in the world

Patrick Swayze’s cult classic movie Road House is an unlikely source of good advice on church leadership and Christian faith. Do not get me wrong, it is great movie, perhaps Swayze’s best role, but a movie about a bouncer in a rough and tumble bar in Jasper, Missouri is not overflowing with “churchy” content. (There is a funny joke about Presbyterians, if you ever get around to watching this movie by the way.) One exchange where the bouncer Dalton (Swayze) explains his philosophy on keeping order to his new bouncers in the bar should be particularly helpful to Christians everywhere, though. He says, “If somebody gets in your face, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won’t walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can’t walk him, one of the others will help you, and you’ll both be nice. I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.” 

“Being nice” is something Christians are usually good at doing or at least once were. Particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, we catch a vision of what that is about. We should be well versed in turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:39), loving our neighbors as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 5:43), and even loving our enemies (Matthew 5:44). We seek to help others. We are generally concerned about the welfare of others above ourselves. Christians are often pacifists they take these commands so seriously and far.

And yet, “nice” is not many people’s perception or experience of Christians today. We fight. We fight against one another and others. We are self interested. We are selfish and judgmental and mean and hypocrites and the list goes on. Go ask a non-Christian what they think of us and you will hear your own list. As Ghandi reflected, “The message of Jesus as I understand it is contained in the Sermon on the Mount unadulterated and taken as a whole…If then I had to face the Sermon on the Mount and my own interpretation of it, I should not hesitate to say, ‘Oh yes, I am Christian.’ But negatively I can tell you that in my humble opinion, what passes as Christianity is a negation of the Sermon on the Mount.” I would suggest that things might be worse still since Ghandi made this statement after generations of deep feuds on issues concerning worship, music, theology, salvation, eschatology, mission, women, ordination, etc.

I wonder if the church might benefit from heeding the message of the Patrick Swayze’s Dalton to “be nice” or even more so the words of Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount? Is it beyond our capacity to turn the other cheek, love our neighbor, even love our enemy? And can we do that particularly when they are sitting down the pew from us? Would it benefit our witness to the world, not to mention our own faith lives, at all to be thought of, once again, as “nice”, even “too nice”?

And maybe, if we were nicer, it would be more meaningful in those moments when it was the time to not be nice.

The Young Adult Bible Study this week looked at the Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12. If you remember, in the parable a rich man has more crops than barns to store them, so he tears down his barns and builds bigger ones. Once they are full he decides to basically retire: “relax, eat, drink, and be merry” (vs. 19) he says to his Soul. The story takes a turn for the worse when the rich fool learns that “this night, your soul is required of you” (vs. 20). He was rich in the possessions of this world and poor when it came to God.

At the same time that the Young Adult Group was reading Luke 12, another group in the church is reading Billy Graham’s new book Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well. Graham’s book covers a similar topic both to Luke 12 and many others who have recently taken it up, including John Piper in Don’t Waste Your Life, namely “Should Christians ever retire?” or “Is a Christian’s work ever done?”.

This question brings to the forefront a deep divide between our culture norm and what we find in scripture. In our society, the smart person will work and save their whole life, invest wisely, plan shrewdly, and upon reaching some target date, retire to a place with a beach view or at least a desert climate. The idea is to work hard and then play hard enjoying the “golden years”. With the average life span increasing and continued medical advances, those golden years of fun and sun can continue on for quite some time.

As both Piper and Graham note, this extend time of rest is not without problems. Many couples upon retirement discover that they actually liked the activity and identity that working gave to them. Many retirees enjoy the “extended vacation” that the beginning of retirement brings, but quickly realize that retirement is not all it is cracked up to be. Even the record breaking gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps found himself depressed in the weeks following the 2008 Olympics and the mini-retirement he entered. Indeed, one of the greatest times of increase in the suicide rates of men is in the year following retirement.

