Order's up!

We spent last weekend in the Poconose Mountains in Pennsylvania, somewhere (see: middle of nowhere) northwest of Harrisburg. No phone signal, no internet, wild animals... And that was just inside the cabin. Outside, we had cool weather and bears (they feed them out back with 55-gallon drums of expired caramel from the Hershey factory).

It was a great weekend. Ashley's grandfather built a family cabin and most of her aunts and uncles and cousins came for the weekend. Her family is great fun and it was nice to unwind and catch up with them as this was our first weekend vacation since August.

Ashley has two young cousins. Canon is about 6 or 7 and Gillian is an adorable 3 and a half. Canon has all the cool transformer toys i loved as a kid, so that's fun, and Gillian's current favorite game is playing restaurant. She asks what you want for each meal and "writes" orders down on her Hello Kitty magnetic doodle pad for hours at a time. She's also a total rip. As much as i hate to encourage a kid to simply talk back to adults, it's hard not to admire the courage of a 28-inch kid standing up to the verbal taunts of 200-lb adults. In those cases i always pull for the underdog against the tyrant abusing their power.

i'll try to post pictures soon.

And now for something completely different...

When i was a kid, my cousins Paul and Tim used to frequently say, "you don't see that every day."

Well, today i saw many things that i do not frequently, if ever, see around here. Firstly, i took Eli out back today and there was a little opossum rooting around by the shed. Shortly after that, i had a Cardinal hopping around all crooked in the yard. i think he hit our window.

On my drive to Charlottesville, i saw a beaver on the side of the road, standing upright and sniffing the air. When i got to Charlottesville, i saw a car with two brand new bumper stickers. One said "Obama '08," and the other, "McCain." On the drive home, i saw second smaller beaver walking down the shoulder of I-64. Also had a hot-air balloon overhead for a mile or two.

Now which of those was the weirdest thing that i saw?

Eureka

For those of you who don't know and like knowing such things, that comes from the Greek "Heurisko," meaning, "i found it, dude."

i finally realized the other day why i'm feeling so old this year. It's not being married or most of my friends getting married or having babies. It's not even that all these kids younger than me are graduating high school and college. Nope.

It's because all these kids are graduating high school and college and i feel like i just graduated. And frankly, college seems like a long time ago. BUT i am still in school and so it doesn't feel like they should all be leaving it. THAT's why i feel so old. Kids far younger than me are getting jobs, goin into the real world. And i, yes, Brian, who hates being in school, has a general disdain for studying, homework, busy work, papers, assigned reading, and authority, is still, mostly voluntarily... in school. JESUS CHRIST! (i can say that, i'm in seminary)

i'm quite ready to be done with school. i'm the boy who was off from school for nearly a month in kindergarten in September because of Hurricane Hugo and when my mother informed me that it was time to go back, i replied, "i went, i'm done, i'm threw."

Will i ever be?

All in the Family

Well, as I was skimming through the latest issue of Liberty University's publication, I came across an ad for Samaritan Ministries. I've since done a little research on this group. it's quite interesting. Basically, their aim is to provide affordable security for medical expenses. In practice, it works just like medical insurance (plus the church prayer chain).

They take every possible pain to show how different they are from "insurance," but the process is identical. You pay a monthly fee and administrative costs so that you will receive money if and when you need it later. Just like insurance, you pay a premium and you cannot have a pre-existing condition that needs continued treatment (diabetes, etc).

THE BIG BONUS: You get your name and health problem published in a newsletter so other people can read about you and pray for you, just like the church bulletin, etc. Wait, what if you don't attend church already? Well you're out of luck my friend.

THE DIFFERENCE... between Samaritan Ministries and insurance is that if you're not a "Christian," as defined by them, then you cannot participate. Included in these conditions are regular church attendance. Let's look at these conditions (word for word from the brochure):

-Must be a born-again Christian (Jn 3:3)
Great. Hope you didn't grow up in a church from the time you were a kid, being nurtured in the faith by your parents and church (Prov 22:6).

-Must attend church 3 out of 4 weeks per month except when health or weather prevents it (Heb 10:24-25)
Didn't you know that God takes attendance? You apparently cannot gather in your home with friends or at the homeless shelter to read scripture and sing songs. Unlike the Bible might indicate (Mt 18:20).

-Must not abuse alcohol, (Ep 5:18) and must indicate on the application from one of the following options: 1- Abstain from alcohol use completely; or 2- Drink alcohol only in extreme moderation.
I suppose someone has to measure this and have the minister sign off.

