Kethuvim

Over thanksgiving I went to my in-laws. This isn't the real story though. At some point we passed a church in their area and I saw a sign that made me do a double-take. They had a sign out front that was adverstising their coming Christmas dinner theater. The name of the dinner theater? Extreme Christmas. No wait...X-treme Christmas. After I finished laughing, I thought, "What exactly is extreme (x-treme) about the Christmas story?" Then I thought, "Didn't the "X-treme" marketing thing end like 10 years ago?" Apparently not.

I started perusing the Christmas story in the Bible and I didn't find the part where the baby Jesus burst from the womb on a snowboard holding a Mountain Dew. Perhaps I missed it. Wasn't the first beatitude "Blessed are the gnarly, for they will inherit the surf"? Anyway, I really wish I could get tickets to this dinner theater to watch the angels and wise men doing 360s and fakies. Good stuff.

In Isaiah 11, we read of the Branch from Jesse. This is a prophecy of the coming Mashiach (for those of you Hebrew speaking types), or Messiah (if you prefer to stick to English). At the tail end of verse three it says this about this man who is to come:

"He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears."

As Christians, we believe that this passage obviously speaks of Jesus. If we're going to agree that the point of being a disciple of a rabbi is to be like the rabbi, then I believe we need to pay serious heed to this statement in Isaiah. It says that Jesus did not judge by what he sees or hears about someone. This means that Jesus used some other way to make his calls about someone's character. Jesus looked at the heart of a person to determine who they really were. See his statements to the religious leaders when he calls them dirty cups, whitewashed tombs, etc. He basically told them that on the outside they looked great and together, but on the inside they were filled with death.

Does anyone else suck as badly at this deal as I do? I think it's human nature to see someone and immediatey make a judgment call on their personality. To be like Jesus in this area takes a tremendous effort of our wills with the nudging of the Holy Spirit. It takes a constant prayer of, "Lord, let me see people as you do."

I want to be the type of person that doesn't judge by what I see or hear about a person. I want to be a person that can see past all of the superficial crap in a person, and see their heart. I guess I want to be like Jesus, but I know I have so far to go.

I was listening to The Wall by Pink Floyd tonight because, well, it's awesome, and I got to thinking about the implications of the famous line "all in all you're just another brick in the wall." I'm a big believer that all truth is God's truth and that God co-opts little bits of truth from the world and makes them his own. Look at Paul's words to the men of Athens in the book of Acts, look at Paul's words to Titus, "as the pagan poets say..." Anyway, back to Pink Floyd.

I got to thinking about this phrase. I decided that you can look at this line in a couple of different ways. There may be more ways to look at it, but my limited cerebral capacity can only handle so much. You can look at this line from a negative viewpoint (which, incidently, is probably the way it was written) or a positive viewpoint. Let's look at the negative first (that way we can end on a happy fun note, because we know that Jesus hates sorrow right?).

On the negative, the line, "all in all you're just another brick in the wall" means that, at the end of the day, everything is hopeless because you're nothing special. You're no prize, no one is. We all share the same fate as being just bricks in the wall of life. What's the point in striving for anything if you're just another brick in the wall? What's the point in thinking you can make a difference in the world if everything is pointless? It's an almost nihilistic viewpoint of life ("We believe in nussing. Yeah, nussing Lebowski"). About two of you will get that joke.

Now for the positive. You can look at this from a Kingdom of God point of view. By the way, save the comments concerning my overstating the song and it's meaning; remember the God co-opting truth thing. We may be bricks in the wall, but bricks in God's wall. We're all a small part of something infinitely larger than we are. A wall that has no beginning and no end. A wall that goes on forever. As bricks in this wall, we are created with the ability to do great things. It's more of a teamwork thing. We can all, as bricks, do what we can to build the wall of God's Kingdom. Just a thought. Totally random, but it made sense to me, so back off.

Howdy everyone (read: "all four of you"). I just returned from Nashville with 25% of my reading audience. We went to the Youth Specialties convention and "learned more about youth ministry" (read: "watched a great deal of football"). It was a good convention I suppose. There were 7500 youth ministers there, which meant that we had to hold the main sessions in the Gaylord Entertainment Center (I'll let you stop laughing before I go on)...which is where the Nashville Predators play hockey. My brother and I noticed something quite funny during the main sessions. Did I say "funny"? I meant "damning."

