Too Much

          Dave Matthews had a song, “Too Much,” in which he sang about insatiable desire.  I thought it was an obvious parable about contemporary culture.  We tend to want too much.  And sometimes, we want irreconcilable desires.  We want to eat whatever we want, and we want to keep our schoolgirl figures.  We want government services, but we want them not to cost us.  We want peace and harmony in the family, but we want it on our terms.  We want it all.

          We want too much.  For Christians the season of Lent provides a wake-up call regarding our endless desires.  We begin with an acknowledgement of our limitations on Ash Wednesday with the stark reminder that we are all going to die.  Gee, who wants to think about that? Then we are encouraged to give something up for Lent; another denial of what we may be craving.  And if that is not enough, we keep being reminded about taking up our cross and following Jesus, who himself was cruelly crucified on Good Friday.  Who wants any of this?

          Isn’t there an easier way?  Well, of course there is.  There are countless other ways to live our lives.  In Jesus’ own day, there was the way of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  There were the extreme ways of the Essenes, or of King Herod, by way of contrast.  There are a variety of ways of living that many find preferable today --- the way of the Kardashians, the way of FOX news, the way of MSNBC, the way of Honey Boo Boo, or the way of the couch potato --- simply watching this endless stream of entertainment (so-called).  If you want it bad enough, you can find plenty of affirmation to buttress your chosen way of living and thinking, whatever that may be.

          But the person who says, “I’m going to follow Jesus,” in this self-indulgent culture is challenged daily to test her or his wants in the crucible of what God wants for us.  And the cross is the litmus test of whether what we want fits with God’s ultimate plans.  There is plenty of cross-avoidance among Christians, no doubt.  But sooner or later, if we claim what we believe, we cannot avoid the sacrifice of Jesus.  The cross stands as a judgment against every self-indulgent choice we make, individually or communally. 

          The irony of our too-much culture is that no matter how much we have, it never seems to be enough.  We always want more, and never seem satisfied.  But Jesus reminds us that God is enough.  And in that enoughness, Jesus was content.  I believe that’s what’s so attractive about Jesus; he was satisfied.  “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  True, but nevertheless, Jesus was still content.  Deep down, I think that’s all we really want, too, . . . to be satisfied with enough.  This is my prayer for all of us.  May we be content with God.  And if we are, it will be enough.     

 

We Could All Use a Little Mercy Now

          Mary Gauthier is a recovering alcoholic and a writer of songs.  Her voice has the gravelly earthiness you might expect from someone who has abused herself because of her life choices.  From her experiences, and in recovery, she has much wisdom to share.  Since she has been on the down and out, seamy side of life, she has great empathy for those who are still there.  She does not judge, and through her songs invites us to look at the beaten down with eyes of grace.

          One of my favorite songs she sings is “Mercy Now.”  She sings about her father and the unfairness he has experienced.  She sings about her brother and his demons.  In every verse she ponders the struggles of people, and society in general, as we try to make a way through this world.  And she concludes that “we all could use some mercy now.”

          I stumbled across a local TV broadcast of a nearby preaching service yesterday.  I stayed tuned just long enough to hear the preacher rant and rave against everything and everybody he didn’t agree with and consign them all to hell before I changed the channel.  It took him less than 2 minutes to condemn the world around him. 

I felt the need to apologize to all the non-Christians in the world for this particular preacher’s un-Christ-like demeanor.  I don’t doubt that there is judgment coming.  In some form or fashion, I believe God will set right what is wrong, and perhaps there is some pain and even punishment to come.  But what disturbed me most about this particular preacher was that he didn’t seem the least bit heartbroken about that possibility.  Perhaps he has forgotten what the scripture says, that God takes “no delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11).”

As I understand Jesus and his crucifixion, his death is to be understood as a mercy for sinners.  “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).”  And as Jesus says further, “Be ye merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful (Luke 6:36).”  So, if God is merciful, understands our need for mercy, and is willing to offer it in such a costly way, it seems as if God’s messengers (and preachers) should also bathe their words in the waters of mercy as well.

As Mother Teresa has reportedly said, “Be kind, most people are having a hard time.”

We all could use a little mercy now.

                                                                             God’s Peace,

                                                                                   Mark

                                                    

Only the Good Die Young

          Spoiler Alert!  She was innocent and idealistic.  She was courageous and adventurous.  She was compassionate and true to her convictions.  And they killed her off.  I’m referring to Sybil, the Earl of Grantham’s daughter, and wife to Tom, “the chauffer,” as he is called by the Dowager Countess.  If you are clueless at this point let me explain that these are all characters in the wildly popular Masterpiece Theater drama, “Downton Abbey,” an “Upstairs, Downstairs,” kind of British soap opera which is in its third season on local public TV stations.

          Sybil was my wife’s favorite character in this drama which has seduced us.  The dynamics of relationships between the downstairs servants and the upper crust nobles who reside in the sprawling environs of the Abbey continue to compel our viewing in a way no American drama seems able to do.  When Sybil died in childbirth last night we were shocked.  My wife is in mourning.  It’s almost as if we feel the need to attend the funeral. 