We might discover a reason for this in scripture: purpose. For many, their job and the dream of retirement is a purpose. For others, their faith and family are their driving force. For still others, they see the entirety of what they do as a sacred calling, a holy vocation. Wherever you may fall, the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12 is instructive for us, particularly as it acts as an alternative to ways of the world. Are we rich in possession and poor to God? Do we mind our business to the exclusion of God from our lives? When we come to an ending point of one piece of our lives (a graduation, a layoff, a marriage, a divorce, a retirement, a death) do we look around and discover God missing from the scene?

Whether old or young, Michael Phelps or Billy Graham, working, retired, or just starting out, you have a divine call and purpose by virtue of your life and baptism. There is work for you to do. Look around and you will see the need. Be silent and listen for the call God is offering to you. So often in life and at so many stages of life, we are called to precious more than we normally enjoy. We are called to God, God’s presence, work, and glory in this world. At no time does our purpose and call stop.

Seeing the intersections of these thoughts, I am reminded of the words of Henry David Thoreau in Walden, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Live your life. Live your life for God and in service of your high calling. Live with purpose.

The recent step into scandal at Chesapeake Energy here in Oklahoma City has brought to the forefront again the silent danger of not knowing what is going on around us and of how much perception is often faulty. Chesapeake Energy has been integral to the rise of Oklahoma City over the last decade and employees thousands of residents. They are also huge givers to local charities. Their success has been Oklahoma City’s success. We are tied together in more ways than just that their name is on our downtown arena. What happens there effects all of us.

When reporters from Rolling Stone Magazine and Reuters recently discovered possible issues at Chesapeake, it sent shock waves through the community. While researching a story on “fracking”, a controversial method for extracting natural gas, the reporters uncovered a billion dollars in loans to the CEO of Chesapeake Aubrey McClendon that was previously unknown. Further investigation also uncovered a $200 million hedge fund that McClendon ran on the side from 2004 to 2008 that traded in oil and natural gas contracts, a possible conflict of interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission is now investigating.

While none of the reported issues so far at technically illegal, they point to one of the greatest problems of our time: not knowing what is “off of the books”, what is happening in secret around the edges. Moreover, this is a growing practice of businesses and governments.

To all outside sources, Greece was a flourishing country as the calendar shifted from 2009 to 2010. By a combination of methods, Greece was able to hide or keep off of the books the fact that their national debt was more than double what was reported and among the highest in the world. By participating in exotic financial instruments called derivatives and legal, but dishonest accounting practices, Greece was able to live will beyond its means while sitting on a time bomb for its own country and the world economy. As I write, the world markets are again dropping again over instability in the Greek economy.

Silence is the deadly enemy of the church. The recent and still ongoing scandal concerning the abuse of children by Catholic priests, points to the great harm that can be done when silence and secrecy become the rule of the church. Silence also plays havoc when churches are involved in their own financial scandals. More than a few accountants or boards have perpetrated far reaching financial frauds through creative bookkeeping and lies. Debts, losses, and negative information has been kept off book. All in the name of saving face or making a ministry appear more successful than it is.

In the secular or religious world, it is easy to believe that by hiding sin or failing that you are protecting those around you. It is easy to believe that the white lies and half truths might even benefit everybody involved. It is even easy to believe that a lot may be to gain through questionable practices. But in and outside the church, history has shown that everything eventually comes into the light of day and Christ. And often by then the problem is infinitely worse. In your life and faith, live in the light and truth of Christ. Hold firm to what is true. Be authentic. Be transparent. Be honest with yourself and your world. Let the chips fall where they may. And know your only true hope is in God.

Every day after lunch, I read what is called the “Daily Office Lectionary”. It is my daily bible devotional reading. The Daily Office Lectionary is an assortment of scripture passages assigned to particular days throughout the year. Every day there are a number of Psalms, a selection from the Old Testament, something from Acts or the Epistles, and part of the Gospels to read. It is a good way to continually read the bible and read parts of the bible you might miss on Sunday mornings. It is also an excellent way of stumbling over biblical connections you might miss or forget otherwise. And that is exactly what happened on Monday.