They sold concessions at the main sessions. I'm not just talking about Testamints and Jesus-flavored fruit drinks, I'm talking about popcorn, hot dogs, and the such. So we're standing there "worshipping God" while the guy next to us is masticating a tube of faux meat on a bun. I asked myself, "Self, what would a non-Christian think if they came in and someone was singing to Jesus while cramming their gullet full of popcorn?" Has our consumerism become such a problem that making ourselves more obese can't be put aside for an hour or so of worship? I was slightly perturbed, because if you were an outsider looking in, you would think it was just another concert. I'm pretty sure if we were living in the Old Testament times, the entire arena would have collapsed on us all. Thank you Lord for your mercy and patience. Any thoughts?

"Out of the adundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." - Jesus

Isn't it amazing how words that were spoken by Jesus so long ago still apply today? It's obvious that Pat Robertson's heart is filled with hatred and war, because this is the type of language he uses. Jesus' statement is pretty straight-forward; if you speak hate, you're filled with hate, if you speak love, your heart is full of love. The buck doesn't stop with Pat Robertson though. It isn't really about Pat Robertson at all, it's about us. God will deal with Pat Robertson in whatever way sees fit. But, in turn, he'll deal with us in the same way.

It's easy for us to sit back and throw stones, but what are we doing to change the perception? Whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, guys like Pat Robertson are the mouth pieces for "Christianity." They are the loudest and most vocal, therefore, they are the ones who shape people's opinion of Christ and his Church. Obviously with statements like Robertson's, people's opinion of Jesus and Christianity is marred and not necessarily positive. So what are we doing differently? It's easy to sit back, piss and moan about this guy, and wish curses upon him, but are we throwing our voice out there (however small it may be) to change the way people see Jesus? Are we feeding the poor? Are we loving unconditionally, even our enemies? Are spreading peace wherever we go? If not, then we're in the same boat.

These are some things I've been thinking about...man, I hate it when the Spirit convicts me.

Televangelist warns of evolution doomsday

WASHINGTON - Conservative Christian televangelist Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting “intelligent design” and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.

Robertson, a former Republican presidential candidate and founder of the influential conservative Christian Broadcasting Network and Christian Coalition, has a long record of similar apocalyptic warnings and provocative statements.

Last summer, he hit the headlines by calling for the assassination of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, one of President Bush’s most vocal international critics.

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city,” Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, “The 700 Club.”

“And don’t wonder why he hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for his help because he might not be there,” he said.

The 700 Club claims a daily audience of around 1 million. It is also broadcast around the world, translated into more than 70 languages. (People for the American Way provided a video file of the 700 Club statement.)

In voting Tuesday, all eight school board members up for re-election in Dover, Pa., lost their seats after trying to introduce “intelligent design” to high-school science students as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

Adherents of intelligent design argue that certain forms in nature are so complex that they are best seen as the handiwork of a designer rather than the result of natural selection. Opponents say it is the latest attempt by conservatives to introduce religion into the school science curriculum.

The Dover case sparked a trial in federal court that gained nationwide attention after the school board was sued by parents backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The board ordered schools to read students a short statement in biology classes informing them that the theory of evolution is not established fact and that gaps exist in it.

The statement mentioned intelligent design as an alternate theory and referred students to a book that explained the theory further. A decision in the case is expected before the end of the year.

In 1998, Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Fla., that it risked hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorist bombs after it allowed homosexual organizations to put up rainbow flags in support of sexual diversity. (End article)

This guy has to be stopped. How did the peaceful message of Jesus get turned into a threat-based, hate-filled message. I hate the fact that God loves Pat Robertson too. He is the type of person that Jesus had no tolerance for. I love drug dealers more than I do Pat Robertson. He has done more damage to Christ in his 110 years of being on TV than anyone else. The church has to unite and put an end to this guy's television career.

Holy crap, I'm in the process of applying for a passport to go to Africa...and I'm failing miserably! Since 9-11, apparently our "government" has decided that they will make it just a fraction under impossible to aquire a passport. I'm printing off the application as I type this and I'm hoping it will be done printing in three hours. I didn't have to fill out this much stuff when I bought my house. On top of the application, you have to bring in approximately 300 documents proving that you're alive and not a terrorist. Because we all know that if you weren't born in the United States, you are, without a doubt, a terrorist/communist/fascist/anarchist. I'm guessing that before Bush is out of office, we will probably have to undergo a rectal scan in order to obtain a passport.

