the street. It almost feels safer to turn around and join the traffic! And yet, we know deep down that we are going the right way. Jesus has pointed us west, what he calls 'God's Kingdom.'

We cannot make it there on our own but we are called to try, to do so with joy until the 'not yet' joins the 'already' and the 'west' envelopes the 'east.'

May you find your compasses pointing west,
in sync with the movements of the Creator.
May you go there with the love of God, the
peace of Christ and with the fellowship of
the Spirit.

Advent: practicing impossibility

2008-12-07T21:08:00.001-04:00

“Waiting on a miracle” is written on a brick wall not too far from my house; someone responded with writing “good luck” just below it. We may smile at the sarcasm but if we think about it, this writing on the wall isn’t too far from the proverbial ‘writing on the wall’ that resonates true with so much of our world. The writing on the walls of our world screams scepticism, cynicism and hopelessness, quickly blocking out any words of hope, imagination and wonder. Our world is a world of possibility whose nicely trimmed and boxed up horizons fall well short of a miracle for, as we all know, those things really don’t happen.

And yet …

Advent is upon us; the season where we look toward the coming of God in Jesus, that man who was a Trinitarian God yet also a human, who was born of a virgin, who raised people from the dead, who healed the sick and forgave sins, oh and don’t forget that whole resurrection thing either. Yah, something isn’t right with this Jesus character eh?

Jesus was a man of impossibility for, as we all know, those things he did don’t really happen. They simply can’t! The writing on the wall says so! But he did those things and the writing on the wall no longer rings truth when it comes to Jesus.

Christmas is about impossibility. Reindeer fly, a fat man goes down narrow chimneys and God becomes a mere human baby; a baby that would grow up to be the impossible.

If Christmas is about the shattering of impossibility then the meaning of Advent becomes the time when we remember the day that the writing on the wall changed, celebrate that death and sin no longer stands in the way of God and boldly proclaim that ‘Miracles do happen! God is with us! Emmanuel! Hallelujah!’

Christians are called to be that new writing on the wall. To be a people of the impossible, go to forth in our world and practice impossibility knowing that our God works out of the box and that we can, through the Holy Spirit, make things possible that the world has long since determined a lost cause. They will shout “Crazy! Ridiculous! Impossible!” for it just doesn’t make sense. Crazy and ridiculous? Sure. Impossible? No way.

Jesus has come and nothing is the same. During Advent we celebrate and remember that God is with us and we prepare the way for God through practicing impossibility and pointing to the wall that has been rewritten.

The writing on the wall does not have to say, “God probably doesn’t exist, so stop worrying and enjoy life!” Nor does it need to say, “Miracles don’t happen” any more than it needs to draw us inwards to see only ourselves. Two-thousand years ago that writing on the wall we know all so well was scribbled out by an act so impossible and so extraordinary it can only be true.

Christmas is about love made incarnate and shattered impossibilities.

Go. Carry out the impossible and proclaim the wall that has been rewritten so others may see, hear and live the Good News of what Christmas is all about.

"On with his head!?"

2008-11-02T21:22:00.013-04:00

"Off with his head!" was certainly the punishment he deserved. He had betrayed the king, killed a bunch of knights and tried to steal away the princess. You just can't get away with that kind of stuff . . . .

A friend's birthday party was held at a place called Medieval Times. It's this huge theatrical dining experience set in the motif of kings, queens, knights, princesses tournaments. As you feast on roast chicken, stew, ribs and potatoes you cheer on your knight as he battles away in various medieval games. The plot of the story draws you through unexpected betrayal and murder leading to a final battle between the good and evil knight. The evil night is about to win when the good night pulls some crazy Jack Bauer move and dramatically knight knocks down the evil betrayer of the king and puts a sword to his throat. The king rises and to the audience cries, "Does he live or die?!" Just as in the Roman Coliseum the crowd all rose their fists, thumbs pointing down calling for his death.

Admist the cries of "off with his head!" came a timid and quiet call of a boy behind me, "forgive him!"

What do you say to that?

One of the most beautiful things in the world has got to be hearing thousands of people singing your song back to you. The multiplicity of voices singing back in response to something you created, each person finding meaning in the notes and lyrics is of such profound beauty.

It's not too different with God. We experience God in our lives through creation, through miracles, and through the grace and love of Jesus. When we experience the beauty of God we have no choice, it's almost automatic, but to respond and follow. Father Karl, a Citercian monk, says that when we see God we inhale his beauty. This is so amazing. We inhale God. Father Karl is not saying God is or is in the air; he is saying that God gives us life. Just like Marie Barnett's song, the Holy Spirit lives within us through that intake of breath. When we inhale God we naturally respond as if our whole being were made of the essence of that beauty. We become desperate and longing for more of it and find that when we exhale a life devoted to following Jesus we find life to the fullest and revel in that freedom. Imagine, being with God and hearing the angels singing God's song back to him. When we experience God and live like Jesus we partake in that song for we understand and feel it to our very core. We can't breathe in or breathe out anything else.

When the world is yelling "off with his head" we who have inhaled the beauty of God know that something within us says "no." When we go deep into our hearts, past the temptation to yell and cheer along with the rest of the world, we realize that our response must be the same of the response Jesus gives when he sees us at the throws of death.

What do you say when a timid and quiet voice behind you yells "forgive him?"
What else can you say but "forgive him?"

"Forgive him."

practising audacity

2008-10-23T22:29:00.000-03:00

The Pharaoh's army was not too far behind the Israelite people as they stood on the beach, coming to the quick and painful realization that they had nowhere to turn, that maybe, just maybe, their luck had run out. Yet, as Moses raises his arms and prays, the waters slowly begin to shift and a muddy path appears to the other side of the sea. About half way down the path two men turn to each other and begin to complain. "This is terrible! Just look at how muddy my feet are getting." "I know! And look how far we must walk to the other side." And as their heads were down, focused on complaining about the muck and the walk, they failed to look up and see the towering walls of water being miraculously held up, providing their deliverance.

My friend the Rabbi told me this old rabbinic tale one afternoon. We finished our visit and as I left he asked, "So, my friend, which are you? Do you complain and doubt or do you have the audacity to believe in a God who acts? Go in peace."

The Good Book is full of stories that tell of how God acts in the world. This transcendence can be seen in the creation stories, the Exodus, Pentecost and of course through the Incarnation of Jesus. God is called a 'Living God' because he is active within this world and active in our lives. God, the person that created the entire universe, is involved in our lives. It's an involvement that is interactive and engaging - we can wrestle with, talk to, love and worship God and he can wrestle with, talk to and love us back. That is pretty awesome.

And yet, despite all the examples, I forget that. I look away from the obvious blessings of shelter, food, friends, family and a sense of purpose and find emptiness, cold, loneliness and loss. I'm like the guy in that rabbinical tale, looking down at the muck on my feet despite the blessings that are so obvious around me. I forget that God is active and I only see the muck. What, I reason, could be more important than the muck I am standing in.

James has something to say about this. In his epistle James tells us that God is the 'Father of Light,' my favourite description of God by far. We read that we should be not thrown off course by the muck of life and that we should not have second thoughts about whether God is alive because the Father of Light loves to help, loves to be involved in our lives. God can help because he is alive and active. James essentially asks us: why do we worry? Why do we freak out? God knows what we need and his love is strong.

When our feet are covered in the muck of life and we are tempted to let our lives be consumed and weighted down by that one situation we fail to see that God is alive and that God acts. The rabbi's question reminds us of this. I have no choice but to say "yes, I have the audacity." I have the audacity to believe in a God who is active, to look beyond the muck and see that I am blessed and loved and have purpose.

It's crazy, I know, especially when life is so bleak and cold. But know and trust in this: God loves you and is active in your life. Look up from the muck and see the walls of water being held up so you may walk safely. Go ahead, have the audacity. Be bold, be gutsy, take a provocative stand - have the audacity - to believe in a God who is love and who wants to save us and our world.

So go and know that when your feet are covered in the muck of life that it is not the end of the world. For we, as believers in the Living God, have the audacity to believe that God is active and working in this world. Look up, look way up and see those walls of water being held up. Go and walk forward in peace.

Frig! Jesus is Late Again!

2008-10-16T16:57:00.004-03:00

I wonder if the disciples ever got mad at Jesus for being late? There they are at Lazarus’ place waiting to get a move on, waiting for Jesus. “Frig!” Andrew pipes up, “Jesus is late again!” There aren’t any examples in the Gospels but I suspect the disciples probably liked things being on schedule (who doesn't?) and I have a inkling that Jesus, he didn’t care much for being on time because he had a completely different view and understanding of time.

Paul writes in Romans that Christians are called to be counter-cultural, that we are called to live out the transformation of redemption and live in a radically different way than what is deemed by society as normal. You can see where Paul gets this. Look back at Jesus and you’ll see that he was the ultimate radical. Paul is beginning to work out a good idea here. This whole talk of ‘being in but not of the world’ tries to get that this idea of living differently. The ‘way things are don’t these days,’ no matter how logical or accepted, must be questioned by us Christians if we’re serious about being like the original radical.

Jesus’ understanding of time plays in here.

