Sunday Morning God TV . . . or Not

A couple of weeks ago I had a rare Sunday morning free (I was off and we worshiped earlier in the weekend).  In my hotel room, I sampled the many Christian television options available on the local cable system.

Death and Damnation and Hell, Oh My!

What I found was lots of religion, but very little Jesus.  There were plenty of pastors shouting (literally) about sin and spewing warnings about damnation.  If you were a backslider, a liberal, a homosexual, or a “whoremonger,” (that’s not a word you hear every day) you were on your way to hell.  I would guess those pastors picked those particular things about which to disgorge condemnation because they are things that they, or their congregations, don’t struggle with very much.

Or here’s another possibility.  Maybe the opposite is true – might some preachers scream about things they secretly and desperately struggle against because those things scare them so much they must yell about them?  If they are strident enough in their opposition, then no one will suspect their struggle.  I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case, but it is something to consider . . .

Anyway, you can really fire folks up by demonizing “those people” – sort of like the “religious” guy at the Temple Jesus talked about who thanked God he wasn’t like those other “sinners.”

You might remember that Jesus didn’t think a lot of him and his self-righteousness.

But I’m sure stuff like that really gets the pledges coming in to the toll-free numbers that inevitably crawled across the bottom of the screen.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy (also Oh My!)

There was, however, one preacher I found that morning who was different.  One preacher who didn’t talk about sin at all, who didn’t yell or point his finger into the camera.  He just smiled.  A lot.

What that happy preacher told me through the hotel television was that God wants me to be happy.  If I just have enough faith, and if I talk to God enough, God will do things to make me happy.  But,  if my faith waivers or if I neglect time in prayer, there will be consequences. 

I may not get a good parking place when I go shopping, or I may forget my workout shoes when I go to the gym.  (I feel a need to state I’m not making this up.) 

But if I get it right, God will get me that close parking place and I’ll get to the gym and find that I HAVE MY SHOES!

Hallelujah!

That’s a God a can get behind!

Unfortunately, it’s not the God I meet in the Bible. 

It’s Not God Who’s Letting You Down, It’s Your Theology

Folks in my church are probably tired of hearing me say this, but here it is: Jesus did not die on the Cross to make me comfortable.

The “point” of following Jesus Christ is not to live faithfully in order to get God to do stuff for us and to protect us from bad stuff.  We are called to be faithful because of what God has already done for us. 

On the cross.  Not at the mall.

God-As-Magical-Genie theology is just as disturbing as the Theology of Other-Condemnation.  When God doesn’t “deliver,” we’re either disappointed with God or we beat ourselves up for not believing enough and doing it “right.”

Back when I was an intern pastor, a woman I’d never seen before stopped by the church office. She was crying and wanted to talk to someone.   When I sat down with her, she told me how terrible her last year had been – a tale of illness and death (both human and pets), relationship strife and financial struggle.  Then she told me she had been to her own pastor.  This was his response:

“Obviously you’re not praying enough.”

Harsh, isn’t it.  But that’s the flip-side to the “God wants you to be happy” brand of theology.  God wants to bless you (in material ways) it says; all you’ve got to do is want it enough.

So, those Christians who struggle with illness and finances must not want it enough.  Those Christians in the Third World who live on less than a dollar a day and watch their children die from lack of food and clean water, they must not want it enough.  Those Christians who live in places where they are thrown into jail and tortured and even killed for their faith, they must not want it enough.

And Jesus’ disciples, almost all of whom were reportedly killed for sharing the Gospel, they must not have wanted it enough.  Paul was definitely doing something wrong as he undertook his great mission to the Gentiles, as he had health problems that wouldn’t go away, kept getting beaten and thrown into jail, and was finally executed.

God does not promise us “our best life now.”  God promises us our best life in eternity, while for now we will endure trials and tragedies.  What God promises us is never to leave us alone, to experience our struggles right along with us, and to love us no matter what.

What God promises us is grace, God’s undeserved love, forgiveness, and salvation.  Grace depends not on our own faith, but on God’s perfect faithfulness.

I’m disappointed that I couldn’t find any of that on the hotel TV on that Sunday morning.  (In fairness, there may be some grace-emphasizing theology on TV, but there is certainly a preponderance of other stuff.)

