Sunday School Christmas

Merry Christmas! Here's a recycled gift: the script of a sketch we did in my class at church several years ago. Our class is called Crossroads and it comprised 40 or 50 couples so it was hard to get to know everyone. We used to invite one couple each week to tell a little more about themselves. Here's the class intro scene from a special new couple. 


JOSE: Gosh, where to start? I'm Jose and this is Maria. We've been coming to IBC for a little while - like since the summer.

MARIA: But this is only the second or third time we've visited Crossroads. We've had trouble finding appropriate child care for our son—

JOSE (to Maria): They don't care about that. We're supposed to tell about our past, like our testimony.

MARIA: Ok, well you go.

JOSE: Ok, well we both grew up in believing homes. We met in college. At A&M. I was construction engineering. She was fine arts. We dated for a couple of years.

MARIA: Seven and a half months.

JOSE: Ok, so not quite a year. And then we decided to get married. And then—

MARIA (interrupting): I was visited by an angel.

JOSE (to Maria): I thought we weren't...

MARIA : And I got pregnant.

JOSE (to Maria, surprised): Wha? I thought...

MARIA (to Jose): Well, they're nice people. I just...
(to class) See, that part of our story is pretty unique. It's kind of hard to tell.

JOSE: So sometimes we just sort-of gloss over that.

MARIA: And let people think he knocked me up.

JOSE: Well, sometimes it's easier that way, especially with church people. They'll forgive you for sin, but not for being weird and talking about the Holy Spirit. I mean, not you guys. Er...

MARIA: Anyway, so there was all kinds of weirdness. This angel told me I was pregnant with God's son.

JOSE: Mine too. I got an angel too.

MARIA: But all our friends were like "Yeah, right" and my Dad completely flipped out.

JOSE: Yeah.

MARIA: I seriously thought he was going to kill Jose. Or get arrested. Or both.

JOSE: Yeah.

MARIA: So we decided the best thing might be for me to disappear for a while. So I went to Austin.

JOSE: The hill country.

MARIA: My cousin and her husband, Lizzy and Zach, live down there. She was pregnant too. And she had seen an angel too, so she believed me about my angel.

JOSE: I know it sounds like everybody in our family talks with angels and then gets pregnant all the time.
(to Maria) Let's get past this part.

MARIA: So I stayed with them for a while. That was great. I wrote a song then.

JOSE: Don't sing the song.

MARIA (glares at Jose)

JOSE: I stayed in College Station. I was working for my dad's construction company and just trying to save some money for doctors and hospital costs and baby stuff. She was gone for a month or two.

MARIA: Three and a half.

JOSE: Something like that. That was kinda hard. To be honest, I didn't really think that was fair at first. I didn't want any kids yet and then I find out I've got to raise somebody else's kid before I get to have my own? I mean, even if it was God's son, sheesh!
But then she finally came back.

MARIA: By then things had settled down and Dad had stopped making threats.

JOSE: Yeah.

MARIA: And it was finally going to be somewhat normal. Like I could finally plan the wedding and stuff.

JOSE: And then the stupid census thing happened.

MARIA: Stupid.

JOSE: Some stupid politician got it in his head that everyone needed to go to their home town for this census.

MARIA: I was like, "Couldn't we just do this on Facebook or something?"

JOSE: Yeah it was stupid.

MARIA: I mean: Census page — "Like" — done.

JOSE: Yeah well they said something about travel stimulating the economy, yadda yadda. But it was stupid.

MARIA: So we've gotta drive 16 hours in his 1981 Chevy pickup. Wouldn't go over 50 miles an hour. I could see the road through the floorboards. We may as well have been riding a mule.

JOSE: That was a great truck.

MARIA: Not when you're pregnant. It was awful.

JOSE: Anyway, this is taking too long. So we went to my home town. I'm from a town called Breadsville, Arizona.

MARIA: Two words: Po - dunk.

JOSE: It's pretty small.

MARIA: One hotel.

JOSE: And a bed-and-breakfast.

MARIA: Like anyone would want to stay in a bed-and-breakfast in Breadsville.

JOSE: Anyway, Breadsville used to be a lot bigger and there's kind-of an influential family from there so there were a lot of people in town for this census thing and we couldn't find a place to stay. The hotel was full. The B&B was full. And so it was pretty late at night and we had tried all the people I knew and even called some motels in other towns around there and there was just nothing. We were gonna have to sleep in the truck.

MARIA: There was no way I was sleeping in that truck.

JOSE: So I went back to the guy at the B&B and pretty much just begged him if we could crash on his couch or something. Told him we would get up early and leave before the breakfast and everything. And he said no, but that we could stay in his garage.

MARIA: Tool shed.

JOSE: It was his garage.

MARIA: It was tiny. Not like an attached garage with a floor and drywall. It was a shack with no floor and a bunch of tools and boxes of D-Con rat poison.

JOSE: He had an old car in there under a sheet. He helped me push that out to give us room and he brought us some blankets, and we made a pallet on the ground right next to this puddle of oil from his old car.

MARIA: It stank.

JOSE: Well, and it got worse because I don't know if it was all the excitement or the rough ride in the truck or what, but she hadn't had a single contraction before that night and all the sudden, she looks at me with big eyes and says her water just broke.

MARIA: Did we mention that Breadsville doesn't have a hospital either?

JOSE: So I go running up to the house and bang on the door and the guy doesn't answer! I guess he was tired of dealing with us. So I run back to the garage.

MARIA: Tool shed.

JOSE: And there's Maria...

MARIA: That's good, dear.

JOSE: She's sitting on this old seat from a riding lawnmower.

MARIA: You can stop, dear.

JOSE: With her legs spread apart and a blanket in front of her—

MARIA (gritting teeth): Jose, I said that's enough!

JOSE: Um...so...she had the baby.

MARIA: Jesus ... our son's name is Jesus.

(Pause here.)

JOSE: Nasty. I had not intended to cut the cord or any of that.

MARIA: He's a wimp.

JOSE: Yeah, when it comes to blood. It was nasty.

MARIA: He was beautiful.

JOSE: Well, I had to clean it all up, which was nasty. And I just about get done and somebody bangs on the door of the garage.

MARIA: Tool shed.

JOSE: And I figure it's the B&B owner because he probably heard the noise and we're waking up the guests or something. And I go and open the door and it's Paul Teutul.

MARIA: It was not Paul Teutul.

JOSE: The dude from OC Choppers. Anybody watch that?

MARIA: It was not Paul Teutul.

JOSE: It looked exactly like him. He had two other dudes with him. They were riding Harleys. I'm telling you it was him.

MARIA: In Breadsville, Arizona?

JOSE: For the census, maybe.

MARIA: Why didn't you get an autograph?

JOSE: I was ... distracted.

MARIA: So anyway, these biker guys come in and they're carrying boxes. I mean presents. Gift wrapped. And they put them down next to Jesus who is burrito-wrapped in a blanket and laying on the work bench. And they tell us that an angel - a whole bunch of angels - appeared to them—

JOSE: I know. More angels. Sounds crazy.