For those of us who are serious about trying to be mini-Jesus’, we need to take a look at time. Time is a pretty crazy powerful thing. The Justice League is its arch-enemy, that’s how huge time is. You're hard pressed these days to find a place without a clock. If you are ever confused about what you think is important in life just watch the clock; time is a direct representation of our priorities, of what we attribute value, worth and importance. We can gauge who or what we devote our lives to by looking at what we spend our time doing.

Jesus turns the idea of ‘time well spent’ on its head. To Jesus time is incredibly valuable and he sees it, as Paul eventually would, as part of living out God’s will, as being a part of something much bigger than the present world. What we do with our time, Jesus shows, is a huge statement of faith and a huge opportunity to live counter-culturally.

While society, as the disciples in my made up example do, sees time as something to live by, Jesus sees it as something to give. Within this radical shift of the concept of time is the notion that through time spent is God’s love lived out. This is huge. The clock’s power is not in how it dictates us, but how, when given away, transforms to God's image.

Jesus gives his time away, making, as a friend points out, a theological statement about who he is. In giving his time away to the ignored, the rushed past, the poor, the ignored, the hated, and the voiceless, Jesus says that God is a God of love and solidarity.

Solidarity is the collective struggle, a work of invested people for the sake of the whole. Jesus is in solidarity with us, for example, because he came into our daily struggles, giving us the power to pull through. Jesus is being so ridiculously counter-cultural that we can see the Pharisees wonder aloud why he spends time with riftraft he does. Why? Because God loves them and wants to spend time with them. Time is the only way to show that love. Solidarity cannot be achieved without giving time. We cannot follow Jesus without understanding that we must sacrifice our time to embody Christ.

God’s Kingdom cannot be built on a concept of solidarity that says throwing a quarter in a hat is a Christ-like action. God’s Kingdom cannot be built on the concept of time as something that runs our lives. Time is not something to be a slave of; it is something to be given away.

What better a way to love your neighbour than to truly spend time with them? Love takes time and we are called to put in the time. We cannot get to know someone without spending the time, and we cannot love them without knowing them. It's a huge break from what society practices so people may not understand it, they may wish to rush off to the next thing but we must not, we cannot, follow, at least not right away.

Let's be proactive on something. Next time you're out, walk a little slower and pay attention to the people you walk past. If you have change or a sandwich to spare, rock on, that's fantastic. If you don't, that's cool too, but be challenged by Jesus' example and stop, look them in the eye, see their value, see Christ in them, and say, "Sorry dude, next time eh? But how's the day going for you?" You'll get a weird look, but you can see so quickly the appreciation of such a question. Fast moving objects aren’t capable of love because they can’t slow down enough to care.

Be provocative, live like Jesus. Be late, Jesus was.

Jesus is a Ninja

2008-08-21T19:21:00.010-03:00

While I am not a biblical scholar, I am a theology student. But despite that, I have figured out something that is true about Jesus that isn't in the scriptures. Woe to all my biblical scholar friends for the guy who quotes James Taylor and Jon Foreman in his essays has made a remarkable discovery: Jesus is a ninja.

More than anyone I know Jesus is pretty good at kicking my butt. This is of course in a spiritual sense although I'm sure he could take me in an arm wrestle if it came down to it. I'd probably let him win if it looked like I could take him though; the last thing I want to be known as is the guy who embarrassed Jesus. But I digress.

Ninja Jesus is stealthy; he waits for the right moment, he hides in the places we least expect to see him and KAPOW! he opens up a can of holy butt-whoppin' and leaves us dazed, bewildered and in awe. So beware my friends, he's out there lurking in the places we do not expect, perhaps those places we go in order to avoid him, perhaps in those places where we need to meet him, perhaps in those places where we need to see him. He's there.

Even in the Bible Jesus shows up where people least expect it. The Pharisees, the woman by the well, women in general, tax collectors, the disciples on the road to Emmaus and others were always surprised when Jesus appeared out of nowhere for it was with them, or it was in that sinful place, that they least expected to see a man of Jesus' stature. That's part of the beauty of Ninja Jesus. It's then, using that element of surprise, that Jesus whips out some crazy spiritual bicycle kick giving the stagnant soul a taste of something fresh, pushing it towards the mystery Jesus is trying to reveal. Jesus, throughout the New Testament, appears in places that he was not supposed to be in; those places of promiscuity, disease, discomfort and of the unknown were the places that he frequented. It was there that his presence was needed the most.

We too can find God in all the wrong places. Whether it is when we buy something excessive, or indulge in something not right, or try to forge ahead completely on our own Ninja Jesus is waiting for us.

KAPOW! Jesus appears out of nowhere.
KAPOW! He reminds us that we are called to live by different standards.
KAPOW! He reminds us that we are called to live for different things
KAPOW! He reminds us that we cannot, and do not have to, make it on our own.

There is no 'wrong place' with God because Jesus came before us and went into the dark places, bringing his light with him. God is already in the wrong places, waiting for us to join him. It's when we cross the border of discomfort and unfamiliarity that we must look for him. Jesus would much rather greet us with open arms then use his mad ninja skills to remind us that he is there.

holy procrastination (batman)!

2008-08-06T10:28:00.011-03:00

Jesus had been killed. The disciples, after waiting anxiously for something crazy to happen, did not quite know what to do with themselves. "Well then," they must have thought, "this kind of throws a wrench into things now doesn't it?" Jesus was crucified, dead and buried - certainly not the ending to the story if they had been in charge. There could have at least been a better going away party than the one they had. Their party only had a foot-washing service and a meal. "Yup," they all would quietly think, never expressing it to his friends, "some charades and a pinata would have rocked. So what now? May as well go back to what we did before eh?"

And so the disciples went fishing. Not really knowing what else to do, dismissed the teachings of the previous night and dismissed the call to 'go and do likewise' as confusing in the face of Jesus' death. Instead they did what came naturally to them, they did what made them feel comfortable, they did what they did best - they went fishing. Even Matthew, who despite being a tax collector, had always wanted to try fishing.

I 'go fishing' quite a bit it seems. Faced with uncertainty, doubt, and reluctance I put off chasing after God thereby avoiding potential confusion or whatever else I think may come up.

I think if we're honest with ourselves we'd all see ourselves on the boat of holy procrastination. Holy procrastination is purposefully putting off what God has called us to do, putting off the Holy. It's being content with Jesus as just an annoying voice in your heart and no more. His call is just too costly and scary so we procrastinate, putting off the decision for another time. Just like the disciples we stay in the boat, comfortably away from everything that reminds us of that time after we heard of this Jesus guy.

The crazy thing though? Even though we're all sitting in that boat anchored just off the bay of discomfort and unfamiliarity we cannot but hear the calls of Jesus on the shore. As they were fishing the disciples could not fully ignore the calls from that man on the beach beckoning them to come ashore. Jesus knows that following him is hard. He knows that it is scary and confusing and therefore walks with us, assisting us with our burdens and struggles. All he wants is our decision to get out of the boat of holy procrastination and make the conscious effort to chase after him. With that choice he ceases to become annoying and becomes fulfilling.

His call is a reminder that we are not alone, that he is with us and we cannot go back to what it was like before because as much as we try, there will always be his lingering voice calling us forward.

The greatest thing he's done is not give up on us. Look towards the shore and get outta that boat.

eye candy

2008-06-03T10:16:00.006-03:00

My good friend J always had a way of making sure my heart and eyes were on the right thing. A quick point to the eyes and then to the heavens was his way of reminding me to keep my eyes on God and be mindful of how my actions and focus are themselves acts of worship; a reminder of the struggle for authenticity.

There are times when I miss having him around, when my actions do not meet my professions and thoughts, when what I lack in authenticity I make up in complicity.

My friend Rob, before he gives his sermons, prays to be freed from distraction. It’s not just a good thing to pray before hearing a sermon; the need for such a prayer extends beyond scope of Sunday services. In a life where distraction is around every turn there is so much for us to be carried away with, to become focussed on. It’s become the norm, its what we crave.

It’s hard to stay focussed on the heavens when everyone around use seems to be enjoying their distractions so much. The Glorious Unseen gets replaced by the glorious seen. There’s so much eye-candy that we yearn for that temporary sweet relief over the lasting deep satisfaction of the beauty we once knew.

Distraction is a funny thing. They’re not bad necessarily bad things, we just fall under the pleasant shadow of their beauty. Whether it’s of the beautiful girl at work, the affluence of too many over-time nights, or the comfort of purposeful ignorance, distractions just overwhelm our senses. When we fall under that shadow the Church becomes a church of distraction, filled with a beauty is so similar to the outside world that people struggle to see how we call ourselves different.

It’s a sad realization when we see the Embodiment of Jesus (the Church) has become a pale and dark reflection of its former self. With such compromise of the Gospel it is no small wonder that people shake their heads at the mere concept of organized religion. If we cannot display the Beauty of the Unseen than what’s the fuss all about?

J’s gesture gets at the fact that authenticity brings credibility to the Gospel. It is only by following the call of the cross and keeping our gaze heaven-ward, all the while moving about in this world, that the pale and dark reflection can become a bright and shining city upon a hill. Distractions are everywhere; it takes accountability between friends, loved-ones, partners and each other to achieve the authenticity we are called to wear. ‘Wear’ is a good word for this for as Paul says we need to “clothe ourselves in Christ.” A simple crucifix and cheesy Christian t-shirt are not a substitute for true authenticity, only holistic and widespread love in a movement of peace, justice, hope, interdependence and salvation.