But what is tragic is that unChristians who may be flipping through the channels on Sunday mornings are likely to get either condemnation or genie-theology.  And speaking as someone who made that trip through the channels on occasional Sunday mornings when I was an unChristian myself, it’s tragic because either of those pictures of God are very easy to reject.

Tim Tebow, Jason Collins, and What It Means to be a Christian

We Begin with a Meme

Tim Tebow: I’m Christian.
Media: Keep it to yourself!
Jason Collins: I’m gay.
Media: This man’s a hero!

Maybe you’ve seen a version of this internet meme circulated by shocked and dismayed Christians.  Here’s another one:

Good grief!  When did we Christians get so whiny?  This reminds me of the so-called “War on Christmas” that I blogged about previously . . . it’s the Politics of Petulance.  And petulance is never a good evangelism strategy.

In a bit of synchronicity, Tebow and Collins were both in the news on the same day. Last Monday, Tebow was released by the Jets, and Collins came out as the first openly gay athlete in any of the Big Four professional sports (Football, Baseball, Basketball and Hockey).

A Quick Joke

Now that Jason Collins has admitted he is gay, I wonder when he will make the more difficult confession that he plays for the Wizards.

But Seriously Folks . . .

So some vocal Christians are upset that the mediocre gay basketball center is getting more positive reaction than the mediocre Christian football quarterback.

Last week some parishioners asked me what I thought of the whole Tebow vs. Collins thing.  My answer was that I wished both of them were better athletes.

Tebowing

I like, even admire, Tim Tebow.  He was an awesome college quarterback.  As a pro quarterback, he is still an awesome college quarterback.  He joins a long list of Heisman Trophy winners who flopped in the NFL.  Who can forget the storied pro careers of Andre Ware, Eric Crouch, Danny Wuerffel, and Desmond Howard? (Those last two are particularly painful because they flopped in part with my Redskins.)

Unlike those others who went from the Heisman to the bench to the street, Tebow has millions of dollars in endorsements.  According to his representation, Advertising Age estimated that he could make over 10 million dollars pushing products.  His endorsement potential ranks higher Will Smith, Bill Gates, Hank Aaron, Tom Hanks and Jack Nicklaus. They say he’s “on par with Katy Perry and Beyoncé.”

Beyoncé!

Why?  Because of his incredible success on the NFL gridiron, where he is currently unemployed and last year managed just 6 completions for 39 yards? Sure, his Broncos made it to the playoffs the previous year, but that was more due to the defense than his golden arm.  And one year of so-so passing doesn’t typically translate into all that endorsement loot.

Far from being “persecuted,” Tim Tebow is wealthy and successful (at least off the field) precisely because he has been so outspoken about his faith.  In a nation where more than 3/4 of its citizens identify as Christians, it doesn’t hurt to be associated with one when you want to sell underwear and stuff.

And I say, good for him!  He seems like a nice guy and to be someone who walks the walk as well as talks the talk.  I don’t agree with some key elements of his theology, but Christianity is about relationship with Jesus, not correct religion.

The Center of Attention

Which is why I am also an admirer of Jason Collins.  Did all the Christians who want to bemoan the positive press that Collins got miss that he professed his Christian faith in his coming out statement?  Were they too busy hyperventilating over his sexuality to see this paragraph?

I’m from a close-knit family. My parents instilled Christian values in me. They taught Sunday school, and I enjoyed lending a hand. I take the teachings of Jesus seriously, particularly the ones that touch on tolerance and understanding. On family trips, my parents made a point to expose us to new things, religious and cultural. In Utah, we visited the Mormon Salt Lake Temple. In Atlanta, the house of Martin Luther King Jr. That early exposure to otherness made me the guy who accepts everyone unconditionally.

Look, we Christians can disagree about homosexual behavior.  Just like we disagree about how Creation happened and women pastors and whether to baptize babies.  But in our disagreement, let’s remember that we – all of us Jesus-followers – are the Body of Christ.  Certainly Jesus was someone who not just accepted but reached out to “otherness” and accepted everyone unconditionally . . . except maybe those Pharisees and other religious leaders who clung so tightly to right behavior as the key to salvation.

Can’t we stop obsessing about the specks in other Christian’s eyes (especially when those specks are sexual) and start being more aware of the logs of judgment that are in our own eyes?

It’s not up to us to decide who is “Christian” and who is not.  That job, according to what I read in my Bible, was delegated to Jesus.