-Must totally abstain from illegal drugs, use of tobacco, and sexual relations outside of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. (I Cor 3:16-17)
-Must participate in good health measures, since your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. (I Cor 6:19-20)
I see, so does this mean only specific foods? Nothing unhealthy? Say goodbye to Thin Mints, bacon, ice cream, butter, and carbs. Who decided tobacco is more dangerous than Mig Macs? You can die just as quickly from 2 or 3 of those a day as a cigarette habit. Those are all considered unhealthy these days. And those born-agains better not have a history of drug or alcohol use or fornication. That might lead them to have health problems that aren't covered now.

-Your pastor or another church leader must sign a verification form, confirming that you meet these requirements. (Heb 13:17)
Again, if you don't attend a church building, you might not have a "pastor." That's not non-Biblical, for we are called to go into the world many times, and yes, to gather with fellow believers, but Jesus never once preached a church attendance sermon. Besides, this verse speaks about submitting to "those that rule over you." In most faith traditions, your pastor does not rule over you. He serves you. Christ was a servant leader. As a future minister, I must seek to serve my congregations, not rule them.

I'm not sure you can define a Christian by these standards, and even if you could, is it the calling of Christians to only take care of other Christians? Is it our calling to first ask someone if they are decent and good and our brand of believers before assisting. Did the Samaritan in Jesus' parable interrogate the bleeding, naked man on the road to ask if they ascribed to the same beliefs or culture or what his past held? No. In fact, he was quite different from the man in belief and practice, and he had mercy on him. You'd think an organization with such a name might be most interested in helping all people and having mercy on anyone in trouble. I leave it for you to decide. At least... they have affordable rates...

"Iron Man? Catchy, but technically it's gold titanium..."

Iron Man was fantastic. I went in expecting very little (like I did when I went to see Daredevil). I expected explosions, corny super hero jokes, a lame delivery by Robert Downey Jr., and two-dimensional female love interests. I was happily wrong.

While this is no Batman Begins (it just doesn’t carry as many big hitter actors), and the making of Iron Man from Tony Stark is not the same tale of overcoming family murder to fight for justice, it is a good intro movie to the creation of Iron Man.

Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect choice for Iron Man/Tony Stark. Time magazine was right. The character of Stark parallels Downey very well. Downey is a long-time drug addict who has finally emerged from rehab with a sobriety that’s sticking and landing some of his best parts, a mid-life turn around. Stark’s character is a billionaire playboy who gets a wake up call that his lifestyle and his weapons manufacturer company are hurting more than helping others and himself. He rallies, with the help of his friends.

While Iron Man cannot tout Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, or Liam Neeson, it does have good old Jeff Bridges, the rising and very talented Terrence Howard (August Rush, Hustle and Flow, the Brave One), and a very new and different role for Gwyneth Paltrow. She kicks ass and takes names as the dedicated and tenacious right-hand (wo)man to Stark.

In addition, if you’re going for the obligatory explosions, gadgets, and tech, you will be far from disappointed. It’s not terribly believable, but you’ll forget that until the credits are done rolling. Speaking of which… DO NOT LEAVE BEFORE THE CREDITS ARE OVER! Like X-Men 3, there’s a great 2 minute set up for the next movie after the credits, and it stars another big Hollywood hitter who isn’t in the rest of the movie. So buckle down, strap in, and don’t leave early. This one is worth seeing on the big screen.

What is Your Giraffe?

This is the sermon i delivered to the church i am serving currently. To give you some context, it is a 90-member small, old, rural United Methodist Church. It's north of Richmond in Studley (Mechanicsville suburb).

What is Your Giraffe?

Acts 17:22-31 (NRSV)

²²Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. ²³For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’

What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, ²⁵nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

²⁶From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, ²⁷so that they would search for God and perhaps reach for him and find him— though indeed he is not far from each one of us.

²⁸For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ ²⁹Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. ³⁰While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

What is your Giraffe?

I spent my first summer of college working as a counselor at a small Christian camp in the mountains of North Carolina. It was an overnight camp for kids ages six to sixteen. Each group of kids was assigned one male counselor and one female. We had the kids from Sunday till Friday afternoon, so for 24 hours a day, those six days, especially to the little ones, we were mommy and daddy. We loved those little kids… most of them. And they loved us… most of the time.

We swam, we hiked, we ate hot dogs over campfires. We sang and danced and played games all day long. We had a Bible study each day and time for arts and craft. One week, I had a little girl in my seven year old crew. She was a little home sick and clingy and spent the week not more than five feet from me, rarely letting me out of eyesight. She picked out a wooden kitchen spoon at craft time the first day and spent the week painting it. After a few days, she’d finished painting the big spoon entirely in bright… simple… plain yellow, several coats thick. She came over and presented it to me. “It’s a giraffe,” she said beaming. I thanked her and put it in my backpack. It’s still there. Five years later, and I still get people in my classes who ask me “What is that?” “A giraffe.”