Authenticity brings credibility. It’s only once we dawn those holy garments that this can happen.

The Day I Told God Off . . .

2008-04-29T23:26:00.009-03:00

I told God off the other day.

I wasn't ready for what happened next.

It wasn't a pretty week. School was stressful, plans for the summer had taken an unexpected turn, a close friend had lost her grandmother and was feeling the exhaustion that the confusion and pain death brings.

It happened pretty quickly - right in the middle of a prayer. It just kind of slipped out. I told God off. I knew I was a goner. I was finished, done, stricken out of the Book.

God answered . . .

God is BIG. I don't mean his robe size is gigantic or that he's omnipresent. By BIG I mean God can take a lot of abuse. We know God's got big shoulders to carry our burdens but he's also got big shoulders to take all the crap we hurl at him. Constantly us humans are bickering at God, giving him our two-cents worth, telling him to bugger off. Moses tells God that He's got the wrong guy; the Israelites tell God that having a King would actually be a good idea; Jesus goes back to God for a change of plans. God takes a lot of abuse and remains good and holy.

God is also small. God's not distant and unknowable but here within and among us. He fits into our small world and into our small hearts and minds. God became as small as a baby. The beauty of this smallness is that God became our size in Jesus. No longer was God a far away and a incomprehensible behemoth but a mere human being. God's small; we can relate to him because he came down to us in a transcendence of love and grace.

God answered. . . . I cringed, ready for my holy rebuke. Yet a storm of fire and brimstone was not seen in downtown Toronto that day. If anything was seen it was grace. God heard my prayer in all its humanness and because of who He is absorbed that exhaustion, pain and stress and because of who He is understood and replied in the most unexpected way to someone who had just told him off:

"I know it's hard right now. I know things did not work out the way you wanted and prayed for. I know Vicki is hurting and that your friends are worried about the baby. My heart is aching. But know that I am here watching and singing over you. We're in this together and I'm not going anywhere."

I had just told off the Creator of the Universe and in response he told me that. God is BIG and small - we can bring to him our emotions and problems knowing he understands and that he won't respond in anger and wrath but with grace and love.

That's pretty incredible. That's grace.

F-Yah.

Further Thoughts. . .

2008-04-25T19:43:00.004-03:00

Here is something else that goes along with what I was saying in 'When Jesus Stubbed His Toe.' Shane Claiborne writes: "When Jesus predicted his death at the hands of the Romans and the religious elite, Peter wouldnt have it. He said no to Operation Slaughtered Lamb. The Scriptures say Peter took Jesus aside and rejected the plan Jesus had laid out. ... Funny how Jesus reserved such extreme language [Shane's referring to Jesus' rebuke] for the one closest to him, one in whom he had been placing so much trust, and not for Judas or the authorities. Those were some harsh words, and they were well deserved. Peter just didnt get it. He couldnt have imagined a president who dies on a cross. He would have rather had a Saviour who glides into Jerusalem in a polished limousine than one who chooses to ride on a lowly donkey. He still had in mind the things of kings, of Pharaoh, of Herod. He wanted to save the world through militaries and markets and foreign policies rather than through sacrificial love and grace." (Jesus for President, 86).

Sacrificial love and grace are weird concepts to us. We'd rather follow through on Operation Chuck Norris and throw down some salvific throat-kicks. It's what we know best and that's how we deal with our human concerns. Forgiveness, love, and grace are things from above that Jesus was substituting for our human default setting of violence, greed and hate. Shane's pointing out that Jesus stumbled over Peter because Peter tried to do it his way when the only thing that would really work is God's way. This really gets into how important Jesus is. We just can't do it by our own power and volition because as history as generally shown we end up back where we started. It's with Jesus that we see a new beginning and a new end, a hope for a better tomorrow. When we get in Jesus' way we eclipse that hope.

When Jesus Stubbed his Toe

2008-04-24T19:48:00.011-03:00

Jesus stubbed his toe once. Who'd have thought the Son of God would stub his toe on a rock, just like you and me ... must have been the human side of him.

Although in this particular case we're the rocks, just like Peter was.

In Matthew 16.21-23 Peter thinks Jesus is getting a little radical on where his movement is heading. After all this death and suffering talk Peter lets Jesus know full well that he's not going to put up with these types of shenanigans. "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!" In trying to come to terms with what Jesus is actually saying Peter is just can't fathom how Jesus' death fits into his conception of what he thinks should happen. In hindsight he probably wishes he didn't open his mouth because Jesus' reply is a verbal smack-down. "Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block for me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

Now we don't really know why Peter rebuked Jesus; it probably had to do with the fact that in Peter's mind Jesus dying did not fit anywhere into how he saw the Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth or perhaps Peter simply loved Jesus far too much to let him be killed at the hands of the empire. Whatever it was, it was Peter's concern for 'human things' that got him in trouble with Jesus. Jesus actually called him a 'stumbling block,' saying that it is when we concern ourselves too much with what we think is important and put our number ones over and above Jesus' number ones that we actually cause Jesus to stumble - hurting and hindering the movement of the Kingdom of Heaven.

I learned a lot when Jesus stubbed his toe on Peter. It made me wonder what I do to make Jesus stumble. When is it that I become a rock, falling hard in the dirt, sticking out, causing Jesus to trip? When is it that I get caught up in what I think is important and miss out on the big picture? Thank God (literally) for mercy because Jesus has stubbed his toe on me more times than I can count.

Peter must have looked hurt because Jesus explains what he meant (Matt 16.24-27). Jesus says to cease being a stumbling block we must take up our cross and die to self, meaning we must give up trying to rationalize Jesus, use him to further our own objectives and have faith in the greater divine picture, even if we don't really understand it. We can walk forward blindly in faith and trust but when we start veering off the tracks the people and cause behind us start to bump into each other, getting lost and confused, stopping in effect the Kingdom - causing Jesus to stub his toe. When we give up our earthly desires and expectations by dying to them, remaining focussed on putting one foot in front of the other being led by the Spirit, Jesus can't stub his toe on us because we're not in his way.

Stones and Angels

2008-04-03T12:30:00.004-03:00

Remembering it now it probably wasn’t too different from what Jesus saw when he encountered the Pharisees about the stone the woman. The only difference is that Jesus wasn’t there to stop the first stone from being thrown.

The days that dramatically change your life or challenge every fibre of your being don’t always start off with a cresendo of dramatic suspense. This day began much like any other during our time in Kenya, drinking tea and chatting with our Mama. It was then we heard about the lynching.

The young man was maybe nineteen and had caught stealing a bicycle from one of our neighbours. My friends and I at first did not believe the news and even as we watched stones and feet thrown I still did not believe what I was seeing: a large crowd circled around a young man, curled into a fetal position, bloody, bruised and not moving. I’m amazed at this memory, even more amazed that it shows me standing in the background doing nothing. Amazed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers . . . The young man died later that day, alone in the damp street.

I could not hear Jesus that morning. Far too confused and scared to hear his words, far too evident was the value of my life over this stranger’s.

The guilt of my inaction still makes me physically sick.

I began wrestling with the angels that morning and am still struggling with them.

It’s a given that we’re supposed to be like Jesus but seeing the stoning of that man prompted the question ‘where do we draw the line?’ It’s easy to say ‘there is no line’ when we don’t have to ask the question. But when the question is lying on the ground dying and rocks and sticks are being thrown, the line is suddenly apparent and the struggle for loop-holes begins.

The wrestling over my inaction during this lynching has been something of a beautiful letdown. While tormented by guilt and saddened by the situation I’ve become closer to God. When you sweat, bleed, and struggle with someone you get to know them well (Hulk Hogan must be good friends with the Ultimate Warrior). Just like the thorn in Paul’s side the pain draws me into the wound, struggling to heal it from the inside-out.
Wrestling with the angels is not an easy thing to do, its far more heart-wrenching than copping-out as I almost did by dismissing my inaction as the only action. Inaction is never the only action. But the action isn’t always clear. The thing with carrying our crosses is that it isn’t easy and struggle is a part of it.

The big theological insight? Struggle well. We have a God who struggles with us, who even when knocking us down picks us up. Paul left that thorn in his side for a reason for he did not want to leave the wrestling match, for it is in our struggles that we are closest and most dependent on God. If that question does become a reality do not fret if you hear your voice among the scoffers but struggle well. Wrestle with the angels and touch God.

nails

2008-03-24T15:44:00.011-03:00

It's a memory of Easter that goes back as far as I can remember. Out of the whole Passion Story it's the image of the nails being driven into the hands of Jesus - the penetrating sound of metal on metal - that sticks for me the most. Sitting in a dark church on Good Friday listening to the sound of the nails being driven into the cross, the reverberations penetrating deeply, I could not help but wonder about the significance of those nails.

The songs sung at Easter, 'In Christ Alone,' 'When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,' 'Were You There' and others all to speak to the hope that was given to us the first Easter many years ago. As we sing along we can relate to the confusion the apostles must have felt in asking 'could God's plan could be foiled by mere human inventions?' But we have hope for we know how the story ends.

There's a nail attached to my backpack to remind me that the cause I pledge my allegiance to did not come for free but came at a cost. The sight of the nail on an empty cross reminds me that the allegiance I claim is not of this world but of another, one celebrated each Easter Sunday.