I think on line 37 I have to provide the date of my last bowel movement, as well as a sample in a petri dish. On line 1,230, I have to provide a test tube full of my mother's afterbirth in order for them to test it for American patriotism. Once this is all completed, I will hopefully be declared an American citizen worthy of traveling to some less free country.

The best part of the application is I have to provide two "recent" photos of myself. This is quite interesting. If I didn't think I would spend the rest of my life eating stale bread at Guantanamo Bay while a soldier hooks up electrodes to my nipples, I think it would be hilarious to submit a picture of myself holding a grenade with a t-shirt on that says, "slaughter the infidels." I laugh just thinking about it.

Anyway, wish me luck as I try to prove that I'm patriotic enough to want to leave the country for two weeks in February.

I'm tired of hearing about the end times. I'm tired of people pointing to wars, riots, tornadoes, and record hurricanes and saying without any sort of reservation, "We are living in the end times." The fact is that we might be, but we may not be either. Everyone is so freaking busy plotting Jesus' next move, that they forget to try and take someone with them when he actually does come. Here's my opinion, who cares when he comes back, just be ready.

Jesus himself bascially says that the day and the hour is unknown, even to him. There's another story in the beginning of Acts that I think is fairly telling in all of this. In Acts 1, some of Jesus' followers ask him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus' response is, "As long as you really want me to and accurately predict it." Just kidding, his actual response is this:

"It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Let me give you the New Polley Version of these verses, "It's none of your freaking business, go do something about helping the world; go tell people about me."

Let's face it, the only reason preachers keep preaching that we're living in the end times, is that they figure they can scare a few more people into warming the pews in their church. I hate that crap. It drives me crazy. Jesus never scared anyone into believing that he was their Savior, why do we feel like we have to do it? If a church feels like they have to scare people into Jesus, then frankly, that church sucks. Plain and simple. They have nothing to offer people, so they try and freak them out enough, that they'll "come to Jesus." And the hits just keep on rolling...

I was reading in 1 John today and read a great passage. "Anyone who claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." How great is that? How many people in churches are actually doing it? Am I?
The point of being a disciple of a rabbi was to live as the rabbi lived. We've exchanged this for "teach what the rabbi teaches" and "soak up as much information about the rabbi as possible." This passge is telling us to simply live as the rabbi lived. Walk as he walked. Respond to people as he responded to people. There's a great ancient rabbinical statement that said, "May you be covered in the dust from your rabbi's feet." In other words, cling as closely as you can to him. This is what John is getting at. How would our churches, communities, country, and world be different if Christians took this seriously? How would things be different if ministers took this seriously? Ouch.

I was driving in town today and I saw a church sign that said, "Free wight-loss class, Tuesday night 8:00. Public Welcome." I have no problem with churches offering weight loss classes, God knows we can use them in this country. However, the message on the sign tells us a great deal about the state of the American Church. Does anyone else find it sad that a church has to put "public welcome" on a sign in relation to one of their programs? Is it possible that this isn't as harmless as it sounds?

The fact is that people should know that they are welcome to a church for anything. It's obvious that this church felt it important to put on their sign that the public is welcome because there is a perception among the public that they need an invitation to church. I don't fault this church for their message, I fault the Church as a whole for closing themselves off for so long, that people think they need a personal invitation to come. Man, do we have a lot of work to do.

Seeing as how Halloween is upon us, I've been thinking some about masks. A mask, by definition, is something that we wear so that our real identity can be hidden. The masks I'm talking about should not be confused with "The Mask," a nightmarishly awful Jim Carrey movie from the 90s. But I digress. A mask is used to reveal identity, this is why thieves often wear them to hide their true selves from the cameras and/or employess that are robbing.

