What Animal Would I Be?

Far more important than your favorite letter (R), or your favorite number (3), or even your favorite Teletubby (Tinky Winky), is the question of your favorite animal. But I'm going one step further, and I am going to ask of myself, and make a case for what animal I would want to be.
I would want to be a turtle.

Upsides:

- Turtles don't give a crap what you have to say about anything, they're just always mellow.

- Ability to change into "Leave me the f- alone" mode without much work/fit throwing.

- Hard candy shell prevents melting in mouth and hand.

- Only needs to know how to count to four, afer that, no more digits = unimportant.

- Works on land and water.

- Drop babies in a hole in the ground and walk away.

- Not as harvested as chickens.

- Everyone thinks it's cool when they see you

Downsides:

- Almost guaranteed not to win an Olympic Gold Medal.

- Genetic mutations not quite as cool as other species. (Splinter > Leonardo)

- Worse hops than white men.

- No more steaks.

All in all, I'd say not a bad swap. I'd be alright being a turtle.

Random Thought of the Day

I never realized the irony of the line "I'm gonna drop you like a bad habit." The bad habits are the ones we never seem to shake, unless of course you're talking about an old nun's habit...in which case close your eyes.

Random Thought of the Day

What substance to you have to add one of in order to turn a biscuit into a triscuit?

Pwnage!!1!!onety-one!!!

This post is intended for Joel Brown. Joel, I just want you to know that you are not the only person that can only see the bottom of my foot...


This is one half of my reward from the recent overnighter with the youth. This is my Super Bowl Championship ring from Madden 07. The other half is a pizza box with the tournament results. WG wrapped it all up with a 42-24 clubbing of the favored team. Other accomplishments on the evening included a Fussball championship, and repeated drubbings on Guitar Hero one and two. Thank goodness we didn't play marbles, cuz those kids would've gone home poor.
And while I admit that owning kids (some of which are half my age) was fun, it was more fun to just play. Sure I may seem like a jwek for my boasting, but hey at least I own it, right?

Mad props for owning my pwning skillz!!!

(p.s. I'm sorry mom, I'll play nice next time)

A Moment to Reflect

As I drove to the store at 3am this morning, I was caught by some words that were on the front of my shirt. I was wearing the green (dare I say MSU Spartan-esque) samplarian t-shirt. The words down at the bottom of the shirt read: "...it's freakin' sweet!" You might notice a striking similarity between these words, and the address of this blog (imfreakinsweet.blogspot.com, if you had forgot).
What many of you, in fact probably all save one, would not know is how this phrase became part of my common parlance. As you have experienced, I'm prone to spontaneously creating phrases, but this one I cannot take all the credit for. This was in fact a joint effort between myself and the recently deceased Josh Vore.
Despite Josh's affinity towards watching Gilmore Girls (which was beyond me), he, Jeremie, other TLS folks, and myself frequently enjoyed playing rounds of Halo. Jokingly, when Jeremie dominated one such round, Josh and I began laughing about how Jeremie boasted about his Halo skills: "Well, you guys put up a good fight, but you never really had a chance. I mean I am just freakin' sweet at this game." And so that became our inside joke, and every time something happened wherein someone won a game of anything, the mocking cry of "I'm so freakin' sweet, it's not your fault," came out. Frequently, this became the defining quote of Josh and my games of Horse on Lukas' toy basketball hoop. "Freakin' sweet" was our joke.
I had forgotten that until I was on the road, making that urgent 3am WalMart run. Then I looked at my shirt, and then it hit: this is a phrase that I have used countless times at seminary, in Virginia, on the Internet, and in all walks of life. But it never hit me of how I was completely in debt to Josh for what I considered to be one of my more humorous utterances.
The reality of missing Josh won't hit fully until I'm around one of the Vores, no doubt. But now, as I see and hear this phrase all around me, it will no doubt bring back the memories of its foundations. I'm gonna miss that boy, he was freakin' sweet.

Random Thought of the Day

Ants, like humans, scurry around with little concern for whatever living things surround them; that is, until someone tries to squish them.

Brief Order for Confession Time

No forgiveness necessary, just gettin the word out. This here's what I made two months ago and I wanted to post it on the refridgerator for display.
Rockin even in the belly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Random Thought of the Day

What's gonna happen when an atheist wins an oscar? They're not gonna be able to start their speech.

Jesus in My Cookie?!?!

You be the judge...

I would like it to be known that this photo was not doctored in any sense of the term, nor was the cookie manipulated in any way to create a face. This was naturally occuring on the inside of a peanut butter patty cookie.

Things Learned During Internship #1

Yes, it's sad to start a list of things learned on internship nearly 7 months in, but hey, better now than ever. So I've decided to gather together list of practical things that I've gleaned. Technically this isn't the first thing I've posted that belongs in this list, but just bear with me, I'm a "P" for cryin out loud:

Admitting that you're clueless on sparse occasions makes it seem like your brilliant when you keep your mouth shut on all other occasions.