MARIA: And the angels told them that Jesus was special and where to find him.

JOSE: In a tool shed in Breadsville, Arizona.

MARIA: We stayed there for almost a month. Eventually got in to see a doctor. Took Jesus to church for the first time there. Some other visitors showed up too. Big wigs of some kind.

JOSE: Limos this time instead of Harleys. And they saw a star, not an angel.

MARIA: They told us the same thing the biker guys had. Jesus was special and they had come a long way to see him.

JOSE: And apparently stopped by their bank on the way because those boxes were full of cash!

MARIA: Very generous.

JOSE: I was afraid it was stolen.

MARIA: If it hadn't been for those gifts, there's no way we would have made it to Mexico and back.

JOSE: Yeah, but that's a different story.

MARIA: Yeah, so that's us. We have two boys: Jesus is six and Jaime is three. They're both precious.

JOSE: They're out of control.

MARIA: No. They just keep us on our toes.

JOSE: Our number comes up on the screens in service just about every week because Jesus is talking back to his teachers.

MARIA: Correcting his teachers.

JOSE: It's back-talking. But he'll learn.

MARIA: Yeah, so we're here now and we're very excited about getting plugged in to Crossroads.

JOSE: Yeah, I guess that's it. Thanks for letting us join you.

MARIA: Merry Christmas.

The Sandy Hook Evil

I promised myself I wouldn't make any public comments about the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut for at least a week. When my news app pinged me this morning that bells were ringing there to mark the one-week anniversary of the shooting, it got me thinking, again, of what can possibly be said. I feel the need to issue two disclaimers related to this topic.

First, there is an enormous amount to say. When that level of evil is exposed in our society, it should spark deep, thoughtful, exhaustive and difficult discussions. This is a deep hole we're in. This isn't something we should read (or write) a couple of blog entries on and then move along to the next celebrity gossip. This should arrest our progress, or more accurately, make us aware that it halted while we weren't looking. As a society, we need to grapple better with things like evil, innocence, the sanctity of life, suffering, violence, mental health, and, yes, gun control. If we took the next 26 years to research, study, plan, test, and seek to understand violent evil, that wouldn't be enough to honor the 26 lives lost last week. I'm going to point out in this article (and probably a few others) a few of the things weighing most heavily on my mind this week, but what I have to say here is not all there is to say. What I know is not all there is to know. I do not have a 12-step plan for ending violent evil in America. And don't believe anyone who says they do.

Secondly, I'd like to acknowledge that none of my words here matter to the families who lost loved ones last week. I have sat with people who are enduring deep, deep sadness. For people in those situations, words don't matter; public policy doesn't matter; the threat of the next atrocity doesn't matter; their own safety doesn't matter. Nothing seems to matter but their loss. No blog post matters because no blog post is going to bring back their sons and daughters.

So with that much preamble, I must be about to launch quite a gun control debate, right? Not at all. I think we need to talk about gun control; I have some ideas and opinions on that topic. But I think we should get to that topic around year 25 or your 26-year study. I'd rather start with a more accurate categorization of last Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary. Last Friday wasn't primarily about gun violence. It wasn't primarily about mental health. It was primarily about evil. It was pure evil. It was the most evil thoughts of Adam Lanza's mind distilled into their most horrific and actionable form. It seems to me that this particular display of evil is special in our history. We've turned a corner. Americans have died in mass shootings before; children have died in mass shootings. But, as you've read countless times now, this is the first time in our nation's history anyone has embodied evil boldly enough to target kindergarteners.

And that matters.

I am not saying that a child's life is more precious than an adult's. My religion teaches that all people are created in God's image and all human life is sacred. I'm also not saying that those 20 children were any more valuable or important than the 16,000 children who died of hunger-related causes last Friday, or the 720 who died of AIDS that day. Each of those lives was sacred. Each of those deaths was an awful consequence of the presence of death in the world. But I am saying that last Friday's display of evil was symbolically weighty. It's a milestone of evil against vulnerable victims that stands out among its peers.

Our tendency over the past seven days has been to reach immediately for answers. We want solutions. We want to know, "What do we have to do to ensure that this doesn't happen again?" Obviously, that's a great question, one that we won't find easy answers to because there aren't easy answers. And I wonder if we're rushing toward solutions before we fully understand the problem. Again, the problem is evil. How do we understand evil?

To the extent that we pass some laws intended to limit the expression of evil, we are only fooling ourselves that we can control it. It could be that stricter gun laws would have forced Adam Lanza to kill three children with a kitchen knife rather than 20 children with guns, but for those hypothetical three families grieving this week, the end game is the same; they have been visited by evil. Likewise, an armed teacher or security guard might have stopped Adam Lanza after he killed the same three kids, but before he could get to the other 17. Again, would it matter to the families of his three victims? Yes, the numbers matter. Yes, three murders is better than 20. But let's not talk about behavioral band-aids that will reduce the numbers without taking about foundational truths that could actually have a larger effect. Let's talk about limiting the number of Adam Lanzas, not the number of kids Adam Lanza can kill.

Let's remain focused. The problem is that there is evil in our country. It's getting bolder. It's not lurking in dark alleys and the "other side of the tracks" any more. Evil is showing up in our gated communities and our suburban elementary schools.

And it's showing up in our hearts.

Let me drive this point home. You are a shooter like Adam Lanza. Do you know what signs Lanza exhibit before last Friday that he had the capacity to do what he did? None. At least very little. He might have seemed troubled at times, but so have you. He might have even been violent or melancholy or compulsive at times, but so have you. The reality is that we are all about two clicks away from bald-faced evil. Of course it doesn't seem that way. You're well-adjusted. Your life is manageable and predictable. You have a loving family. But let life throw you a few curves. Cancer. The death of a child. Job loss. Debt. Divorce. Disrespect. Betrayal. You'll start to withdraw. Your loving relationships will dissolve. You'll try more desperate versions of your coping mechanisms. You'll spend more time in the darker corners of your mind. And within weeks, you'll start to think about going out in a blaze of glory. America doesn't have two or three dozen potential Adam Lanzas playing video games in their moms' basements. America has 300 million potential Adam Lanzas.

Of course that doesn't happen to everyone who hits hard times, but the ones it does happen to aren't "more sick" than the rest of us. And we aren't "better people" than those who snap. The awful truth is that we are all capable of evil. We are all potential shooters. Evil isn't just in our neighbors' hearts; its in ours.

I was first disavowed of the notion that "I would never do something like that" in college. I had a friend named Ron Shamburger. He was a good guy. He came to the campus Christian meetings I was a part of. His family was stable. He made good grades. On September 30, 1994, Ron broke into his girlfriend's apartment, shot her in her bed, and then set fire to the place. He was executed by lethal injection on September 18, 2002. Evil got the better of Ron. If you think you're better than Ron, I hope live long and happy in your arrogant ignorance. I hope dumb luck keeps you from an outbreak of evil that would prove you wrong. If you're starting to see that your life's version of evil (shouting at your spouse? cheating on your taxes?) is only one step on a stairway toward hell, then you're starting to see the bigger issue at work in Newtown.