Well, I've been thinking about masks a great deal this week because of church. This past Sunday, I preached a sermon on breathing and talked about all of the crap that we carry around with us. We were not created to carry around all of this junk that we carry with us. God desires us to breathe that stuff out to him, so that we can breathe him in. At the end ofthe sermon, I asked people to come forward to be prayed with if they needed it. My thinking being that if they would come forward, someone could bear their burden with them (I think that's in the Bible somewhere), therefore making it easier to breathe out. Guess what happened? No one came forward. This problem is that I know for a fact that we have some people in our church dealing with some heavy stuff. Stuff that they can't handle alone. Stuff that they need to breathe out. So after the service, someone came to me and asked me to pray for something. My wife then told me on the way home that someone told her that they wanted to go forward but were embarrassed.

Who are we trying to fool? Everyone in churches are so self-sufficient and closed off, that nothing ever gets revealed in the open. We're so afraid that someone may see us for who we are; a messy person. I would be willing to bet that 90% of the people sitting in the church had something they needed prayer for. Maybe it was a secret sin, maybe it was depression, an addiction, whatever. It's no wonder American Christians are so screwed up. We're all a mess, but we put on a facade of perfection. If we can't be open at church with our brothers and sisters, then we're in serious trouble. We have to regain this ability to be open with each other.

Jesus had a term for people who wear masks...hypocrite. The word "hypocrite" is derived from a Greek theater term that spoke of "painted faces" or "actors." Jesus couldn't stand actors. He couldn't stand people that were polished on the outside, and dead on the inside. He realized that life was found in the heart and wearing masks and pretending that everything was ok, didn't lead to life.

It's time to put away the masks and be real. Our lives depend on it.

I have another thought from Brother Lawrence, who just so happens to be my favorite 17th century Parisian monk. I was reading in "The Practice of the Presence of God" yesterday and this statement caught my eye:

"God desires to possess our heart completely; if we do not empty it of everything other than himself, he cannot act nor do there what he pleases."

Ok, so good thoughts from Brother Larry, but it raises some questions for me. How does someone get smart enough to say something so simple, so eloquently? What does it mean to let God possess your heart completely? What does that look like? Is this something that is possible for us to do outside of the cloister? If so, how the crap do you do it? When you go to a Chinese buffet, when have you eaten enough to lose your self-respect?

I agree wholeheartedly with Brother Lawrence that God desires all of us (i.e. "deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me"), not just part of us. He wants it all. I'm just wondering how this is possible in today's world, with so many distractions around us. Even in ministry, most of my week is consumed with doing busy work that has very little to do with Jesus at all. I'm so frail, like all of us, and I get distracted so easily, I sometimes wonder if he even has 10% of my heart. I'm almost sure that most of our problems (including my own) exist because we haven't allowed God to have all of us, so he hasn't been allowed to "do there what he pleases."

I know very few people who have an effective prayer life. You know what I mean by "effective," when they pray, things happen. In my own life, my prayers rarely seem to work, which isn't God's fault at all, it's mine. Maybe if our hearts were tuned in to God's frequency, we would notice that stuff happens when we pray. I don't know, maybe I'm off track, it wouldn't be the first time. Any thoughts?

P.S. I'm not sure when it is you cross the line of self-respect at a Chinese buffet, but I'm sure I cross it just about every time. Mmmmmmm...General Tso's Chicken...

This past week, I had the privilege to visit a new mom and baby in the hospital. As i was sitting there, looking at this beautiful baby, I got this really weird feeling. I started thinking about the fact that, as I was sitting there, someone on the other side of the hosptial was laying in intensive care on life support. As this family was feeling joy at their new life, another was experiencing deep sadness at bad news from a doctor. I don't know, it was just one of those times where the dichotomy between life and death became very real to me. It was strange to have this sense of life and death going on all around you in the same building. Does anyone else ever have times like this?

I heard on the news this morning that a mother in San Francisco chucked her kids off of a pier and into SanFrancisco bay. Not only did she have the nerve (or whatever the freak it is that makes someone do this) to do it, she did it in front of people.

This raises a number of questions for me. How do you get to the point in your life where you would do something like that? What circumstances contributed to this action? What went through her head in the moments leading up to it? Where is God in all of this? What does he think when he sees something like this happening? How does he keep himself from vaporizing her into billions of particles for killing her children? Finally, how far does his grace extend?