And Then There’s Chris Broussard

It was not a job given to folks like ESPN’s Chris Broussard.  Let me be clear – I have no problem with Broussard saying that he believes gay sex is a sin.  But, he crossed the line when he said that because of his sexuality, Collins is not a Christian.  (The exact quote was “So I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don’t think the bible would characterize them as a Christian.”)

Grace, Grace, Grace

This gets at the very root of what it means to be a Christian.  Are we saved by keeping the rules?  Then we are all in big, big trouble.  Are we saved by keeping some special rules, especially the ones about sex?  We’re all still in trouble, because Jesus said if we have lustful thoughts about someone we’ve committed adultery.  (That should cover, well, everybody.)

Or are we saved by the grace of Jesus Christ?  In spite of our imperfections, our failings, and our misinterpretations, it is by grace we are saved.  ”For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

So if they believe Christ is their savior – and I don’t know their hearts so I can’t make that determination -Tim Tebow, Jason Collins, and, yes, Eric Broussard are Christians. Period.

And I admire Tebow for his forthright faith.  But I don’t feel sorry for him or think he’s persecuted in any way, not when Christians around the world are thrown in jail, tortured, and even killed for their faith.  (It would be awesome if all of us American Christians stopped whining about how bad we have it.  It’s not that bad, and if it was, Jesus said we’re blessed when we’re persecuted for our faith.  So either way . . .)  Don’t weep for Tim Tebow.   As a person of European descent and a Christian he is in the majority ethnicity in the majority faith.

And I admire Jason Collins.  If coming out as a gay man in big-time professional sports was so easy, someone would have done it by now.  To be gay and African-American makes him a minority of  a minority, and I see the support he’s getting from “the media” and even from the President as a good and positive sign.

Yes, some folks are upset that a “big deal” is being made about Collins’ sexuality.  I understand that, but it is a big deal because it is something new (at least publicly) and because Collins did evidence courage in being first.

However, I pray for a day when it will truly not be a big deal, when we accept and even love folks no matter who they are.  Sort of, as Jason Collins reminded us, like Jesus did.

Does Being a “Missional” Church Mean Neglecting Each Other?

“The church may be the only organization on the planet that exists entirely for the sake of those people who don’t belong to it yet. In fact, as soon as we forget this and start making it all about ourselves, we stop being the church.” – Kelly Fryer, Reclaiming the L Word: Renewing the Church from Its Lutheran Core

I repeat that quote from Kelly Fryer often.  It succinctly sums up the primary mission of the church, the warrant Jesus gave us in the Great Co-Mission: “GO and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:18, NIV).

But what about those folks already in the church?  Shifting from a we’re-here-to-take-care-of-each-other mentality to a missional focus can be understandably threatening.  Folks in the church  hurt and get sick and die and lose their jobs and have family crises and on and on.  Does being missional mean we say to them, “Deal with it.  That’s not our thing.  It’s not the job Jesus gave us.”

Certainly not!  Remember, Jesus also said this: ““A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34, NIV).

In other words, taking good care of each other is essential to our evangelism.  When we nurture each other, we show the world what love looks like.  The church becomes a living parable of God’s love for the world.

Rather than hitting people over the head with the Bible and focusing on the specks in everyone’s eyes while ignoring the logs in our own, evangelism becomes simply taking the love of Christ beyond the walls of the church and into the world.

There is no conflict between Jesus’ commission to GO and his command to love each other.  As a pastor who often encourages his congregation to be more outward-focused, I realized recently that I need to make that more explicit.   We can only genuinely love the world when we love each other; our “no matter who you are, no matter what you have done” outreach begins with practicing it internally.

Don’t Read this Looking for Answers About God and Boston (or anything else)

I began this day sitting for almost an hour in a large medical office waiting room.  On one wall was a big-screen television, tuned to a local morning news show.  Of course most of the program was devoted to news from the horrific Boston Marathon bombing.  I was trying to focus on the Read the Bible In the Year daily reading on my Kindle, but it was difficult with the bomb blasts and screaming that blared from the TV.

There didn’t seem to be anything new to add to the story; no arrests, no one knows why it was done, and the casualty figures haven’t changed.  So why do we need to see and hear an almost constant loop of explosions, terrified people, bloody sidewalks, and on and on?  Is there a point at which news coverage no longer informs or honors victims and responders, but instead gives confirmation to the perpetrators that what they did was indeed a big, effective deal?  Is there a point at which we become numbed to the images of violence rather than being horrified and outraged?