The Sermon Trilogy

It seems well and proper to do things in threes. I mean you got your Trinity, your Trinity, and your Trinity. You can check out your Three Musketeers, your three-toed sloth, and, well let's face it, three is just the best number there is. Now that the case as been built, I shall follow the model and post not one, not two, not five, but three sermons, all for the price of ten. You can thank me later by donating donuts to my breakfast cause. Sermon #1:

Luke 1:39-55 39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!" 46 And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me-- holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. 51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."

If you’ve ever sat in the dark long enough, you know that your eyes begin to adjust after a while. The initial shock of the darkness makes you momentarily blind. Then as time goes on, your pupils dilate and eventually your eyes adapt to the change in light and you are able to see again. Maybe not as well as when the lights were on, but a little bit better than when you started. Your eyes become sensitive to the little light that is remaining, and change so that what little light is there now becomes the norm. But have you ever sat in a place where there is no light? I don’t mean very little light, I mean no light. When the light leaves, everything goes black, just like when you first flip off a light switch at night, but then, when you expect your eyes to adjust, nothing happens. You can even feel your eyes struggling to pick up on any sort of light anywhere, but to no avail. Then, of course, the tell tale sign of whether or not you can see is to put your hand a foot in front of your face. When there’s a little light, you usually say that you can’t see your hand, but sometimes you can. But when there’s no light, you do say that you can see your hand. The tricky thing is that you’re not really seeing your hand, but your mind is playing tricks on you. It knows that your hand is supposed to be there, and it pretends to see your hand. When there’s no light, you convince yourself that you can see.

I would be willing to bet that there’s not a person in this room that doesn’t know what Christmas preparation is all about. Even if you don’t have gigantic plans for this Christmas season, you’ve seen the preparation in the form of traffic on the roads, or paranoia or stress in neighbors, and family, and friends. You’ve seen people get tired and burned out, and all for the sake of what? To give presents to another person? To set aside time to spend with those you love? It seems like people stumble around for one, maybe even two months at a time, without even knowing what they’re looking at. We’ve been given eyes to see what’s going on, but our brain has tricked us into seeing something else.

When I think of Mary, I think of the criticisms I hear directed towards young pregnant unmarried women today. It’s not too favorable, is it? Aside from the snide comments made by her classmates, she hears from those in the community that she is irresponsible, out of control, a deviant, immoral, corrupt, and that she has ruined her life. You see, I hear that and think, that’s how it was for Mary, too. Mary would no doubt go on to hear ridicule, and scorn, to hear shouts cursing her and calling her a miscreant. People would see her walking around with Jesus inside, and utter some of the harshest insults that they could muster. People would see with their eyes that this young unmarried woman was pregnant, and they would call her out for what they see as unacceptable behavior, but again, they missed what is really there to be seen.

This interaction between Mary and Elizabeth in today’s Gospel, gives us the piece that has been missing, the thing that has been there, but we haven’t been seeing: God. God gives meaning to everything that goes on around us. You see without God, this season would be just a bunch of busy little ants scurrying about from place to place with no purpose for living. Without God, Mary and Elizabeth would not be remembered in any books as anything significant, except maybe that they were kind people. Without God we would be sitting in the darkness staring into the pitch black and convincing ourselves that we could see things as they are when we really can’t.

John, in Elizabeth’s womb, teaches us a little piece about that. John, who cannot see the world around him, who cannot use his eyes to play tricks on him, perks up to pay attention, because he can see, already, that God is doing something here. Without God, John won’t be good for a whole lot. John’s whole reason for living is to be an arrow which points to what is going to happen, and that is, that God is coming to bring down the powerful, and lift up the lowly. God is coming to feed the hungry, and take away from the rich. God is coming, but not in the way that we would expect to see with our eyes, but that seems to be just the way that God works. God is coming to be born from the lowest person on the totem pole: a pregnant, unmarried, teenager, who finds herself without a home for the birth of her child.

Without God, there is no meaning to what we do day in and day out. We could be kind if we wanted, we could be cruel if we wanted, we could love, or we could hate, it would make no difference. But because of God, everything has meaning. Because of God, Mary is lifted to be blessed by all generations. Because of God, John sits up gives his mom a kick and says, “See what’s going on here, God is coming!” Because of God, we no longer sit in darkness with our minds fooling us into telling us what is real and what is important.

We give gifts, because of what God gives us, we spend time with family, because God came to spend time with us. We rejoice because we, who were low and sitting in the dark, have been given vision and meaning to all that is around us. We, like Mary, have been blessed to be the favored ones, and we, like Mary, like the church before, and after us, are blessed to have God give meaning to our lives, and purpose to everything around us. Amen.

Advent 3. Is It Really a Week Before Christmas?

