Last Night’s Dream: Trapped in Winn Dixie with a Vampire

Cassie and I were trapped inside a  Winn Dixie/JC Penny mixed store in a manner reminiscent of Jonathan Harker being trapped in Count Dracula’s castle. It was late at night and a female vampire was stalking us, playing tricks on us, and trying to lead us into her vampire lair. We found this little girl roaming around looking for her mom. But just as we were trying to help her, the female vampire came around the corner.

We scooped the little girl up and ran, somehow making it out the automatic doors, which before then had caged us inside. We ran to our car and escaped. The only problem was: the little girl’s mom was the vampire. She hunted us down like rabbits. We would’ve died when she found us, but since it was only a dream, she suddenly changed character and became really nice and thanked us for finding her daughter and keeping her safe.

The Best Foot Forward Pt. 2

Sermon #2 on the Genealogy of Jesus in Matthew Chapter 1. This one specifically focuses on the women in the genealogy. It goes about a half hour, which is way too short to cover all the beauty of these women’s stories and Matthew’s reasons for including their names.

http://www.mylhumc.net/502652.ihtml

Amnesia Leads to Idolatry, To Remember is to Worship

Amnesia leads to idolatry.

Amnesia leads to idolatry.

Amnesia leads to idolatry.

Throughout the biblical text, the followers of the LORD in the Old Testament and the disciples of Jesus in the New Testament were continually reminded to “remember.” One of the greatest sins for an ancient Jew was to forget the saving, liberating work of God in the Exodus. And by “forget” I am not merely speaking of a cognitive function of thinking about a past event, but am speaking of living life in light of some other offer of salvation, some other “god’s” promise of a better life instead of in light of being Yahweh’s chosen people.

In other words, in the Bible, remembering = living one’s life in light of the saving works of God (i.e. the Exodus, the Cross) and not trusting other deities/forces/governments for salvation or liberation, but only the God who brought us up out of (real and metaphorical) Egypt.

To forget these great acts of God (that is, to live like they don’t matter or to live like they don’t have an ultimate claim on our daily lives) is to have amnesia. Amnesia leads to idolatry. To fail to live in light of the cross and by what the cross demands of us, is to live by the standards of another god (money, power, violence, hatred, etc.). To live by the standards of another god, is to be a worshipper of that God. To be a worshipper of that God is to be an idol worshipper. Therefore, Amnesia leads to idolatry.

If I am right about this, then what the American church needs is not more self-help seminars, pep-talks, conferences, petitions, picket signs, money, or statements of conviction. What the American church needs most of all is to REMEMBER!

We need to remember that our lives are not our own, they do not belong to us, and we cannot do with them as we want. We need to remember that we have been bought with a price, and we owe our allegiances, loves, and gifts to the One who paid for us. We need to remember that the cross of Jesus was an act of love for God’s enemies, and therefore we, as followers of that cross-hung savior, are required of nothing less. We need to remember that the God of creation is a God of abundance and generosity and therefore we, as people who recognize ourselves as His creation, ought also to be ready to give up everything we own in emulation of His generosity and in trust of His abundance. And we need a good recovery (remembrance) of the biblical text as the starting point for thinking about God, politics, family, and enemies so that we might frame our opinions out of the text instead of out of our pre-fabricated notions of what is “possible” or even “right.”

Such remembering may go against our assumptions of private property, our notions of what is right and wrong concerning revenge, and our preferences regarding comfort and ease. But such remembering leads to true worship, while the alternative of amnesia leads to idolatry.

To remember is to worship.

To remember is to worship.

To remember is to worship.

Thy Will Be Done

Maybe You'll Stumble on God's Will Next Try!!

What if God’s will isn’t like a maze? What if one wrong move doesn’t end up in a dead end, forcing you to return 4 or 5 turns before you get back to where you messed up?

What if God’s will isn’t like a labyrinth where around every corner is a mythological lion telling you odd riddles with ambiguous answers that you have to figure out to make sure you’re perfectly in line with God’s will and capable of moving on to the next level?

What if instead, God’s will is like a mighty flowing river or a vast ocean of love that you can swim in without worrying about drowning? What if God’s will is about freedom and enjoyment instead of the burden of messing up?

And what if there’s no such thing as “God’s will for my life” because God has much larger purposes at stake – namely the redemption of the entire cosmos? What if God’s will is more about the community called “church” being the body of Christ, living in cruciform love, in order to work with God for the redemption of the world?

I dunno. Maybe I’m a bit naive or haven’t thought this out enough. But it just seems to me that when I read the New Testament, God has much larger purposes in the world than caring about whether or not I’m walking some pseudo-religious tight-rope I’ve labeled “God’s will.” I could be wrong, but I can’t think of a single place in the New Testament that talks about God’s will for ‘my’ life.

Maybe we need to rethink this whole idea of God’s will in light of the community called ‘church,’ the cross of Christ (which does not care primarily for ‘me’), and God’s purposes in redeeming the world.