It’s easy to spew righteous indignation at news organizations, to accuse them of only being worried about ratings rather than their responsibility to inform.  But my guess is that people who make decisions about what to put on television news are people like us – trying their best to do the right thing under the circumstances, sometimes getting it right, sometimes screwing it up.  What they seem to be getting right, at least from my limited exposure this morning, is recognizing the bravery of those who responded to the blasts, the “helpers” as in the oft-posted Mr. Rogers quote.

Anyway, concentrating on the news folks is pointing an accusatory finger at the speck in someone’s eye and ignoring the log in our own eyes.  It is our eyeballs that produce those ratings, our fascination with violence and bloodshed that has spawned the “if it bleeds it leads” philosophy in local television news.  “Why don’t they ever report on good news?” we ask, without admitting the inevitable answer, “Because we won’t watch if they do.”

If we were having an actual conversation, this is the point where some folks would say, “How can you be so upset about violence, Pastor Dave?  There’s all kinds of violence in the Bible.”

And my inevitable answer would be the one I’ve heard from so many Christians committed to non-violence (like me): “But the Bible never glorifies violence.”

And yet . . . the Bible reading I was distracted from this morning was from the book of Joshua.  In those chapters the Israelites under Joshua’s command were wiping out city after city in the Promised Land, putting everyone in those cities – men, women, children, even animals – to the sword (or “cutting the hamstrings of their horses” in one case) and burning down everything else.

As much as we want the God’s Word to be simple, it rarely, if ever, is.  We can try to explain away the difficult passages, but they are there, in all their complexity and, sometimes, brutality.  The Bible doesn’t answer all of the questions that are raised in its pages; we probably wouldn’t understand the answers if it did.  “God’s ways are not our ways,” and some things we just aren’t meant to know.  Ultimately faith is trusting that God knows better than we do and that we have the answers that we need.  Faith is being willing to say, “I don’t know,” even as the supposed expert, The Pastor.

I don’t like that.  I like having all the right answers . . . or all the right questions (Jeopardy).

If the Bible doesn’t have all the answers to the internal questions raised, then why do we expect answers to everything that happens in the world?

Why did what happened in Boston happen? Why did God allow it? 

I don’t know. 

It’s when we try to fill in those gaps from our own biases and limited knowledge that we get into trouble.  Almost any statement that starts, “God did that because,” or “God allowed that because,” is just shy of blasphemy.

I am not called to explanation.  I am called to pray . . . prayer for the families of those who died, prayer for those are injured, prayer for the helpers, prayer for those who endeavor to keep us safe, and prayer for all who are traumatized or re-traumatized by this tragedy.

And yes, prayer for the perpetrator(s).  Jesus has called me to pray for my enemies . . . even when it doesn’t make sense, even when I don’t want to.  I will so pray, perhaps through gritted teeth.

I will pray trusting that God was, is, and will be present.   I will pray while clinging to the cross, where God was present even in the deepest sorrow and tragedy.

I will pray that I will be reminded that it is not what I know, but rather Who I know, that is of ultimate importance.

I will pray the words of the Kyrie:

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Amen.

In the Beginning, God (and then some stuff happened)

I wish Christians would stop fixating on evolution and spend more time talking about Jesus Christ.  Look, if you want to believe that the earth is only 5000 years old, that everything was created in 6 literal days (with a 7th day for resting), that people and dinosaurs hung out together until the big lizards missed the Ark, fine.  Maybe you’re right.

But stop making it seem like creationism is the rock upon which the Christianity stands.

It’s not. Jesus is the Rock.

And it seems that the first chapters of Genesis are much more concerned with  ”Who” rather than “how.”  Maybe we should be, too.

Dawkins vs. Wright, an Unfair Fight

What’s prompted this mini-rant is a video a Facebook friend posted a couple days ago.  Here’s a link to the video; by all means watch it if you’re the kind of person who watches NASCAR to see the car wrecks, because this is one long car wreck of a video (and it goes on for over an hour).

Famed atheist Richard Dawkins “interviews” much less-famed Wendy Wright of “Concerned Women for America.”  After viewing this video, I’m a concerned man for America.  Unfortunately, Ms. Wright uses lots of time debunking (I think that’s what she thinks she’s doing) evolution.  Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist.  A scientist.  Ms. Wright is not.