The middle one:

Luke 3:7-18 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ⁹ The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." ¹⁰ "What should we do then?" the crowd asked. ¹¹ John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." ¹² Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?" ¹³ "Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them. ¹⁴ Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?" He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely-- be content with your pay." ¹⁵ The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. ¹⁶ John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." ¹⁸ And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Polite, simple to the point. You snake bellied, poisonous, good for nothing slobs! A bit less kind, it certainly still gets a point across, but not one that would encourage further conversation. John’s greeting would certainly not pass for the front of a Hallmark card, at least not for one that you would send to a person that you would like to be your friend after reading it. It is an offensive greeting, and one that is intended to offend, at least, I’ve never called someone a snake to their face and meant it in a good way.

You brood of vipers, you pack of snakes, you who take life away from those around you. John really sets the table to get worked up and beats people over the head with the bad that they are doing in their lives.

This Sunday, this third week in advent, has a tradition of being called Gaudete Sunday, or “rejoice” Sunday. Certainly you can hear that theme running through some of the lessons, but maybe no one told John the Baptist that this was supposed to be Rejoice Sunday. Maybe no one told him that we’re supposed to be excited that the Messiah is coming, maybe no one told him that we were supposed to be having parties and sharing gifts in celebration. Or maybe someone did tell him. And maybe he realized why exactly it was that the Messiah was coming, why it was that God had to come down to earth in the first place. John is just telling us how it is, so that we understand where we are.

We have come looking for the easy way out. We want the baptism from John, but he wants to make sure we understand what it’s all about. Forgiveness of sins after you change your ways. Baptism after repentance. You brood of vipers, you don’t even get who you are, you just want to feel good about the way you conduct your life. What we don’t even get is that the way we live our lives leads us to death, our selfish, greedy passions walk us right down the path.

And not only that, but the way that we live our lives leads others to death. I find it to resonate completely that John answers the three requests for direction, with answers about how to deal with our money, and our possessions. To the tax collectors: collect your honest amounts, to the Soldiers: be happy with what you earn, and don’t use force to take money from others, and to the everyday person: take what you have and share it with others. John tells us to take the things that we want to hide, the things we don’t want to talk about, the things we want to keep private, and use them in a way that helps lift up the people around you.

After sitting for a while and reflecting on the speech from John, I think we’d all like to move on. We’d like to get someone else on the podium, someone who’s gonna let us off the hook. Well John gives us a glimpse of what’s coming next. And I got bad news for you, it sounds like it’s gonna get worse. This new person that’s coming has way more authority than John will ever have, this new person, is going to tell you how it really is, this new person is coming with the Holy Spirit and fire to clean you all out. If you thought John was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. Rejoice! This is the good news that John is sharing! Not buying that, eh?

I think we misinterpret John’s message a little bit. I’ve certainly heard a fair bit of talks about how damnation and the fires of hell await you if you don’t straighten up your act, and if you read John’s speech in a certain way, that’s the meaning that you’re going to get. What I think we miss out of John’s speech is God’s desire for life. The ultimate conclusion is not that the wicked get punished, but that things need to change in order for life to grow. Look again at the directions of John’s answers. The replies to the people who ask are less about the people themselves, and more about the people that are going to benefit from this new way of living. Collecting the right amount of taxes is less about the tax collector, and more about the person struggling to make ends meet. Giving away the clothes is less about you breaking with your possessions, and more about allowing the naked person to be clothed. The reason that you continue to host interns like me is less about getting some of the needs in this congregation met, and more about equipping us interns to go and preach the word in another place.

This text puts a whole new spin on stewardship for us. That our money, and our talents, and our time, and our work is less about preserving ourselves and making us feel good about contributing, and more about the people who will benefit from the continued ministries of this place. Now that sounds an awful lot more like good news to me. I think what stings us about John’s words is that he is telling us how far all of this needs to go. John is giving us the formula for what needs are still out there, what ministry needs to be done, and telling us with his not so kind greeting that we have been blind to seeing it so far. And the Messiah, who is coming down the road next is going deeper than John, and going to tell you exactly how much needs to happen in order for life to flourish.

We don’t have any requirements in our Baptism that say you need to live your life in a certain way in order to be forgiven. We can sit here, and we can become greedy and selfish, exploit people, tend to our own needs until the end of our lives. But I ask you, when you hear the words of John telling us what needs to be done in order for life to grow, and when you think that whoever is coming after John is going to teach you a new way of living that goes beyond death and suffering, can you really just sit there and continue on with the same pattern you’ve always been in?

The caboose, or the beginning, depending on how you look at it

This is the sermon I did for the midweek service on Thursday...that's right a Thursday midweek. It makes sense when you look at the 7 day week, unless of course you put Sunday as the first day in the calendar, weirdos.