If we’re going to say, ‘Not my will, but Yours be done’, wouldn’t it make sense to consider that His will is primarily about the reconciliation of the entire world to Himself through self-sacrifice and self-giving love instead of self-centeredness and self-focus on God’s will for ‘my’ individual life?  That just seems to me to be more of the focus of the New Testament.

Theology Gone Funny: Debating Calvinism

Too close to reality!

HT: Hank Imler – One of my favorite Calvinist sparring partners!

The Best Foot Forward Pt. 1

Here’s my first sermon at Lynn Haven UMC, if anyone is interested.

http://www.mylhumc.net/502652.ihtml

In the future, I will be just providing this link and the title of the sermon when there’s a new one. From there you can go to the page and the tabs on the display will lead you to whatever sermon you want to listen to – by me or by others from LHUMC.

Of course, it would be nicer if I could just post the actual audio here, but apparently I have to pay money to do a space upgrader to my blog page – which I’m not going to do. So you can download the messages as MP3′s and play them on your own time, if you like.

For My Basketball Peeps…This is Ridiculous!

http://thebubble.msn.com/#/video/?id=c463fc73-3cd4-4725-a213-cf32f97bfcd9

Sorry, couldn’t manage to get the actual video to load here. But it’s worth your time to check this video out.

The Safest Place to Be is Outside the Will of God

I know that church signs are easy pickings for a good rant, but every once in a while one seems just close enough to biblical, and yet so far away, that it is worth noting.

I pass a sign every day that reads, “The safest place to be is within the will of God.”

I think I understand what the people want to convey with such a sign – that God is ultimately our protector and shepherd who gives us comfort and wards us from evil. But in an American Christianity held captive by sentimentality and safety, I think the church sign sends the wrong message – namely that God is here for your safety and He will protect you from all wrong; that a life in the will of God (whatever that means!) will bring comfort and ease. In other words, it promises “peace, peace, when there is no peace.”

The problem is that this safety is, of course, never promised to us in Scripture.

You never once heard Jesus saying to the disciples, “Hey guys, don’t worry about the Romans. They don’t like me much, but you guys shouldn’t have a problem with them. Once I’m gone, I’m pretty sure they’ll leave you alone.”

No, quite to the contrary, Jesus tells them that before they follow him they are to be fully aware that this can only end in a cross. Death is where this Christianity thing is headed – therefore count the cost!

Jesus didn’t come to give us safe, sentimental religion. Jesus came to call us to revolution – to a life that is not afraid of death or those who can bring death because we believe that Christ has defeated death and our ultimate end is resurrection.

Safe, sentimental religion is not Christianity. Christianity is a religion of self-sacrifice not safety, death not sentimentality.

Therefore, quite contrary to the church sign, the most dangerous place to be in this life might very well be within the will of God. If you want safety, run from Christianity. If you want sentimentality, flee as fast as you can because the way of Jesus is the way of a cross.

A Conversation with My Wife

Upon seeing my pregnant wife moving the refrigerator across the kitchen…

Me: What in the world are you doing?

Cassie: Nuthin.

Me: You were scooting the fridge across the kitchen floor all by yourself.

Cassie: (guilt rises in the air, but all I hear is birds chirping)

Me: You know you’re pregnant right?

Cassie: (more guilt-rideen birds join the chirping chorus)

Me: And it’s 9:30 at night.

Cassie: I just want this to fit in the cupboard. (this being some random object)

Me: That’s called changing the subject.

Cassie: (another verse of chirping birds)

Me: Well, in that case, I’ll let you go back to moving the fridge across the kitchen floor at 9:30 at night, great with child, and without help.

There’s No “I” in “Gospel”

What’s the difference between people who thrive in their faith and those who do not? What’s the difference between the guy who, with no conscience, walks away from the faith and the girl who stays faithful her entire life? How come some people take their faith seriously and others pack a pew their entire life, assuming passive Christianity to be their own personal Fire Insurance?

These questions are tough and multifaceted. Indeed, in some ways they are highly individualized because people simply have different reasons for their varying levels of faithfulness.

I don’t know what keeps other people faithful, but for me, I have always found that surrounding myself with edgy, uplifting, patient, and challenging people keep me spiritually alive.

My wife and I have always tried to surround ourselves with phenomenal people – people who don’t assume status quo Christianity is the norm, but see Christianity as at least a life-altering reality and at best a revolution against “the way things are.”

It is hard to be apathetic about your faith when you’re surrounded by people who are so passionately involved in ministry. It is hard to be ambivalent about the Scriptures when you surround yourself with people who view all of life through that lens and aren’t afraid of the tough life questions they raise. And it’s hard to not care about the gospel when you surround yourself with people who pursue God with intentionality and passion.

This isn’t to say that I don’t struggle or sin. It’s just to say that without a community of quality friends around me to lift me up, rebuke me, or simply offer a word of advice, I would probably never get up after I fall. We weren’t made to do this Christianity thing on our own. We were made to do it together.