Dawkins repeatedly offers scientific evidence to back up his insistence that evolution is fact.  Ms. Wright does not, but she keeps asking him for more evidence like  she’s expecting him to pull a dinosaur bone out of his pocket or something.

She mostly talks about how terrible it would be if natural selection really operated in the world.  Like many Christians who attempt to get involved in this kind of argument, her basic fallacy is this: She believes the consequences of evolution being a fact would be detrimental, therefore she will not accept that evolution could be a fact.

But something being positive or negative does not affect its reality.  I think it is terrible that chocolate and peanut butter Easter eggs make me fat if I eat too many.  But it is still a fact.

Unfortunately, Ms. Wright presents as having a closed mind, as her presupposition about the consequences (which are of course irrelevant to the truth/falsehood of the proposition) will always cause her to ignore any facts which do not support her position.  And she just reinforces the stereotype that Christians are folks who prefer to remain ignorant about science, which does no good for our 21st century witness.

This attitude is more reminiscent of the 17th century, of the Roman Catholic church and Galileo.  (Ironically today the RC Church officially has no problem with evolution.)

God is Bigger than the Gaps

The even more basic problem is that some (many?) Christians back up their faith with “God of the gaps” thinking – i.e. God is the explanation for things science does not (yet) explain. As science advances and the gaps get smaller, their faith is threatened, so science becomes the enemy.

As a Christian, there are two things that irk me about this.  First, as I said when I started, when we focus on evolution vs. creationism, we’re not focusing on Jesus.  We are giving people the impression that in order to be a Christian you have to embrace the literal account of creation as described in Genesis 1 (or Genesis 2, they are markedly different).  

It is not a belief in creationism that saves.  It is Jesus Christ.  Period.

So I’m concerned about the effect stuff like this has on our witness to non-Christians.  As I said in a previous post, when I was an unChristian one of the easiest ways to deflect a Christian who was trying to tell me about their faith was to get them going on evolution.  I no longer had to hear about Jesus . . . or about my need for a Savior.

I also feel bad for the Christians themselves who seem to be afraid of science that does not confirm their presuppositions.  It is sad that they cannot see the wonder of scientific discovery as actually revealing the amazing creativity of God.  I’ve blogged before about how my reading and learning about Quantum Physics – the science of the infinitesimally small – has only enhanced my worship of God.  

Science doesn’t and will never disprove the existence of God.  Science only reveals – gives glimpses of, really – a God of Wonders.

Let me throw out some Scripture here:

From Romans 1:20 – “By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being.” (The Message)

Psalm 19:1 - God’s glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.” (The Message)

Evolution Is Not the Boogeyman

God is not threatened by evolution.  Faith does not have to crumble in the face scientific evidence for natural selection.

The most incredible miracle I ever witnessed was the birth of my daughter.  Science can describe how she physically came to be – from the union of the egg and the sperm, through the stages of fetal development and finally the tiny, beautiful person in my hands.

That didn’t make her any less of a miracle.

Science can explain a lot about how things work in the world.  Who knows, maybe science will even be able to someday explain what happened before the Big Bang (one of those “gaps” that some Christians hold onto to “prove” the existence of God).

But no amount of scientific discovery will ever be able to diminish the absolute wonder of the universe that God has created – whatever “created” means in the context of how God has operated in the universe to bring it into being and to sustain it.

“Happy Lent”? – An Ash Wednesday Homily

“Happy New Year!”  “Happy Easter!”  “Merry Christmas!”  “Happy Fourth of July!”  “Happy Groundhog Day!”  Happy Birthday!”

These happy greetings are appropriate for most holidays and special occasions.

“Happy Ash Wednesday!”  “Happy Lent!”

That just doesn’t sound right, does it?  Ash Wednesday, and the Lenten season we begin today, are not thought of as happy times.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Mardi Gras takes place right before Lent, as if a special time is needed to wring out all the happiness before the suffering of Lent begins.

It’s true – Lent is not meant to be a time of exuberant celebration.  It’s a season for quiet introspection – for looking inward to see where we fall short.  That’s certainly no fun.

Lent is a time for honesty – a time for reality.  You know those pictures of yourself that make you wince because “I really don’t look like that, do I?”  That’s the soul-picture we get when we take an honest look inward.

Being honest with ourselves can be painful.  Especially when the standards we use are unattainable . . . as they are during Lent.  During this season we are encouraged to hold up the Ten Commandments against our words, deeds – and this one is especially humbling – even our thoughts.