Malachi 3:1-4 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. ² But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

I’ve always been intrigued by the image of refining. The process of continually cooking something until it reaches perfection, or at least perceived perfection. The end product, as you know, of refining dirty, nasty gold that you find in the ground is the shiny, glamorous, reflective material that many of us wear on our fingers, or around our necks, maybe on our teeth if we wanted to start a rap career. The process of refining gold, using the image from Malachi, is a tad bit bland for me, however. Gold either is heated, or has electricity run through it until it reaches its pure state. Every batch of gold that comes out essentially looks exactly the same. I imagine that if you worked at a gold refinery, you’d probably be sick of gold by now. I’m sure you’ve heard the devotional story by now that the gold refiner keeps a careful eye on the gold and knows that it’s pure when he can see his reflection in the metal. This of course being a metaphor for how Jesus is carefully grooming us to be more in his image. That’s nice and heart warming, and I like it, but like any image or metaphor we use to describe something, it’s incomplete.

The reason I sway away from this image is because I’m not convinced that we all start from the same place, all get formed by the same process, and all come out looking the same. Have you ever stopped and looked at the people around you. They’re a little bit weird. Some are downright crazy. While we may find some things we have in common, there are still a number of quite distinguishing characteristics about all of us, not just in the way we look or act, but how things affect us. We all react differently to different situations. Think of the reading from Luke. You don’t try to fill a crooked road, and you don’t try to make the rough road low. Each obstacle that presents itself as needing work gets dealt with in a manner appropriate to the situation. And the results are not always the same. Maybe it’s just me, but when you level a mountain, I don’t think you get a straight path.

I’m not convinced that when God has done the sanctification in this world, when Jesus comes again, when all the roads, paths, mountains, and all manner of things are prepared that we all end up like cookie cut-outs, indistinguishable from one another. Maybe it’s my desire to hold on to some of my person that I really like, or maybe it’s my desire to not be like some of the quirky things I see in people like him. But as I look at my past, and hear the stories of others, it seems to me quite obvious that we neither came from the same place, nor are headed in exactly the same direction.

The gold refining process might be a good broad analogy for the ultimate beginning and end. We are all born into new life as part of this body of God. We all die and get shiny new resurrected bodies free from the burdens of death and sin. But what about the in between? What about where we are now? I liken it a little more to a refining process the writer of Malachi was not familiar with in his time. The refining of crude oil.

Crude oil, when found in the ground, is dirty, smelly, nasty, rotten, but technically still functional. You could put it in a car and it would run, but you’d do more damage than good, maybe even blow up your car. Instead the oil gets processed. But the process does not proceed from one end to the other in the same manner, first the oil gets separated into component parts, the parts which will be used for gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, oil, wax, etc. Then once separated, each of these parts goes through its own process, some further separated, some things get added, some taken away. Through this series of labor and energy intensive processes, the oil gets changed into things which more often than not don’t look quite like they used to. The purposes for these many different products are multitudinous. Some were required to get you here tonight, some required to cook the soup we just ate, some to clean the floors your feet are dirtying. All from the same source, with different processes and different results.

You see, I’m not convinced that we’re all gonna end up exactly the same in the end, and just by sitting next to one another now, you can tell, we’re not in the same place currently. But we are all in the midst of this continuing creation. We have been brought out from where we were. Dirty, gross, functional, but barely and certainly not a whole lot else, kind of like mud. And we’re all in the process of being refined, of being formed into what Christ would have us be. So that we can end up as different parts, but parts that function together for the sole purpose of God’s glory.

The beauty in this middle time, between the beginning and the end, and the difference between the gold and the crude oil, is that the refining is specific for you. Not in the plural sense, like the you is the broader congregation, or the church, or the world, but you, the singular. You the quirky, you the broken, you the child of God, you. Part of this process is coming to receive Christ’s blood, and Christ’s body. The body and blood of Christ given for you, for you.

We come to be the Body of Christ by the broader refining, the same process as gold if you will. But to become the individual parts of the body, we grow and change in a process that is designed to help us grow into the person that God intends us to be, to be the individuals that God wants us to be, to make the creation that God intends to make.

From where we sit now, it’s a bit difficult to make out the beginning and the end of what’s happening here. And I would contend that even the best theologians and the best spiritual leaders see that the beginning and end are a mystery. But they realize that we who live here in the middle of the beginning and the end, we are continually being refined, seeing in life both something beyond what was happening day in and day out, and valuing what God’s doing in the world right now. Sometimes that can be comforting, other times it can feel like a burden. But to know that we have a creator with our best interests at heart; active by continually refining gives us hope. So that we can walk through whatever life gives us, be it good or bad, and keep an eye on the horizon for what’s coming in the end.

What Shall I Say?

