Christianity Today Study Series: Faith & Pop Culture

What is the value of the arts? How much should television be allowed to shape our thinking or drive our decisions? How much does it? Do we Christians spend too much time immersed in popular culture or entirely too little?

I have always enjoying making connections between popular culture and the Christian faith. Just as Jesus taught in stories, parables and word pictures, I believe there is much in popular culture of tremendous reference value. There are many worthy books on this subject, but Christianity Today (in cooperation with Tyndale) has now published a thought provoking study guide on the subject as part of its ongoing series of studies - Christianity Today Study Series: Faith and Pop Culture. Drawing from Christianity Today articles on popular culture, Scripture and classroom discussion, the study seeks to find ways to connect meaningfully to the world around us. The eight-session study guide covers movies, books, sports, television, family friendliness, violence, Christians in the entertainment industry and entertainment in general. The topic selections are very relevant and excellent.

While it is difficult to fairly critique a study guide, since it is not written to be comprehensive, but provoke good conversation, this study guide seems to accomplish its objective. There are many sobering questions to ask about the nature of Christian interaction with the media; this study should be helpful in pushing people to ask those questions.

There are great arguments to be made for engagement and some excellent arguments to disengage. I regularly waffle between the two. This study guide is helpful in talking about the struggle.

Beyond The Yap (James 1:19-25, 2:14-26)

My daughter Tesia regularly makes us laugh. There was a terrible shooting on Harvard’s campus this week, near Lowell House where she lives. Yet when I spoke with Tesia afterwards, I was not greeted by fear. Her reaction was a bit more basic. She said, “I walk right through that quad on the way to the gym every day. Wouldn’t it be just my luck to get shot on the way to the gym and lie all bloody and dying on national television in ugly gym shorts? Wouldn’t that just be the worst? I have got to get to Target!” It’s good to see my girl’s got her priorities!

But another favorite Tesia moment relates to our Scripture passage today. When Tesia was four, we lived in Panama. Our closest friends in Panama were the Senior Pastor of our church and his wife, Pastor Bill and Marla Johnson. We would routinely get together to play cards on a Friday night, often playing until the wee hours of the morning. One Friday, as we were driving over to the Johnsons again, Tesia spoke up from the back seat of the car saying, “Daddy, all you and Bill ever do is talk, talk, talk.” I laughed at her and said, “Okay sweetie, if you think we’re talking too much tonight, you just come over to the table, look me right in the eye and say, ‘Yap, yap, yap!’” Much, much later that night, my sleepy little girl walked over to Pastor Bill, looked him straight in the eyes and very emphatically said, “Yap, yap, yap!”

I’ve retold that story countless times over the years and, almost every time I tell it, I thank the LORD for my two wonderful daughters; I won the lottery when it comes to children. But I also think of our Scripture passage today. I wonder to myself what God must think as He listens in on our conversations. I wonder if God doesn’t sometimes shake His head and mutter to Himself, “Yap, yap, yap! All you people ever do is talk!” Folks, there is gunfire on the quad and you church folks are talking about gym shorts. My church folks are playing religious games and talk, talk, talking while there is work to be done in my neighborhood. Yap, yap, yap!

We are spending some time wandering through the book of James this month. We are listening to old leather knees share with us some profound insights for living. Last week, we talked about wisdom. Today James speaks with us about the unity of faith and action. I’m going to read from the New Living Translation today, skipping a section to discuss next week.

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? [Yap, yap, yap!] Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish!

Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless? Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” He was even called the friend of God. So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.

Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.

It has been said “many people wish to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.” Many people crave what a relationship with the Living God offers, but they have little or no interest in service, submission, or even the slightest suffering. They are completely content to advise and criticize, they thoroughly enjoy hypothetical conversations, rigorous debate and lofty ideals, but when it comes time to shut up and show up, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked or care and protect the least of these my brothers and sisters, they’ve got other things to do. Their perfectly pious ideas do not express themselves in action; faith without works is dead.

This Bible passage wrecks me. I am slow to listen, very quick to speak and quick to get angry. While I’ve been pretty good about dutifully getting rid of moral filth and evil in my life and humbly accepting the Word of truth, I am frequently just a listener and not an active doer of the Word. This passage is so very clear and convicting, it doesn’t need much exposition this morning. God is not interested in what I say I believe. Almighty God wants to see my life so completely transformed by what I believe; my faith will joyously shout from how I behave!

Would people know you were a Christian if you lost the ability to tell them so?

What do you suppose the impact would be on the planet if Almighty God imposed a 30 day moratorium on human speech? What if the LORD of the Universe woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, opened up His email, twittered up His Twitter, faced up to His Facebook, tuned in His favorite morning radio or television show and then, in utter frustration, just said, “Alright, that’s it! Yap, yap, yap! Enough with the yap! Nobody talks till I say so!”

This Scripture passage here in James is not rocket science, is it?

My dear Iowan friends Jeremy and Briar Hudson wanted children more than anything in the world, yet when she got pregnant the first time – she bled almost all the way through her pregnancy. The danger of miscarriage was ever present. And yet I knew my good friends were trusting God because I could see it in their behavior. While there were many scary moments, those two were positively serene through it all. Without a word, we saw what they really believed smeared all over them. Their little boy was born healthy and now has a brother.

In a recent phone conversation, Maydelle Fennick told me she believes all of us as Christians should make an intentional point of pastorally caring for each other, visiting each other in hospitals and in times of need. Do you know how I know she believes this? Easy! She and Jim are regularly at hospitals calling on people even before I get the chance to show up!

Do you know how I know Pastor Becky loves the people she does? Because she keeps showing up in their lives, even when it isn’t always easy or personally convenient to do so.

Whether it is grungy Greg Howell walking around in a dirty t-shirt holding the dusty, but now thankfully repaired ceiling fan for the office bathroom, Larry building bookcases, Carol Erickson elbows deep in yummy Monday morning memorial service potato salad, Jan Wilson folding sermons and folding Unlimited clothes, Jill Anderson and her crew collecting up our children or John Mortenson trying to sneak more cowbell into his drum solo or light into his nature scene – we are all easily revealed not nearly as much by our words as by our actions.

Elim Church is not a valuable church because we’ve answered every tricky theological question or settled every contemporary argument. We have not gotten all the words right here. This church matters because we are trying to lean more and more toward action than words. We have many miles to go before we sleep, but this terribly imperfect place is not just talk.