To pledge allegiance to something is a very personal act. In the simple act a pledge is an act of submission to a greater cause, to a higher set of values and purpose. To say 'I'm a Christian' is to pledge yourself to the values and his purpose of Jesus. Easter is not only a time of spiritual renewal in remembering the gift of grace but is also a renewal of commitment to live out that grace, to carry on the task bestowed to us. Christ has risen, as has Kingdom, and as part of that community of God, Easter is a reminder to perpetuate a world of faith, love and forgiveness instead of one of doubt, hatred and anger.

One of the very awesome things about Easter is the hope saturated within its story. In Jewish thought, the absolute, most unexpected thing happened after Jesus died; he rose. Bodily resurrection was expected in Jewish theology but it was en masse, not just for one single guy. The fact that Jesus rose shows that the way he lived, the words he taught and the world he promised are all true.

There is hope that we can help change ourselves and the world we live in, all for the better. As Jon Foreman puts it:

"when everything in side me looks like everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You're the only chance I'll take."

Taking a chance with God and this Easter promise wouldn't be a bad thing to do. Jesus rose, that's confirmation that putting our hope in him by taking that chance will pay off. Easter is a reminder of that, but it's also a reminder that we have pledged ourselves to helping to make this kingdom thing happen. Its a total reevaluation about who/what/how and why we live our lives for. So take time out to remember the nails and the cause behind them.

turning door knobs

2008-03-15T18:14:00.003-03:00

Wanna know something weird? God wants to be with you probably more than you want to be with Him. Weird eh? I find it hard enough to find a girl who wants to hang out with me and frankly, God probably has higher expectations than the girls I know and yet, He keeps perpetual knocking on my heart.

Despite the kind of crap I've pulled. Despite my participation in the system God is intent on changing. Despite my intellectual flaws. Despite my bad habits and my broken relationships God still wants to hang out - its ridiculous really. My mind, in the words of Dave Matthews, is blown. If only dating were so easy!

This persistence really gets at just what Love is all about; the unwavering, unfounded, limitless devotion, care and protection so beyond the scope of our understanding. While it's important that we appreciate this Love to the point where we understand just what it means we shouldn't out-think it but simply accept, appreciate and reciprocate it. It's the last one that I find the most difficult to understand.

Faith. So many people have said wonderful things about what faith is (see the books to the right) and all circle around this idea of trust and expectation in something 'other.' The Old Testament hope is founded in the promises God made with the guys we read about in Sunday school - Noah, Moses, Abraham and Jacob. They had the utmost trust that despite whatever situation they got themselves into God would not forget them but remember his promises of deliverance, restoration and renewal. The New Testament offers Jesus, the culmination of those older promises, that faith in him is reason enough to know that despite whatever situation we get ourselves into or what kind of person we are, God will be there for us, holding out his hand, offering the millionth second chance.

So we're supposed to reciprocate that? Pretty much; it turns out. God expects the same kind of attitude from us, not only towards him but also towards others. The Annoying Jesus is the reminder of the promise we made by opening that door. If we really want to hang out with God we need to be with his people. Reciprocating that unwavering love is hanging out with the poor, the disadvantaged and the forgotten and showing that despite the situation they (and society at large) have gotten them into, they are not forgotten.

While sitting down with Rob, a guy I met huddled outside of Starbucks one night, he asked me 'why did you stop to hang out with me?' I didn't really have an answer for him then but I realized later that that's exactly the same question I asked God when I just could not understand why such a cool guy like God would want to hang out with me. God's answer is simple and it must be my answer for every person I ever meet: 'Cause you're worth it.' Worth our time, money, handshake, and love. . .God gave us so much more, we can at least try to offer those.

and he asked me 'so what?'

2008-02-27T14:30:00.006-04:00

It’s Lent. The religious season where we give up our vices and habits. Following suit, two friends and I have given up drinking knowing full well that, while nothing innately wrong with it, it too quickly becomes the primary outlet of frustration. Now, a good three weeks in, while I do acknowledge the fruits of such a ‘fast,’ I am plagued with the feeling of ‘there’s got to be more to it than this.’ Like I’ve said before, we often miss the point and only see the smaller picture. What does fasting accomplish in the grand scheme of things. I can picture myself hanging out with Jesus in Heaven having a pint and saying ‘I gave beer up for Lent once’ and Jesus looking at me and asking ‘So what?' It’s not a dismissal but a provoking challenge.

What is Lent anyway? It’s that time before Easter where we recognise the need for repentance, salvation and ultimately God. Re-enacting the forty days Jesus spent in the desert we practice prayer and devotion, moving away from the temptations life has to offer and closer to God. It is a chance to learn to say ‘no’ to the path of convenience and to ask ‘help’ for going down the road of conviction. Lent looks forward to the time when Jesus would get stuck on the cross, ultimately showing us the true way through his resurrection. It’s a time of preparation and reflection, fasting the things that hinder the carrying of our crosses, a throwing down all the extra baggage we carry, a time to wash clean our hearts and remember the joy of God’s embrace. It is a time for honest and maybe even painful soul-searching about the need for grace and love.

I’m wonder if I really understand the significance of such a season and if giving up such a trivial thing as beer accomplishes such. Is giving up something really the way to go about this? Are we missing the bigger picture here? Are we half-assing it? Maybe, I know I tend to miss the point quite a bit.

Lent is supposed to a time when we prepare for grace and what we must recognise is that one or two vices, such as occasionally having too much to drink, might not be enough to re-focus us to the man stuck on the cross. God is daring us to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves, honestly ask ourselves, if what we see matches what we see on the cross. It’s a time to look at our lives and ask is this who I really want to be? It’s a deeper question than vices. It’s a question of what will re-orient life on the cross and what will help bring understanding of the full meaning of this mystery that happened on the first Easter. Jesus died for more than alcohol, shaving, sugar and porn. Jesus died, and came back, for our whole sake and the whole world. The characteristics he embodied – love, compassion, integrity, meaning, hope and so many others - are what we need to see in the mirror upon our honest soul-searching. When looking up at his face I doubt that drinking is my biggest problem.

In Galatians and Ephesians Paul talks about clothing ourselves in love and justice. The gospels call us to live our lives to the fullest, fully in pursuit of embodiment; half-assing it does not cut it. Lent is a dare, daring us to actually live our faiths out in relevant, provocative and Christ-like ways. It’s a huge challenge and one not to be taken lightly; I cannot even answer the question of whether I am up to it.

Lent though, should not be about spiritual masturbation – short term spiritual gratification brought on by a personal fast. Lent should be about the dying of self, shedding our clothes in order to see our nakedness and need of salvation. In Lent we ask for help when wrestling with the angles and to proudly wear the scars and bruises of that struggle, knowing that we are coming closer to resembling God and His ways.

Find Me in the River

2008-02-22T23:12:00.018-04:00

Find me in the river. Find me on my knees. I've walked against the water, now I'm waiting if you please.We didn't count on suffering, we didn't count on pain. But if the blessing's in the valley, then in the river I will wait.(Find me in the River - Delirious?)

Life can be pretty hard when we realize we aren't all we thought we were cracked up to be. When we realize that our strengths sometimes just aren't enough to get us through and what we once thought was easy now seems impossible.
The things we're good at become our defining features and when they are challenged, or even shattered, the world seems to end for it is a loss of identity and purpose. Darkness overcomes us, that beacon of light and hope fades, leaving us struggling to see who we are and why we're even here. It leaves us vulnerable.

When being the guy who knows what he's talking about in school doesn't pan out for me I wonder if graduate school is indeed the place for me. The suffering and pain is unexpected, nor is the current that seems to be working against me. But again, like that time in Africa, it was when I was thinking of giving up and floating downstream that I met God.

I have a friend who I admire greatly and he introduced me to the song Find me in the River by Delirious? He said that God isn't oblivious to the fact we suffer. In fact, beautifully, it is in this suffering that we often find God and reasons to rejoice; we find unexpected reasons to rebuild and renew who we are and what our purpose is. Within this beautiful letdown we see a lesson in humility and trust, leading ultimately to a more intimate and stronger relationship with God. My friend said, "sometimes when we go through these time it can feel like God isn't there but it's times like these that we must learn that, as Christians, we must trust that God is there and trust that He knows what He is doing, that what He does is best and it will glorify Him. When the author wrote that song I think he was learning this principle so he said that even though he feels crappy, he knows that there is blessing in it and so in the river he will wait and I believe it it God who gives us the grace to be able to do that."

Realizing that God called me here - that this place is where He intended me to be - is a wonderful and reassuring feeling. Despite the trails, pain and suffering, we must realize that the blessings will flow down upon us and we must wait for them, on our knees in trust, humility and grace. So when the floor falls out from beneath you, know that God's got your back and if you're following God's will, his promises will wash over you. Having the humility to proclaim that 'I can't do this alone' and the faith to remain faithful and kneel in the muck of the river, despite the current, is tough but it is there that we will meet our Creator.

(thanks pete)

Hopeful Fools

2008-02-15T19:39:00.002-04:00

A good friend called me an idealist once. Implying my aspirations and expectations were too high. My immediate reaction was 'Of course I am. How can a Christian not be?' I still hold to that reaction; the bar that we strive to jump over has been set so high that how can we call ourselves anything but idealists? Radical idealism is the expectation.