No, this is not some discernment book for your candidacy committee. Rather, it is my musings about the NCAA football national championship game which already happened. I am, how you say, a Michigan fan. I placed a bet on the OSU-UM game and lost. Now every Saturday next fall I will don a Buckeye shirt. I watched the game, and yes while it was a few plays away from being a blowout by the Buckeyes, it was also a few plays away from being a blowout by the Wolverines. But it played out the way it did and it was a close game. Now we watch Ohio State and Florida play in the "real" championship game. Here's my thoughts on the whole BCS process:

1) For those people who argue for a playoff in college football, well, you got one this year. It wasn't bracketed in a #1 vs. #4 & #2 vs. #3 fashion, but it happened. If a playoff system was implemented, then the underdogs would have to visit the favored team's HQ and play. Well, Michigan went to The 'Shoe, and they ended up losing. Did this prove that OSU was decidedly better than UM? No. If they played in a neutral stadium would the result be different? Maybe, but it might be different even if they played in the same stadium. My point is this, there is no way to objectively evaluate whether one team is better than the other. Subjectivity comes in the form of playing conditions, spirit of the team, injuries, booth reviews, any manner of variables in or out of game that shape the atmosphere and the game itself. In short, even the NCAA basketball system doesn't provide an objective answer to who is #1. What we got this year was a 4 team playoff structure between Michigan, Ohio State, Florida, and Arkansas, we just didn't call it a playoff, oh and Arkansas got dropped off at the curb.

2) Following previous statement, it is completely my opinion that Michigan is better than Florida. Anything I read either way will not sway my opinion. You could make an argument either way and have a convincing case, if you really look at things honestly. If you want ideas, I could post ideas. If you want stats, I could post stats. Any fool that says they can show me definitive evidence that one team is better than the other can take his/her "objective analysis" and choke it down with a nice cool bottle of "I don't give a crap". We've built in our minds that one team beating another determines who's best for the entire year. It's not objective, but it's what we've settled for. So until UM and UF play, which won't happen, there's no comprehensive answer to the question.

3) Why I think Fla should be in the championship game: Regardless of whether or not UM got "jobbed" by the voting, someone else should get to play Ohio State. I still think USC is a better team than UF, but they aren't even in the conversation. And now for a twist: why I think Florida shouldn't be in the championship game: whining and lobbying should be punished, not rewarded. I wish Urban Meyer and I were friends so I could call him and dump him. Both arguments made, UF belongs in the championship game.

4) It's not beneath me to root for Ohio State, especially when such bad press is going around about the Big Ten. But I've got extra ammo for a gator-stompin this year.

5) I'm still gonna love every minute of the Rose Bowl, because two of the top teams in the country are gonna smash it out. That's what football's about, not about championships and voting, but about insulting the other person's mother, then stepping on their neck until they tap-out.

That's my 1,347 cents worth. Go Blue!

Wholesome Goodness Pwned by Christ the King

Alright, I'll fess up. Jesus gave me a whuppin this time. I think I spent more time on this sermon than any other that I've ever preached. I rewrote it three times, got two people to proofread it, I even added some things in when I was up a-preachin, and still, it felt subpar to me. My thoughts: Christ the King Sunday was only an idea in 1925, which makes it way too contemporary for the church(read: BS reasoning which just vents frustration). Allow me to preach at you:

John 18:33-37 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" 35 Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." 37 Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

There’s a part of this reading that I get a little hung up on. Jesus replies to Pilate in his witty manner that if his kingdom were from this world, then his subjects would be fighting to keep him from being arrested. At the beginning of this chapter, you may recall, Peter grabs a sword and strikes the ear of the High Priest’s servant. Peter, from all accounts that I can gather, is a follower of Jesus and is trying to keep him from being arrested, so why, Jesus? Did you forget in the process of about 25 verses that Peter, a good disciple, was willing to do all that he could in order to save you from being arrested? Is Peter not one of your subjects?

In a humorous parody of the Terminator movies, the comedians at Mad TV made a poke that I think makes a serious point. The character pretending to be this futuristic machine made to look like a human travels back in time, to the first century, in order to protect Jesus. At the last supper, this machine takes out his shotgun and blasts Judas, so that he can’t betray Jesus. Jesus walks over to Judas and gives him a defibrillator-like shock and brings him back to life, and the terminator promptly pulls out his shotgun again and stops Judas. “Dang it!” Jesus yells, “Stop doing that! Don’t you see, this is necessary!” It may sound kind of funny, but I always thought that if I could go back in time, that’s exactly what I would want to do, and you might think this too. I would want to stop Jesus from dying, just like the fake terminator, just like Peter.

In the exchange between Jesus and Pilate we get an idea of the problem with the definition of Jesus as a king. Pilate is asking Jesus whether he is the King of the Jews, and if he is in fact the King of the Jews, why have his people dethroned him. We do a great disservice to ourselves and Christ as a whole here if we limit Pilate’s question to this small group of individuals in the first century. Certainly Pilate has this thought on his mind, though. Why are your people rebelling against you? How about that, why are your people rebelling against you? If that doesn’t make you shift in your seat a little bit, let me make sure that you understand who Jesus’ people are. We are the ones who have taken on the name of Christian. We are Jesus’ followers. We are the subjects of Jesus’ kingdom. Why are we rebelling against Jesus? What did we do to stop him from being arrested?