Evil exists in our country and in our hearts. I want to have the gun control debate, but let's table that for now and talk about the larger issue. Let's ask a more fundamental question. What are we going to do about evil? What on earth can we do?

Joseph and Sgt. Maj. Epting

During my college years, I was recruited heavily by the Army. I was in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, and I think it drives military recruiters crazy to have someone right on the doorstep — enrolled in ROTC and in uniform every day — and not close the deal. Every unit in the corps has a "military advisor" (read: recruiter); ours was Sergeant Major Epting. I remember one particular exchange with the sergeant major. It must have been his final attempt to win me over. He cornered me in a hallway outside an ROTC classroom and said, "So, Sanders, are you going to be in my army?"

"Sorry sergeant major. I've decided not to."

"That's too bad, Sanders. I like you. I hate to see you throw your life away."

I almost laughed. I really liked Sergeant Major Epting. I looked up to him. And my decision not to pursue a military contract was a difficult one. I have great respect for that career. But I didn't share the sergeant major's definition of a wasted life.

Oddly, Sergeant Major Epting is who I thought of when I read this morning's advent passage.

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

I can't imagine the pressure Joseph must have felt to get out of that situation. Forget the weight of generations of family tradition, religious obligation, and cultural shame. Even if he ignored all that, this is seriously messing with his life plan. Now, instead of a storybook romance, he's got to prepare for her "baggage". Instead of being the envy of all his buddies, he'll be their charity case. Instead of the marriage night he dreamed of, he'll be raking hay in a stable and waiting a few extra months to get his groove on with Mary.

Even after his angelic vision, it would have been hard to stick around. It would have been easy to dismiss the dream as the result of too much wine the night before, or to water down the vision with half-measures. But what Joseph did was the ancient Hebrew equivalent of throwing his life away. He was going to marry a woman who had, apparently, slept with another man while promised to Joseph. He was not only going to tolerate her story about virgin pregnancy; he was going to believe it himself. He was going to tell his family, "Oh it's not what you think. She didn't sleep with anyone. She's a pregnant virgin. God impregnated her."

Every friend, every family member, every priest Joseph knew would have been pleading with him not to be foolish, to see past Mary's lies and his infatuation, to consider his family name, and not to throw his life away.

Joseph's call is our call too. God calls us to believe an impossible, cockamamie story about angels and devils, an all-powerful invisible being, human sacrifice, a virgin birth, and the king of the universe in a Middle Eastern feed trough. Too often, we lose sight of how ridiculous our beliefs really are. We start to think that Mormons or Muslims or evolutionists believe crazy stories. We ask them to "be reasonable."

But God's call is not reasonable; it's insane, countercultural, and impossible. If you want to live in a story that makes sense — a belief system that "feels right" to you, check out Buddhism or Hinduism. Those are much easier to swallow. But if you're interested in the Christian story — in answering the call of the God in the manger — then get ready to believe the unbelievable. Get ready to throw your life away.

Shared Goals

My pastor is fond of saying, "We all want to get to the same place; we just disagree about how to get there." Usually he's talking about denominational divides when he says that, but I think it applies to the election too. It used to go without saying, but I've seen lots of venom in the public square lately, so I'm going to say it: We all want the same things. A better life for our kids — to be safe and free — to ensure that the under-represented, underprivileged, and under-resourced among us enjoy justice, protection and care. The same bright future is envisioned on both sides of the aisle. But this morning half of us woke up feeling that future is more possible than ever before and half of us woke up feeling that our hopes for such a future have been dashed. Let's be good winners and losers. But more importantly, let's realize we'll all lose if we can't find a way to talk about "how to get there" without name-calling and mistrust.

Fighting Election

Every so often, we get everyone together for a big fight. It's so strange. I don't really think we care so much about what we're fighting over (with one or two obvious exceptions). We just seem to like the fight. I'm talking about presidential elections, of course.

This dynamic is so bizarre to me. I know people who are perfectly well-adjusted, level-headed, rational beings who suddenly turn to ogres come election time. I know these people on both sides of the aisle.

It's like Thanksgiving. Every so often, we get all our parties together and try to figure things out and someone gets drunk and we all leave mad and we add to our family lore about the one time Uncle Larry tried to carve the turkey and ruined everything.

I wonder why we do this. There are probably dozens of reasons I don't understand but a few come to mind.

Control
Voting — or more accurately, winning the vote — gives us a sense of control. It feels like we're making a better future if our ideas are the ones that win. We have more confidence in our countrymen if we feel that the majority of them agree with us. If, on the other hand, most of them don't share our views, we complain about "what America is coming to" or wish that someone would "get those other people out of the dark ages." No one ever watches their candidate lose and then says, "Hmm. Most of my compatriots disagree with my position. I wonder if their ideas are actually better. I wonder what I can learn from them." I think there's a level of humility missing from our national discourse. And there's a longing for control. Every man-made religion on earth peddles control. It's a powerful motivator.

Winning
We've also all got a little bit of Charlie Sheen in us. We like winning. Our culture is obsessed with it. We've turned sport into a multi-billion dollar alternative reality where the ultimate virtue is winning. And we turn our non-competitive endeavors — academia, ministry, the arts — into competitions with awards and scorecards.

Politics gives us clear winners and losers. If you get more votes, you win. It's simple and easy to measure. It takes less work and less discernment than fighting our ideological battles where they matter — in our relationships.

False Enemies
That relates to my final idea. I think we work ourselves into a political fervor every four years because it's easier to battle enemies we can see. Every Christian gives ascent to the idea that our enemy isn't flesh and blood. Our enemy doesn't have a political party. But we tend to think of people on the other side of the aisle as pawns of the enemy. It's easier to fight those enemies. We can see them, vote against them, visit their websites, spread rumors about them, blame them, and demonize them. They're easy to hate.

But ultimately, they are a distraction. Our enemy is unseen as is our Hero.

I'm not saying politics isn't important. I voted in this election, and I treasure that right. It's one of the reasons I believe in our country. And I'm not saying we should abandon our convictions. I have some pretty strongly-held positions on issues of the day, especially justice issues like abortion. But I think we Christians tend to forget that the real battle isn't won or lost in the voting booth. The real battle happens on a grassroots level — deeper than that, it happens in hearts.

After all, that's the beauty of representative government. Our politicians aren't leaders; they are followers. That's true not just because of their character (I don't see a lot of conviction in most politicians) but because of their profession. Following is how politicians get elected. Trust me: if 90 percent of Americans deeply believed that abortion should be illegal, President Obama would be a staunch pro-lifer. He's a follower. They are all followers. It's up to us to lead them.