It all boils down to hope. My friend Chris defines hope as 'the eager anticipation of that which we are awaiting for.' If you think about it, its not too far off from Paul's definition of faith. As Christians we have an eager expectation of things to come. We devout ourselves to a hope that things will get better and that by embracing the Annoying Jesus we can help colour in that grey horizon that we all anticipate. The technique varies but something the Bible talks a lot about is righteousness. That's a pretty high expectation and to some it may seem down right unrealistic; to be just in our relationships with God and the world around us in all we do is purposefully difficult. Jesus never said it would be easy but as Ive said before, he's always willing to lend a hand or two. Matt Thiessen said that the best thing about failure is it gives us a second chance and if there's anyone who could help the second time around it's, as Dane Cook says, the Big Guns upstairs. So despite the fact that its a high bar and we may not always reach, it is the expectation handed down to us by Jesus and like it or not, that's what's going down.

Idealistic? Sure. Naive? Maybe, but here's the radical aspect of it. Unlike my friend we cannot cop-out, admit defeat to our human preferences. We have to be realistic about it and admit it's hard and failure will happen but despite everything that the world tells us we have to be diligent in giving everything we have until there's nothing left and it all runs out. The possibility of failure is not a reason to accept failure. Being a radical idealist is acknowledging the foolishness of pursuing such a ridiculously high standard but knowing that giving all we have to get there will, in the end, get a high five from Big Guns. Sure, its foolish and absolutely its idealistic, but ya know, unless we become fools and give it our all Heaven won't get to earth any sooner.

As Augustine wrote: "My desire is for you, justice and innocence, you are lovely and splendid to honest eyes; the satiety of you love is insatiable. With you is utter peace and a life immune from disturbance. The person who enters into you enters into the joy of the God." We strive to enter into the communion, that right relationship with God and others. It cannot be done though unless we strive like fools to the ideals set before us. Be radical, acknowledge the stupidity and ridiculousness of it all and do it anyway.

If Jesus Had Facebook

2008-02-08T23:09:00.000-04:00

For a guy who is a Christian and who studies this kind of thing, you'd think the question 'Who is Jesus?' would be an easy one. I was asked this today and had a hard time answering it. The word 'embarrassed' wouldn't describe it because its a personal question that one doesn't want to belittle by throwing up a cocktail of clichés but I realized it may be something we don’t ask ourselves very often. We can certainly string words together in prayer but do we know what they mean? Are they the words we'd use to describe him personally?

I'll be the first to say Im in the facebook group 'If Jesus had facebook Id be his friend' but unfortunately it's an 'if' kind of thing and he doesn't and we answer my question by checking out his bio. Imagine that, if Jesus had facebook. Prayer would change forever. "1,000,000,000 people have written on Jesus' wall." Poor Jesus, he'd be in front of his MacBook all day. Would we be secretary angels? Sorry - Office Administrator Angels. "Dear Nick, Jesus has indeed seen your most recent wall posts and wants you to know that its all good. God Bless, Secretary 2042." That would be so cool. If only. . .

Who is Jesus? He’s the guy who’s got my back. The inspiration for my music; the beauty of my off-key chords. I laugh at actually saying that. It all sounds so cliché and second-hand, but it may be in times like this that those clichés are simply true. It is true too. He’s my best friend, the hand that picks me up when I crash and burn; the voice that says, again and again, “Im here. I wont let go, let’s try it again.”

Jesus is the one who I turn to, especially when everything hits the fan and nothing seems to be going right. The strength and vision that comes from this weird, untangible yet incredibly intimate relationship, is sufficient to get through the days I wish never happened. Jesus feels my pain and struggle, sharing in the grief and sorrow and offers the sustaining comfort that only someone who has experienced more pain and struggle can. He helps let go of the guilt ridden past and not to worry about the worrisome future, drawing attention to the importance of the here and now.

He is someone I have never seen yet who’s face Id recognise. Love, compassion, interest, strength, trust, wisdom, and acknowledgment are the lines on his face and his hands are equally skilled at undoing all the evils and correcting all the crimes I have committed; those are the hands holding me up as I try to live something seemingly impossible.

How to describe something so innate? The only way to colour in this messy sketch is by living the description. It's not easier to act out the answer but it requires less words to fumble over; now we just fumble over our feet. By reflecting that face of love we can catch a fracture of a glimpse of the real thing. The old adage of a picture speaks a thousand words is correct here. The only thing with Jesus, though, is we have to keep reenacting the picture because a thousand words are inadequate to fully capture his essence, impact, importance and his embrace. For people who don’t know him our verbal descriptions can only do so much before sounding cheesy. Living out loud, being a voice, reflecting that face is much more meaningful than eloquent words.

My feeble attempt to describe Jesus is italicised by my actions, or at least I hope they are. Jesus is so awesomely amazing that I can only show you, and even then, I can’t even come close but I hope, I pray, that you can get the idea. If he was on my facebook I'd totally hook you up with him.

Dam!

2008-01-31T10:40:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about Jesus in the garden the night before he died. This was a guy who knew he was about to be put to death. The anxiety, struggle, affliction, doubt, fear, the wrestling with the love, compassion and calling he had must have been incredible. My worries are broken strings compared to this. Sitting there, wrestling with the angels, Jesus didn't cop out. That right there, Id say, is one of the reasons this guy blows my mind. Jesus never made up excuses. He did not make up excuses. That's where I tend to have troubles. I can pray and I can listen but I seem to enjoy hiding behind my excuses when it comes to following through.

Talking with my friend Jenn about prayer I mentioned that Christians sometimes don't hear God because, as Peter Greig said, we've got him on mute and can't hear him above the noise we're making. She said it's more than that; its not that we dont hear what God is saying - we often do - but its just that we dont follow through on what the Spirit has laid down for us. Is that the case?

We're almost unintentional construction workers in this regard. We're decked out in hard hats and belts and Jesus is the foreman, leaning over the blueprints he's drawn up for the Kingdom and is yelling out his instructions to us. We're all anxious to hear him but here's where we mess up: we dont follow instructions. We make excuses. 'Oh, my hammer doesn't work' 'I think tomorrow would be a better day.' 'Are you sure Jesus? I'll check again later, you think about it.' Due to all these excuses, instead of building the Kingdom we end up building a huge freakin dam. We build a structure thats only purpose is to block stuff. We finally realize that what we built is actually a hindrance and proclaim "dam!"

Me and my inability to follow through on what God is telling me causes a lot more damage than I imagined. It blocks the river from flowing through to the dry and parched souls and mouths. Its like we're all dying for a pool to jump in but end up making a sandbox. Yelling "dam!," though, is the first step in tearing down the Babel Dam for it recognises our inability to get it right. Its then we can finally join our friend in the garden and with him shouldering much of our weight, carry through on the plans that God has for us. We are meant to be construction workers but to be so, we must learn to follow the instructions. Only then will the outcome will be more spectacularly beautiful and productive than we can imagine.

Dam!

hands

2008-01-27T22:43:00.000-04:00

both of our hands / are equally skilled / at doing evil / equally skilled / at bribing judges / equally skilled
at perverting justice / both of our hands / are equally skilled.

Im not very good at doing things. It's taken me about twenty four years to figure this out. You would think that after the first four times I speak without thinking I would begin to catch on. Yup, it seems that I have a passion for doing things backwards. I just tend to miss the point, taking the short cut instead of way the sign points. I just seem to have a knack for causing pain, injustice, disappointment, and distance. My hands, as Jon Foreman writes, are pretty good at doing some pretty bad things. At the end of the day it seems, even with my good intentions, Im the whore who's wearing an ill-fitting suit of righteousness. Thank God (quite literally) that someone else's hands are there to help make the suit fit.

both of his hands / are equally skilled / at ruining evil / equally skilled / at judging judges / equally skilled
at administering justice / both of his hands / are equally skilled.

Jesus was pretty good at doing things. No doubt he struggled but he was a guy who didnt spontaneously miss the point with his actions and who actually liked following through on his convictions. His hands were beautiful; they began friendships, healed, taught, and showed the way. It's astounding that those hands are willing to tailor this ill-fitting suit of mine. Its beautiful that they actually want to grasp mine and begin a friendship, heal, teach and show me the way. I am flawed and habitually get things wrong but Jesus is always there to help out. He's been through a lot and his hands are evidence of that. By paying more attention to his hands than my own I think I may be alright.

(Lyrics from Jon Foreman's "Equally Skilled" found on Fall)

Prayer House Rocks

2008-01-13T21:30:00.001-04:00

We hear a Christian assure someone that he will 'pray over' his problem, knowing full well that he intends to use his prayer as a substitute for service. It is much easier to pray that a poor friend's needs may be supplied than to supply them. AW Tozer.

Speaking from experience, both in the first person and third person stance here, Christians are really good at copping out of things. Prayer is often the best example of how I have copped out and given in, once again, to Half Assed Christianity. The root of the problem is a misunderstanding of what kind of love we are called to embody. While prayer is undoubtedly important it falls short if we don't back up our words with actions. We can ask God to do all kinds of things but if we dont try to do those things ourselves they ain't gonna happen.

