On Vacation

This is going to be the last post for a while as I am on vacation. My goal is to spend this time reading and NOT watching TV. So far so good.

Today I finished a book that I really enjoyed but neglected for a couple of months entitled A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome by Alberto Anglea. More than causal readers of this blog might remember mention of this book in January as a much beloved Christmas present from my Dad. I mentioned it in a sermon entitled A Tale of Two Lords that, for whatever reason, is not on the blog.

Riding the excitement of finishing the abovementioned book, I am going to start War by Sebastian Junger this afternoon. Follow this link to read a good treatment of the book & its aims by NPR: Click Here

Something we do together...

The video is a little cheesy but I can't deny the power of the footage of people from all over the nation (and the globe) coming together to watch Team USA's game against Algeria.

The World Reacts to Landon Donovan's Goal @ Yahoo! Video

July Newsletter Article

Despite not being much of a soccer fan, I am enjoying watching and keeping up with the World Cup. Any time nations compete I am interested in the outcome be it soccer, the Olympics, or even those lumberjack competitions ESPN broadcasts every once in a while. While I am pulling for the American team to do well and go far in the tournament, I have other “favorite” national teams that I like to watch and root for. I like Argentina, I like Nigeria, but my favorite team is Mexico.

The sports opinion website SB Nation published an article entitled 2010 World Cup Likability Ratings, Or How to Pick Your Team in Scientific Fashion and ranked Mexico #28 out of 30 teams on the likability index. Italy and North Korea being the only two nations less likable than Mexico when it comes to soccer, the author writes, “Mexico may not be pulled for at any time unless you are actually Mexican. If they play Italy somehow, root for a meteor to strike the stadium. There are no exceptions to this rule.”

Mexico gets a bad rap. They are a very physical team that some would call dirty. Their exploits are legendary and it is safe to say that most teams know what they will be in for when they enter the pitch with Mexico. With that said, most World Cup teams carry around with them baggage of some sort that creates expectations, and preconceived notions of their ability, play and style - true or not. It is the way the game works and when it comes down to it, it is up to the team to either cultivate or dispel.

Expectations, preconceived notions, & stereotypes are dangerous - that much is clear - but in a real way they also present opportunities. Just as a student who is dogged by expectations of unruly behavior can be hampered all year long with teacher expectations, we as a church have the great opportunity to change minds and hearts by the way we fight to change minds and hearts. Jesus said it best as he delivered the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said...but I say unto you” (Matthew 5) - Jesus himself was at work breaking and transforming the expectations of life to something more full and whole. We as a church need to be mindful that transformation, reformation, regeneration is the most feared enemy of the stereotype and mundane expectation. Our fight will be uphill and won’t take place on a soccer pitch where the rules of the game dictate. Our rules come only from the Spirit of the Living God who moves within this community and calls us to abandon precedence and fear as we seek to live within the community of our common Presbyterian heritage and strive to be the church that thrills the heart of God.

Sermon: Opposite Galilee

The following is a reflection on Luke 8: 26-39

First, let me say Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads, and those who have been like Fathers to many.Secondly, since it is indeed Father’s Day I thought that I would tell a story about my Dad & me.

Sometime in the late-1980s my Dad moved to Michigan, which, in case you were wondering, is a long way from California. My brother and I lived in California but would spend the entire summer in Michigan with Dad and we would have a lot of fun. When we were younger we went to camp in Michigan, and went to baseball games, and when it was time to return to California for the start of school we would load up the old 1984 Chevy Blazer and hit the open road. To be honest, I have no idea how long it took to drive from Michigan to California, but as a kid it seemed like forever. But as an adult, looking back, I wouldn’t trade those trips for anything. We saw Mount Rushmore, had a cool drink of water at Wall-Drug, ate Buffalo Burgers in the Dakotas, fell into a creek in Idaho, played at Circus Circus in Reno, endured psychological torture involving a stuffed pig and an open window, got caught in rainstorms with the luggage on the roof in the plain states, and stopped for picnic lunches featuring my Dad’s famous Tuna Sandwiches at rest stops that dotted the route west. But when you total up the amount of time spent forming these memories at Mount Rushmore or eating the Tuna Sandwiches it pales in comparison to the hours and hours driving. Yet, it is this part that my memory is the sharpest. There were these tapes that we purchased at a Shell Gas Station. Greatest Hit compilations from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, that featured Bill Haley and the Comets, Little Richard, The Temptations, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, and all the other sounds that defined their eras. We would pop these tapes in when our own singing of Christmas Carols, and songs from a Winnie the Pooh VHS would grow wearisome, and we had each perfected the Three Stooges shtick Swinging the Alphabet.