I have made the connection between Romans 8:36 and Psalm 44 before. Romans 8:36 says, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” That is a direct quotation from Psalm 44 and one of the first notes you come across in the margin of your bible or study material. I had cross referenced the link long before it popped up in the lectionary readings on Monday. Romans 8 and particularly Romans 8:31-39 is one of the most used passages in funeral services and is also one of the most hopeful statements of faith in the entire bible after all. I have read it many times before and it is one of my favorites. It is powerful because from the quotation from Psalm 44 above, Paul goes on to write, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This passage represents a significant “divine yes” to humanity in Christ. I was familiar with it.

Until this week, I do not think I have read the passages chronologically, though. That is to say before Monday’s lectionary, I had never read Psalm 44 before Romans 8:36 and that makes a tremendous difference. If you have not read Psalm 44 recently, please do. Psalm 44 is a cry for help. It is a faithful lament to God for rescue. In many ways, it is the plea and prayer we most often lift up: “God I love you. I believe in you. Why is this happening to me?” The Psalm finds its climax with the quote from Romans 8:36, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” It then moves on to beg God to “Awake!” (Psalm 44:23) and “Rise up; Come to our help!” (Psalm 44:26).

This passage and the connection to Romans 8 is so remarkable when viewed chronologically because it highlights just how much Jesus Christ was (and is) the answer to long repeated prayers. And more so, how ironically, it is exactly by dying as the slaughtered sacrificial lamb, like in Psalm 44, that Christ is the answer to that cry for help. It is through his life, death, and resurrection that we are united with God and it is shown that nothing can separate us from God (Romans 8). It is for these kinds of whimsical, providential encounters with scripture that I am so thankful for it and for God’s hand in our reading it.

How has scripture come alive for you? What powerful connections have you made?

Tomorrow is coming. A report out this week said that Social Security will run short in 2033. Medicare will run out of money in 2024. The federal deficit is approaching 16 trillion dollars and cconitnues to climb. Who knows when the natural reserves of oil and gas will be exhausted in our country or around the world or the environmental cost that will be exacted to get every last drop, but it will happen. We are surrounded by aging infrastucture. We are protected by an aging military. We send our children to aging schools. We are governed by an aging politcal system that appears more and more inadequate to address the problems of modern life. People are worried about tomorrow.

The church is no better prepared for tomorrow. More churches close than are planted. More churches are in decline than are thriving or growing. Faith is decreasing in this country not increasing. We alienate through our inward and outward fighting more than we attract. More pastors approach retirement than are trained to replace them. The ones that are trained are waiting without a place at the table saddled with more debt than they can afford. Our churches are aging. Our church members are aging. Our denominations are aging and appear inadequate to address the problems of the modern faith life. People are worried about tomorrow.

All of these issues individually (and more that I have not mentioned) would be and are alarming alone, but even more so when coupled with the reality that we are largely failing to address them. None of these trends are new. None of them are novel to our time. None of them should startle politicians, pastors, voters, or the faithful. What should deeply frighten us is our failure to act and resistance to action. But tomorrow is coming.

Oil and gas reserves are limited. We can extract the resources in better and newer ways, but eventually even our technology will fail us. And yet, we have an entire economy based on fossil fuels. At what point along the way are we going to do more than explore other options? The same could be said for the national debt. At what point along the way are we going to take substantive steps to changing course? In the Presbyterian Church (USA), there are few plans on either the presbytery or national level to address the thousands of dying and decaying churches or the overall lack of churches to replace them. Suggestions and weak aspirations, but little or no actual action. We are largely resigned to watching churches slowly wither away. As Will Willimon once said to a shocked audience, “I am the leader of a denomination centered around a generation of people that God is killing off.” There is perhaps too much truth in that statement. But tomorrow is coming.