As a snotty, know it all speech communication Bethel College student thirty years ago, I learned a fundamental truth – if the medium and the message disagree, the medium will win the argument every time. If I adamantly declare myself relaxed, yet shake like a leaf, sweat like a pig and faint out on the floor halfway through my speech, what are you going to think?

You’re going to think “Yap, yap, yap! Enough already with the yapping!” If our behavior doesn’t agree with our beliefs, it is our behavior that will be believed. Any idiot knows this!

On Thursday afternoon, Pastors Warren and Nadine Carey and I had the opportunity to hear Bill Hybells speak at the Eagle Brook Church Relevance Conference. It was a fantastic conference. Many people are critical of monster, megachurches with their church marketing and management techniques. As many of you know, I myself have some concerns about how some folks seem to reduce the Body of Christ to a commodity, a product to be consumed.

We can argue church strategy and style all day, but do you know what we heard and saw in Bill Hybells on Thursday afternoon? We saw a man whose faith has clearly expressed itself in his actions for thirty years or so. Every single time I’ve ever heard Bill Hybells speak about lost people, he tears up. He gets passionate. He starts talking about changing things, rearranging programs, raising money, building buildings, starting world-wide associations, writing books – taking whatever action steps he must in order to reach lost people for Jesus.

While Willow Creek Community Church is not a perfect place, as Pastor Hybells is first to loudly admit, I think there is a very good reason over 20,000 people worship in that place every weekend. There are a lot of people in that place whose faith expresses itself in action.

Many years ago in seminary, our professor John Cionca got a little frustrated with our lofty, overly academic class discussion. I don’t remember what we were discussing, but Dr. Cionca rather abruptly cut us off and said, “Oh come on, don’t you get it? The church offers the world countless important things – but at the end of the day, the most important thing we’re supposed to be doing is depopulating hell. There is nothing more important than that.”

Do you truly believe people are going to hell all around us or don’t you? Do you truly believe Jesus Christ is the hope and happiness of the world or don’t you? Do you truly mean it when you pray for thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven? Do you truly believe God loves people or don’t you? Do you believe all this stuff we’re talking about or don’t you?

Yap, yap, yap!

We can armchair quarterback our way through the Christian life, we can brutally criticize the success, passions or hard work of others, but at the end of the day, when we stand before Almighty God to give an accounting of ourselves, we better have more than just a lot of yap.

I have a great sketch on the wall just outside my office door. I’ve had it for years. I’m sure many of you are familiar with it. It is one of St. Francis of Assisi’s most blunt and famous sayings, “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”

How’s your preaching been lately?

If you find yourself as convicted by old Camel Knees James this morning as I am, ask God today to help you make whatever changes are necessary. Ask God to help you shut up and show up. Ask God to give you more and more opportunities to preach without words.

May we all live completely above and beyond the yapping!

May our faith joyously drive us to action!

Amen.

Bewildered and Blessed

“I can’t say as I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”
~ Daniel Boone

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault,and it will be given to you.”
~ James 1:5

I got home late Sunday night after a graduation party in Willmar for a talented young friend of the family who just graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He is a very gifted animator and all around good kid. We had a lengthy discussion about where he’ll go now, entering a very uncertain economy with his new degree. My young friend Alec really needs wisdom and our prayers.

We tried to get home early enough to finish working on my preparations for Pat Garner’s memorial service Monday morning. With everything going on this weekend, I had not yet finished things. I was having a very hard time organizing my thoughts properly. I kept thinking of my friend Helen and what might best comfort her. While there are certain constants we always cling to, sometimes finding precisely the right wisdom is difficult.

And yet even though I had a lot of very important work to do last night, when I sat down at the computer, I foolishly got myself all taken up with a conversation about “torture” with Carl Nelson and our circle of friends on Facebook until almost midnight. A recent Pew Research survey rendered some confusing results and we were trying to make our best Christian sense of it all together. I have scrupulously avoided getting into this conversation because of my checkered past and the inevitable diversionary places it may lead, but last night I felt compelled to jump in. Once again, I was struck by how desperately we need the wisdom of God. And now today I’m once again struck by my own utter inability to provide it...

Last Sunday in worship, we began a new study series on the book of James. I’m calling the series “Listening to Leather Knees” because the early church reportedly used to call James “Old Camel Knees” because of the amount of time he spent on his knees in prayer. Our conversation Sunday was about wisdom. Looking at James 1:5, we considered together the utterly radical idea Almighty God genuinely wants us to be wise in all we do, even as we discuss painful economic, emotional and geopolitical issues. The LORD of the Universe loves us and honestly does want to guide us through this mess. While we won’t always get the specific answers we want, we can always get the wisdom we need. LORD, help us understand the difference!

I’m hoping our next several weeks wallowing around in the wisdom of James will be fruitful for us. As Daniel Boone said, I don’t ever consider myself the least bit lost, but I must honestly admit I am very frequently bewildered for days at a time. I am a fellow standing definitely in need of wisdom.

What a wonderful thing it is to know God has promised to lead and guide! What a blessing it is to know there is absolutely nothing able to pluck us out of His hand! What a comfort it is to fully trust there is One who definitely knows the way!

LORD, help us to shut up long enough to receive the wisdom you have available.

Amen.

Swivel Chair Sock Props (James 1:2-8)

I have a wooden banker’s swivel chair in my bedroom. It is a miserable chair; uncomfortable to sit in, slow rolling on the carpet and constantly in my way. But it matches my desk so we grudgingly allow it to exist. I use this chair in the mornings as I put my socks on. My wonderful, comfy socks are great, but they fit really tightly, so it helps to put my foot up on something in order to help myself pull my comfy socks on properly. But do you know what I’ve discovered? A swivel chair is a lousy foot prop! If I don’t put my foot perfectly in the center of the chair, it will swivel to one side or the other and I lose my balance. I lost my balance so badly the other day; I thought I sprained my hip. Now a smarter, wiser man would find a better sock prop, but not me – no sir! This is personal now. My fight with the swivel chair is an official part of my middle-aged, get your boring clothes on, early morning routine. This is Ninja preparation; how will I ever become Jedi master if I can’t master the sock thing? I’m getting pretty good lefty, but the right sock is a perennial problem…so add me to your prayer list.

I really need some wisdom here, don’t I?