          Mostly, Sybil’s death struck me because it seemed unfair.  There are so many flawed characters in the show, some just foolish, others despicable.  Why couldn’t have they killed off one of the more dislikable crew?  I suppose that wicked characters help the plot move along in interesting ways.  But there seems to be so much injustice in the world, I suppose I would like my TV entertainment to pamper me at least with the illusion of justice.

          Something within us hungers for justice.  My wife remembers in childhood reacting to parental decisions by yelling out, “I protest!”  I remember our daughter having a keen sense of justice growing up.  In an upside down world we yearn for things to be right side up – for the poor to have dignity, for the good to thrive, for the wicked to perish.

          I am grateful that I can still feel the outrage of Sybil’s death, even if it is all a fiction.  The sense of outrage makes me realize that I have not become numb to injustice.  When there is so much out of balance in our world and the wicked seem to thrive it is tempting to cave in – to throw in the towel and give up our integrity.  The fact that any of us can still feel anger about something that strikes us as wrong gives me hope that maybe we’ll do something about it.  I think it was Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for the good people of the world to do nothing.” 

          I can’t do much with the scriptwriters of “Downton Abbey,” and their decision to end Sybil’s role in the drama, but I can allow my anger to lead me to thoughtful action in response to real injustices I witness in the world around me.  Such anger might be called righteous.  Be grateful if you still can still feel it.  

          

To Russia with Love

I was taking a look at my blog statistics this morning and was surprised to discover that in the past month I had one third again more page views from Russia than from the United States.  Imagine my amazement.  I don’t fool myself into thinking I have a wide readership.  I write as much as a way of keeping a personal journal of my reflections which just might be of interest to a half-dozen people or so.  Little did I realize that people from Russia might be tuning in – the wonders of the internet! 

The internet is a mixed bag.  Or a garbage bin.  You can find everything out there, and it is mostly trash.  But if you are a “bin diver,” as some people are, you can indeed find some treasure in the midst of all the trash out there.  Some of the obvious trash includes porn, viral videos, ranting blogs, etc.  But some of the trash is less obvious, including much religious content. 

For every conceivable religious perspective there is a website for it.  For every possible Biblical interpretation there is a blogger in support of it.  For every opinion there is justification on the internet to be found.  Therein lays the danger.  “It must be true because I found it on the internet,” is a damning indictment of internet limitations. 

And yet, I find many helpful resources on the internet.  For me it is a great tool.  But I find that the voice of reason and Christlike interpretation of Biblical passages often crowded out by those who shout the loudest, often in strident, self-righteous tones.  How do I help people find the jewels in the garbage?  How do I help people hold fast to what is good when there are so many conflicting and contrasting voices out there?  

Ultimately, I think that the truth – The Truth – is validated less by what we say than by what we do.  And that is perhaps the greatest limitation of the internet, and this blog.  Most of my readers in Russia cannot know if my life’s practice matches the words that I write.  So, I write with some sense of humility, realizing that some will never know whether these words carry the weight of authentic living.  

 

To my readers in Russia – may God lead you in the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  And thanks for reading.  I’ll try to offer my best.

 

 

How Long, O Lord?

Several years ago, in an effort to show the power of the book of Psalms as a resource for prayer, I wrote out prayers based on the various psalms and shared them on my blog.  I hoped to help people claim the ancient psalms as a still relevant and contemporary “school of prayer.” 

If you have spent much time in the psalms you will note that roughly three-fourths of them are rather melancholy.  As I sought to share deeply the emotional honesty of the psalms through my own prayers, some of my congregation who read my blog-prayers became concerned for me; that perhaps I was going through a crisis of faith.  They could not bear to think that their pastor might honestly identify with a psalm like Psalm 13: 

            How long, O Lord?  Wilt thou forget me for ever?

            How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

            How long must I bear pain in my soul,

                 and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

            How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 

Well, maybe these parishioners had never had a moment’s doubt about the omnipresence of God.  Maybe they had never experienced any delay in God’s answering of their prayers.  Maybe they had never been perplexed by the presence of so much evil in God’s good world.  Maybe they had never been disappointed with God.  Or . . . , maybe they simply were living in denial. 

Phillip Yancey, in his book, Disappointment with God, deals with three questions: Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?  The conclusions he reaches are not neat and tidy.  We are still left with the question, “Why?”  But what the book of Psalms does is give us permission to ask those questions and let them linger.  The psalms give us license to express our doubt, our disappointment, our anger, even our hatred, and leave all those emotions in the hands of God.  Even when the psalm seems to imply that God is distant and unresponsive, in the very act of praying the psalmist is nevertheless expressing faith in God. 