The inaction often masks the real human cost for today and tomorrow. The inaction, compromise, or half measures become the story instead of the need behind the issue or the impact on tomorrow. During the healthcare debate, we heard endless statistics of “X amount of Americans live without health insurance” or “X amount of people will now be insured by this Act.” Again this is a growing problem facing our country, but one that we have been aware of for generations. Even in taking action, we lose sight of the real humans that make up those statistics. People literally dying waiting for something to be done are simply the “others” still not covered by our moderate actions. In the church, what of the faces and stories behind the “X decline in membership this year” or the “X amount of churches closed this year”? And what more of all the ones that suffer waiting for something to change? Much has been made of the increasing number of religious “nones” in our society, we are responsible for that and will one day have to answer for that. But tomorrow is coming.

Tomorrow is coming to the country, to the church, to the world, and to you. As much as we have made ourselves gods of our own secular and religious domains, the march of time is inevitable. Diana Butler Bass argues in her latest book Christianity After Religion that the great visible divide of our time is not between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives or liberals, however we would define those labels, but between the old and new, between the past and future, between old answers and new ones, between status qou and change. The novel is not intrinisically good, but today’s and tomorrow’s answers seem to be before us, if for no other than yesterday’s answers are failing us. Are we brave enough to seek out and implement those answers for tomorrow?

For some time now, I have been reluctant to too fully embrace the future and much needed changes. I have been amongst those supporting half measures, partial fixes, incomplete answers, and not bold enough action. I have riden the fence and guarded the middle. I have sought compromise where more should have been done. I fear that I have now become part of the problem.

I love Jesus Christ. I love tradition. I love the best of our collective past. I am guided by the bible. I will continue to be. I will also continue to seek consenus and partners in the common struggles we are all facing. The answers are in front of us though. Yesterday’s solutions are crippling us and our ability to thrive in the future into which we are all headed. Change is coming to the church and society. Inaction or recalcitrant attitudes only put off again to another tomorrow issues that must be faced today. Waiting will not do. Inaction will not do. Tomorrow is coming. It is time to act.

Recently, First Presbyterian Church of Edmond voted to ask for dismissal from the Presbyterian Church (USA). You may have read about it in the local papers or online as a number of national news group picked up the story. Next week, Indian Nations Presbytery will hold a special meeting to appoint a special committee (an administrative commission) to begin a conversation with First Presbyterian Church of Edmond, Oklahoma about their request to leave. The entire presbytery would then have to approve whatever action they agree to take.

This action follows many years of conversations internally within First Presbyterian Church of Edmond, in and with the presbytery, and beyond. The reasons cited are as you might imagine if you paid attention to the divides in the PCUSA and the larger church over the last generation: loss of the centrality of Jesus Christ, declining authority of scripture, theological drift, and the rising acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage in the church (in 2011 presbyteries in the PCUSA voted to allow homosexuals to be considered for ministry). I would dispute many of those claims, I deeply believe in Jesus Christ, scripture, and reformed theology, but a number of churches have already left the denomination and a number more are in the process now because of them. Most are staying where they are and adapting to both changes in the church and wider world. Many are growing and thriving, particularly in a new climate marked by reduced division. I do not think it would be too much to say that we wasted or at least spent the last generation fighting each rather than being Christ’s church for the world. Now, in many places, people and churches are going back to work.

I have many friends that attend and lead First Presbyterian Church of Edmond. We have done mission work side by side here and half way around the world. We have served on committees together. When we were first meeting to establish our vision for Connecting Point Presbyterian Church, a member of First worked alongside us. Their newest associate pastor also worked with us when he was still at another church. They have been supportive of our work and other’s. These are not bad people, but there is and will be division among us.

Holy Week adds a new lens to these developments. “Through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ we are new creations. The old has passed away. See everything is new.”, we say. Sin has lost its power in this world because of Easter and Christ’s resurrection. It is Paul on the other side of the cross and resurrection that remarks that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). And yet, at the same time, visibly the brokenness and estrangement remains. The fractured and failing relationships persist even and particularly in the church. Perhaps the possibility of peace, unity, and purity exists, but their actual presence remains elusive.

Luckily, real reality is not decided upon from this side of the Kingdom of God. Our unity in Christ is not a product of our choice, the will of a congregation, or the vote of a presbytery. It remains a loving and sacrificial act of God in Jesus Christ witnessed this Holy Week in Easter. We might be able to detract from its visible witness in the world (and often do), but the reality remains that we are all the hands and feet in the body of Christ. Christ died for all and in Christ all find new life.