It would be fitting for a band of rebels to try and storm Pilate’s palace and try and rescue their king. That’s what Pilate would expect, and I think that’s what we would expect if we were captured. But that’s precisely the text on which I get hung up. If my kingdom were from here, that’s exactly what would happen. All of my subjects would come tearing down these walls and prevent me from being crucified, but that’s not how we do things in my kingdom. Preposterous! A nation that would not die trying to save its king?!?!

The temptation has always been in the church to leave Jesus to be king of Sundays. To let Jesus rule when all is happy and well, and say that when things are going poorly that things are tainted by humans, or by Satan. Let Jesus govern your lives for a few hours on a Sunday morning so that you can feel ok for a while, before heading back in to work the next day. Christ the King Sunday is meant to flip that around, to get us focused on the fact that God not only has a say in our life after death, but also in the way we relate to one another and the way we go about our business on this earth.

What I find remarkable in this story is that everything is part of the plan. The beating, the trial, the persecution, the rebellion, the worst that humanity can offer is all part of the plan for redemption. Is it so far of a stretch to imagine, then, that the plan for the kingdom is still in place today? I think it’s easier for some to imagine than others. After all, it’s easier when you are the CEO of a company to say that God has planned this all out, than to sit at the bedside of someone dying and say that the kingdom is here. But I think Jesus as King is an example of the latter situation. That Christ, laid aside his crown of glory and honor, and left his seat which sat perched above the world, and dove into it, picking up the crown of thorns, and becoming a new example of Christ the King. One that travels with us every step of our lives and not just on Sundays.

This exchange between Jesus and Pilate reminds me that God is in control. Everything seems completely out of whack, and despite my desires to try and find a way to rectify the wrong that has happened, to prevent Jesus from being arrested and killed, what I’m really doing is trying to take control, and tell God the way that I want things to be.

Jesus lets Pilate know that he came to bear the truth, and the truth is this, professing the love of God for all of creation. St. Augustine reminds us that Jesus did not say that his kingdom was not here, but that his kingdom was not from here. What that really means is that when Jesus humbled himself unto death on the cross, he became King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and not a King that would reign from a seat distant from his kingdom, but one that would be right in the middle of all the dirt and mud that happens to his people.

Christ is King of the good and bad in our lives. The temptation is to just let Christ be King on Sundays, when everything’s nice, but if we can get ourselves out of the way, and put our ideas of what the kingdom of God should be like aside, then we can realize that Jesus is King and in control of all that we do and all that we have and all that we are.

A Quick Lesson on Equivocation...Sort of

A: Oh, vicar. How was Amy when you went to see her at the hospital today?

B's response either:
1) By the time I had arrived she was already gone.
2) When I got there she was already out.
3) She had left the hospital before I got there.
4) She was discharged and went home Sunday morning.

Here we note the importance of choosing words carefully. All of these answers actually say the same thing, and of course would be properly interpreted with an appropriate tone of voice. However, answer one could be interpreted as death. Answer two could be interpreted as: "Amy was already sleeping", or maybe that she was already being prepped for surgery. The third and fourth answers are a bit more clear, although they could both be stretched and interpreted to mean "put on hospice". And so, the final conclusion, which has been figured out by many before me(if you notice, everyone uses this response when asked how they are doing), but possibly not examined, is as follows:

A: Oh, vicar. How was Amy when you went to see her at the hospital today?
B: Good.

The Post to End All Posts

You would think that after waiting for over a month to post something that this meant all the humor, all the theological excellence, and all the witty wittiscisims I could muster would be compiled into one, concentrated, Super Post. Well, I aim to please so, after reading this post, just add water to your computer, and I guarantee you will have a reaction unlike any other.

Post Topics:
- Virginia Sucks
- Say Something Random, DJ
- Virginia Is the Best
- Why You Shouldn't Forward Emails to Me
- Virginia Sucks
- Why Religious Wars are Better than Football Rivalries

VIRGINIA SUCKS:
I swear, every time I look outside it looks like junk. It gets dark around 4:30 because we are on the East side of the Eastern Standard Timezone. It rains a whole heck of a lot more than they promised me it would. While I concede that Ohio may be bleaker more days of the year, I can only remember a handful of storms in my life that brought down trees. I've seen 3 here already in 3.5 months. Some they call hurricanes, some they call Nor'easters, some they call Friday.

SAY SOMETHING RANDOM, DJ:
I don’t know if I will ever answer what someone asks to their appeasement or to the satisfaction of God Almighty, but I will always be able to fill the silence following a question with words.