If you want to win an election, win hearts. Love people well. Pray against your enemy. Start with your neighbors and coworkers — not to bring their votes to your party, but bring their souls to restoration. And maybe in the trenches of the real battle, the allure of an election night victory party will become secondary.

Beer Money

Part of what makes church work and government not work is sheer size. One key to a successful community of any kind is interdependence. Let me explain.

Imagine you've dropped in on guy's night with the men from my small group. There are five of us — six counting you. We're at Buffalo Wild Wings (yes, you can talk about Jesus at a sports bar), and we all decide to chip in to buy a pitcher of beer (yes, you can talk about Jesus while drinking beer). Now imagine one of the guys can't contribute. He forgot his wallet or his budget is tight this month. What would we do? We would cover him, of course. We would buy his beer. And what would he do? He would thank us. He likely wouldn't forget his wallet again soon. And if he continued to do so, the rest of us might just tell him that we're getting tired of paying his way. Or if he was genuinely disadvantaged, we would happily continue to pay for him or possibly stop having guys night at some place where he's expected to buy stuff.

Around that table at Buffalo Wild Wings, there would be generosity, gratitude and accountability.

You can be interdependent with six guys, but the larger the group gets, the harder it becomes. If our group turns into 30 guys, some of the group won't even know who didn't pay. If our group is 300, we'll have to start a spreadsheet. At 3,000, we're not really even part of the same party; we're dividing up into lots of little groups within the big group. In a group of 3,000, you have to be very intentional about accountability, generosity and gratitude. It's easy to lose sight of who you should be grateful to, and who your generosity is helping.

Now imagine if our little guys group swells to 300 million people. Now when everyone pitches in, it's not generosity; it's taxation. And when someone gets a free ride, there isn't gratitude; there is shame and entitlement. And when someone misappropriates the beer money to spend it on favors for a friend, it goes unnoticed.

Now before you get mad and start waving election banners, let me point out that this is not a political stance. The same dynamic happens regardless of how conservative or liberal are the guys around the table. It's just human nature. There is a universal inverse relationship between the level of interdependence in a group and the number of its members.

Interdependence, and therefore authentic community, is only possible in small groups.

Pass the beer nuts.

Book Birthing

For some time now I've had this vision of writing my book in a cottage retreat with no distractions, open windows, a creaky wooden table, and a pipe.

That's stupid.

The idea just confronted me — just sneered and splashed water in my face to wake me from that years-long dream. Of course that's not how this is going to go. Of course I can't write like that — not the first book, at least. Maybe the 40th. No, this birth is going to be bloody and frustrating and unpleasant. It's going to be scary and it's going to stop and start so often that I'll be convinced several times that it will never come. That's how this will come, or it won't come at all. It will be gritty or it will be stillborn.

Lord, I pray for a healthy child.

Righteous Reffing

I've always loved sports. It's not because I'm good at them or because I'm trying to relive the glory days of the past or earn my dad's approval (you know guys who love sports for all those reasons). I just like to play. It's fun to compete, to get out there, to meet a challenge.

I also think there are important lessons to learn from sport: integrity, hard work, fair play, discipline, teamwork, confidence, the ability to contend with someone else and still respect them.

I like to watch sports as well as play them. I'm loyal to a few teams and I cheer for them regularly. It's not an obsession or a source of my self-worth (again, you know guys) but it's a healthy diversion. Like Downton Abbey with a scoreboard.

But I can no longer deny that our sports are changing. This weekend, we witnessed further evidence that sports armageddon is nigh. If you haven't read, watched or heard the voices screaming about poor officiating that cost the Green Bay Packers a game on Monday Night Football, then you can catch up here. What bothered me was not the botched call. I've seen officiating even worse than that. If pressed, I could even defend the call to an extent. What bothered me was the lack of perspective and integrity this episode revealed.

Let's start with integrity. I stayed up after the game to watch some of the coverage and it was amazing to me that none of the journalists who commented on this story blamed the receiver in question, Golden Tate, for cheating. Their outrage was aimed at the refs for not catching Tate cheating. There's an assumption here that players will use any means necessary, including cheating, to win. It's up to the referees to ensure fair play, not the consciences of the players.

After the game, there were interviews with both Tate and his coach Pete Carroll. Both were giddy. Neither seemed concerned about winning with an unfair advantage. The reporter asked about the play call, about the referees, but almost nothing asked about cheating. At one point, she did ask Tate, "Did you push off?" meaning, "Did you illegally interfere with your opponent's play?" But everyone watching knew Tate pushed off. We saw it replayed 48 times. Asking him if he cheated was like asking him if he was wearing a uniform. We could all see his uniform. We could all see him cheat. But as remarkable as the questioning was, Tate's answer was even more disturbing. Early in the interview, Tate said, "I play for God first and then for my teammates." I appreciate my brother giving glory to God for his gifts and blessings, but just seconds later when the reporter asked him if he cheated, he said, "I don't know what you're talking about." The message was apparently, "I'm a Christian, and I'm a cheat. I cheat for Jesus!"

Since the game, every SportsCenter, every newspaper article, every commentator with a microphone has decried the poor officiating and demanded improvement. No one has decried the lack of integrity on the part of the players and coach. No one has dared suggest that Golden Tate should have raised his hand in confession of the foul, or that Pete Carroll should have forfeited the win. What we need, they say, is better policing of the cheaters, not fewer cheaters.

The reason that cheating is expected, of course, is that so much is at stake. It's one thing to cheat in your neighborhood sandlot game. It's another when million-dollar contracts and billion-dollar tax-subsidized stadium deals are on the line. Or at least that's how the argument goes. But that argument reveals a lack of perspective on two levels.

First, we have let our recreational pursuits grow into behemoth business engines that affect whole state and national economies. This says so much about us — our addictive national personality, our celebrity culture, our ignorance of deeper truths and simple pleasures. Maybe the passing of Steve Sabol last week should send us a reminder about days when football players had second jobs. I know it's fantasy. I know it's "Good Old Days Syndrome", but let's consider it.

Secondly, so what if it's costly? Isn't that the point of integrity? If I understand the argument correctly, the idea is that people can't be expected to play fair when the stakes are high. Is that the lesson we want sports to teach?

What if Golden Tate had admitted to cheating in that post-game interview and said, "I don't think this win should count. I didn't really have possession of that ball. Just because the refs didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen."

You know what would happen to Tate? He would be ridiculed. He might lose his job. He would certainly be reprimanded by his coach and front office personnel. After all, money is at stake!

But he would also be a leader. Maybe that's exactly what the NFL, NBA and MLB need: someone who is willing to be foolish and honest rather than crooked and rich.

And that's the crux of this problem: values. In the world of professional sports, there are two values: winning and money. Everything else is subjected to those values. Among the barrage of interview, commentaries, columns, rants and reports related to Monday night's game, no one, not a single person associated with the NFL or any news organization, has said or written the four words that my parents taught me about keeping sports in perspective:

It's just a game.