Open your Bibles to the first few verses of the book of James. For the next few weeks, I want to spend some time with the great James the Just, the wise half brother of Jesus. History tells us the author of this letter used to jokingly be called “Camel Knees” by the early church because of the amount of time he spent on his knees in prayer. Most scholars also believe this brief letter might well have been the very first book of the New Testament written. If we were to analyze it closely, we would see it is sort of a basic, practical expansion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. For the next few weeks, I want to walk through this letter. I believe there is some very real, practical stuff here to think about; today’s passage pertains to wisdom. Where can all of us find a foothold of wisdom that’s not going to swivel around on us?

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because those who doubt are like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. People like that should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded, unstable in all they do.

There are six truths packed tightly into these six verses I believe we would be wise to notice. Each of these wise bits is itself a category of truth worthy of deeper exploration. But we’re just going to fly through them in order to hopefully whet our whistles for deeper study on our own later. Are you ready? Let’s go…what truths must we notice here about wisdom?

The Cradle of Wisdom

Notice, first of all, the fuller context in which this wisdom conversation takes place. James was talking about trials and perseverance when faith is tested. And then he jumped very abruptly into this important discussion of wisdom. I believe he made this abrupt jump because he wanted us to understand trial and testing is often the cradle of wisdom. God frequently allows us to go through trials in which our faith is tested so that, as we cry out to Him for help, we will gain wisdom from God. Trials are quite often the cradle in which wisdom is born. And please, please, please don’t forget James does not tell us to consider it joy “if” we experience trials and testing of our faith. James says “consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever” we experience trial and testing. It is not a question of “if,” but “when.” We will go through difficult things. Our faith will be sorely and frequently tested. We can either become embittered by all the hard stuff or we can gain wisdom through it all. Difficulty is often the cradle of wisdom.

The Definition of Wisdom

The second truth I believe we need to notice relates to wisdom itself. We not only need to understand trials as a possible cradle of wisdom, we also must have a clear definition of the wisdom we seek. We must notice James is not talking here about people who recognize they lack in knowledge, but people lacking wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are not necessarily the same thing. Any idiot with a library card can gain knowledge or accumulate data. But raw data isn’t what we need. We’re looking for the ability to use knowledge. We want to know the right thing to do with information. We want to know what God wants us to do. We seek wisdom.

The Necessity of Wisdom

The third truth is enormous. We understand trials and the testing of our faith are often the cradle of wisdom. We seek wisdom, not just knowledge. But thirdly, foundationally, we must understand our constant need of wisdom. The simple, underlying assumption of this entire passage is that eventually we will realize our dire need of wisdom. We need wisdom.

We all know there is no more annoying, difficult person in the world to work with than someone who already thinks they know everything and no more pleasurable person to work with than someone hungry to learn and gain wisdom. I believe this is what the Apostle Paul was hinting at when made his great declaration that he “resolved to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified.” All the knowledge I used to count valuable I now see as nothing but a swivel chair compared to the wisdom I’m beginning to discover in Christ. I need wisdom.

The Source of Wisdom

And that brings us to the fourth, absolutely foundational truth of this wisdom passage. Where do we go for the wisdom we need? James says: “If any of you lack wisdom, ask God!”

Don’t go running to an opinion poll to see what the American people think! Don’t glue your heart and soul to some absurdly simplistic daytime television talk show! Don’t waste your time “googling” the internet to discover what the scholar, scientist, politician, pundit or even the famous megapastor of the minute have to say about your issues! We very well might be able to get lots of great, relevant knowledge, data or information from any or all of those sources, but if you’re looking for wisdom, if you’re looking for a way to put this mess together in some overcoming and wise way, there is one first place to go. If any of you lack wisdom, ask God!

Some of us are trying to make it through this confusing city without a map. Some of us are trying to find our way through Minneapolis using a road map of Chicago. Some of us are trying to find our way through the streets of 2009 with a torn and dirty road map from 1959.

Malcolm Muggeridge once joked that Mother Teresa never read the newspaper, never listened to the radio and never, ever watched television, so she always had a pretty good idea of what was going on in the world. There are many excellent sources of knowledge and data available to us in this world, there is lots of good information we would be wise to pay attention to, but if we really want to know what is going on in the world, there is only one best source of wisdom. If any of you lack wisdom, ask God! Pray! Listen to Him! Read and study your Bible! Submit and obey Him! Seek wise counsel from those who have already sought and found wise counsel from God. Drink deeply from the Living Water! If any of us lack wisdom, ask God! Ask God!

The Promise of Wisdom

The fifth truth of this passage is the glorious, genuinely mind-blowing centerpiece of the whole message. Look carefully again at verse five: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” Am I truly reading that right? Is old Camel Knees honestly saying a prayer for wisdom is a prayer God will always say “yes” to? And not only say “yes,” but say “yes” generously? Yes, yes, yes!

He will give us wisdom overflowing into even greater wisdom. He will start a wisdom waterfall going in our lives! He will give us wisdom without even finding fault or laughing at our stupidity! Regardless of who we are, regardless of what we are, regardless of where we’ve been or what we’ve done, when we sincerely ask God for wisdom, He will give all of us, without exception or qualification, the wisdom we need! To all! It will be given! Make no mistake, we may not receive the knowledge, data or intellectual answers to the questions we think must be answered, but we will always receive the wisdom we need to overcome the trial and testing in which we find ourselves. We will receive the wisdom we need to overcome as we must.

Has the scope of this promise ever fully struck you? Isn’t this thrilling stuff when we really think about it? Doesn’t this just fill your spiritual lungs with pure oxygen? God promises to give us wisdom. Meditate on that. God will say yes to our prayers for wisdom. Wow!

The Faith of Wisdom

But if that is true, pastor, then why are so many Christians such ignorant, unwise fools?

This is where the sixth and final point comes into things. James says that the only way any of us will ever receive the wisdom God always wants to give us is to single-mindedly trust God wants to give it to us. “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because those who doubt are like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. People like that should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; they are double-minded, unstable in all they do.” We must faithfully see our trials as opportunities to gain wisdom. We must faithfully and fully understand what wisdom is and our need of it. We must faithfully trust God alone as the ultimate source of all wisdom and that He does want us wise. And unless and until we single-mindedly, faithfully believe all these things, we will never fully receive God’s wisdom. Until we single-mindedly believe these divine things without doubting, we will be tossed about on the foolish oceans of this world, flailing away desperately for some sort of flotation device just like everybody else. We will continue trying to prop ourselves up on the silly swivel chairs of this world’s best attempts at wisdom. James says we will be double-minded; which in the original Greek, actually means “two-souled” or “two-headed.” The Greek word is “dipsuchos,” but let’s just abbreviate it to “dip,” okay? James says, “Folks, don’t be a faithless dip!” Almighty God absolutely wants to give you wisdom! Trust Him! Allow Him to lead you through the process through which all wisdom is gained! Have faith in His wisdom and your ability to receive it!