In Easter, the old order of things is turned upside down. Sin, death, division lose their hold on our world. Even in our churches, we are still struggling to live into that new Easter reality, but the new reality is the real reality after Easter. 

Earlier this week, our dog Sidney woke up whining in the middle of the night. Sidney is a whiny dog, often for no actual reason, which causes me to wonder if this experience is preparing Kati and I for children. There is no telling what woke Sidney up that night or even why she was whining about it. She could have had a bad dream. It could have been the rain. A car might have driven past the house. We might have had another minor earthquake. She could have just been thirsty. In any case, like a father with a scared child, Sidney jumped up on to the bed to be comforted. I petted her ears, scratched her back, and told her she would be okay. Soon she was asleep again, only this time next to me.

I would be the first to admit that our journey of faith is often moved forward by holy challenges and prodding. There will be trials and tribulations. God has a tendency to stir us up in order to move us forward. We are, after all, a sent people. But I am also amazed at the moments of comfort that we are offered by God. Moments where it is God who seems to say to us “It will be okay.”

In Mark 4, there is a great storm as the disciples trek across the Sea of Galilee in a small boat. The disciples are afraid as the waves break into the boat filling it with water. “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” they ask Jesus sleeping lazily in the stern. This awakens Jesus who rebukes the wind and the sea, saying “Peace! Be Still!” as a calm comes to the sea and the wind. They are saved.

What difference would it make to our lives if Christ did that in the midst of our storms? If at the heart of our chaos, Christ came with a word of peace. “It is okay.” “It will be okay.” In Mark 4, the question is not one of Christ’s ability or desire to make peace in the middle of the storm. It is a matter of faith. Do we believe that Christ will? Do we even believe that Christ can?

In this passage and so many others like it, Jesus rescues humanity. Rescues us from sin and death. Rescues us from ourselves and others. Rescues us from this world for the world to come. Time and time again it is our great Comforter and Strength that comes for us. But do you have faith in that Comforter and Strength? Do you hear his words to you? Do you feel his compassion?

I pray that like a parent comforting a child or me soothing Sidney’s fears in the middle of the night that in the midst of all our storms we know and have faith in Christ’s comfort and love for us.

My grandmother died recently. She was 83 years old. I got the phone call on Saturday night that the end was near. My father and I jumped on a plane on Sunday to fly out to California where she had been staying. My mother had been there for the better part of a month already by my grandmother’s bedside. We arrived Sunday night. By Tuesday the woman I had always called “Nannie” was dead. Her funeral was the following Friday.

I explain my grandmother usually by telling people that she has been sick as long as I have known her, as long as I have been alive. And that is true. Whether it was something wrong with her eyes, joints, or some other malady, Nannie was a miracle of modern medicine. I remarked in my eulogy for her that her ability to overcome sickness made it seem as though she would live for ever. Like so many times in the past, I thought she would find a way to pull through or at least survive. She was not going to this time, so we rushed to California.

In death, I believe we are often confronted not only with what scares us most about living, the end of living, but what scares us most about having faith in a loving God that promises eternal life, having to actually believe that eternal life exists beyond the physical evidence in front of us. This is difficult. So often as we or a love one dies, we pray for health and well being. We pray that the doctors have super human powers to heal. We pray for miracles. And hopefully, ultimately, we pray “thy will be done” even if that may mean inevitable death.Too often we try so hard to deny death and avoid it that we also end up trying to avoid being challenge about what we believe beyond death.

In the funeral and memorial service liturgies, there is this movement that I try to highlight. A movement that must be acknowledged with the same passion that we avoid it. The movement is from a human centered reality to a God centered one. From us trying to hold onto our love one for dear life to a letting go to God. Near the end of the liturgy, we acknowledge that for whatever ways our love one was cared for by us, usually bedside towards the end, they are now (and always) were in God’s hands (and always were).