Of God, Freedom and Community

I spoke to a group of people this week about freedom. Freedom is an inevitable ingredient in healthy community. When we are free to be who we really are, we are open to be loved deeply. The opposite is true too. If we are not free to be authentic, our relationships are restricted; as is our growth.

This morning I read this about freedom from one of my favorite authors, Thomas Merton:

As long as you pretend to live in pure autonomy, as your own master, without even a god to rule you, you will inevitably live as the servant of another man or as the alienated member of an organization. Paradoxically, it is the acceptance of God that makes you free and delivers you from human tyranny, for when you serve him you are no longer permitted to alienate your spirit in human servitude. God did not invite the children of Israel to leave the slavery of Egypt. He commanded them to do so. 

Merton is affirming that when we seek autonomy, we seek separation from our kind. To seek autonomy is to seek to be God for only God is entirely self-sufficient. And because that is true, he is holy, set-apart, different not only in degree but in kind. Jesus was not the best of our human kind; he was an entirely different kind. There can only be one God. When we seek to be him, we leave no room for others of our kind.

Autonomy leads assuredly to isolation. Isolation leads in turn to idolatry, pride, and slavery. The end of all these is destruction as our enemy designs. All of these work in opposition to mutual submission, community, obedience, humility and freedom.

If we wish to be free, we must submit to one another. If we wish to be God, we should seek isolation and independence.

Better Relationships Through Note Taking

My wife Christine is the pastor of our cul-de-sac. Yesterday, one of our neighbors brought her a potted plant as a thank-you for kind things Christine has done for their family. The last time we had a block party, another of our neighbors told me, "Christine is the only one on the block who knows everyone's name." If there is a party to organize, if someone is looking for their kids, or if anyone has a question about the next National Night Out, Christine is the go-to resource.

She has earned that position by taking notes.

Christine takes note of people — literally. Any time she visits with a neighbor in the front yard, or attends a birthday party for a neighbor kid, she comes home and scribbles notes about what she learned.

• Neighbor A has a sister in the hospital. 
• Neighbor B is from Bangladesh. 
• Neighbor C is worried about another round of layoffs. 

I think if you gathered up all the scrap paper in our house, you could piece together the family trees of everyone on our block.

Is that creepy? Maybe a little. Maybe instead of the pastor of our street, I should say she's the stalker on our street. But it's also terribly effective. Our neighbors can't believe how thoughtful she is when she asks about an ailing family member they mentioned to her three months ago. It shows a level of caring and selflessness they aren't used to.

I'm not as good a stalker / pastor as Christine, but I've started trying. Years ago when we joined our small group, I sat down to write everything I knew about the guys in the group — favorite sports, musical tastes, how many siblings they have, age, career, hobbies, whatever. I was able to fill about one page per guy.

Last month, as part of small group leader training for our church's Men's Ministry, I encouraged table leaders to do the same: after the first week, write everything they know about each guy at their table, and then make it a goal to double that knowledge by the end of the semester. If they could fill one page the first week, surely they could listen to their brothers enough to fill two pages 10 weeks later.

One of my pastor friends likes to talk about "pastoring a personal parish." Your church's "parish" is defined by geography — neighborhoods and cities around its building. But your personal parish is defined by relationships — a family member out of state, a parent on your kid's soccer team, a coworker in the Beijing office. As our world continues to grow beyond physical boundaries, our personal ministries do too.

On Saturday, I was sitting next to Christine in some bleachers watching our six-year-old play in his second baseball game with a new team, when I noticed she was typing something into her phone. She was taking notes again. As each boy approached the plate for his at-bat, Christine was listening to his parents' cheers and taking note of his name and number. Our team has two coaches and I guarantee they don't know all the boys' names. But Christine does. She's pastoring from the bleachers — adopting these boys and their parents into her personal parish.

Will those relationships ever lead to spiritual conversations? Knowing Christine, probably so. But even if they don't, she has loved them well. She has been a thoughtful ambassador for Jesus. She has cultivated deeper relationships. Maybe the rest of us should take note.

Ultimate Evil

I believe that human suffering is not the ultimate evil. It is not the thing we should  most ardently avoid or prevent.

What is? Human comfort.

This position was clarified for me by an episode of The West Wing. I was a huge West Wing fan. That show may have been the best-written television program of all time. In Episode 127, "A Good Day", Congressman Matt Santos leads a clandestine scheme to vote down Republican legislation that would cancel funding for stem cell research. To defeat the bill, he has to convince a freshman Democrat of the value of stem cell research. He does so by appealing to "the greater good". He tells the freshman that millions of lives might be spared suffering if we use a few lives to prevent it. The trade-off is worth the cost.

I remember sitting in silence for a long time after that episode, trying to decide if Matt Santos was right. If human suffering is the ultimate evil, then we should do all we can to prevent or reverse it. The meaning of life becomes a numbers game in which we measure suffering (Willing to trade one million more ulcers in exchange for 100 fewer cancers?) and work the solution that ensures the least.

But I think that's a fearful and myopic approach to life. And though I loved the West Wing scripts, I often disagreed with the worldview from which they were written.

So what is the ultimate evil? Meaninglessness.

In his book Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper equates ultimate evil with ultimate waste. He recalls reading a story in Reader's Digest that told of a couple who seemed to embody the American Dream. They "took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect seashells."

Piper cajoles:

Come to the end of your life — your one and only precious, God-given life — and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgement: "Look, Lord. See my shells." That is a tragedy. 

Ultimate evil is not human degradation but human exaltation — not when we are forced against our will, but when our will succumbs to force.

When the Holocaust hero Father Maximilian Kolbe redeemed his suffering by trading his life for that of another prisoner, he ensured that his life was not wasted and his suffering not victorious. He turned evil to good. In fact, the setting for greatest evil was transformed to good by his chosen suffering.

But of course there were others in those prison camps — and in every kind of prison since then — who did not suffer well, who considered their own comfort or deliverance the highest cause.

We are most noble and most good and most God-like when we, in fact, choose suffering for another's sake — when we run toward the burning building, when we don't love our lives so much as our humanity. We are most evil when we love ourselves highest and look out for number one until it kills us.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not looking for any opportunities to suffer, and I believe God is grieved by human injustice. Humans are icons of God, and when they suffer injustice, God is mocked. But a belief system in which human suffering is the ultimate evil is one in which human comfort is the ultimate good. That's humanism or consumerism. It's not Christianity.

Book Review: A Faith Of Our Own

Christians are bad at politics. We always have been. And Jonathan Merritt says we should just give up. In his new book, A Faith Of Our Own, Merritt tackles the tricky relationship between Christianity and politics in America. Merritt's conclusions dovetail with his personal story. A graduate of Liberty University, he was poised to inherit all the perks, traditions, and cultural assumptions of evangelical royalty. His father was president of the Southern Baptist Convention. His book opens with a story about having breakfast with Jerry Falwell.

But for all his conservative Christian heritage, Merritt is something of a political prodigal. He proposes a different way, a new approach to Christian engagement with politics and culture which, it turns out, isn't new at all.