Have you ever been lost in traffic with a bunch of loud, pushy people in the car all trying to give you different directions at the same time? How well does that work for you? Isn’t that exactly the problem we’re facing in the world today? Ultimately, we just don’t trust God’s desire to give us wisdom, so we double-mindedly submit ourselves to any screaming, self-important person climbing into the car! We don’t faithfully trust God’s genuine desire to give us wisdom and so we weave and swivel through the rollercoaster, just as ignorant and lost as all others.

Until we single-mindedly trust Almighty God as the loving giver of all wisdom, until we allow Him to help us filter through all the competing voices, until we kick some noisy fools out of our car or at least figure out how to politely ignore them, we will never wisely get where we were created to go. We will never receive the wisdom God intends for us.

As most of you know, I’ve begun doctoral studies at Bethel Seminary this month. I’ve blasted my way through several fat books in the last few weeks and have a whole bunch more to go over the next four years. I am swimming into a much deeper end of the knowledge pool looking for wisdom. But big words, fancy titles and fat books don’t guarantee wisdom, do they? While I thoroughly enjoy the academic world, there are a lot of swivel chairs in academia too.

Folks, swivel chairs anywhere are lousy sock props! Even the fancy ones…

Do you honestly believe me when I tell you your Father loves you? Do you believe me when I tell you your Heavenly Father genuinely wants you to be wise in all you do, even when you don’t have all the answers to the questions? Take all this stuff for a test drive this week. Ask God to help you wade through whatever wisdom gaps you’re dealing with right now. Ask your Heavenly Father to help you filter through all the voices yelling directions at you. Ask God to help you turn all the knowledge and data you’re swimming in into wisdom.

Don’t keep playing swivel chair games. Sooner or later, you’re gonna sprain a hip!

May God help us trust Him for the wisdom we need each day!

Amen.

White Deer Surprises

A friend sent me a link to a video clip recently. It is the brief story of a group of white deer clustered in North Central Wisconsin. Nobody completely understands how they got there or why they persist. But a nature photographer named John Richter has now published a book about them called "White Deer: Ghosts In The Forest." I checked for it on Amazon, but for some reason the book is currently unavailable. Perhaps after Wisconsin public broadcasting ran their story in March, there was an unexpected run on the book.

I don't know why I'm writing about this or why I'm so intrigued and peacefully satisfied by the story. Perhaps I just love the idea of something beautiful and surprising existing unexplained. I love how God repeatedly and beautifully reminds us that there is much we do not know.

Maybe I just like deer. There is something serene and peaceful about them. I've never been a hunter, so I've never learned to see them through hunter's eyes. They are just peace to me. And so to see white deer playing with each other in the forest is a wonderful little bit of peaceful, fresh air in my day.

There is a scene in one of the final episodes of the great HBO film series "Band of Brothers" where some WWII soldiers, at the end of an almost unimaginable series of battles, go deer hunting together. They spot a beautiful deer staring back at them in the forest, but just can't bring themselves to shoot it. Somehow, after all they've been through, shooting such serenity just doesn't seem right. Maybe later, but not right then.

I don't know. Draw your own conclusions and inspiration. But please take a moment today, get a cup of coffee, put your feet up, watch the video and marvel at a world that is still beautiful and surprising.

Surprised By Glory (Mark 9:2-10)

I’ve owned two 8mm movie cameras over the past 20 years or so. We bought our first one when the girls were born. We were careful to get a lot of their early baby moments on film. But then we stopped filming for so long that our first movie camera died of loneliness. So we bought another camera and have used this one even less! While I’m very grateful we took those baby films of the girls, there is a good reason we stopped filming. We began to notice that whenever the movie camera came out, the moment we were enjoying abruptly ended. Instead of properly enjoying precious moments, we were fixated on preserving moments.

As we close our “Surprise Me God” conversation this morning, gathering around the Lord’s Table, I’d like to enter very deep biblical and spiritual waters. I would like to wallow around in a biblical moment without completely understanding why it exists or even why it relates to our conversation this month. Look along with me at Mark 9:2-10.

At the end of previous chapter of Mark's gospel, Jesus has just shared some harsh teaching about the true cost of discipleship. And then, perhaps to encourage the disciples, He says some of them will actually get to see His power, kingdom and glory before they die. We aren’t exactly sure what Jesus meant by that, but we suspect He was referring to something very strange that took place six days later. Just as Moses, in Exodus 24, waited six days before his experience of God on the mountain, so here, after six days, Jesus and some friends have a similar glorious experience.

After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters-- one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what "rising from the dead" meant.

What are we to make of this story? It is very clear this is not some sort of allegory or mythical moment we are to interpret symbolically. When this same Peter is writing one of his final letters prior to his martyrdom, he reminded his friends of the facts he knew to be true. In 2 Peter 1:16-18, he said passionately: “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” This surprising moment changed us! This glorious, surprising moment was real!

I love Peter. Most scholars think Peter may well have been the most important source behind Mark’s gospel and so I love the fact that this gospel preserves Peter’s goofiness. While he made all sorts of spectacular, glorious mistakes – it is Peter I would most love to hear today.

I wonder what he would tell us today. I wonder how Peter would close our experiment.

Stay Awake

I’ll bet Peter would start by telling us to stay awake. It is humorous to note that Peter and his friends once again fell asleep on the transfiguration mountain, according to Luke’s version of events. Peter and his boys almost missed this transfiguration moment! So I’ll bet the first thing Peter would tell us would be to stay awake. When Jesus leads you up the mountainside, when you sense the nudging intentions of your LORD, pay attention!

This whole surprise me experiment is mostly just an exercise in paying attention. My good friend and software engineer Larus Maxwell has a favorite coffee mug. It has a rather frazzled picture of a highly caffeinated man with a simple caption, “Stay alert, stay employed.” My friend jokes that there would be no software industry if it weren’t for Mountain Dew, strong coffee and Hot Pockets! All joking aside, our experience of God and His glorious surprises are just about that simple. For goodness sake, pay attention to what Jesus is doing, pay attention to where Jesus leads, pay attention to wherever He goes, listen for the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit in all you do; that is always where the glory is! For goodness sake, stay awake!