We’ll find that we break all ten of the Commandments.  Before you protest, remember that Jesus said if we get angry at someone we’ve broken the commandment about murdering, and he holds us to a similarly high standard for our thoughts when it comes to the sixth commandment.

If we don’t come away from our Ten Commandments checkup feeling miserable enough about ourselves, there is the other standard we are called to hold up against ourselves – the perfection of Jesus Christ.

That’s worse than comparing our singing voices to a great opera singer or our basketball talents to LaBron James.  We will inevitably fall short.  We will be found wanting.

“All have sinned and  fallen short of the glory of God.”  All means all.  ALL of us have fallen – and keep falling – short of God’s glory.

It is during Lent that we are invited to get in touch with what that really means – what it means that we have let God down over and over again.

“Happy Lent” indeed.

It reminds me of when I was growing up and I would be mean to my younger sister.  My mom would send me to my room – sometimes to sit in a hard chair in the very middle of the room away from any distractions.  “You sit there and think about what you’ve done,” she would say.

Needless to say, that was the last thing I would think about.  “How much longer” was about as deep as I got.

Maybe that’s why I ended up in that room and on that chair over and over.

Lent gives us 40 days to think about what we’ve done.  Are we going to plod through this season asking, “How much longer?”  “How many days to Easter?”  Or are we going to make good use of it?

We began worship this evening with the 51^st Psalm.  It reminds us that we are hopeless when it comes to being sinners – “Indeed I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”  We never had a chance.  We are, in the words of the old George Thorogood song, “Bad to the Bone.”  Actually, we are worse: we are bad to the SOUL.

After that dose of hard reality from the 51^st Psalm, we had ashes placed on our foreheads that remind us of the inevitable result of our sinfulness.  “Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  The inevitable result of sin is DEATH.  We are DYING; that’s what the ashes on our foreheads proclaim.

Our sin and our sinfulness are killing us.

By the way, did I wish you a happy Ash Wednesday?

BUT . . . when I smeared those ashes on your forehead this evening I did my best to leave them there in the shape of a cross.  Because Lent is not just a time of introspection, a time of looking inward . . . it is a time of looking at the CROSS.

No, that’s not strong enough.  If we get real with ourselves about our spiritual condition, and we let it sink in that we’re literally dying of sin, then we won’t just look at the cross.  We won’t just stand under the cross.  No, in the words of the hymn we sang earlier (Rock of Ages) we’ll CLING to the cross.  It’s our only hope.

The ashes in the shape of the cross proclaim that there is something more powerful than death, something that defeated death and sin and Satan once and for all.  The cross.

The ashy cross on our foreheads retraces another cross smeared on our foreheads by the thumb of a pastor.  That other cross was drawn in oil, not ash, and it was made there on your forehead after you were baptized into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  When the pastor made that Cross, he called you a child of God and said that you had been “sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the Cross of Christ FOREVER.”

We speak of Lent as a journey to the cross.  But really we are on a journey from cross to cross to cross – from the cross in our baptism to the cross of ash to the Cross of Jesus Christ that we will remember on Good Friday.  It is a journey that we make every year, and Ash Wednesday is the way-station on that journey.  Ash Wednesday is a day of preparation, a day to look at what really and finally matters.

What does really and finally matter?  The cross, and our relationship with the Savior who submitted to death on that Cross.

Lent is a time to restore that relationship to its rightful place in our lives.  There are disciplines Christians have practiced for 100’s of years that help us do that, especially prayer, fasting, and acts of service.

But no matter what WE do to enhance our experience of Lent, the good news of this season is the same Good News we proclaim the rest of the year – that our hope is not in what we do, but in what Jesus already did!

So, I guess if the day Jesus died on the Cross can be called “Good Friday,” we can say, “Happy Lent.”

But the greeting I prefer is “Have a blessed Lent,” because it centers not on a fleeting emotion but rather on blessing, which can only come from God.  And one of the great blessings of Lent is this opportunity to take that honest look at ourselves and realize how sinful we are.

You might wonder, “And how is that a blessing?” Because it is only then that we can even begin to appreciate God’s grace, to understand that we really don’t deserve the forgiveness and salvation poured out in Christ’s blood on the Cross, but that God offers them anyway for the most basic of reasons – just because God loves YOU.