Merritt's thesis is that it's time to abandon the culture wars. Intertwined with stories from his own journey through the subculture of the Moral Majority, Merritt gives several reasons for this:

1. We've Lost
The culture wars are over and Christians have lost. We have failed to persuade both Capitol Hill and Hollywood to embrace Biblical values. We can keep beating the same dead horses or we can see the handwriting on the wall. Culture wars haven't worked. God hasn't moved our nation through them. So it remains for us to ask Him whether this is a test of perseverance or an opportunity to follow Him into something new. Like DC Talk of old, Merritt says God is doing a new thang.

2. Jesus Didn't
This is perhaps the most compelling argument in the book and one that could have used more emphasis, I think. When we examine Jesus' own relationship with his culture and government, we see a different pattern than the one we're used to. Jesus lived under an oppressive government that was intolerant of Judaism (and later Christianity), that refused to embrace any religious faith save for its own secular humanism (worshipping Caesar as god may be the very definition of humanism), and that taxed religious people to fund immoral government programs. Like conservative Christians of the 20th century, Jews of the first century were ready to "take back their nation for God." That's why they were eager for Jesus to seize political power, to assume his place as a political savior. But Jesus refused every opportunity to do so. He consistently chose obscurity and humility over power-grabs. This was, in fact, one of the areas in which Satan tempted him directly.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the wold and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said.

Merritt's assertion is that Christians have mistakenly bowed to the prince of this world by making the kingdom of God nothing more than a political faction in his worldly system of me-first politics.

3. Disunity
Merritt presents some interesting statistics about Christians on both sides of the political aisle. Thanks to the well-funded and radio-broadcasted voices in evangelical politics, we often think of Christians as exclusively conservative. But Merritt cites sources that show that our brothers on the left can be just as polarizing and just as blindly attached to party. When believers are divided by politics, it elevates matters of governance above matters of the heart. It undermines Jesus command for us to love one another so well that it becomes our touchstone. Merritt argues that when we engage in culture wars we create civil war in the kingdom of God. And a house divided against itself cannot stand.

4. Bad PR
Finally, Merritt argues that Christians have created a negative stereotype for ourselves in the culture, and we only reinforce that stereotype when we fight culture wars. Of course, that's not fair. Not all Christians are gun-toting, war-making, greedy, gay-bashing hate-mongers. No stereotype is fair. But in all our politicking, we have failed to learn the ancient political truism that perception is reality. Just because the vast majority of Christians are kind, generous and compassionate, doesn't mean we don't have to deal with the perception that we are otherwise. To refuse to deal with the stereotype because it's false is to reinforce the stereotype. The wise choice, instead, is to prove it wrong. And we do that best outside the sphere of politics.

Winning hearts to faith in the White House seems like a bigger coup for the kingdom of God than winning hearts to faith under a bridge in South Dallas. But the latter requires more faith. His ways are not our ways.


It's hard to disagree with Merritt's theses, but it's also easy to finish his book without clarity about how to go forward. Should Christians abandon political involvement altogether? Should we even vote? Our primary citizenship is in heaven, but shouldn't we also take seriously our American citizenship? Shouldn't we work for mishpat and shalom in the land of our sojourn?

Merritt's most explicit answer to those questions comes in the form of a quote from one of his mentors:

"As faithful Christians, we may be compelled to enter the political arena from time to time. But we should always be uncomfortable there."

But that's hardly robust enough advice to govern all the ways Christians are to interact with government and culture.


Besides these reasons for abandoning culture wars, Merritt makes several other strong points and addresses a few hot-button issues.

Civility
Merritt argues that Americans are, and have long been, unable to engage in constructive, civil discourse about controversial topics. He asserts that the current state of journalism only feeds this incivility which has become a major obstruction to good governance and a peaceful union, not to mention evangelism.

One of the encouraging things about Merritt's approach is how he handles "Crazy Uncle Harry". Referring to conservative Christian political activists, Merritt quotes Pastor Joel Hunter: "It's like our crazy Uncle Harry got out of the home and ran into city hall wearing a shirt with the family name. We love him, but he misrepresents us."

I've heard this accusation before and it's accurate. But what we have to realize is that it's always accurate for everyone. None of us is comfortable being represented by anyone else, whether in our faith family, our natural family, our political party, or our sports team affiliations. But that's what family is about. We have to learn how to embrace our family members, even when they embarrass us. I may not wear a sandwich board and shout like the street preacher, but I have to be willing to count him a brother and a servant of God on equal footing with me. I have to believe in a family of God big enough for both of us. Merritt seems to be willing to do that with culture warriors.

Constantine
Last year, I read Greg Boyd's book, The Myth Of a Christian Nation. Boyd was even more forceful than Merritt in his warnings not to mix faith and politics. Both authors refer to deep changes that happened in the church when Christianity became intwined with Roman government in the fourth century. What Merritt argues in A Faith Of Our Own is that the culture wars in America may represent our own Constantinian watershed. If the 1950s marked the high point of American civil religion, they may also mark the beginning of the end of true kingdom building.

Gay Marriage and Abortion
Each of these topics gets its own chapter in the book, and Merritt's political positions are easy to decipher. He's a social conservative: Baptist habits die hard. But the point of these chapters is to think about new ways to hold up the virtues of God's moral law. Merritt argues that Christians are awfully good at hating sin; unconvincing when it comes to loving sinners.

We Are America
There's one other principle that Merritt only touches lightly, but that has become my rallying cry in the culture wars: repentance. I believe that every time a Christian decries the evil of our culture, the next sentence out of his mouth should be a prayer of repentance. Because the truth is that if we were doing our job as salt and light, our culture wouldn't be as immoral as it is. Merritt says, "Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it."

The way to "win America back to God" is not to shout at Americans that they need to repent, or pass laws requiring moral decisions. The way is for the church to lead in repentance. This land is our land; this sorrow must be ours too.

Bad Writing Is No Different

Don't tell me what's not different about your subject.

How many times have you read a lead like this:

"Everyone needs a challenge, and Sally was no different."
"Everyone needs love, and Harry was no different."
"Every Cowboys fan is familiar with disappointment; Jerry was no different."

Today I read the following paragraph in, ironically, a blog for writers:

"We all long for community. For family and friends. We were made to experience life in the context of groups to which we belong. We all need a loyal "band of brothers [or sisters]" to embrue us for who we are. Writers are no different."

Here's the problem: your readers aren't interested in reading about the mundane or common place. In fact, a story is only worth telling if it is NOT common. News is only news if it is unusual. "Dog Bites Man" isn't news; "Man Bites Dog" is. When was the last time you saw a news headline declaring:

Sun Rises, Warms Earth

You haven't. No one has ever written that story because it's not worth reading. Stop telling your readers to tune out by telling them how unremarkable your article will be.

Rethinking the Long Tail

I'm a Seth Godin fan. I worked in marketing. So I get the long tail. But I'm starting to wonder what it's doing to our relationships.