Savor This Moment

Then, as I picture it, I’ll bet Peter would chuckle every time he shared his second bit of advice from this mysterious, transfiguration story. I have a suspicion Peter laughed out loud every time he told this second part of the story. Can you believe it, the LORD Jesus Christ, our Messiah, the Savior of the world was transfigured before my very eyes, visited by the Moses the Law and Elijah the Prophet and I actually suggested camping! I suggested another religious festival. I honestly suggested we stay there on the mountain top and try to hog the LORD of the Universe all to ourselves! Can you believe it? Isn’t that just rich? What a doofus!

Folks, Peter would tell us to put down the movie camera and savor this moment.

How much surprise do you suppose we miss because we’re always focused on whatever comes next? How much glory do we trample on, how much transfiguration do we ignore, because we’ve got so very much Martha in us, we’re forgetting Mary chose the better way?

This moment matters. Every moment matters. While Mother’s Day might be on the calendar every year, there is only one of them this year. While we will probably gather again to worship next Sunday, this worship service matters. While the Lord’s Table is an ordinance we share together every month, today is a special, unique opportunity to commune with God.

Do we truly understand that each and every moment of our day bears with it the possibility of glory and transfiguration? We will leave this moment behind sooner than any of us think. There will be great spiritual combat and important stuff to do as soon as we leave the mountain today, Peter, but right now – I want you to shut up and savor this moment.

One of the hottest, sweatiest and most physically difficult days of my life occurred during a visit to Disneyworld many years ago. I was carrying one year old Tesia in a cuddle bag on my chest and three year old Maria in a backpack on my back. Monica was carrying everything else. It was so unbearably hot, little Maria didn’t want to walk very much and so I carried both those girls almost all day like that. It was brutal! But it was also wonderful! Now that my girls are older and extremely independent, now that Maria no longer rides on my back uses my ears as grip handles, I would give almost anything to enjoy that hot, sweaty and difficult day again. But that moment is gone now, isn’t it?

Folks, savor each moment God gives you. Savor your family. Savor this church. Savor the good work God has given you to do. Savor even the worldly possessions God has blessed you with. Each day has enough trouble of its own – so savor just the troubles of today.

Listen To Jesus

But if we forget everything else, we can’t forget the third, most important lesson. I am utterly convinced the most important bit of advice the Apostle Peter would share with us today is listen to Jesus. Stop talking, stop trying to put up tents, stop trying to manufacture good religion on your own, stop trying to take selfish ownership of Jesus, stop spouting all the goofy, silly stuff you’re constantly spouting and just please listen to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It isn’t your job to manufacture and maintain your own spiritual surprises. You cannot create the glory I’ve had planned for you since before the world began. Wake up, savor this moment and then listen to the One who has always loved you best. This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!

Who are you listening to? As we discussed last week, who gets to define what is normal in your life? Who gets to say what’s what? Who are you listening to?

Remember this picture I took at the Sonshine Festival last summer? This precious little girl’s parents were being very careful about what their little girl listened to and the volume at which she absorbed it. Not a bad idea…we do need to protect ourselves from all the noisy voices around us. While it is good to pay attention to the world around us, while there are legitimately truthful voices coming at us from many different directions, we need to make sure the noise doesn’t damage our hearing. There is a voice more important than the others.

Folks, when Peter made his goofy “three tents” suggestion, he did more than just speak when he should have been silent. Peter insulted Jesus – he implied Jesus, Moses and Elijah were somehow on equal footing. I believe it is for this reason Almighty God responded from heaven as He did. While Moses and Elijah play a central role in redemption history, there is one voice louder and more important than all the rest. This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!

This great Apostle Peter went to his grave shouting that message from the rooftops!

Who are you listening to? What are you happily shouting to the world because of who you are listening to? To what glorious surprises are you eyewitness?

There is much about this transfiguration moment I do not understand. Why would God feel the need to do this? Why only three of the disciples and not all the others? Why not an even bigger crowd of people? What is the full significance of this? Why Moses and Elijah? And where exactly did this take place – why can’t we even agree on a location? Why was this so very important to Mark that he would spend lots of time on this story and rush through almost all the other stories he tells? And why doesn’t God reveal Himself like this more frequently? I would love to experience the glory of Jesus on a mountaintop with my friends…why don’t I?

I can speculate excellent answers to almost all these questions, but ultimately this is a quiet, mysterious, glorious moment of surprise Jesus chose to share with only three friends. This was a moment given to Peter, James and John that they might give it to all the rest of us.

And that’s the way surprise always works. We are each given flashes of glory, splashes of wonder and color; sometimes lovely stuff and sometimes very hard stuff. We each get our own glorious, surprising moments at Disneyworld. It is our task to stay awake, pay attention and listen for the voice of Jesus in all of it that we might share it well.

May we continue to notice and enjoy the surprises of God! May we clearly hear the voice of Jesus! May we experience the full, surprising glory of own transfiguration and share it with all those who need it most!

Amen.

Surprise Me God - Waxing Cars

So I says to myself, I says, "Hey, how hard could it be?" Lots of other people have done this doctoral stuff and survived...

That was brilliant thinking.

Simply brilliant.

I'd forgotten how staggeringly boring academic reading can be! I'd also forgotten the wildly annoying tendency of some writers to use fancy words when simple words would do just fine. For example, can anyone please, please, please give me any possible excuse for the words "utilize" or "explicate" to exist in the English language? "I utilized a pair of green Hulk Hands to explicate a Bible verse to the children." Eew! What sort of evil academic insecurity or twisted snobbishness drives somebody to write like that? Probably somebody who doesn't spend nearly enough time playing with Hulk Hands and children if you ask me...

But I signed up for all this, didn't I?

What a doofus!

Then again, there is another way of looking at it I suppose. As I look back over the course of my life, there is a very surprising trend well worth considering. Sometimes the best, most exhilarating surprises of God are buried under a pile of very hard work. Not to go all Mr. Miaggi on us here, but sometimes there truly is something to be said for waxing a lot of old cars before trying to enter the fight. I wonder if some of us don't experience much surprise from God simply because we refuse to do the homework often necessary to receive all God wants to give us.

Yeah, that's probably true. At least that's what I'm going to be telling myself repeatedly for the next four years!

With all this in mind then, I hope you are all able to properly utilize these reflections to help explicate the difficulties of your surprise experimentations.

Or something...

Surprise Me God - Rick Dischinger

Terry Esau uses metaphors often in his book, Surprise Me. It was after reading one of his descriptions that I realized that God's surprise for me came as metaphor.