I saiah 58 is a good reference point for this. The prophet is calling out his friends and people on the ritualization of love. He's essentially saying 'You've missed the point! You call what you're doing love?! Let me tell you what it's supposed to look like.' Love is not about an individual's devotion to God. Love, Isaiah says, is about your devotion to God and to God's people. The reason God was not answering the fasts off the Israelites was because they were missing the point; what they thought was honoring God was in reality 'trampling the Sabbath.' Not wanting to get into an exegesis (or, I hope not, eisegesis?) of 58 the main point is: true love honors God with our prayer and actions to Him and to the community. Isaiah was like an old-school version of School House Rocks. Telling us that love's a verb! Live it out, it's active!

The point Tozer is trying to get at is we sometimes forget what true love is about. I remember one day some friends and I prayed for the homeless who lived in our neighbourhood. Nice thing to do huh? The cop-out, though, is we are actually called to do so much more. We're not just supposed to pray for them but serve them as well. Prayer and service is what Matthew 25 calls us to do. The ridiculousness of the conviction we felt still amazes us. We sold out to Half-Assed Christianity. Six theology students! I thought I could offer prayer as my service to the hungry and homeless. But here's the catch: if we're supposed to be the hands and feet of God then by asking God to help them I am essentially praying for myself, that I would come to my senses and go out and serve them. I realized I was ritualizing love, missing the entire point of it. I was substituting prayer for service. Prayer cannot substitute service, it must accompany it. We cannot, of course, mend all social or spiritual ills with our service but we can support and encourage through our service.

We can pray all we want that God's blessing will sweep over the nations and bring peace to earth but if we do this and then return to our pews without any action we're seriously mistaken. The Kingdom cannot build itself.

We Are One

2008-01-12T17:16:00.001-04:00

I enjoy doing things on my own. I know, more or less, what I am capable of and am quite comfortable when left to get something done. I hated group projects for that very reason; it forced me to trust other people, giving them the benefit of the doubt that together we could get the project done. It forced me to go out of my comfort zone, relying on others - people I did not know - for my success. It's for the very same reason that the Kingdom of God scares the crap out of me.

Think of the Kingdom as a group project. God said one day, "Alright, listen up. I have a project for you to work on. It's vital to your grade but I'm here to help out so don't worry too much. The project is building my Kingdom. Oh, and its a group project. The whole class must work together on this one." I think quite a few of us were asleep the day this assignment was handed out. I know I was. When it comes to our own spiritual lives and our own churches we don't like to rely on others to get the job done. We like to keep it neat and tidy, not letting anything that may mess it up into the circle. But Christianity isn't really supposed to be neat and tidy. How could it be if the church is made up of a bunch of sinners, failures and fools? I think we're missing the point if we rely entirely on ourselves.

One of the most beautiful things about our how our faith works is that we're in it together. F-ed up eh? Our culture is wired in the complete opposite way. In God's big plan the point is not just about the individual but about us; me, you, him, her, them, the voiceless, the loud and forgotten, the glorified, the rich and the poor. We are One. We see this in the body of Christ, being the hands and feet of one unifying being. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, when speaking of the body of Christ, talks about how, as we sit at God's table and share in the bread and wine, we, the countless number seated around the table, become one body because there is one loaf and one cup. We are one body and must work as one body when it comes to our task at hand, building up the Kingdom of God - making the earth a bit more like Heaven. This is a task that cannot be done by an individual but one designed so that we must work together. We are meant to be co-workers with God and each other and we cannot let mere denominational, social, economic differences or whatever get in the way of such a greater purpose. When you look at the walls you've built up around you what is trivial about them?

Jon Foreman, talking about 'We are One Tonight', said that reason he plays music is because it is in the shared sweat, the shared voice, the shared presence that we, all gathered in the old opera house, become one. Just like we are around the Table. When we are gathered together at God's table, preparing to do his work, we are one, sharing the sweat, the struggle, the pain, the joy, the affluence and vision. If we partake in the cup and the bread we cannot try to do it by ourselves for it weakens the body. We are meant to be one. Start living as you were meant to be, part of a greater community, a greater being and for a greater purpose. With God holding us all together we no longer need to place trust in ourselves alone but within each the body.

We are one tonight.

Provocatively Unorthodox: A Call for Renewal

2008-01-04T14:58:00.000-04:00

Provocatively Unorthodox. Its not a typo, nor a call for "shotty" theology, deliberate heresy or the 'watering down' of the gospel. Provocatively Unorthodoxy, rather, is a call for a radical orthodoxy of sorts, a return to our 'roots,' an intentional return to the core message of the Gospel; undressing the religious traditions we've clothed the Christian faith in for so many years. In other words we're calling for a 'naked orthodoxy,' a return to the message that Jesus himself taught. 'Provocative Unorthodoxy' is the name I give it, signifying that what may seem weird or even heretical to the ears of the most orthodox is an honest attempt at re-finding Jesus' message. It finds that his original message was the most controversial, new, radical, revolutionary one out there, at the time and even now.

God's an advocate for being provocative and being unorthodox. Going against the grain in odd and unconventional ways. Purposefully choosing social misfits and average joes and janes to be his hands and feet, prophets radically altering the meaning of fasting, the idea of Jubilee, and the teachings and methods of Christ. None of the above was kosher with the average Jew or gentile. It caught them off guard that God would choose a murder to lead his people to freedom. It caught them off guard that the Messiah would hang out with sinners and failures and turn the symbol of oppression and death into one of salvation and life. Yup, God definitely enjoys being provocative and unorthodox. Being unorthodox does not mean a mass reinterpretation of scripture. It's an awakening to the idea that maybe we've gone off track and need to forge a new path, pulling a theological U turn. In reality its a return to orthodoxy. Seems to me it's a good way to get people to snap out of complacency and back to sincere and relevant, biblical faith.

I guess what 'naked Christianity' comes down to is choosing, as Rev. Al Sharpton once said, conviction over convenience. Putting up with the Annoying Jesus is the four lane highway of convenience; there's usually an extra lane to pull into if the going gets tough. Crank the tunes and be on your way. Being provocatively unorthodox, living a life of embodiment, is taking the narrow and rocky path of conviction. Conviction is by far the tougher choice but the view in the end is one of beauty and hope. Christ's path was provocative and counter-ideological to the religious norms of the day. Taking those two factors into account in 21 century Christianity we need to rethink how we do religion, renewing ourselves and the church, and God willing, the world, in the process. So be random, think outside the box, dive into the bible and think about what you actually believe. Join in with the Starving Jesus movement, join in with the Blood Water Missions, and become a mover and shaker. Be provocative and be unorthodox.

. . . Sing Justice, Sow Joy.

2007-12-25T19:02:00.000-04:00

I am the role model, the man who wrote the book, the CEO, of Half-assed Christianity. Im amazingly good at going about my daily life and work walking the line between luke-warm religiosity and resembling Godliness. It's quite comfortable there. The road isn't too narrow, you meet lots of interesting people and you're not a 'lazy' or 'crazy' Christian. Why raise people's expectations by going for an 'A+' when a 'B' will satisfy? You can crack a cold one and reflect on how you threw some hope in a homeless woman's cup, hit up church on Sunday and loaded some Skillet onto your ipod. . . yup, not a bad week a half-assed Christianity if I do say so myself.

The 'Annoying Jesus' will only get us so far. The difference between half-assed Christianity and Embodiment is embracing the Annoying Jesus to the point where carrying your cross becomes second nature; we are still well aware of its weight and awkwardness but life without the feeling of it on our shoulders becomes something we cannot fathom. Half-assed Christianity is hearing the consistent reminders of Jesus and reluctantly/partially following them until the sacrifice becomes too much. Embodiment is hearing those reminders and embracing them fully, reflecting to the best of our ability the image we dimly mirror. The Spirit ceases to be an external source of annoyance and becomes second nature, an internal source of being and belonging.

Embodiment is consistently and habitually singing justice and sowing joy. Jesus, instead of being the nagging noise in your ear now becomes the tune and tool. Can you imagine if we all sung justice and sowed joy? If the entire Christian Church (think people not institution) embodied Christ, giving in to the Annoying Jesus, embracing him fully, we'd have a pretty kick ass church if I do say so myself. No more would Christians be scoffed at for their lack of integrity (see "UnChristian" by Barna's David Kinnaman) and no longer would evil and suffering be the norm but glory, joy and peace would now be the lords of the dance, triumphing over the sin we have brought into this world. The Annoying Jesus wont cut it if that is to be our goal. Half-assed religion is not what Jesus, almost 2000 years ago to this very day, came to teach. The tag on this wonderful Christmas gift from God says 'hope' - that in this small child we will find the way to break away from complacent and half-assed religion, and find, in Jesus, a way to redemption through salvation and Godly living, by carrying a cross and song where we dont belong. By singing justice and sowing joy.

I hereby resign my tenure as CEO, revoke my status of role model and burn the book I wrote on Half-Assed Christianity. Complacency and contentment with the Annoying Jesus are not what we're called to be. Living as such is a mockery of the true Christian story. If Christmas is not the best time to get it right I dont know when else would. It was, after all, on this very day that the best story in the world began. Since we are to finish the story we may as well try to get the ending right.

Jesus is Annoying. . . .

2007-12-09T00:54:00.000-04:00

I realized something today as I sat in my couch - yes, 'in', you sink down quite a bit - reading. It was something that had been percolating for awhile now; every time I read my Bible, go for a walk downtown, stop at a Starbucks for a white chocolate peppermint latte or give in and buy something expensive, something stirs inside me. Not a stir of enjoyment but a stir of frustration, of annoyance. Well, I finally figured out what the hell it is: It's Jesus and he's annoying. . . .