VIRGINIA IS THE BEST:
These people feed me. I don't mean invite to the house for a nice meal feed me, I mean professional chef cooking in our kitchen "gonna maka you some-a nice-a meat-a balls" feed me. Every Wednesday we have dinner here at the church, and I have yet to eat something that I have ever eaten in my entire life, except for a Savannah Shrimp Boat. And it's freakin good.

WHY YOU SHOULDN'T FORWARD EMAILS TO ME:
I fear for the people whose lives are in danger when these emails don't get sent. I have a bad(subjective judgment) habit of deleting those emails after I read them. I think so far I have been responsible for killing around 50 people including soldiers in Iraq, some kid with cancer in Vermont, and I think at some point, Jesus. So please, if you have any concern for these people in your hearts, let them live. However, if their lives depend on me forwarding their email, you better read them their last rites.

VIRGINIA SUCKS:
There are maybe 5 people who give a crap about the UM-OSU game. If we use Dr. Jim Childs' "concentric circles are good for everything" diagram, those five represent the inner core. There are people in that group that include UM grads and people with family that work at OSU, and one guy that wishes we could watch College Football on Easter. The next level are the marginally interested. I think there might be about 20-40 people. There's an even smaller group among this small group that are merely interested because I have told them how important this game is to me. Next is the larger group of people who think that the Big Ten is always overrated. You got your SEC fans, your ACC fans. I'll buy that the SEC is pretty solid this year, but the ACC fans need to wait until Bball gets in swing before I want to hear from them. I don't have an estimate for the number in this group, but it's the majority of sports fans here I think. Last but not least is the largest group, which is the people who just don't care. These are the ones that bug me the most. Why? Because these people don't exist in Toledo. Or if they do, they hide in a hole about this time of year. It's a sad day. I'd even settle for a "F- Michigan" yelled at the church if it meant a little more excitement. Now I'll go get geared up for the third "Game of the Century" this century.

WHY RELIGIOUS WARS ARE BETTER THAN FOOTBALL RIVALRIES:
Because religious fanatics kill people because they think it's right. Football fanatics "accidentally" kick the crap out of people. They certainly don't go on a killing tirade and say that they're "cleansing". So it's about intensity. In my attempt to pull together material for Sunday School, I came across these two pictures which I think sum it up quite nicely. I think the guy n the far right might be Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace. You gotta love Christianity:

The Stewardship Sermon

Well, now I've done it. I got up in the middle of the stewardship campaign and said my little piece about stewardship. It's still pending review, but I thought it went well. This is the first sermon I've given this year where I didn't really want to hear people telling me I did a good job, because I knew they would be talking about my performance. This time, I measured success by how it was received, ala Barbara Brown Taylor. Sad thing is, I won't ever know. Some people commented after service about it, but ultimately it is part of a five week stewardship campaign, so it is only a small piece of a larger puzzle. I am confident that I spoke my spin on the text though, and I can live with that.

And so, without further extended introduction, I give to you the stewardship sermon:

When you’re about my age it’s hard to claim that you’re an expert on too many things. You get past that childhood innocence, and dependency on parents, and you’re trying to make a name for yourself as an individual. Only problem is, you got your elders telling you that you’ve got no idea what life experience is, and you’ve got your youngers telling you that the music you listened to is showing up on the classic rock station. In this state of being limbo, I can confidently say that I have found something in which I am an expert. I am an expert at messing things up.
Plans for me are just one more opportunity to share my expertise. But I know I’m not alone in this venture. Because the Bible tells me so.

Jesus gets confronted with the question of divorce as a test, to see if he knows the laws and to try and get him in trouble, but Jesus switches the question. Jesus changes the focus of the topic from whether or not something is permitted, to whether or not something is intended. I have never been through a divorce, but I know people who have, as I’m sure all of you do, if you haven’t experienced one yourself. A divorce is painful, it’s heart wrenching, it seems like the end of life, and in a sense it is. As Jesus reminds us, marriage is a unification of life into one body, creating a relationship between two people so close, they now function as one unit. To pull that apart, is a tragedy, and the bond still remains, even if legally you have papers say that you are not together anymore.

This is not an opportunity to point fingers at someone who has been through a divorce. This is an indictment against all of us. That’s made perfectly clear by the disciples actions regarding the children. They bar the children from seeing Jesus because he is doing “adult things”. Then Jesus gets agitated. The disciples just don’t get it, then Jesus drops the bomb on them, “these are the ones to whom the kingdom of God is given.” The disciples are good at messing up Jesus’ intentions, in a similar fashion we are good at messing up God’s intentions.

Now, I’m looking for round figures here, but how many little children do we have on church council? 0. Well why is that? Why do you have to be 35 to run for president? Why do you have to be 21 to drink alcohol? Why do you have to be 18 to vote? Why? Because of responsibility. These limits are established, because through one form of reasoning or another, we have decided that anything under these limits is not responsible enough to hold these benefits. You don’t let a teenager vote, because they would use their vote irresponsibly and mess up the system we have in place. It makes perfect logical sense.