I got up early to go to River Village, our sister Senior Assisted Living campus, to get some information I needed. I entered the building at 7am and went to the locked memory care unit to get the information. Only two tenants were up at that time and the nursing staff were tending to other tenants in their apartments. I got the information I needed and was ready to leave. I punched the code into the door's keypad to release the door and it did not open. I tried again, slower...still nothing. I waited a few seconds before another attempt. I was stuck! I tried what I thought was the code forwards, backwards, using the # key and the * key....still nothing. I realized I had forgotten the code. I pounded on the door in hopes someone might hear, I called for help down the empty halls...no answer. I used my cell phone to call the nurses, they were not in yet. I called my daughter Kendra in Michigan, she works at this building when home, she did not answer. I started to lose patience. I noted the irony, how many times had I come across this scene: a tenant pounding at the door, calling for help stating "I don't belong here! Let me out!" And yet here I was!

In MY life, how often am I pounding at a door demanding to enter? How often do I "forget the code", asking God to "open this door now!" How often do I go through doors that should remain shut or walk past doors God has opened for me? God surprised me with a "senior moment" of forgetfulness that brought frustration and anxiety with it. May God direct my coming and going and may I recognize which doors God would that I enter.

Surprise Me God - Jill Anderson

I recently read a Newberry Honor book to my classroom of 4th & 5th graders entitled, "The Wish Giver" - a story about a strange little man who comes to a carnival selling wishes for fifty cents. Three young kids each buy and make a wish that proves to be destructive to themselves and those they love. A fourth person unselfishly uses his one and only wish to erase the repercussions the three foolish children suffer.

Upon finishing the book, I asked my students to write down what they would "wish for" if given the same opportunity. Many responded as you might expect: "I'd wish for a million dollars." "I want a Wii System." "Maybe I could ask for unlimited wishes!" And I was thinking to myself....too bad, they missed the point of the story.

Then I looked at Tom's paper. Tom... my nemesis... the one who challenges me most this year... often belligerent, usually off task, distracting others and demanding attention at every turn.

Tom's paper said, "I would wish that Mrs. Anderson could have her husband back!"

I cried and thanked God for the surprise - the huge heart of a young boy named Tom!

Surprise Me God - Seeing Musa In The Water

Sometimes I drive my Monica crazy...

Last week, in our annual meeting here at Elim Church, our missionary friend Pam Isenhower mentioned a little baby boy back in Indonesia, unwanted and sold for $50, before being rescued by Pam and her friends. She said the little guy had been given three different names in his first three weeks of life. She and her friends were now calling him Musa (Moses to you and I).

As she was requesting prayer for wisdom in the situation, the only thought running through my mind was, "We'll take him! Give him to us!" Later that afternoon, as Monica and I were out walking, I asked her what she was thinking as Pam was talking about the little baby. She chuckled and said she was thinking the same thing I was.

A couple days later, I stopped Pam in the hallway and asked her how impossible it was to adopt an Indonesian baby. I've heard international adoptions were a nightmare and I assumed a Muslim country like Indonesia, in these times, would be even worse. Pam said she didn't know, but that she would check. When I told Monica about this conversation, I got the distinct impression my dear wife thought I was crazy. It is one thing to think about something loopy in the abstract, it is entirely another to take action on those urges!

When Pam didn't get back to me immediately, I did a little checking on my own. Sadly, I discovered this morning Monica and I are three years too old, we are too Christian (not nearly Muslim enough!), we would need to live in Indonesia for two full years before even beginning the adoption process, we would need to foster the child for six more months before ever going to court and yada, yada, yada - on the bureaucracy droned. In a word, this thing just isn't going to happen, Kevin.

Bummer.

While I can't say I'm surprised at the news, I continue to be sadly surprised by a world that will throw a baby away or sell it cheap instead of making it easy to give it to someone who wants it. I am not naive to the complexities of this conversation, but honestly, when all is said and done, why should adoption ever be hard in these situations? Shouldn't there be some sort of "his parents sold him and nobody wants him; sure you good people can have him immediately" rule for these situations? Shouldn't there?

As a general rule, I'm not big on street protesters of almost any stripe, but I read the story last week of a quiet African American pastor named Walter Hoye in Oakland jailed recently for his protests outside an abortion clinic. Even though security cameras will eventually, inevitably exonerate this quiet guy on appeal, this pastor chose to do jail time instead of probation to draw attention to his heartbreak over abortion among African Americans. His heart is breaking over an abortion rate among African Americans contributing to a death rate now overwhelming their birth rate. "We are not even replacing ourselves anymore," he lamented.

Can't we all agree that's just a plain, old-fashioned, bad thing?

The late Ruth Bell Graham, wife of the famous evangelist, reportedly commented toward the end of her life that "if God doesn't return soon, He's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah." You've got a real point there, sister, although I'm not so sure it's a good idea to be telling God His business! At some point soon, this situation is going to have to reach critical mass.

I know I shouldn't be surprised by the crud I see around me in the world these days, I know I'm full of a lot of crud myself, but when kids become disposable, when a baby has three names and no parents before he's a month old and when paperwork and politics trump even the very most basic human kindness...it seems to me we ought to sit up and notice things like these.

I am surprisingly saddened by all this today. I sure would have liked to draw little Moses out of the water. Even more, I wish little Moses had never been tossed in the water.

I was hoping for a different kind of surprise.

____________________________

p.s. If you're not already sponsoring a child or a responsible organization caring for poor children, you should be. Go to www.compassion.com to do so immediately.

p.s.s. Before anyone starts sending me feisty opinions about the Walter Hoye situation in Oakland, please thoroughly check out his situation. This guy is not some crazy Fred Phelps hate monger.

The Principle of the Path (Andy Stanley)

What a great read! This book is a very practical, no nonsense look at the lives we choose for ourselves. Andy Stanley says where we end up in life is mostly a reflection of the road we choose to get there. While there are all sorts of caveats that could be inserted into the conversation, for the most part, Stanley makes a very convincing case. While there isn't a lot of new information here, we don't need a lot of new information. We need to be reminded of the old words we already know to be true. Andy Stanley does an excellent job reminding us.

Yet the great irony of this book is that those who need to read it most are people who have already chosen a path for themselves that usually does not involve reading books by Georgia pastors (or any other pastors for that matter!) What a terrible shame that is! Sometimes I think one of my most important jobs is to read as many books as possible on behalf of all those who can't or won't read for themselves! Not the preferred solution, but better than nothing. How I wish people would turn off the television for a few evenings a week and spend some time with books like this.