The long tail is a statistical pattern popularized by Wired Editor Chris Anderson in 2004. Anderson's thesis was that the wave of the future is for businesses to sell more individualized products to a wider spectrum of customers, instead of the traditional mass-market pattern of selling the same "big hit" product to everyone. It means selling deep cuts, not just the hits. And in the digital age, when it doesn't cost any more to customize the customer's experience, it completely makes sense.

The long tail is revolutionizing our media and our culture. Why would I pay thousands for an ad in the Yellow Pages, when I can put my ad in front of only the very people who are looking for my service, and only pay a fee if they respond to the ad? Facebook is the holy grail for marketers.

And we're quickly growing accustomed to it. I'm miffed when I get Living Social emails for specials in Atlanta. (This continues to happen; what the heck, Living Social!?) We "customize our user experience" with what we watch, read, listen to and "like". It's individualism and consumerism mashed up and gone to seed. I can find an app, a publication, and a group of people for any interest I can dream up.

• Fiddle players in Stockholm? There's a meet-up.
• Cubs fans in Anaheim? Like our Facebook page.
• Left-handed log stretchers with one eye and a dog named Bonfire? Check out our Etsy store.

Last month, I was sitting around a table with eight other people involved in small groups ministry and one of them pointed to where this is all going. Dr. Mark Heinemann said, "It's narcissistic: everyone wants to be in a small group with himself."

He was right. Our culture is becoming increasingly ruled by the long tail and it's removing us from one another. We spend so much time "liking" that we are loosing contact with people unlike us. Evangelicals are terrible about this. We insulate under the banner of protecting our virtue. We "other" (I know that's not a verb) under the banner of "standing up for" Jesus. We should be haunted by the line from Blue Like Jazz: "You only believe that stuff because you're afraid to hang out with people who don't."

But we're not alone. Americans are all retreating, hanging out with people who like the same music, the same TV shows, the same clothes, the same games, the same mobile devices.

Our separation has been centuries in the making. The industrial revolution took Dad out of the home. Then the rise of two-income families took Mom away. Global business and air travel took Grandma and Grandpa out of state too. And the growing size of our communities meant we had to divide by age at school, church, and day care.

 Now, we grow up almost exclusively among people of matching age, race, intellect, and affluence.

And I think it might be affecting our ability to get along. According to a Public Agenda Research poll, almost 80 percent of Americans believe that lack of civility is a "serious national problem."

We don't know how to discuss or disagree. We've forgotten how to walk in one another's shoes. We just can't relate.

There is great hope for the church in this. Jesus has called us from every "tribe and language and people and nation." (Rev. 5:9) Paul has taught us that at church there should be no divisions or hierarchies based on nationality, race, ritual or social class. (Col. 3:11) Church could be the one place where we are forced to love and live with people of different generations, races, social strata, and political persuasions. We've effectively jettisoned our natural family members who aren't like us. What if we refused to do the same with our church family? What if we left the long tail to the advertisers and embraced a more diverse and holistic family? What would that look like? What would it do for our witness in the world?

The Gay Chicken Debate

Today, thousands of amateur activists for traditional marriage will buy lunch from Chick-Fil-A. Maybe millions. Thousands of activists for gay marriage will also visit CFA locations to picket, argue or order water. This could go very badly. I cringe at the thought of media reports tomorrow about shouting, violence or arrests at Chick-Fil-A locations across the country. I pray that doesn't happen.

The question I keep asking is, "Why are we doing this?" What do we Christians think we're going to accomplish with National-Straight-People-Eat-Chicken-Day? Here are a few of the most common lines of thought.

Be not ashamed
There's a legitimate sense among evangelicals that the good old days are gone and our country is moving away from a Christian worldview toward a humanist one. I think it's hard to argue otherwise. For more than two centuries, Christians (especially Protestants) enjoyed a cushy life in America. With laws and cultural norms deeply influenced by our religion, we didn't have to deal with opposing viewpoints very often. That is clearly changing and Christians are right to worry that immorality is both accepted and legalized, that ultimate truth is undermined, and that peer pressure is turning to persecution.

The unconsidered response to those developments goes something like this: "That's not right. That shouldn't be! Someone has to do something. I'm going to stand up for truth! Let's eat chicken!"

But I think a more measured response might be more Christlike. Is huddling at CFA with other christians really the best way to stem America's moral decline? Remember, the early church refused to be silent about Jesus, not politics, and they did so at the risk of losing their lives, not their chicken biscuits. Refusing to renounce one's faith in a Roman coliseum is a far cry from denouncing gay marriage in a fast food joint.

Serving as the conscience of others
To be sure, many in our culture have calloused or perverted hearts that could use pricking. As do many in our pews. But the New Testament never admonishes us to rebuke immoral behavior in unbelievers, only in our brothers and sisters. Unbelievers are supposed to behave like unbelievers. We should stop expecting people who believe there is no ultimate truth to adjust their lifestyles to ultimate good. Instead, the pattern the Bible promotes is for us to rebuke one another inside the church — sharpen, love and encourage one another to the point that we're so Christlike that unbelievers want to be like us.

Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
— Matt. 5:16

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.
— 1 Pet. 2:12

Here's a tip: if you're picketing, boycotting, condemning or otherwise demonstrating against the behaviors or beliefs of others, no one wants to be like you. Activism is not the way to win friends and influence people.

Standing up for free speech
This is probably the most logical reason for the demonstration but also the most insincere. Yes, Dan Cathy has every right to speak his political and religious views, and run his company any way he likes. And yes, customers have every right to visit or avoid his stores because of those views. But for Christians to suddenly take up the mantle of free speech seems a bit disingenuous. The same constitution that protects Dan Cathy's speech also protects war protestors, gay pride parades, and porn publishers. Christians quickly lose their First Amendment fervor when the topics change.

Whatever the reasons for the CFA demonstration, no one is pretending that it will actually lead to a better place. No one thinks thousands of Christians are going to show up at CFA and win the argument — as if every gay American will wake up tomorrow and think, "Hmm. Those people all ate chicken on the same day. They must be right. I'm straight."

Instead, the lesson gays are more likely to take away is simply that Christians are spoiling for a fight.

So if the CFA demonstration isn't going to accomplish anything healthy, what will it do? I think what we're actually accomplishing is marginalizing our own message. We seem to have forgotten in the public sphere a truth that we all embrace in our churches — that heart change happens in the context of relationships.

Which brings me to the most troublesome facet of this issue: we are increasingly removing ourselves from the culture. More and more, evangelicals are neither in the world nor of it. A friend of mine recently quoted one author (I'm sorry I haven't been able to track down which author) who wrote that the problem with social justice in the American church is not that Christians don't love the poor; it's just that they don't know them. The same is true for gays. I would venture to guess that less than half of American evangelicals have a gay friend. We seem more than happy to go out of our way to protest gay issues, but not to meet gay people.