But it goes beyond that to. Is this the end? Do we just let go of our loved ones never to see them again? Is this life all that there is? In the midst of our grief, whether fresh or continuing, we must decide what we believe about the promises of God. Are they meant to make us feel better in times of sorrow or are they pointing to an actual reality beyond this one of which we are all going?

I am fond of the saying “The gospel is always bad news before it is good news.” It is sin before it is forgiveness. Death before new life. The tragedy of the cross on Good Friday before the blessed empty tomb and resurrection of Easter morning. But do we believe that? Do we believe that in our darkest times? When we are without our loved one do we believe that some day we will be reunited with them in the new life to come? And more than that during this time of Lent, do we really believe we will be reunited with the once dead and risen Christ that has gone before us into that new life? Do you believe?

The outstanding and troubled Whitney Houston died last week. For a time during the 1980’s her music defined the times and redefined what music could be. Her timeless hit “I Will Always Love You” from The Bodyguard movie soundtrack was originally a country song by Dolly Parton. Houston made it her own. Even her rendition of “The National Anthem” made it to number one on the singles chart. During this period she scored seven straight number one hits, something that had never been done before.

Her life was also marred by a very public struggle with drug abuse. For as much as one generation will remember Whitney Houston as a once in a lifetime singer, others will remember her for her years of struggles with drugs, her volatile marriage to Bobby Brown, and reality show that revealed too much the dysfunction of both. A rare gift wasted and yet another star whose light was dimmed too early.

At the funeral for Houston, Tyler Perry, the actor, director, and writer, fittingly pointed the mourners towards Romans 8. Romans 8:38-39 is Paul’s classic affirmation of God’s love of humanity: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights nor depths, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Perry specifically referenced both the heights and depths in connection to Whitney Houston’s spectacular life and heartbreaking struggles. And yet it was clear by these scriptures, Perry pointed out, Whitney Houston was always loved by God.

Those last lines of Romans 8 are often the go to texts of funerals and memorial services. It is a strong affirmation of God’s love in the face of death and often in the face of broken and shortened lives. The power of this passage lies not only in death though. Just as much in life, we are loved by God despite the height and depths our lives might obtain. God’s love is not dependent on us, Romans contends. It is independent and yet inseparable from us. God’s love is transformative in this life and the next.

Whitney Houston was always loved by God….and always so are you.

Jeremy Lin is a basketball phenomenon for the New York Knicks. He is being hailed as the “Taiwanese Tebow” after bursting on to the professional basketball stage with amazing scoring and final second heroics. After graduating from the non-basketball powerhouse of Harvard University and being cut be two NBA teams already this year, the rise of Jeremy Lin to stardom is the most unlikely basketball story perhaps ever. No NBA player has scored more points in his first games starting than Lin. No player has been trusted more to save the game with last second shots in his first games starting than Lin. No player has been cut TWICE and risen to such stardom so quickly like Lin.

The story is remarkable because of how unusual it is. Not only has something like this never happened before, but the expectation was that it could not. Clearly, neither the Houston Rockets or Golden State Warriors, the two teams that cut Lin, thought he was capable of such feats. Good players are obviously good. The trajectory of success goes upwards from good to great. Mediocre, second best, not-good-enough players do not become superstars, especially overnight superstars like Jeremy Lin. They are limited by the glass ceiling of NBA superstar expectations: you either are or are not.

These expectations supersede professional sports. Often the values of the world, business, education, and the like borrow the all or nothing mindset: you are either great or you are not. We might even be guilty of judging ourselves by those standards. And this could lead to the same fate as so many others that were in Jeremy Lin’s shoes after being cut for the second time: giving up, giving in, and believing what they say about you.

As Christians, we believe something else. We believe that in Christ we are new creations. We believe that we are uniquely equipped by the Holy Spirit and called by God to our lives and mission in this world. There are second chances and third chances and more. There is forgiveness. There is hope in Christ beyond what the world says and judges. The exception is the rule. The exception is even made into the exceptional. The Kingdom of God is like this….and that is very good news.