I particularly loved Stanley's comments on "experience being the best teacher." While that is certainly true, there is no denying that experience is very often also a vicious and unforgiving teacher. We learn from our good and bad experiences, but wouldn't it simply be better to avoid some of those bad experiences in the first place? This book would help a lot of people do exactly that.

This is also a book everyone under 30 should be required to read and a book that would be wonderful for every graduate this year (if you happen to be shopping for that kind of thing right about now!) This is a very basic, thoughtful review of very good and basic stuff.

Thanks for a good read, Pastor Stanley!

Surprise Me God - The B Side of My Surprise (Don Heide)

Been thinking about your 'B Side' conversation all day and as Jan and I were walking this afternoon I decided I would tell you my 'B Side story.

In July 1999 my personal mentor and business partner died. He had struggled with heart issues for a long time after having had bypass surgery in 1978. I had moved into various positions he vacated as he moved up in management, ultimately retiring because of his heart condition. Much of what I learned about business, finance, sales and management I learned from him. He described himself as a good Lutheran - I don't think he was a believer.

In 1988 - I replaced my mentor as the President of a $25 million company but the owner was an alcoholic and his company was going bankrupt. This mentor became the money person and we together did an LBO. From 1988 to 1999 I was the president of this new company - I named it Applied Power Products - and with the good employees we had - took this LBO from a 6 Million company to over 25 million in 1999 employing approx 70 people. However, my partner and mentor died in July of 1998 and 10 months later the son of my partner asked me to leave the company and since the family owned more than 51% of the company, I decided to go quietly. Talk about a 'B Side' experience - I had worked in only one place, with one group of people for more than 30 years and now found myself - unemployed. I had never written a resume or really interviewed for a job and now found myself asking 'what next'?

This was a difficult experience on two fronts. First of all, I was accustomed to interviewing people for various roles in business, not interviewing to find work. I had become used to being the one with the final say in what we were or weren't going to do. Losing that had me asking a lot of questions about who I was now going to be. Secondly, Jan and I were going to have to get used to living on a lot less income. The year after the termination and my severance was completed, my income was just a bit less than the fed withholding had been the previous year. A lot of things needed to change and all of those changes carried with them a lot of emotion. We put our house up for sale and began looking for a new place to call home. We moved into our current home in August 2001.

I have omitted a lot of the details in the story - many of them I have forgotten by now - but I really want to talk about how much the God piece really meant to Jan and me through all of this. From the very beginning of my sales career I knew what I needed to do to be successful but also knew that if God wasn't going to bless the activity, it wasn't going to work so I prayed regularly that God would bless and promised that we would faithfully give back and bless others with our time and money. In this economy, I am so grateful that I don't have the responsibility of keeping the business healthy and God has provided for us in ways that are surprising us and we are grateful. The home we have is a wonderful place and we feel so blessed to be able to live here - neither of us miss the 'old house'. The timing of all of this also was totally a God thing - selling our 'old house' couldn't have happened at a better time - it sold quickly and for a lot more than we ever expected.

We are sooooo Blessed - but there is a 'B Side ' to the story!

The B Side of Surprise (1 Peter 4:12)

Remember these? Back before iPod’s, CD’s, cassettes and 8-tracks, there was something we flower children used to call “vinyl.” These strange vinyl music disks came in several different forms, with an A side and a B side. If you bought a single on a 45 like this, there was always another song thrown in on the other side of the record for free. Usually the B side song was much less popular and often less pleasing. But you could always tell a true fan by the number of B side songs they knew from their favorite artists.

Last Sunday I challenged us all to redefine what we consider to be a normal Christian life. As we listened to the Apostle Peter speak to people after his healing of a crippled beggar outside the temple, we heard him ask, “Why are you surprised by this?” Why does this display of God’s power surprise you? Why would you think this abnormal? And as we saw how Peter modeled noticing the beggar, trusting the Savior and expecting God’s power to appear, I challenged us all to use Peter’s example to reconsider what we consider to be normal in our Christian lives. Perhaps life is supposed to be more surprisingly powerful than we thought…

Later, as I was standing in line for my flaming hot bowl of BFF chili, Kale Johnson said to me, “You know what my friend says, Pastor? He says normal is just a setting on a dryer.” And the very good point Kale was making was that “normal” can be a pretty pointless, relative term. If I only compare myself, my behavior and my spiritual experience to that of other floundering sinners around me, normal is always going to be a completely meaningless word – just another setting on the dryer. With this shallow standard of normalcy, I will be building my house on sand, and, as Bruce Cockburn sang, “the trouble with normal is that it always gets worse.”

But – if I’m intentionally trying to allow Almighty God to define normal, well then we’re not just talking about a silly setting on the dryer anymore, are we? Now we’re talking about an absolutely powerful and perfect standard of life, love, behavior and relationship to which we must all pay very scrupulous attention. This is what we gather here to discuss every Sunday.

But there was a problem with my message last Sunday which should have bothered all of us. The great problem with my message last Sunday was that we only talked about the A side of this new, wonderful, surprisingly powerful Jesus normalcy we’re called to embrace. Last Sunday we dreamed of healing for beggars, God dramatically leading Pastor Kevin wherever he should go and other glorious displays of power. But that’s only the A side of the record, isn’t it? There is definitely a B side to the normal Christian life we are called to fully embrace as well.

And this B side of the record isn’t nearly so popular or pleasing…

When I pray for God to surprise me, for God to help me recognize His hand and working in my life, I am not only praying for pleasant and easy things. I am embracing the Cross. I am humbling myself and offering my life as a sacrifice – burying myself fully into His death, trusting fully that only He can raise me to new life. I am embracing a very costly and precious grace!

Let us never forget that this very same Peter, who encouraged us all not to be surprised by God’s glorious power, is the exact same Peter who wrote these words in 1 Peter 4:12: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful [fiery] trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.” Don’t ever be surprised by the wonderfully powerful things God will occasionally do in and around your life, but also, don’t ever be surprised by the painful, fiery and difficult stuff you’re called to endure either. Folks, don’t forget the B side of this thing!

John says almost exactly the same thing in 1 John 3:13, but even more bluntly. John said, “Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.”