No matter who you are, no matter what you have done.

Have a blessed Lent.

(Based on a homily preached at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church of Millersville on Ash Wednesday 2013.)

Really? (or, Red Lights Aren’t Just on Christmas Trees)

There are a couple of ways you can pronounce the title of today’s blog post.  “Really?!” is a statement of joyful disbelief, when you can’t believe our good fortune.  You got the job you didn’t think you were qualified for.  You passed the test you didn’t study for.  “Really?!”  It’s what you might say Christmas morning  if you find a big gift under the tree that you weren’t expecting.  “Really?!”

The other pronunciation is more exasperation.  Someone lets you down.  You find out the meeting you thought was at 9 was actually at 8:30.  “Really?”  You wake up Christmas morning to find socks under the tree.  “Really?”  I got to use both pronunciations one morning the week before Christmas.

You can probably figure out that the pre-Christmas week is a busy one for a pastor.  There’s a lot of places to be and people to see, extra sermons to write, and so on.  You’ve also got to take care of family stuff, which I was doing during a rare free hour one morning late in the week.  I was heading down Richie Highway to pick up Karen’s Christmas Present.  I was hurrying down the road – well not really hurrying because I was catching every light red.  I approached the next intersection and just then the light turned yellow.

“Really?”

I came to a quick stop.    I was first in line and figured it would be a while before the light turned green again because it had to go through all its sequence, so I took out my smartphone and did what you’re not supposed to do in the car.  I checked my calendar and my e-mail and so on.  I was stopped, I figured, what’s the harm?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw cars begin to move in my direction.  So I started forward – slowly, because I was focused on shutting off my cell phone.

The car horn really surprised me.

You see, the cars I had seen moving were in the left turn lane.

Really?

The folks trying to turn left coming from the other direction weren’t too happy with me.  They were the ones honking.  I’m glad they stopped!

This is really stupid, I thought.  I was embarrassed.

At least embarrassment was my main emotion until I noticed the lights flashing in my rearview mirror.  Now, I’ve been driving almost 35 years and can’t remember ever running a red light.  Now, I had gone through this one at low speed and guess who was RIGHT behind me?

Really?

That’s right – an Anne Arundel Sherriff’s Deputy.  Those lights flashing in my rearview mirror were red and blue.  What are the odds?  It had to be the easiest violation this guy had ever seen.

So I sort of froze, then I pulled over in the closest place I could – off to the left across the intersection.  Richie Highway doesn’t have a real shoulder on the left side, so I was mostly still in the road.  I wasn’t thinking too clear at that point.

Oh, the other thing I did when I pulled over was put the car in neutral, pull on the emergency brake (I drive a 5-speed) and just reflexively unbuckle my seatbelt.

Really?

Anyway, the deputy got on his loudspeaker.  “PULL OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE.”  I had the radio on and didn’t really hear what he said, but I could tell he was talking to me and wasn’t real happy.  So I turned down the radio and sort of shrugged my shoulders.  “PULL OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE, IDIOT.”  He didn’t say that last word, but it was there in his tone.

So I did.  After a while he walked up to my car.  Now, I was wearing a clerical shirt but he stood sort of back from the window so he couldn’t see it.  I had to resist that urge to try to use that in my favor and twist my body all the way toward him – “Hey, I’m a pastor!”  But I didn’t.

He said, “Are you okay?”  He sounded real concerned about my mental state.

All I said was, “I messed up.”  And I handed him my license.  At that point I realized my seatbelt was unbuckled.

He walked back to the car.  I was doing two things while he was back there – praying and adding.  I guess it’s obvious why I was praying.  The adding was my trying to figure out how much the tickets – running a red light, no seatbelt – and my insurance increase would be.

Finally he came back.  He handed me my documents back and a yellow piece of paper.  “I’m giving you a warning today.  Next time, be careful.”

“Really?!”

That was an honest exclamation, but it didn’t sound quite right.  So I quickly added, “Yes sir, thank you sir.”  And I very carefully pulled back into traffic.

I deserved a ticket that morning.

I didn’t get one.

That, my friends, is GRACE.

Grace is not being punished when you deserve it.  Grace is the GIFT of forgiveness when you most certainly don’t deserve it.

Grace is Christ on the Cross, dying for your sins and mine.

Really!

(Adapted from the opening of my Christmas Eve sermon at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church of Millersville.)