Recently, I went to lunch with two gay friends to talk about the gay marriage issue. We didn't solve any great public policy debates, but we did express care for one another. We treated one another like real people, not like political opponents.

That may be the best thing to come out of today's CFA debate. Maybe instead of escalating to shouts and violence, people from both sides of this debate might meet one another at the fast food counter, learn one another's names, and get out of their comfort zones. If you're planning to show up at CFA today, I encourage you to love your political opponents the way Jesus loved you when he called you out of darkness into light. If you see someone ordering water, consider buying a meal for them. Learn their name. Express your concern that this whole thing has come across as judgmental. Maybe even pray for them. Better yet, skip the chicken and visit them on their turf, not yours. Show up on Friday for the "kiss-in" and make some new friends. Forget about protecting your righteous image long enough to reach out to your fellow man.

Chick-Fil-A didn't invent the chicken sandwich, but if we do this right, they might be inventing a new, more civil forum for political and religious discourse. That's what I'm praying for.

Jesus: Feminist or Liberator?

Maybe Jesus wasn't as much a feminist as we like to think. Much has been made about how egalitarian Jesus was, how he elevated women in a culture that demeaned them. But this morning, my pastor unpacked a fascinating angle on Jesus' interaction with the Syro-Phoenician woman from Mark 7 and Matthew 15 that gave me a new perspective.

Maybe Jesus wasn't as much a feminist as a liberator.

In the second half of Mark 7, Jesus goes on something of a tour throughout Gentile territories, spreading his message and good deeds. He does this on the heels of an altercation he had with Jewish religious leaders about rituals and righteousness. The Pharisees can't see past certain taboo behaviors, but Jesus is trying to show them that the kingdom of God is not about behavior or rules, but about heart change. Then in Mark 7:24, Jesus lands in Tyre and performs a miracle for someone who is certainly not in the religious in-crowd. In fact, the religious leaders with whom Jesus was feuding would have likely considered her inferior to themselves in at least two ways: she was Gentile, and she was female.

And that's when it hit me that Jesus may not have promoted the cause of this woman, or other women, so much because of her gender, but because of her oppression.

When Jesus announced his ministry in the synagogue at Capernaum, he quoted the prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

If Jesus had come in some parallel universe whose history was scarred with female oppression of men, he might have trumpeted the cause of men. But he didn't. He came in our universe where perhaps no other group of people has experienced so much oppression throughout history as women. If Jesus came to liberate and empower victims, he came for women.

I think it's abundantly clear that Jesus was radically progressive when it came to women, but until today, I never thought clearly about the reason for that.

But then, this really isn't a very big revelation, I suppose. Women have never lobbied for special treatment because of their gender, only because of discrimination associated with their gender. The next question, then, is "Where does that come from?" Why do we have this innate sense of justice that tells us that people — male, female, black, white, young, old, rich, poor, gay, straight, educated, uneducated, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Hutu, Tutsi, Arab — should not be oppressed?

Genesis tells us that people are icons of God, created in His image. Ecclesiastes tells us that eternity is written in our hearts. There is an innate, moral law that commends fairness and must be silenced for oppression to thrive. When Jesus reached out to women, he may have been saying something about the motherhood of God, but he sent a more resounding message about the justice of God.

Maybe Jesus' feminism was less about gender and more about justice.

Jesus Loves Me

This morning, I read from John's Revelation and one little verse stuck out to me. Revelation 3:9 says, "I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars — I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you."

What a curious and wonderful thing to be acknowledged for! God doesn't promise that in the last days our enemies will fall at our feet and acknowledge that we were right. Or that we were better. Or even that our God was the true god. They will fall at our feet and acknowledge that God loved us. 

There is dignity and security in that. 

At one of the hardest times in our marriage, I remember that a similar message comforted my wife. She read and memorized verses like Jeremiah 31:3

"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness."

and Jeremiah 31:4,

"I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and dance with the joyful." 

It was comforting and healing for her to be reminded that she is dearly loved. In fact, what else could bring more peace, confidence or joy than to be loved and pursued by your King? 

That reminds me of Jesus' warning in Luke 10 when he told his disciples not to get too worked up about ministry success, but to rejoice only in being beloved. 

"However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

— Luke 10:20

It doesn't matter how many people read your blog, or how few. It doesn't matter whether life is marked by success or failure. It doesn't matter whether you have all the right answers, or jump through all the right religious hoops. What matters is that you are loved beyond words. As usual, we can learn from the beauty and simplicity of our children. 

Jesus loves me, this I know,For the Bible tells me so.Little ones to him belong.They are weak, but he is strong.Yes, Jesus loves me.The Bible tells me so.

Lessons from Dostoevky and the Apostle John

I read 1 John today and was struck by its discussion of love. John's letter mentions love a lot, of course. It's where we get the famous axiom, "God is love." What struck me today was the essential way John sees love in the church. John doesn't seem to be saying that without love, it's hard to be a good Christian. He's saying without tangibly-expressed, risky love for the people in your church, it's impossible to be a Christian at all. 

Let me say that another way: if we're not going out of our way to sacrificially love the people we go to church with, we aren't followers of Jesus. 

Too strong? Consider how John said it:

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother or sister. This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

— 1 John 3:10-11

Anyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

— 1 John 3:15

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother or sister, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother or sister.

— 1 John 4:20-21

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother or sister is still in the darkness.

— 1 John 2: 9

And John doesn't abide conveniently vague definitions of "brother," either. 

Thanks to the influence of a church friend, I'm also reading The Brothers Karamazov right now which brings me the torturous combination of shame (at not having read it before) and boredom (at the prose). But there's a clever monologue in that book in which one of the characters explains, better than I can, the difficulty in loving a brother rather than loving our brethren. 

"I love humanity, but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it has been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity."

John isn't talking about loving humanity in general. He's writing in the specific. He mentions specific heresies to guard against, and he instructs the believers to pray for a brother (singular) who commits certain sins. He's talking about loving people with names who live in our neighborhoods and worship three rows in front of us on Sunday. 

In fact, John only commands us to love those we worship with. There's no command in 1 John to love the lost. John is only concerned with love inside the church. 

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

— 1 John 3:16

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

— 1 John 4:16-17

These are the words of the Beloved Disciple, who leaned against Jesus at the Last Supper and heard him say, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

So if there's no wiggle-room in the object of our Christian love, then maybe we can find a loophole regarding the its depth. I mean, some of those people at church are downright un-lovable! Surely we're only supposed to love them in principal, and not practice, right? In general, not in particular, as Dostoevky wrote.

Again, John doesn't let us off the hook:

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother or sister in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

— 1 John 3:17

Apparently, this love commanded of us is to be proved out in tangible ways. 

So John defines a Christian as someone who loves their fellow church members tangibly, in a way that costs them. According to the disciple whom Jesus loved, if we're not going out of our way to love the people we go to church with, we aren't followers of Jesus.

So how are we doing with the command of John and Jesus? Who do you love, and how?