I wondered for a while why these two passages get lumped together. Why Jesus talking about divorce, get placed in the same reading with Jesus welcoming the children. Then I realize something. We are both the disciples and the children. We are the ones who mess up God’s intentions, we are the ones who take such a gracious gift and squander it, and keep it to ourselves, hiding it from those who need to hear it. At the same time that we squander that gift, Jesus calls us to him, and says you are the ones to whom the kingdom of heaven is given. There hasn’t been a Christian yet who has taken that responsibility and done with it what God intended. Not one no matter how old. We’re experts at taking that gift, and taking God’s intention of redemption and forgiveness, and messing it up, and turning into condemnation, based on people’s lifestyles, based on people’s beliefs, based on people’s actions.

The Psalm lays this out perfectly for us: What are human beings that you are mindful of them? Yet you have given them dominion over the works of your hands, you have put all things under their feet. This precious gift that we have been given, the dominion over all things, the right to choose what we do and don’t do day in and day out, the Kingdom of God is in our hands. What are human beings that you are mindful of them? We are the children. We are the irresponsible ones. We are the ones to whom God keeps returning and saying, your sins are forgiven, now go and live out the Gospel, you are free.

We have been given every good blessing from God, and we have the freedom to decide what to do with it. My brothers and sisters we find ourselves in the middle of a season where we ask ourselves, “what do we do with what God has given us?” We are experts of messing up the gifts that God gives us, squandering them, hiding them. But we are forgiven. We are given the keys to God’s kingdom again and again, even though we are not worthy. We are experts at messing things up. A big part of this stewardship campaign that we are all on together is figuring out what we are going to do with what God has given us. Not figuring out who has given us everything we have, but what is our response to those gifts. I cannot tell you what you have, nor can I tell you what you should do with it, but I can suggest something as you reflect on what you are going to do with what you have. Turn to the giver, ask for direction. You see the disciples get spoken to in an angry manner, when they decide what is best for the children of God. They are experts at messing up God’s intentions. But God is the only expert for declaring what God’s intentions are, and when we understand ourselves as little children, the ones who are irresponsible and completely dependent, then we shall be given the kingdom of God. And we shall hear God’s intentions for us. Pray and ask, then listen. We are the inheritors of all that we see, but the intentions of these gifts can only be discerned by God. We are the little children of God.

A New List!

I know exactly what you're thinking: "What's a "P" doing with a list, let alone two?" Believe me, I understand. Before you have a fear of me slipping completely into "J"ness and having a list of lists, let me explain.

It has been brought to my attention, most notably by Pr. David Hively, that we are all too quick to point out when people do things poorly but very slow to announce when someone does something well. While the "People Who Need a Punch in the Face" list is quite good and extensive, it should not be left unchecked. That being said, in order to maintain dualistic tension, I hereby announce the construction of the "People Who Deserve a Biscuit" list. The story of the biscuit is told in the post directly below this one.

The inaugural member of the "People Who Deserve a Biscuit" list is Pastor George Haynes from Rockport, Texas. Pastor Haynes is one of the Stewardship Key Leaders for the ELCA. He is organizing and heading the stewardship campaign at St. Mark. He preached three of the most energetic sermons I have ever seen, back to back to back. Then, he got up and gave two consecutive talks sharing the vision of the future with the congregation. Beyond that, he was up at 5 on Sunday morning, and it was nearly 2:30 when we dropped him off at the airport, still as upbeat and joyful as when I first saw him that morning. Sure, anybody might be able to do that, but here's the kicker...he's 79 years old. He truly is a model of following the vision and living a full life in the faith. Bravo, Pr. Haynes. Bra-vo, a biscuit for you.

The Story of the Biscuit

A long time ago in a land far, far away there was a kingdom called Eastern Michigan University. While several of the princes of this kingdom were returning from their dining engagements, one of them, Kirk, held aloft a fresh biscuit procured from the dining commons. Kirk, the drummer and heavy metal enthusiast of the group, then declared, "Alas, I shall give this biscuit to the next person my eyes fall upon." As luck would have it, a mere five steps after uttering this quote, a knight drew near. Kirk extended his hand with the most precious object and asked, "Hey, man you want a biscuit?" to which the knight replied, "Naw, dog. I'm tight."

To deny such a gift was an insult to the group of princes as they snickered at the exchange of words. Which led to a meeting of the princes. It was thus declared that a biscuit is not something that could be handed out to any Tom, Dick, or Sally. The decision to pass on a biscuit must be heavily weighed and analyzed, for some cannot handle the prize, and some are not worthy of trying. From that day forward, a biscuit would be presented to whomever the princes deemed worthy, and thus the tradition of the bestowing of the biscuit was born.