How do you show someone you love them? What is your giraffe? When you’re seven years old, maybe you give your camp counselor a bright yellow spoon. When you’re eleven, maybe you clean your room before mom even asks. When you’re sixteen, maybe you ask that special one to prom. When you’re twenty-one, maybe you stay up all night with the friend who can’t believe she’s been dumped or the one who can’t believe he didn’t get that job he was sure he was going to get. When you’re thirty, maybe you make dinner for your friend who has been going through physical therapy after the accident. When you’re forty, maybe you get off work to go see your own seven year old perform in the school play. We’ve all done these things. What is your giraffe?

What if it’s someone you barely like? What if it’s someone you barely know?

“You can’t reach someone, you don’t love.” My mother told me this when I was very young and repeated it many times. She is a life-long grade school teacher. She, too, likes giraffes. I know she believed that, and I know she lives it. I also know she prays for those kids she teaches and loves them very much. She wouldn’t be the teacher she is, if she didn’t.

“You can’t reach someone, you don’t love.” To understand Paul here in the Areopagus, you have to understand Paul’s ministry. Paul uses the word “love” one hundred twenty times and “brother” one hundred and twenty-nine in his letters to the people of the early Church. He loves these people. Paul has his very harsh moments, but he always speaks in love.

When I was in college, there was a gathering place in front of the student union. It was where the center of campus life was, our Areopagus. Frequently, usually in warmer sunny weather, a man named Gary Birdsong, or the Pit Preacher, made appearances. His favorite topics were the various reasons that we as college students were headed for a fiery eternity. He loved to preach from Paul and explain to us in loud rants why all the girls shouldn’t be wearing pants or talking in public, why all of the Jews and Muslims had no hope, and why those of us boys with long hair were confusing the natural order. Apparently Jesus, Paul, and all those apostles had crew cuts (my minister and I both have them) to avoid being mistaken for women. I was always sorry for Gary. He has no giraffe.

Paul does not storm in and say, “Oh, Athenians, you fools and heathens, it’s straight to the lake of fire for you!”

“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.” For Paul, a Jew, and for these people, this is a high compliment. Paul doesn’t think he’s better than these Athenians.

“From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth.” Paul says to these people he barely knows, “you are my brothers and my sisters. I will speak to you as if you are my own blood. I will treat you as I would have you treat me. For if I speak to you out of love, my words may reach you.” Paul wants to reach these people where they are. This is Paul’s giraffe.

“Love is patient, love is kind.” Does this sound familiar? This is Paul. Paul speaks patiently in kindness to those gathered here in the Aeropagus. How do we speak to our brothers and sisters in the places we trod?

“He allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live.” Why? “So that they would search for God and perhaps reach for him and find him.”

God has placed each of us where we are, in our families, in our lives, in our jobs, in our schools, in our churches, in this very country. Why? So that we can help each other find God. Can you reach the people in your life that God has surrounded you with? You can’t reach someone you don’t love.

What will it take? I’m fairly sure that a bright yellow spoon is not the best way to show your coworker or your bank teller that you love them. Maybe it is, I of course don’t know the people in your life. But do you?

If you do, you already know how to show them you love them. You have a giraffe for those people, those places. You can’t share your faith, you can’t share your story with someone who doesn’t believe that you sincerely love and care about them. You wouldn’t hang up on someone calling to offer you a job or telling you that you won the lottery. You would probably hang up on a telemarketer. It’s much easier to ignore someone who has his own interests at heart than someone who has your interests at heart.

How then can we be like Paul? How can we reach our neighbors, how can we reach for God and find him with our brothers and sisters? If we reach people by loving them, then reaching people is impossible until we show people we love them.

Paul speaks to the Athenians just like an Athenian. He uses their language, he uses their lingo, and he uses his understanding of their culture. He even quotes their own poets. The familiar, this is Paul’s giraffe for the Athenians. Paul could not have reached them if he had spoken over their heads or used the familiar Jewish terms. He could not have reached them any other way. He used the familiar. He cared enough about them to meet them where they were.