Those tapes were the soundtrack of my childhood and it was some time before I cared or knew anything about any music recorded anywhere near my then current era. I can close my eyes and picture the interior of the Blazer, the landscape of the plain states passing by and hear “Good Golly, Miss Molly”, “Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire”, and “I know you want to leave me but I refuse to let you go” which still to this day I would contend is just about the clearest description of God’s relationship to us every written, and today, on Father’s Day, I am especially reminiscent of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

“Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you.” Marvin Gaye sang it, but Jesus embodied it, and it is in our scripture that I hear it echoing... functioning as a refrain, a prayer and a promise; poetry for those who find themselves in the far off places in their lives. Places like that feel like the opposite of Galilee.

The Jordan River connects the Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee, and just as modern day Israel and Jordan are on opposite sides of the shore, so too is the landscape of our story. Galilee on the western shore, populated by the people of Israel who knew their God and what was required of them. People could make sacrifices, people could pray at the Temple, and if you could afford a lamb at Passover, avoid the gentiles, and appear to keep the law as you eek out living then you are all set; you can blend right in. On the eastern shore was Gerasea, one of the Decapolis, ten cities belonging to the Roman Empire. Gentile as gentile could get. The temples were Roman, the customs were suspect, and the rules of Galilee and the rest of Israel don’t apply here. No Sabbath to keep, no kosher, no anything; it was a different land. It was very much the opposite of Galilee, and a place that we hate to think of ourselves residing in. And I say that, because I do believe that many of us struggle with the places in our lives that are opposite of Galilee, places where we hide the things we don’t want anybody to see, things that would upset the status quo of our lives as we seek to live them out exclusively in Galilee.

I recognize that I am really trying to work this metaphor. I think that it is a good one but let me say it another way. There are places in our lives, like the cemetery from our reading, that we would really rather never discuss, or have exposed. Places where we hide pain and shame, guilt and regret, and these places seem to exist solely for this purpose. We chain those memories up, throw away the key and try to do our best to live a Galilee life, but like our story, the chains simply do not hold. The people of Gerasea hid their problem in the tombs by the sea shore, places where people rarely go, yet time and time again the problem came back to haunt them. In the cemetery across the lake of our own lives hides many of the regrets of life yet the chains break away and do not hold.

Rabbis were never to enter cemeteries. They were unclean by ritual custom. So where the possessed, and Gentiles were no prize either. Everything in this story screams this land is not your own, this is foreign, Godless territory, and yet Jesus goes there too bringing light to the darkness, healing to the broken, meeting every objection and trepidation with something a whole lot like “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you.” The deepest and darkest places of our lives where the no one is welcome are the places to which Christ will cross the sea to get to, will stride through a cemetery to get to, and will walk right up to the shame, guilt, the pain, the anger, the forgiveness you never accepted, and say, “What is your name?”

Naked except for the broken shackles, unruly, and unacceptable – there for all to see – the man we have come to call the Geresene Demoniac falls down upon his knees and when he arises he is a new man. So it is with Christ. What falls down before him arises anew. If our scriptures are true, if Christ could heal this man, if even the darkest demons are overcome with just a word, will you too open those places in your own life to Christ? Will you accept the promise that there isn’t a shameful memory, a guilty heart, or a bruised and broken piece of your created soul that is too dark, to far away, too bedraggled and neglected to overcome the liberation, the freedom of the irresistible grace of a loving God? Will you?