We are not settling for the world’s definitions of normal here. Just as Kale said, we are not supposed to content ourselves for just another silly setting on the dryer. I challenge any of us in this room to read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 and come away with the idea that Jesus was calling us to settle for anything normal. Happy are the poor, the mourners, the humble, those hungry for justice, the merciful, pure, peaceful and the persecuted. These are the ones who are going to discover what this following Jesus thing is all about. You are the light of the world, the salt of the earth. Your righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees – it must blow away even your highest ideals of religious normalcy. Forget murder and violence – I don’t even want you to get angry and call people names. Forget just avoiding adultery – I don’t even want you thinking lustful thoughts. When you make a marriage promise (or any other sort of vow), I expect you must keep those promises. You aren’t looking for equal justice/vengeance on your enemies – I want you loving those enemies. We’re not settling for this world’s definitions of normal and that is a very different kind of life. These sorts of divine standards of normalcy will always bring a B side into our surprising lives.

When Pastor Kyle Lake finished praying his "Surprise Me God" prayer at a baptismal service in Texas in November 2005, he grabbed a microphone and accidentally electrocuted himself. While we can argue all day about why God would ever allow/determine something like that to happen, while we can dismiss events like that as just tragic coincidence or circumstance, at a minimum, things like this simply remind us all there is a mysterious B side to this thing.

The great prophet John the Baptist was called by God before he was even born to serve as the forerunner for Jesus. To the best of our knowledge, there was never a moment when feisty John was not radically faithful to his calling. He lived like a wild man, accomplished his mission beautifully and, at the end of it all, he got his head chopped off in prison as a party favor for a sleazy dancing girl and her evil mother. There is a B side to this thing!

The Apostle Paul, truly the first theologian of the Christian church, said in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28: “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides [all this], I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.”

Well, now there’s a victorious Christian life, right?

Folks, there is a B side to this thing! I challenge any of us to walk through the pages of Scripture and not immediately see the B side of our great “surprise me God” conversation. Many Christians fall all over themselves trying to rationalize or argue away all the hard stuff. Many of us are horrified at the frequently terrible demands grace places upon us. Many of us have such a wimpy view of God and such a distorted, selfish view of God’s love, we cannot conceive of God allowing us to be surprised by anything painful or difficult. A great many of us act shocked and surprised whenever we are called upon to suffer or do something hard for the Kingdom of God. Peter says, “Don’t be!” And Pastor Kevin says, “Grow up and see the B side!”

Last Sunday, I shared several dramatic, personal stories of my own powerfully surprising moments with God over the years. I told you of God’s frequently miraculous leading in my life. But what I didn’t tell you was that there was a B side to those stories directly proportionate to the miraculous drama of God’s initial callings. My almost twelve years of military service were hard – it was a very difficult period of my life. My years of pastoral ministry have always been difficult – I challenge any pastor anywhere to say otherwise. While I am honestly grateful for every bit of it, while most of my life has been more wonderful than I ever imagined it ever would be, mine has not been an easy life. It isn’t supposed to be an easy life. Do you see?

In Zimbabwe today, the poorest of the poor spend their days panning for gold in grimy, dirty rivers in the grim hope they might recover just enough dust to buy a loaf of bread. Yet an anonymous letter from a pastor in Zimbabwe in the most recent issue of World highlights all the ways he has seen God moving in the midst of the tragic societal collapse that is Zimbabwe. He said God “may paint strangely at the moment, but paint He does, and one day, the picture will be seen to be perfect. In the meantime, LORD, make us obedient brushes.”

LORD, help us to faithfully and courageously embrace even the B side of surprise! Help me understand this constantly surprising life is not really about me! Even as we are gloriously, powerfully surprised by the picture you are constantly painting, make us obedient brushes.

I don’t say these things to discourage or depress us. I say these things because you and I must fully understand Almighty God’s enormous, double sided definition of normal. We must fully understand what we are attempting here at Elim Church is wonderful, powerful and surprising, but it is not ever going to be easy. There will always be another sticky issue for our new Leadership Team to settle, because there is always a B side to this thing.

In 1978, when I was learning to enjoy worship in a dirty grass hut near Milot, Haiti, I adopted Philippians 1:20-21 as my life verse. “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

When we beg Almighty God to surprise us, we are fully embracing life or death as equal victory.

We are saying “yes” to whatever and, surprisingly discovering our declaration worth it!

May we embrace all sides of God’s surprises with equal abandon and excitement!

Amen.

Surprise Me God - Talking To Mary

My daughter Maria brought home this clipping from the September 11th, 2002 edition of the New Orleans "Clarion Herald" yesterday. While I'm not a Catholic and don't have the same perspective on Mary as many Catholics do, I still find this picture and its accompanying story surprisingly and tenderly thought-provoking. I like the idea that a picture of a little girl chatting away with a garden statue might remind us that we are to come to God as little children.

I suspect this little girl enjoyed babbling to the statue mostly because the statue was her own height. Or maybe she starting talking to it simply because the statue was such a polite and respectful listener. Perhaps she thought the statue was pretty in some way. Who knows why? But for whatever reason, they became friends.

I've had occasion to visit two elderly friends this week. One is dealing with some growing memory problems and another is struggling to handle a range of medical issues along with some troubling family stuff. In both cases, I've been struck by the importance of someone simply being available to listen. Someone who will sit down with them for a moment, listen politely and respectfully...just be an attractive, peaceful presence in their lives. Just a friend.

Yesterday my Maria got official word that she didn't get into a nurses training program she was hoping to enter this fall. The school selects its finalist candidates by lottery (which confuses us a bit to be honest), but we've taken this unpleasant surprise in stride. My Maria already has a job caring for elderly friends at Catholic Eldercare here in Northeast Minneapolis and she is good at it. She loves her friends there. She takes time with them. She respects them. She listens to them. She takes her job seriously. She is something lovely in the garden for anyone to talk to. I know I'm stupidly biased, but my Maria is the kind of person I hope I have caring for me if I'm ever in a position to need it. I hope she is always standing there in the garden for me.

This world regularly tries to convince us we don't matter if we're just a quiet, peaceful statue in the garden. (Who honestly cares what a babbling toddler has to say anyway? Who needs to pay attention to that stuff?) Yet even as I hear those shallow ideas surfacing, I am reminded again of how wrong that utilitarian thinking really and truly is. These "blessed are the little things" moments shouldn't surprise any of us by now. We all know the truth of what I'm saying. God is constantly in the business of using the weak to shame the strong; the little to overcome the large. This is just the sneaky way the Kingdom works.

Lord, may I be surprised and refreshed by the very littlest things in the garden! And may I be willing to faithfully be one your little surprises in the lives of others!

Amen.