Today, Psalm 66 was read in the King James Version some of you may have heard growing up, familiar. You heard John 14 in the newer Message version. This language may sound more like what you use to talk to your friends and family in everyday life. The Message version was written by Eugene Peterson. He is the friend and colleague of my Greek professor and one of the leading pastors in new church plants in the United States. Like Martin Luther, he believes that the best way to reach someone is to care about their needs, and one of those needs is being able to understand God’s word. You may not consider yourself a Biblical expert, but you come and hear the word read and preached on each week and many of you attend Sunday school classes. You know enough to explain many things to your children, your parents, your co-workers and fellow students.

Every relationship you have with someone is an opportunity for Christ to be there. Always ask yourself, “Do I love this person? Do they know it?” You can’t reach them, if either answer is “No.” People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. You have to find a way to show people. If you spend enough time listening to the needs of everyone God has put in your life, you’ll be able to show each of them that you love them.

If that doesn’t work, you can always try… a giraffe.

Ism's (Finally)

I talked to several of you about this blog a week or two ago. i didn't do any more work on it since then, but i finally decided to post it in it's rough form. It'll eventually bear fruit and be a sermon topic. It is the product of much conversation a couple weeks ago and even more before that. Thanks to all of you who helped shape and articulate, including Ferris. Feedback is encouraged...

Feminism – The Radical Notion that Women are People

Christianity – The Radical Notion that People are People
…and all people are equal…

I think maybe Ferris Bueller was on to something. “-Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself.” I think I would take that a step farther. Maybe most, if not all for a lack of a better word “necessary” or maybe “nobly-intended” –Ism’s that Christians ascribe to are the failure of Christianity, or Christians.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” –Gal 3:28

Well, the point can be made that Paul says some pretty crazy things (like women shouldn’t speak in church or teach, or cover their heads in worship, etc), but Christ lived out these principles each time he sat and spoke with women or asked for a drink from a Samaritan, or sent his Holy Spirit to proclaim his good news to the gathered crowds of every nation.

Any –Ism that seeks to uphold the principles contained in this, religious or secular, is seeking to correct a problem in society that Christians are failing to address.

Ism’s (and the like) as a category:

Communism – Strives for economic responsibility and equality so that those who have much can share with those who have little, exactly as Christ instructed, exactly how the early Church operated. However, it imposes this system, which is the opposite of the early Church and what Christ asks of us.

Democracy – Strives for the equal representation of all people and equal rights and voice given to all views.

Anarchism – Strives for absolute freedom through personal responsibility, which is a very Christ-like goal. However, like Communism, is impossible in the practical sense.

Libertarianism – Strives to put great limits on the governments we need for practical reasons, but as with Communism, fails because people are greedy.

Humanism – Strives to value human dignity and values. However, it tends to leave out the importance of God over and above that, the creator of humans and the only one who loves us all unconditionally.

Fundamentalism – Strives for truly discerning God’s will and God’s plan in the face of growing doubt and uncertainty. It, like many Ism’s is built on good intentions, however, it engenders hostility and narrow-mindedness.

Radicalism – Strives for living out one’s principles, in spite of all opposition, much as we can characterize the life of Christ, but only Christ was completely pure in motive and deed.

Affirmative Action – Strives to correct injustices done to the oppressed. However, it seeks to eventually create equality by temporary inequality, an ends justify the means sort of gain draws criticism in hindsight (see: atom bombs, internment camps…)

Secularism – Strives to be sensitive to the needs and feelings of those with non-religious beliefs or those different from the predominate faith group, but it often neglects the upbringing of those within all faith traditions. No religious or cultural celebration means a loss of heritage to the proceeding generations.

Religious Fanaticism – Strives to include God in our every decision, but fails to mediate peace between us and our neighbor, who is also God’s child.

Abolitionism – Strives to free all people from oppression and slavery.

Prohibition – Strives to protect people from the violence, tragedy, and health concerns brought about by the abuse of alcohol and its distribution.

Someone once said that “extremism in your camp destroys the moderates in mine.”

If Christians could live as Christ called, and as many communities in the early Church did, then what was grown, what was earned, what was made could all be shared and no one would go without. There would be no need to force taxes or class structures or intrusive governments on anyone, trading liberties for charity.

If the principles of equality and racial harmony were practiced as Christ did, then there would be no need for abolitionism and feminism and affirmative action. If we all lived the outrageous principles of servitude and other before self, there would be no radicalism because everyone would be radical.

In other words, if Christianity put on its working clothes and if Christians marched out into this world like the early Church did (which is why it grew), then none of those Ism’s would be necessary. Everyone would be a feminist, everyone an abolitionist, everyone a radical, everyone an anarchist because no one would know what one of those was. They would call us each a Christian, a little Christ, and they would know we were Christians by our love.