What happens next is the work of the Spirit. I can’t pretend to tell you what lies in store but I can say this: Christ never once healed without creating a witness. Christ never once healed without creating a missionary. Our unnamed, formally broken man was left there on the shores of the Sea of Galilee not because Jesus didn’t want him but rather because Jesus needed him. Our scriptures tell us, “The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.” Jesus left the man right where he found him. “Remember me?”, he might later say. “Remember where I was? Remember the chains, the wailing and the tombs? I am healed, a new man. Do you want to know why?” Brothers and sisters, the Gereseas of our lives are precisely where Christ leaves us. Leaving us there in the midst of the community where we previously hid our shame and buried our pain. It is here that we are left so we might too become missionaries, proclaiming to those who too may be on the opposite of Galilee and need to hear about the Liberator, the Christ, the Prince of Peace, who holds us in his had and sings “Ain’t no Mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me away from you.”

A note about sermons

James is out of town & with him went the sermon videos. Also because last Sunday's sermon entitled "You & Me Both" featured 2 stories that I didn't bother to transcribe, posting a sermon text would have been a little misleading. Next week should be a different story as I am preaching again and will be taking a look at one of my favorite stories from the New Testament that is commonly know as the Gerasene Demoniac from Luke 8. I personally like Mark's version better as Luke leaves out the detail about the man bruising himself with rocks.

Check back later on and see what gets posted. Since it is going to be Father's Day on Sunday & since the only person I know for sure who reads this blog besides the Chinese Porn spammers is my Dad I am sure I will tell a Dad story. And Dad, don't worry, it won't be about Gordon Foods.

When it actually happens...

Tim Kurkjian, my favorite of all the baseball commentators, interviewed rookie goldenboy Stephen Strasburg after his MLB Debut. Strasburg who was the #1 overall pick in the 2009 MLB Draft, was given a boatload of money in signing bonuses and has a lot of expectations tied to his very young professional baseball career. And rightly so. Strasburg is being called the greatest pitching prospect of recent memory (if not all-time) and in one college game he struck out 23 batters - an amazing feat. Being drafted by the Washington Nationals, a perennial cellar-dwelling team, may not have been what Stephen was hoping for but the Nationals have treated him right and a couple of days ago when he made his MLB debut the stadium was packed (a rarity) and some 200 press credentials were issued.

Up until the 7:05pm first pitch, Strasburg was all conjecture and hype. 23 strikeouts in college was awesome but it was college. He has been dominate in the minor leagues but minor league hitters swing at anything. Years and years of "phenoms" have come and gone with many ending up pumping gas by the time they are 25. Sadly, experience tells us that rarely, if ever, does "real life" live up to our expectations. Many times our hopes and dreams are all too lofty to ever fully manifest themselves in reality. For every lottery winner there are countless numbers of folks who were sure their numbers were golden and the money was already spent in their minds. Sadly sometimes hype is just hype...except when it isn't.

Stephen Strasburg took the mound for the Washington Nationals and proceeded to dominate the Pittsburgh Pirates. Over 7 innings Strasburg struck out 14 batters, one shy of tying the MLB Debut record of 15, and looked better and better as the game went on. Fanning 9 of the final 10 batters he faced, Stephen was nothing short of amazing. In Kurkjian's post-game interview of the shaving-cream covered Strasburg, Kurkjian asks Strasburg if reality has lived up to his dreams. Watch the interview to see Strasburg's answer.

What are our dreams? Are they fodder for reality? Do we pin unrealistic expectations and hopes on individuals and situations only to come away disappointed? Certainly there are some who saw Strasburg's outing and walked away upset that he didn't perform like they wanted. Today is a good day to ask ourselves what can we do to make our dreams into hope. Dreaming of loosing 150 pounds can be anchored in the hope for a healthy future and a better body image. When we deal in hope we can find strength in the transformative work of the Holy Spirit, who transforms all things into a fuller and truer expression than we could ever accomplish on our own.

Sunday Sermon - "Still Speaking"