By now all Ive managed to offend all sorts of people but if you haven't quite left yet, please do hold on. Give me a good curse and hear me out because I think this happens to all of us religious folk. If it doesn't, well, then I think there's a problem.

It's incredibly difficult with only a book to go on to figure out who this Jesus fellow is. With so many planted ideas renting out space in our head we approach Jesus with a preconceived image already well established. What we do find in the gospels we cram into our image, forcing perhaps a square shaped Jesus to into a star shaped hole. But if we can evict those loud and foreign tenants and approach the scriptures with a open mind that has room for the Spirit to do her wonders, I think we'll find, more than anything, that Jesus, he's kind of a pain in the butt.

Jesus, it turns out, has some pretty crazy ideas when it comes to how I spend my money, what I buy, or who I spend my time with. He's not one to keep his opinion to himself either. Just take a look at the gospels. He's radical! Annoyingly so! "Nick, what are you thinking? You don't need a coffee, it makes you sick! You have five bucks to spare? How 'bout buying the homeless woman outside some food?" Woah now Jesus. . .dont get so worked up, I find myself saying, you're getting a little annoying. Can you imagine the look on his face if I were to tell him that? It's not just me telling him that either. I think we all do it. Tell him to mind his own business, "stick to the spiritual stuff Lord."

'Stick to the spiritual stuff.' What we find with our close reading is that the spiritual stuff is material stuff. Matthew 25 makes this perfectly clear. What counts for salvation - thereby making it a 'spiritual' issue - is how we act, spend our money, and who we associate with. Who wants to be compassionate? It's so much easier to support the status quo, enjoy a five-dollar coffee, and hang out with comfortable people. Who wants to hear someone say "You've heard that it is alright to do all that but I tell you this. . . "

It's so annoying to have someone tell us we're wrong, but Jesus, it turns out, tends to do that to me quite a bit. Challenging me on how I supposedly embody his Spirit. I think it's true for all of us - it's just hard to admit. If Jesus genuinely does not challenge you in all sorts of ways to the point of annoyance then I would be willing to bet you've got him pegged for something he really isn't. Perhaps 'Jesus' is just you wearing a wig and robes. That would be nice but part of the point of being told to 'carry a cross' is that it's going to be hard. And you know what? Jesus has some experience in that area and it may be a good idea to hear him out.

A Beautiful Letdown - a Kenyan Reflection

2007-10-30T16:43:00.000-03:00

“It will change your life, really.” I heard this statement so many times before I travelled to Kenya that I began to believe it. Surely, months of volunteer work would be profoundly influential on an emotion, intellectual and spiritual level - the kind of ‘profoundly’ that’s life changing. God loves this kind of stuff. These are the kinds of situations where God pulls a ‘Paul’ and causes me to come home a completely changed person!

Right?

God, however, tends to do things the opposite way we think He will. He’s kind of weird that way. Our finite minds don’t operate at the level of God; we tend to jump to conclusions, missing the point all together. My experience with Kenya, it turns out, was an adventure in missing the point. The expectations of holding dying infants and running from hyenas did not pan out. Instead I found myself at a small rural library. Why didn’t I leave Africa a completely changed person? Where was the impact, the revelations that I was so sure would immediately come? What a disappointment!

It was in the reeling from these disappointments that I began to see Africa as a beautiful letdown.

I believe that we, as Christians and as a church, are called, and this is not an option, to do missions work. Whether abroad or locally it doesn’t matter. My friend Peter calls Jesus the great boundary crosser; crossing into places socially and culturally uncomfortable in a movement of compassion, love and justice. We are to follow, reflecting the image within us.

I called my experience a “beautiful letdown,” a phrase coined by one of my musical and theological heroes Jon Foreman. A beautiful letdown reflects that it is in the despair, the crashing and burning, the incomprehensible, those great disappointments of life, that we find something beautiful- Truth and grace. It is when we are at our worst, lying on the floor that we see a beautiful sight: we are not alone. God is there, daring us to take his hand and get back up on our feet.

Africa was a beautiful letdown. That is not an easy thing to say. It did not meet the wonderful expectations I had nor did I come back the man I imagined. Or at least, not right away; it was in this letdown, in the bitter pain and doubt that I found beauty and truth that said ‘Get up. You’re missing the point. I dare you to get up and figure it out.” It is not God who, as we stand idly by, changes the world but us, the church, transformed in Christ, who bring about that change. These stories I hope show how my letdown became beautiful.

People always ask what the best part was. Truthfully, I don’t know. Probably the children. There were countless numbers of kids who would always seem to appear out of nowhere. These kids simply loved to play, to be touched, to be acknowledged. Whether it was tag, soccer, being silly or dancing these kids simply loved to play and laugh. Such a simple way to happiness. But what happened when darkness fell? Certainly not an adequate meal or a warm bed. Over half had lost their parents to HIV/AIDS or had parents working non-stop, being left, at best, to the care of friends, family or siblings.

While eating my meal and sleeping in my bed guilt, shame, anger and sheer bewilderment played their songs in my heart. How can I save these kids? Adoption? Money? What is one person to do? I was suddenly left with a notion of complete inadequacy and disappointment. Yet it in this despair that the simplicity of it appeared. I cannot save these kids in the fullest sense of the word but I can take it in a step in the right direction. I can offer love. It’s about relationships – giving time of day to those who need it the most. I don’t know how I missed it as it was reflected by the kids themselves. An illustrated example of loving community – they shared their food, clothing and included even the smallest in their games. The reason they loved to play is simple. The love and community incarnate in their play overpowered the pain, loss and neglect. We often over complicate matters, trying to fix it all at once, this always leads to disappointment. I discovered when looking at the example of my small friends, we need to start where Jesus started. Beyond the politics and formulas with simply love and a table where there is always a seat available. The rest works itself out.

I left Africa with no idea whether our project would be sustainable or not. As we were launching the project the question of sustainability was always on our mind. Due to leadership problems and CIDA priorities we left wondering if in a month the youth would still gather and carry out their goals. Putting time, money, effort and devotion into a project of such profound worth and suddenly backing off and leaving it all in the air is a hard thing to do, especially when you feel the project is not ready. We eventually heard that the project failed – funding and support was pulled and the youth were leaving the library. Ouch is right. Again, you can help but ask yourself ‘What’s the point?’ My problem with asking that question was I was not seeing the bigger picture. The cool thing here is that the bigger picture is not about sustainability and profit but about hope and individuals. A letter from our Kenyan friend Hassan showed how while we viewed success as progress, he saw it in relationships. He wrote beautifully of how much our time meant to him and the others and what he has learned and is inspired to do. The Truth discovered in this letdown was that once again, I was missing the point. Hassan taught me that in our missional work, both as a Church and as human beings, is not about progress but with hope, love and community which did last, and are still going on despite the failure of a mere project.

I mentioned before that I expected to come back a changed person; that these experiences in Africa would have an immediate and definitive impact personally, spiritually and intellectually. That, obviously never happened. I stepped off the plane last July looking and feeling like me albeit bearded and fifteen pounds lighter. All I wanted was a shower and cold beer with friends. Where was this profound change? Maybe we were all wrong and this wasn’t an “it’ll change your life” experience. Was it really worth it to go through all that and still come out basically the same person? It was a letdown in the truest sense of the word. 15 pounds and 7000 dollars lighter is not constitutes profound change, or at least in the way I was seeing it. God was supposed to change me inside out, why had he forsaken me?

That, my friends, is a cop out.

While I no doubt that God has the power to change me, to expect that there is no responsibility on my behalf would be a crock, pure and simple. It voids the covenant we have with God, tearing out the page with our signature on it. Indifference and complacency are its offspring. What terrible things to become. We expect so much on God’s behalf we end up missing the point of being the church. I copped out with my expectations of God and Kenya.

The transformation I wanted to see in myself and the world comes not just from God but us, the hands and feet of the church, renewed and transformed in Christ. I was completely missing the point when I expected God to change me. God tells us what’s up but expects us to transform our actions and worldviews to embody those explicit in Jesus and bring the earth a bit closer to resembling Heaven. The experience was laid out for me but I had to embrace it on my own accord. To cross the boarder of comfort and familiarity and seek out injustice, complacency, disharmony and to dance upon it – not by waiting in the wings while God whips out a cool miracle, but by changing my life to suit the life that I am claiming partnership with. Jesus did not say it would be easy. Its really hard! To truly carry a cross and song where we don’t belong requires sacrifice and commitment.

I came home expecting to be changed with no accountability of my own. What a disappointment it all seemed. But I have realised that in the great disappointments of life – whatever they may be - we can see, beyond the bitter pain and doubt, a hope that not all is lost, a dare to move on and live as we are meant to be – a community of love, interdependence and hope. The church is not made for perfect people. Its made for the drop-outs, the losers, the sinners, failures and fools. We are a beautiful letdown – a group of people who constantly get it wrong but push on otherwise in the hopes of greater things because we have a God that’s got our backs. This is so awesomely beautiful. I now have to readjust my life and put into practise what I learned from my beautiful letdown.