Here in lies the greatest mystery of God. He is a God of judgment and a God of love. Are the scales really balanced? Does his love trump his judgment, or does his judgment trump his love. Who knows if the woman will even ask for forgiveness for what she has done. God is a great paradox, it seems that he is full of contradictions at times. I guess my thoughts extend from the fact that I want a nice, predictable God who dances when I play the fiddle, and always acts in the same way. To be a being who is both judgment and mercy, wrath and love, seems incongruous to me, but maybe that's why I follow God. Maybe deep down in the recesses of my heart, I need this adventurous Deity who is wild and seemingly erratic. Maybe that's what draws me to him.

Whatever he is thinking right now about this woman, I am sure that he loves her, although his heart breaks for her and her children. This Sunday, this family will be on the prayer lists of many churches and I'm guessing only a handful of churches will pray for the mother. Join me now in praying this prayer for this mother, who in a moment of senselessness, killed her children.

Almighty and Everlasting Father, we pray now for this woman in San Francisco who desperately needs you. Her actions, Lord, are both despicable and disgusting, and yet she is your creation, who needs an invasion of your Holy Spirit. There will be those, Father, who will call for her immediate death, but we pray for her life. May your grace cover her and release her from the power of the Enemy, and may you give her life, even in the midst of the tremendous guilt she now lives with, in the name of your Son, Jesus, Amen.

I got this in the mail today at church. Anyone else see a problem with the first line of this? Please tell me you do. 

...this may be the funniest picture I have ever seen. I came across it quite awhile ago and just came across it again in my "my pictures" file. I laugh every single time I see it. 

Ok, so it isn't "my church" persay, it's more like Jesus' church, but I figure I had to use the parlance of our times. Anyway, we had our one-year celebration today. It was pretty sweet. We had a cake, we sang happy birthday. I think what I like about the church is that it is so messy. We don't have too many people who care to put on a "starched and pressed" facade on Sunday mornings. We genuinely love to be with one another. That's what I love the most. The people actually want to be there, they (probably not all, of course) aren't there out of compulsion, they're there out of joy and desire to commune with one another and with God. We're no where near perfect, but maybe that's the best part.

I've always been a big proponent of discipleship over numbers in my ministry, but for some reason, I'm almost continually plagued by insecurity. i'm definitely not the only minister who is like this. I'm guessing if you took a poll, you would find that most ministers share the same problem. I still get down when our Sunday attendence is down for a couple of weeks. I still worry about people going somewhere else instead of our church. I don't know why. I'm always worrying about whether or not I did something to drive someone else away. If someone misses for a couple of weeks, I automatically in my mind think that they're gone for good and it's all my fault. As you can tell, I'm just a smidge discouraged right now. I don't know why. Satan has a way of taking me (all of us?) from the heights to the depths within a matter of days. I hate it.

I came across a story today in Scripture about Saul and David. I always wondered what the turning point was in the relationship between these two men. At the beginning, Saul really likes David, but then at some point, he pretty much starts hating him. The story goes like this.

After David kills Goliath, he and Saul are traveling back to Israel with their armies. As they're passing villages, the women come out and sing a song to them. The song goes like this, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands."

Ok, so if you're a macho tough guy like Saul and you hear a bunch of women basically singing that you aren't as tough as this little kid, wouldn't you be hacked? It says that Saul was irate at this song. Yeah, no kidding. From this point on, he hates David and seeks to kill him. I really have no point to this post, I just thought it was interesting. I guess the cult of macho can get you into real trouble, Saul's life was never the same.

I'm not obsessed with suffering or anything, in fact, I'm not a huge fan of it myself. However, God keeps sending me these thoughs and ideas. I'm not sure why this is. I keep waiting for something really bad to happen. There seems to be a pattern to the things I'm reading right now, and that pattern is suffering. Anyway, I came across this prayer today while praying the hours.

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to the joy before he first suffered pain, and did not enter into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that I, walking in the way of the cross, may find it to be none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son my Lord. Amen.

It seems once again that the way of suffering is the way to life and peace. This certainly makes sense in the light of Jesus' life. I don't think we should deliberately seek out suffering, but it seems as though it finds us pretty well on it's own. I heard a saying once, "God doesn't want us to live under the circumstances, he wants us to live despite the circumstances." Maybe that's an oversimplified version of what this prayer and Brother Lawrence's comments are talking about.