So much that has been in the news lately – mass killings, ugly politics, devastating weather – may leave us wondering if there’s a God who cares.  Before we Christians rush to the defense of God, perhaps we need to listen to the questions people ask, questions that have been asked in the form of prayer by God’s people long ago, “How long, O Lord?  Wilt thou forget me for ever?”

 

Perhaps there is something to be learned in allowing time for lament and expression of doubt and pain.  Perhaps only after such honesty can we then move to the conclusions of Psalm 13: 

            But I have trusted in thy steadfast love;

                 my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.

            I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

 

 

Mom, Apple Pie, Baseball, Chevrolet, Smith and Wesson

          What could be more American than Mom, Apple Pie, Baseball, Chevrolet, Smith and Wesson?  We have strong sentiments about our mothers.  We have an appetite for homemade desserts cooling in the kitchen window (who does that anymore?).  Baseball has been the traditional All-American sport (now superseded in popularity by football).  Chevys have been an icon of Americana (“What’s good for General Motors is good for the USA!”).  And along with our love affair with the automobile a large portion of Americans have had an affection for guns.

            The Second Amendment to our Constitution protects our right to bear arms, and is as rooted in our history as the right of freedom of speech, and supported by one of the strongest lobbies in the country.  I have no problem with people owning guns.  I have family members who love to hunt.  While I am not among them I do benefit from a fair helping of venison stew every now and then.  Hunting is a reasonable activity it seems to me, satisfying a visceral human need, as well as helping to maintain population control among certain species of wildlife.

            Still, I have to wonder why any American citizen needs to have in his or her possession the kind of automatic assault weapons that were owned by Newtown, Connecticut resident, Nancy Lanza, and used by her mentally-ill son, Adam, to kill her and twenty-six other children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday.   There is more gun violence in the US than in any other wealthy nation because we have the least restrictions on gun ownership than any other nation.  Ironically, Newtown is the location of the second largest gun-lobbying institution in the US, the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

            There is a specious argument that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”  But as one of my colleagues has said, “you put enough guns out there, and somebody’s going to get hurt.”   

A few hours before the Newtown murders last week, a man entered a school in China’s Henan province. Obviously mentally disturbed, he tried to kill children. But the only weapon he was able to get was a knife. Although 23 children were injured, not one child died.*

            I expect that what happened at Newtown last week will not lead to the end of recreational gun ownership, or hunting, or anything of the sort, nor should it.  But I do hope we will finally have a reasonable limitation on the kinds of weapons that none but the military need in their possession.

            And lastly, writing as a Christian pastor, I have to wonder how any follower of Jesus could possibly justify a counter argument.            

*Quoted from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-solution-to-gun-violence-is-clear/2012/12/19/110a6f82-4a15-11e2-b6f0-e851e741d196_story.html?hpid=z2

Unconditional

          What sets Jesus apart from the rest of humanity was his capacity to love unconditionally.  This is (along with some additional points), indeed, why we Christians say he was the Son of God.  Jesus loved in a way the rest of us only occasionally do, thus there was something fundamentally different about him --- he was Other than we are. 

He had compassion for the crowds.  He showed kindness to the prostitute.  He offered hospitality to the tax collector as well as the poor.  He showed no favoritism among those of different social strata.  He loved all equally, and fully, with no conditions, no strings attached.  Even as he was crucified he loved them all – loved us all – pronouncing no curses on his persecutors.

          One caveat here:  Jesus did reserve some choice words of judgment for folks who were self-righteously religious.  The 23^rd Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel offers us a stark picture of Jesus as one who could not condone the hypocrisy of the overly-religious Pharisees of his own day.  He was appalled at the way they made their religion not a joy but a burden on the people.  I suspect Jesus was upset because these semi-professional religious folks were implying that God’s love was conditional.  One telling quote is verse 15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

          My colleague, Rich Irwin, once said to me that he keeps that verse handy as a reminder that his ministry to people is not to trip them up in have-to’s, ought-to’s, and musts, but to release them for joyful living. 

          As a pastor I must remind myself daily to love people for who they are, not for what they can do for me, or even for what they can do for the church.  That we are loved unconditionally, as Jesus loved, is at the heart of the Christian message, and to love in that way is the essence of Christian discipleship.  Everything else is just decoration.

          Obedience to certain principles of morality and ethics is helpful, of course, but I believe we find our true, authentic selves, not by following principles (no matter how high-sounding), but by responding to being loved unconditionally. 

          Theologian Douglas Adams likens it to his experience of his grandparents.  Parents expect their children to toe the line, to follow the rules, which is all well and good.  But when children fail to measure up, as happens to all of us, grandparents will take them in their arms and love them in spite of their shortcomings.  And when any of us are loved in this way it sets us free to be our best selves.  When we believe there is nothing we can do that will prevent us from being loved, then we are liberated to attempt living at its best, and fullest. 

          God loves, unconditionally, every one of us.  That is the message that Jesus incarnates.  There is nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does, AND there is nothing we can do to make God love us any less.  Go, therefore, and live . . . and love.  That’s why God made you.  This is the way Jesus saves you.