It’s a lesson for all of us. That in disappointment we could cop out and wait for God to fix it all. We could, its easy to do. So much easier than pulling up our socks and taking that outstretched hand to help Him make the world a better place. But that’s the way it is. You, me, we are not alone and we have a God that dares us to move and transform ourselves and His world. The more conscious we are of our inability to get it right, the more clearly we will hear his call.

It turns out that those people were right after all, Kenya did change my life. Just four months after it was all said and done. The job of making it a life changing experience is directly upon my shoulders and what I do with it. I want to see earth look a bit more like heaven and that means copping out, even when life does not go according to plan, is simply not an option. We will be disappointed but in those we will find beauty and truth to help us up. As Jon Foreman wrote, the shadow proves the sunshine.

more than a month of e-mails.

2007-05-30T11:35:00.000-03:00

Good intentions must be worth something. Blogging in Kenya on ghetto computers - we're talking Windows 98 - isnt the easiest feat to accomplish, especially when power outages happen intermittently throughout the day. Oh, cant forget floods and herds of goats and cows knocking wires loose. To update everyone here are snip-its out of my emails:

Ive spoken before about the Mutatus (the public transit buses)but they are such amazing feats of human creation that they deserve another paragraph. So think Hippie Van, Mystery Machine...no, think Electric Mayhem bus (muppets...) and youll get a rough idea of what I deal with every morning. Pure ordered craziness. They remind me of the clown cars you only see in cartoons. Little vans stuffed with an ungodly number of people. The conducter will jump out like a magician and yell while flinging open the door whereupon 2 dozen Africans will stream out of the 8 passenger van. And then, for the grand finale, a fat German women will squeeze out of the van finally emptying the bus. Its fantastic entertainment.

Murphy's Law is a universal fact of life it seems. Yes, "shit happens" is one of those factors that seem to pop up, even more so when travelling it seems. Youve already been told of how utterly ridiculous the rain is here
and the weather is notorious for tricking us white people into thinking it'll be a beautiful, sunny day and once we're miles away from shelter and an umbrella the heavens open up and we're made to think God rethought his covenant with Noah. To make our work a bit more enjoyable while we're typing up reports the iPod has been singing out some tunes (Kenyan music is also notoriously awful). Relient K, Switchfoot, David Myles, Arcade Fire are only a few of the drugs I take to keep me partially sane. My iPod of course was in my pocket when the heavens opened and the flooding began. When fleeing for your life you dont really think about saving an item that lives in your pocket. My camera joined me at the funeral of my iPod. A little boy in the community asked to see it the next day as he enjoyed watching the screen change. When hearing that it "died" he closed his eyes, bowed his head and whispered in Swahili. Seeing the curious look on my face he told me that "Dont worry, Jesus will heal it. I prayed for it." My iPod was up and running when I got home that day. Jesus resurrected my iPod. Hallelujah, Amen!

The rain was horizontal today, on an even upwards angle. This is quite problematic when walking down the street as it either goes straight up your nose or you attempt to pull a crazy reverse Mary Poppins and end up getting blown backwards down the street. I dont know why more Kenyans simply travel backwards when this weather happens. Its wet but looks cool.

The picture is of myself and Huss, another volunteer, playing with the children in our neighbourhood. There are about 50 kids in the community, most have friends or relatives filling in the roles of mom and dad, as their own parents were victims of AIDS.

The Antidote to Dobson Induced Illnesses

2007-04-01T12:40:00.000-03:00

Last week on CBC's The Hour had Tony Campolo, an American evangelical writer and pastor who was Bill Clinton's spiritual advisor during his presidency. He's an extremely gifted speaker who's priorities are quite different and more progressive than Mr.Dobson's. In his most recent books he shows just how far off the ideologies and theology of the Christian Right is. For those of you struck with a sudden panic, as I had earlier this month, to smack certain people in the head with a bible hoping that osmosis may occur, listen to the interview. It's a refershing listen and a good antidote to the 'holy-crap-is-this-what-most-people-think?' feeling that Dobson gives off.

Its Not a Hard Question: What the Hell is Wrong with You?!

2007-03-12T17:41:00.000-03:00

If James Dobson were in my living room right now Im pretty sure I would abandon any pacifist ideals and smack him in the head with the biggest damn bible I could wrap my fingers around. . .all the time asking "what the hell is wrong with you?" Or actually maybe I'd sit him down and quietly ask him that. . .and then proceed to smack him in the head.

I havent always been the biggest fan of the NAE (National Association of Evangelicals) but theyve been doing some fantastic work promoting moral issues which are left out of the limelight. "For the Health of the Nations," their new statement so to speak, addressed ecological crises, social justice and human rights issues. You would think that this would be all hunky-dory with American Christianity. Even if you dont agree, or hell, believe in global warming, youd just let the NAE go on its merry way.

But no. Cue James Dobson. The man who crusaded against Sponge Bob Square Pants because he believed the cartoon character to be gay and thereby promoting to the American children a tolerant view of homosexuality. His much edited and much censored Bible is now aimed at the NAE because he, in his divine wisdom, believes issues like global warming distract people from "the great moral issues of our time."
Aboriton and same sex marriage take precedent over the destruction of our planet and the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people daily.

Im more scared than shocked by this. I wonder how a person, religion aside, can hold up same sex marriage above such a pressing and global issue as the environment and poverty. Homosexuals will not kill off entire species of animals or cause massive flooding and drought. If Christians are called to make a significant difference in this world - and we are - by being the hands and feet of God than how can we possibly ignore issues that threaten the survival of fellow human beings. I find this unbelievable.

James Dobson - please find the compassion in your heart and soul to realise the grave mistakes you are making. Because you are a public personality people look up to you and take what you say to heart.

Stop saying stupid things. Please.

The article "Evangelical Stays Course on Warming"

Conservapedia, brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood Dobsonites

2007-03-01T18:28:00.000-04:00

So, due to the growing phobia that the internet is becoming too secular, liberal and just downright "un-christian," and thereby of course undermining the cause of Jesus, the American Christian Right has gotten together and laid hands upon a computer, sending the Holy Spirit through the phone lines and into the world wide web.

The fears do not stem from the rampant access to pornography or the freedom individuals have to various religious and philosophical ideas but from the liberal, secular road that Wikipedia is heading down. Disgusted with the fact that dates are followed with 'CE' and not 'AD' and the numerous athesist or anti-christian literature the christian Right has put together Conservapedia. Cue the chorus of heavenly angels signing God's praises and blessing.

As the name suggests they dont hide the fact that the site is a encyclopedia of right wing conservative ideas and theologies. Conservapedia's entries are written in a manner sympathetic to the views of the religious right, social conservatives and creationists. The Conservapedia entry on homosexuality, for example, begins with four biblical citations decrying same-sex relationships.

James Dobson must be behind this. Who else other than the guy who took on a crusade against Sponge Bob Sqaure Pants because he holds hands with his friends. The site doesn't right any wrongs Wikipedia has apparently made for its just as anti-liberal, pro-conerstivative and prejudice as Wikipedia is liberal, secular and anti-christian.

Yet again they have their priorities wrong. The sites such as Wikipedia are not what's wrong with the internet. What should be on their agenda, according to their theology, is a fight against pornography, especially child porn which grows by the day. Laying hands upon a computer to wipe the internet of anti-christian literature while ignoring the anti-humanity and hate literature is their biggest mistake, one they do not seem to be aware of either.

Being Hands and Feet

2007-02-20T15:38:00.000-04:00

We're meant to be God's hands and feet and whether we are intentionally or by mere coincidence, Im yet amazed again at how we, as a people, have the potential to act as a united group against the obstacles that stand in the way of peace, justice and tolerance.

The will to stand and say no one is too lost to be loved and too low to be served is in us all - how deep is the question but I believe that feeling is able to be mined, dug up out of the numbness of our subconciousness. That love stirs as its probed, growing as its brought to the surface.

All it takes is a little bit of love. Whether its a free hug, an act of kindness, the news or acts of charity, people generally do not think twice about helping out, giving up something to help the lost and lowly.

Preparations for my volunteer position have proved this to me. People see this project as a chance to give their love and support to a faceless nation. Im astonished at the response of strangers upon hearing about my pending position. They give - without question, hesitation and with utmost sincerity . They know me merely as their bartender, server or client. Its inspiring to witness the change in the faces of strangers, changing from person seated next to me on the bus to brother and sister. We're all trying to change the world in any way possible. Some can travel, others can give, others can verbally support. We all have roles to carry out and its a very humbling experience to see people fill those roles with happiness and generousity.

We can carry out this revolution of love and humanity together. The Beatles had it right, all we do need is love. John Mayer got it wrong in 'Waiting for the World to Change', its waiting for us.

And People Ask Me 'Why?'. . .

2007-01-19T20:25:00.000-04:00

In about three months I'll be leaving for Africa to begin my volunteer/work placement in Kenya. Throughout my perpetual preparation Ive come across a collage of responses when people learn what exactly Im doing. Consistently the typical responses have been the a) "Wow, thats awesome. Good luck!" and b)"Why would you want to do that?!" I almost prefer the latter response and answer with some humanitarian/quasi-religious statement. Although, the news tonight sums my spattered sentiments perfectly: 1000 people, under the age of 15, are infected with AIDS daily.

One thousand kids each day are infected with a fatal disease. If thats not a good reason to go then I dont know what is.